Participants in this developmental study of hand-reaching were 25 adults and 109 children ages 4-15 years. On a judgment task, participants evaluated the reachability of a target, and the actual critical reach distance was measured. On the optimal task, participants held a target and then put it the position where it was easiest to put. The results for the judgment task showed that participants overestimated the critical reach distance, and that this error was exhibited significantly more often by young children (ages 4-12). Adults generally performed this task accurately. On the optimal task, young children put the target close to the critical space, whereas adults on average placed it at 60 percent of the distance of critical reach. These results are discussed in the context of participants' body-scale/size.

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This study investigated how ambiguous maternal parenting in Japan related to 4-year-olds' theory of mind, emotional understanding, and inhibitory control. Japanese mother-preschooler dyads (n=105) and a comparison group of 58 American dyads were examined. Mothers completed the Socialization of Moral Affect-Parent of Preschoolers ("SOMA") which assessed the parenting of preschool-age children. The results indicated that Japanese mothers more often reported ambiguous parenting toward their children than American mothers. Controlling for children's age, verbal ability, maternal education, and other four variables on the SOMA, ambiguous parenting in Japan was negatively correlated with theory of mind and emotional understanding. In addition, 'encouraging' parenting in Japan was positively correlated with theory of mind. In contrast, parenting in America was not associated with theory of mind or emotional understanding. The results also showed that there was no relation between ambiguous parenting and inhibitory control in either Japan or the U.S. These findings suggest the possibility that ambiguous parenting in Japan does not encourage the development of 4-year-olds' understanding of others, due to the fact that utterances by Japanese mothers to their children are generally less clear.

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This study examined the development of toddlers' peer interactions, focusing on exchanges of self-assertive strategies. Ten children in a toddler class at a daycare center (1- and 2-year-olds) were observed during free play for a year. Data were analyzed for the 5 children in the class who turned 2 years old during the early part of the school year. In Phase 1 of the observations (May-August), toddlers tended to exchange non-verbal strategies and negative emotions. In Phase 2 (September-December), while they still used non-verbal strategies and expressed negative emotions, children also started to use verbal strategies to negotiate their intentions. These verbal strategies seemed to contribute to their partners' regulation of behaviors and negative emotions. In Phase 3 (January-March), compared with the earlier phases, they more often exchanged verbal strategies without a negative emotional tone. In this latter phase, children sometimes negotiated their needs and intentions verbally to reach a mutual understanding. It is possible that toddlers contributed to peers' self-assertive strategies and to a reorganization of their self-assertive interactions.

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This study examined the association between discipline styles and reading styles among 29 mothers of 3-6 year old children. Participants were divided into two groups according to the mothers' discipline style. The results suggested that a mother's discipline style was reflected in her manner of emotional support. Sharing mothers (i.e., the opposite of authoritarian mothers) were more supportive, warm, and respectful of their children's autonomy. They listened emphatically to their children's comments and left them in the room to think alone. Conversely, authoritarian mothers responded more persuasively and gave clearer answers and clarifications. Children's behaviors also differed according to the mothers' discipline style. Children with sharing mothers explored a picture book more spontaneously by turning pages, asking questions, and expressing surprise. This study suggests that the difference between sharing and authoritarian discipline styles is manifested in the emotional domain. The present results are also discussed with regard to language development.

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This study explored how older adults cope with uncontrollable life events such as serious health problems, the burden of looking after aging family members, and the loss of loved ones, based on the concept of fit-focused secondary control. In semi-structured interviews, 24 participants between 70-74 years old were asked how they had coped or were coping with uncontrollable life events. Interview transcripts were analyzed using a modified grounded theory approach, which resulted in 12 concepts and four categories. Older adults who used secondary control tended to (1) recognize that their physical and cognitive decline caused an imbalance between their personal goals and resources; (2) accepted their decline by realizing that there is diversity in life courses; (3) adjusted to their decline with a realistic assessment of their remaining resources; and (4) used their social networks and recreational opportunities to cope with prolonged and uncontrollable negative life events.

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This study examined how Japanese preschoolers perceive and segment the sounds of English words, compared with Chinese preschoolers. Thirty-nine Japanese and 22 Chinese children performed memory span tasks in which they repeated aloud English words with five types of phonological structures: CV CVC, CVCV, CVCC, and CVCVC. The following were the main results. The memory span pattern among Japanese children was consistent with the Japanese rhythm of mora, whereas the pattern for Chinese children was not consistent with the Chinese rhythm of syllables. In addition, the duration of spoken words by Japanese children as a whole was longer than that of Chinese children. Finally, Japanese children exhibited more segmentation patterns for mora than did Chinese children. These results suggest that the Japanese rhythm of mora influences preschoolers' perception and segmentation of English sounds. In contrast, Chinese preschoolers may perceive and segment English sounds for whole words.

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Self-narratives about a family were collected through semi-structured interviews with 31 healthy elderly individuals. For nine participants who provided a narrative about intergenerational transmission or intergenerational buffers, the narrative structure was characterized, and their ordering of intergenerational relationships was analyzed. Three types of narrative were identified: approved intergenerational transmission, partially approved intergenerational transmission, and partially approved intergenerational buffers. The self-narrative about intergenerational transmission had a contrasting structure, in which one admires the next generation which inherited a positive legacy and denies the one who did not. This indicates that recognition of transmission gave order to one's self-experience. The self-narrative about intergenerational buffers contrasted the suffering of the previous generation and next generation which did not inherit a negative legacy, and displayed the construction of meaning about the relationship with the previous generation and transmission of a negative legacy to the next generation. This self-narrative has both an active feature of reconstruction of meaning about an unfortunate childhood, and a passive feature of abruptly discovered negative transmission.

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Children who are over three years old can generally find dropped and hidden objects easily. However, there is little research on how exactly preschoolers are able to find them. This study therefore focused on whether children could find a dropped and hidden object, not only by applying the concept of solidity (knowledge that objects move only on unobstructed paths), but also by understanding the representational properties of a board acting as a barrier to stop the moving object. This study utilized a "hole task" in which the board had a hole through which an object went while falling, although it looked like a full board. On the hole task, three-year-olds had significant difficulty finding the object, compared to four- and five-year-olds. This suggests that when searching for an object, three-year-olds take into consideration solely the concept of solidity, while four- and fiveyear-olds include representations of the physical properties of the board in their search. That is, representational ability when searching for objects develops between the age of three and four.

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The present study examined how individual differences in the self-identity achievement affect voluntary and involuntary autobiographical memory. In Study 1, 313 participants completed an identity scale (Shimoyama, 1992) that assessed their level of self-identity development. Participants were then asked to record the contents and ratings of involuntary autobiographical memories for one month, using a diary method. Participants with a higher level of self-identity achievement recalled more important, more emotional, and more vivid memories than did participants with a lower level of self-identity achievement. In Study 2, 114 participants were asked to complete the same identity scale used in Study 1 and to recall autobiographical memories in the laboratory. The results confirmed those of Study 1. Furthermore, voluntary memories were more vivid and more important than involuntary memories. These findings were interpreted in terms of the self-memory system (Conway & Pleydell-Pearce, 2000).

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The present study assessed the construct validity of the Nursery Teacher Rating Development Scale for Children (NDSC). Data were obtained from 9,074 preschoolers over four years of longitudinal investigation at nursery schools. Principal component analysis yielded nine subscales, and all subscales exhibited sufficient internal consistency. Four subscales, (Calmness, Attention, Sociality, and Adaptability) showed a comparatively weak relation with age and a strong relation with scores on the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ), a screening tool for behavioral and emotional problem of children. This finding indicated that these subscales reflect children's maladaptive behaviors or symptoms of developmental disorders. Inversely, the other four scales (Curiosity, Self-care, Fine movement, and Gross movement) showed a relatively strong relation with age and a weak relation with SDQ scores. This indicated that these subscales measured children's developmental level of adaptive behaviors. In conclusion, the balanced scale composition of NDSC may enable early detection and appropriate treatment of children who have special needs and contribute to planning nursery education that is adaptable to suit children's developmental state.

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