This study investigated the relationships between parenting skills, mother–child recognition for the sense of mutual trust, and children's psychological adjustment. Further, mother–child data were gathered for mothers and children, who ranged from fifth grade elementary school to third grade junior high school. Thus, two factors were identified, namely, “understanding respect skills” and “morality skills.” Mothers assigned higher scores to elementary school students compared to junior high school students for understanding respect skills and sense of mutual trust; the elementary school students had higher scores than junior high school students on every scale. Girls particularly had higher scores than the boys in understanding respect skills, morality skills, and sense of mutual trust. Conversely, boys had higher scores than girls in self-esteem. Understanding respect skills recognized prediction of mothers' and children's sense of mutual trust and children's psychological adjustment. Thus, it was concluded that sense of mutual trust influenced children's psychological adjustment.

This study investigated the ways in which postdivorce or postseparation parental conflict and cooperation affect adolescents' and adults' psychological adjustment as mediated by psychological distress associated with their parents' separation or divorce. Adolescent men and women aged 18–29 years (N＝275) whose parents separated when they were 6–15 years of age and who started living with their mothers were analyzed. We developed the following hypothesis: parental conflict and cooperation, as well as parenting time, affect adolescent's psychological distress associated with separation or divorce and their current psychological adjustment. Hence, we conducted a gender-based multigroup analysis. The results revealed correlations between parental conflict and adolescent's self-esteem, depression, and anxiety, facilitated by their perception of conflict, “self-blame,” and “abandonment of childlike characteristics,” expressing psychological distress associated with parents' separation or divorce. Moreover, parental cooperation was found to be correlated with adolescent's self-esteem, depression, and anxiety; reduced “self-blame” and “abandonment of childlike characteristics” were mediated by the “feeling of parenting time” and “mothers' emotional support.” Finally, this research discussed paths indicating significant sex differences.

This study aimed to examine relationships between identity and life satisfaction in adolescence and young adulthood based on an extensive cross-sectional survey. Participants in this survey included a total of 14,428 adolescents and young adults (55.2% female) (Mean age＝20.55, SD＝4.13). First, multivariate analysis of variance indicated that early and middle adolescents scored high on synthesis when compared to late adolescents and young adults; whereas, late adolescents and young adults scored high on confusion when compared to early and middle adolescents. Second, cluster analysis identified four identity profiles: high synthesis, high confusion, both high, and both low. Third, chi-square tests revealed that early and middle adolescents tended to be classified into high synthesis, while late adolescents and young adults were classified into high confusion. Fourth, correlation analysis showed that synthesis was positively related to life satisfaction, and confusion was negatively related. Last, analysis of variance indicated that the high synthesis profile scored higher on life satisfaction when compared with the high confusion profile. Implications and future directions are discussed.

Phonological awareness is a premise of reading, and weakness in phonological awareness leads to its failure. Thus, the appropriate assessment of phonological awareness is essential for the extension of appropriate support for reading acquisition by children. This study aimed to develop a Japanese phonological awareness test based on the item response theory (IRT) (Study 1). Two parameters, difficulty and discrimination, were calculated for each item on the basis of results obtained from a total of 875 children aged 3–6 years. Next, the relationships among phonological awareness, hiragana reading, vocabulary, and grammatical skills were analyzed in Study 2, a cross-sectional examination of 163 four- to six-year-olds, and in Study 3, a longitudinal assessment of 25 children. Similar to previous investigations, it was confirmed that phonological awareness is a factor that informs the reading of hiragana. The study demonstrates that phonological awareness is related to other language skills such as vocabulary and grammar. The results of the longitudinal study suggest that phonological awareness promotes the later development of vocabulary and grammar.