Helen Davis

Theoretical models and empirical evidence suggest parental involvement in general education is beneficial for children’s educational outcomes and that motivational factors may contribute to explaining parental involvement in children’s education. Few studies, however, have examined the role of parental involvement in children’s writing outcomes and, to our knowledge, none has investigated the motivations of Parents/Carers to support their children’s writing development in the first place. In this study, we aimed to address this gap by measuring Parents'/Carers' autonomous and controlled motivations for supporting their children’s writing at home and their engagement in writing activities with their children, and then assessing the links between parental motivations and involvement, and children’s writing quality and attitudes toward writing. Participants included 159 Year 2 children and their Parents/Carers. Structural equation modelling showed indirect effects between Parents'/Carers' autonomous motivation and children’s writing quality via the mediators of parental involvement and children’s attitudes towards writing. Conversely, Parents'/Carers' controlled motivation had no significant association with children’s writing outcomes. Findings suggested that, when Parents/Carers are autonomously motivated and involved in writing activities with their children at home, their children show stronger positive attitudes towards writing. Educational implications include encouraging home-school initiatives that foster autonomous motivation in Parents/Carers and support Parents/Carers in engaging in a wide range of enjoyable writing activities with their children at home, creating a community where writing is valued across home and school contexts.

This qualitative study aimed to explore parents' and children's perspectives of parental involvement in children's writing. Theoretical models argue for the benefits of parental involvement to supporting children's learning. Research has placed little attention in examining parental involvement in children's writing. Participants included 27 Australian Year 2 parent-child dyads, who were interviewed about their home-led writing. Results suggested parents and children valued parental involvement. Despite this, parents reported little communication from teachers about supporting their child's writing. Implications include encouraging stronger partnerships and more frequent communication between parents and schools to help support children's writing across home and school fronts.

With dementia incidence projected to escalate significantly within the next 25 years, the United Nations declared 2021-2030 the Decade of Healthy Ageing, emphasising cognition as a crucial element. As a leading discipline in cognition and ageing research, psychology is well-equipped to offer insights for translational research, clinical practice, and policy-making. In this comprehensive review, we discuss the current state of knowledge on age-related changes in cognition and psychological health. We discuss cognitive changes during ageing, including (a) heterogeneity in the rate, trajectory, and characteristics of decline experienced by older adults, (b) the role of cognitive reserve in age-related cognitive decline, and (c) the potential for cognitive training to slow this decline. We also examine ageing and cognition through multiple theoretical perspectives. We highlight critical unresolved issues, such as the disparate implications of subjective versus objective measures of cognitive decline and the insufficient evaluation of cognitive training programs. We suggest future research directions, and emphasise interdisciplinary collaboration to create a more comprehensive understanding of the factors that modulate cognitive ageing.

Executive functioning (EF) and self-regulated learning (SRL) are established predictors of academic achievement, both concurrent and future. Although it has been theorized that EF development enables SRL in early childhood, this directional model remains empirically untested against plausible alternatives. Thus, this study investigated the longitudinal relations between children’s EF and SRL during the transition from kindergarten to Year 1 in an Australian sample to determine the direction and strength of the association between EF and SRL. We compared four directional models and also tested whether EF and SRL can be construed as manifestations of a common factor. Children’s EF was assessed using a battery of tasks tapping working memory, inhibition, and shifting, and their SRL was assessed by teachers using the Checklist of Independent Learning Development. Cross-lagged structural equation modelling analyses were conducted on a longitudinal dataset of 176 children at the end of kindergarten (age M = 5 years, 8 months; SD = 4.02 months), and 1 year later (age M = 6 years, 5 months; SD = 3.65 months). EF predicted SRL longitudinally (β= .58, controlling for kindergarten SRL), consistent with common assumptions, whereas SRL did not predict EF. However, the common factor model also fit the data very well. We concluded that EF and SRL are indeed related concurrently and longitudinally but that further evidence is needed to disambiguate whether EF is best understood as a necessary antecedent of SRL development in early childhood, or whether they reflect the same general construct.

Objective: Our research investigated whether extracurricular activity intensity in early adolescence predicted coping efficacy one year later. The study also tested whether activity participation intensity showed a linear or a nonlinear relationship with coping efficacy. Method: Year 8 students (N = 1,162; M = 13 years; SD = .35) reported on extracurricular activities and coping efficacy, and repeated the survey in year 9. Results: Greater sporting intensity predicted greater coping efficacy. In contrast, non-sporting activity intensity had a quadratic association with coping efficacy, suggesting that different types of activity participation might have different optimal patterns of participation. After controlling for gender, school SES, initial coping efficacy, and current activity participation, non-sporting activity intensity in grade 8 remained significantly associated (linearly and quadratically) with coping efficacy one year later. Conclusion: Our results offer preliminary evidence that extracurricular activity participation in early adolescence predicts better coping efficacy. The quadratic results indicate that very high levels of activity participation may not be necessary to capitalize on the positive effects of activity participation.

Recent research indicates that parental behaviours may influence the development of executive functions (EFs) during early childhood, which are proposed to serve as domain-general building blocks for later classroom behaviour and academic achievement. However, questions remain about the strength of the association between parenting and child EFs, more specifically which parental behaviours are most strongly associated with child EFs, and whether there is a critical period in early childhood during which parental behaviour is more influential. A meta-analysis was therefore conducted to determine the strength of the relation between various parental behaviours and EFs in children aged 0 to 8 years. We identified 42 studies published between 2000 and 2016, with an average of 12.77 months elapsing in the measurement of parent and child variables. Parental behaviours were categorised as positive (e.g. warmth, responsiveness, sensitivity), negative (e.g. control, intrusiveness, detachment) and cognitive (e.g. autonomy support, scaffolding, cognitive stimulation). Results revealed significant associations (ps < .001) between composite EF and positive (r = .25), negative (r = −.22) and cognitive (r = .20) parental behaviours. Associations between cognitive parental behaviours and EFs were significantly moderated by child age, with younger children showing a stronger effect size, whereas positive and negative parental behaviours showed a stable association with EFs across ages. We conclude that modest, naturally occurring associations exist between parental behaviours and future EFs and that early childhood may be a critical period during which cognitive parental behaviour is especially influential.

Empathy is an essential building block for successful interpersonal relationships. Atypical empathic development is implicated in a range of developmental psychopathologies. However, assessment of empathy in children is constrained by a lack of suitable measurement instruments. This article outlines the development of the Kids’ Empathic Development Scale (KEDS) designed to assess some of the core affective, cognitive and behavioural components of empathy concurrently. The KEDS assesses responses to picture scenarios depicting a range of individual and interpersonal situations differing in social complexity. Results from 220 children indicate the KEDS measures three related but distinct aspects of empathy that are also related to existing measures of empathy and cognitive development. Scores on the KEDS show age and some gender-related differences in the expected direction.

Sixty-eight people from a variety of religious backgrounds and who had experienced the death of a companion animal were interviewed. Questions covered their personal experience of their pet's death, the role that their religion played in this experience and factors affecting how well they coped with the death. Individuals varied widely in their emotional response to the death of their pet. Demographic variables were relatively weak predictors of the distress experienced, the strongest predictor of distress being whether or not the animal was euthanized. Religion did not affect the level of distress that participants reported or the veterinary treatment, including euthanasia, that they considered appropriate. Nevertheless, 56 percent of participants believed in an afterlife for their pet and generally found this belief comforting. Having someone to talk to, and being included in decision-making were also reported to be helpful.

The Brinley plot and partial correlation methods are used to investigate conjointly the theories that increasing speed of processing is responsible for changes in mental age (MA) and that speed of processing gives rise to within-age differences in fluid intelligence (IQ). A group of 107 children ranging in age from 4 to 9 years completed three reaction time (RT) tasks (spatial, verbal and selective attention). Children were grouped first by chronological age then by fluid IQ, and Brinley plots of RT and RT difference scores (argued to give a purer measure of cognitive speed) were produced for each grouping. Two Brinley methods were compared: fixing the intercept of the line of best fit at the origin, and allowing it to vary. These produced quite different functions with correspondingly different implications for the speed theory. It is argued that previous findings of developmental speed increases (as measured by Brinley slope) may be an artifact of the fixed-intercept method. When intercept was allowed to vary, findings indicated that speed did not change developmentally. Furthermore, when absolute RT and RT difference score findings were compared, partial correlations indicated that RT was related primarily to age rather than MA or IQ, whereas RT difference scores were related directly to IQ, but not to age or MA. We argue that the results are best accommodated by the theory that speed underlies stable IQ differences but not increases in MA. Instead, we argue that MA change may be better accounted for by children's increasing attentional ability.