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The development of children's abilities to recognize consumption symbolism has been examined using adults' products, but not using children's products. The present study examines children's perceptions of the users of children's products and tests hypotheses concerning the effects of age, sex, social class, and sibling influence. As expected, the greatest differences are found among children of different ages. Results are interpreted as due to product-related experience and positive biases toward higher-status brand names and personally owned products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article studies children's levels of understanding of television commercials and the associated effects upon attitudes and purchase request tendencies. Attribution theory, with its focus on perception of intent, is the research framework. The results suggest that when a child attributes persuasive intent to commercials, he believes them less, likes them less, and is less likely to want the products advertised. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective Children who are overweight or obese are at risk for depression and development of unhealthy weight control behaviors (UWCBs), including using diet pills, purging, or fasting. Explications of pathways leading to UWCBs are needed to prevent the associated negative health outcomes. Methods Participants were 106 children/adolescents 8–17 years of age at a pediatric clinic. Measures included child body mass index, the Child Depression Inventory–Short Form, and questionnaires assessing perception of overweight and UWCBs used in the past year. Depression was hypothesized to mediate the relationship between perception of overweight and UWCBs. Results A bootstrapped mediation model revealed that depressive symptoms mediated the relationship between youth perception of overweight and UWCBs accounting for youth body mass index z-score. The total model explained 24% of the variance in UWCBs. Discussion This study presents a potential mechanism by which youth perception of overweight may influence UWCBs. Longitudinal research is needed to further elucidate the directionality of these relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Current research on stepfamily well-being often overlooks the perspective of children, and deals primarily with factors as reported by the adults involved. The authors examine a number of family role characteristics, parental subsystem characteristics, and resources that might influence how children perceive the quality of their stepfamily relationships. A sample of 1,088 children in households with a mother and stepfather, ages 10 to 16 years, in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, 1979 cohort--Children and Young Adult Sample, is used for the analyses. Results indicate that open communication between children and their mothers, low amounts of arguing between mothers and stepfathers, along with agreement on parenting, and gender, all affect the closeness children report having with their stepfathers. Conclusions, limitations, and clinical implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Little is known about neighbourhood environments and children's sedentary behaviour outside school hours. Purpose: This study aims to examine the associations between public open spaces (POS), parent perceptions of the neighbourhood and children's sedentary behaviours. Methods: Parents reported their child's television viewing and computer/electronic game time and their perceptions of the physical and social neighbourhood. Children's sedentary time was objectively assessed. The closest POS was audited. Results: Cross-sectionally, living near a POS with a water feature and greater parental satisfaction with POS quality were negatively associated with computer/e-games; greater POS area was negatively associated with TV viewing. Longitudinally, living in a cul-de-sac and greater satisfaction with POS quality were negatively associated with computer/e-games and TV viewing, respectively. A walking path in the POS was positively associated with computer/e-games. Conclusion: Neighbourhood features appear to positively and negatively influence children's sedentary behaviours, highlighting the complexity of urban planning on behaviour. Further age- and context-specific studies are required. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A Computer-based Music Perception Assessment for Children (CMPAC) was designed and administered to 49 children (31 elementary school children; 18 hospitalized children) for the purpose of field testing and standardization. CMPAC is conceptualized as an assessment tool that yields information important to music therapists regarding children's listening and musically-related behavior: These behaviors include information on music choices and the effect of music on behavior (e.g., spontaneous singing or movement). The assessment involves children "clicking on" pictures that represent genres of children's music and listening to brief musical excerpts. Musical genres on CMPAC included songs from Sesame Street, the Animaniacs, Hap Palmer, Barney, and Disney. As part of the assessment, CMPAC generates three types of data about a child's listening behaviors: (a) the frequency with which the child listens to specific songs; (b) the duration of time the child spends listening to music; and (c) the order (or chronology) in which the child listens to specific songs. Additionally, the music therapist administering CMPAC records descriptive observations of the child's listening behavior (e.g., the child sings along to the music, the child moves during music listening, the child appears easily distracted by noises/activities in the hall, the child indiscriminately clicks [or repeatedly clicks] on a picture of music without attending to the music, etc.). Data obtained from field testing and from the clinical dispositions of 10 music therapists examining data output was subjected to statistical analysis in order to determine the predictive utility of CMPAC. Results suggest that CMPAC is a useful and valid assessment for assisting music therapists in making referral decisions for hospitalized children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a general paucity of knowledge of the cognitive and perceptual abilities of children to successfully undertake chemosensory-related tasks. An example is that there are no reports of temporal perception by children in time—intensity tasks, or how their responses in these tasks compare with those of adults. The latter paradigm has the potential to reveal differences that may occur during a normal eating or drinking episode that cannot be detected with single response measures. To address this shortcoming, the present study uses a computerized time—intensity method to compare the responses of adults and 8- to 9-year-olds in several measures of sweetness with three different types of stimuli. The results show that the children gave higher estimates than adults of the maximum sweetness of sucrose in water, orange drink and custard and recorded shorter sweetness durations with orange drink and custard. Both age groups, however, responded similarly to changes in concentration and the volume of stimuli with all three sensory measures. Overall, the consistency of the data from the children and the variability, which was similar to that of the adults, indicate that the tasks involved in the time—intensity paradigm were within the cognitive ability of the children. Nevertheless, further studies are needed to determine the basis of the differences found. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Poor, single, black mothers have been largely excluded from research on the impact of maternal employment. This study examined the relationship between employment preferences and well-being in a sample of 111 black, single, employed mothers with a three- or four-year-old child and low income. Two competing views of multiple role occupancy were explored, using data from structured interviews in which mothers completed a questionnaire about role strain, life satisfaction, depression, and perceptions of children. Findings revealed that mothers whose employment status was consistent with their preference were lower in role strain and higher in overall life satisfaction. Having no education beyond high school and a male child predicted significantly higher strain, greater depressive symptomatology, and the least favorable perceptions of children. Overall, results suggest that parenting boys may be especially stressful for black single mothers balancing work and family roles in poverty, particularly when low education is also a factor. Implications for policy are considered in light of the Family Support Act of 1988. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the cognitive dimensions used by children in differentiating among television characters. By linking content-free judgments of the differences among television characters with content attributes suggested by prior research, a four-dimensional mapping is identified. This cognitive mapping is virtually identical for children at three different ages. Further, dimensions identified are strong predictors of the children's desires to model the social behaviors of the TV characters. The dimensions identified and discussed include those of humor, attractiveness, strength, and activity. The findings also indicate that young boys and girls use the same dimensions in markedly different ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two studies are reported indicating that teachers form negative expectations of children who are high communication apprehensives. These expectations are discussed in terms of their probable effect on learning and the need to provide intervention programs for both children and teachers to overcome the potential negative impact of teachers' expectations on the learning of high communication apprehensive children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]