Search

The Latinx population is currently the largest ethnic minority group in the USA. Moreover, studies demonstrate that Latinx youth are at a higher risk for exposure to community violence and for negative school outcomes compared to their non-Latinx white peers. Though more attention has been devoted to understanding negative school outcomes, there is surprisingly little empirical data directly testing associations between community violence and academic outcomes. Additionally, little research explores potential moderators, such as youth coping mechanisms, that may buffer the negative effects of community violence on academic outcomes in Latinx adolescents. In the current study, we examine associations between exposure to community violence, posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms, coping, and academic achievement in a sample of 168 Latinx adolescents (age range = 11-15, 56.2% girls). We hypothesized that (a) exposure to community violence is negatively associated with academic achievement, (b) Active Coping is positively associated with academic achievement, and (c) Avoidant Coping is negatively associated with academic achievement. We also hypothesized that coping would moderate associations between violence exposure and academic outcomes, with Active Coping expected to be a protective factor and Avoidant Coping expected to be a risk factor. In line with our hypotheses, bivariate results demonstrate that violence exposure and posttraumatic stress symptoms are negatively associated with grade point average (GPA). Multivariate analyses controlling for baseline GPA, however, revealed that only youth age and Active Coping were independently associated with GPA. Results provide empirical data on associations between violence exposure and GPA and highlight potential intervention targets for Latinx students in academic settings.

Number line estimation (NLE) tasks are widely used to investigate numerical cognition, learning, and development, and as an instructional tool. Interpretation of these tasks generally involves an implicit expectation that responses are driven by the overall magnitudes of target numerals, in the sense that the particular digits conveying those magnitudes are unimportant. However, recent evidence shows that numbers with similar magnitudes but different leftmost digits are estimated very differently. For example, "798" is placed systematically much too far to the left of "801" in a 0-1000 NLE task by children aged 7-11 and adults. Here we ask whether this left digit effect generalizes to two-digit numerals in a 0-100 NLE task and whether it emerges in younger children. Children aged 5-8 (Study 1, N = 73), adults (Study 2, N = 44), and children aged 9-11 (Study 3, N = 27) completed a standard 0-100 NLE task on a touchscreen tablet. We observed left digit effects for two-digit numerals in children aged 8-11 and adults, with large effect sizes, demonstrating that these effects generalize to smaller numerical ranges. Left digit effects were not apparent in 5- to 7-year-olds, suggesting that these effects do not emerge at younger ages for smaller, more familiar numerical ranges. We discuss developmental emergence of left digit effects in number line estimation and implications within and beyond the field of cognitive development.

Similar estimation biases appear in a wide range of quantitative judgments, across many tasks and domains. Often, these biases (those that occur, for example, when adults or children indicate remembered locations of objects in bounded spaces) are believed to provide evidence of Bayesian or rational cognitive processing, and are explained in terms of relatively complex Bayesian models (e.g., the Category Adjustment Model). Here, we suggest that some of these phenomena may be accounted for instead within a simpler alternative theoretical framework that has previously been found to explain bias in common numerical estimation tasks across development. We report data from university undergraduate students and 7- through 10-year-olds completing a speeded linear position reproduction task. Bias in both adults' and children's responses was effectively explained in terms of a relatively simple psychophysical model of proportion estimation. These data clearly show that the proportion estimation framework is a viable alternative to theories that explain biases as the result of a Bayesian cognitive adjustment process. We also discuss our view that these data are not easily reconciled with the requirements of the more complex Category Adjustment Model that assumes estimates should exhibit a central tendency bias.

Learning the meanings of Arabic numerals involves mapping the number symbols to mental representations of their corresponding, approximate numerical quantities. It is often assumed that performance on numerical tasks, such as number line estimation (NLE), is primarily driven by translating from a presented numeral to a mental representation of its overall magnitude. Part of this assumption is that the overall numerical magnitude of the presented numeral, not the specific digits that comprise it, is what matters for task performance. Here we ask whether the magnitudes of the presented target numerals drive symbolic number line performance, or whether specific digits influence estimates. If the former is true, estimates of numerals with very similar magnitudes but different hundreds digits (such as 399 and 402) should be placed in similar locations. However, if the latter is true, these placements will differ significantly. In two studies (N = 262), children aged 7-11 and adults completed 0-1000 NLE tasks with target values drawn from a set of paired numerals that fell on either side of "Hundreds" boundaries (e.g., 698 and 701) and "Fifties" boundaries (e.g., 749 and 752). Study 1 used an atypical speeded NLE task, while Study 2 used a standard non-speeded NLE task. Under both speeded and non-speeded conditions, specific hundreds digits in the target numerals exerted a strong influence on estimates, with large effect sizes at all ages, showing that the magnitudes of target numerals are not the primary influence shaping children's or adults' placements. We discuss patterns of developmental change and individual difference revealed by planned and exploratory analyses.

The grouping of options into arbitrary categories influences adults' decisions about allocating choices or resources among those options; this is called "partition dependence." Partition dependence has been demonstrated in a wide range of contexts in adults and is often presented as a technique for designing choice architectures that nudge people towards better decisions. Whether children also make partition dependent decisions is unknown, as are potential patterns of developmental change. In this experiment (N = 159), we examined whether children exhibit partition dependence using a novel resource allocation task. This novel task, distributing food tokens to zoo animals, did elicit partition dependence in our developmental sample. Both older children (ages 7-10 years) and younger children (ages 3-6 years) made partition dependent allocations, and younger children exhibited a larger partition dependence effect than did older children. This work provides the first evidence that children's decisions, like adults', are influenced by the arbitrary grouping of the options, and suggests that younger children may be more susceptible to this influence, at least in the context explored here. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]