Search PubMed⌕ Search

Biomedical subjects

M D Sigman

Publications and source records attributed to M D Sigman.

12 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1999

Homesickness in preadolescent and adolescent girls: risk factors, behavioral correlates, and sequelae.

Examined homesickness in 117 girls ages 8 to 16 during a 2-week stay at summer camp. (Homesickness is the distress or impairment caused by an actual or anticipated separation from home. It is characterized by acute longing and preoccupying thoughts of home and attachment objects.) Elevated preseparation levels of homesickness, high expectations of homesickness, negative separation attitudes, low decision control, and little previous separation experience predicted in-camp levels of homesickness. During the separation, homesickness was associated with insecure interpersonal attitudes, negative initial impressions of the novel environment, high perceived distance from home, and low perceived control. Female surrogate caregivers rated homesick girls as having lower social status and more somatic complaints, social problems, and externalizing behavior than less homesick girls. Although the prevalence, intensity, and longitudinal course of homesickness in girls did not differ from analogous samples of boys, girls' profile of risk factors, correlates, and sequelae is unique in its mixed behavioral presentation and small correlations with age and experience.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1998

Preliminary models of risk and protective factors for childhood homesickness: review and empirical synthesis.

Empirical research and conventional wisdom have suggested numerous risk and protective factors for the development of homesickness. Yet no study has integrated predictors and sequelae of homesickness into a testable statistical model. As a first step in developing a pathogenic model of homesickness in children, this study measured, factor analyzed, and modeled 14 predictors and 8 sequelae of homesickness. Using a sample of 293 boys, ages 8-16, spending 2 weeks at an overnight summer camp, this study tested 2 alternate models, focusing on the roles of boys' interpersonal attitudes, perceived control, and separation expectations in the subsequent development of homesickness. Results indicated that interpersonal attitudes and perceived control may predict boys' preseparation beliefs about whether they will become homesick. This "homesick disposition" combines with little prior separation experience to account for 69% of the variance in self-reported homesickness. Homesickness was not a powerful predictor of negative emotion, whereas interpersonal attitudes and perceived control predicted 70% of the variance in negative emotion. Results are discussed in the context of contemporary theories of homesickness.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1996

Joint attention and language gains in children with Down syndrome.

Joint attention and topic initiation in caregiver-child interactions was explored in relation to children's language gains over 13 months. Caregivers of 28 children with Down syndrome spent more time in joint attention and maintained more attention to caregiver-selected toys than did caregivers of 17 children with typical development. Receptive language gains of children with Down syndrome were associated with caregivers maintaining attention to child-selected toys and with longer lengths of joint attention. Caregivers redirecting attention away from child-selected toys and a greater frequency of joint attention episodes was negatively associated with children's language gains. More time spent in joint attention and caregivers maintaining attention to mother-selected toys was associated with receptive language gains in children who were developing typically.

Attention↗
PubMed1995

Attention regulation by children with Down syndrome: coordinated joint attention and social referencing looks.

We examined attention regulation of children in two different situations designed to elicit triadic interactions (i.e., between self, other, and object). Thirty-five children with Down syndrome and 23 children with typical development were observed in a semi-structured adult-child interaction designed to elicit coordinated joint attention and an ambiguous situation in which a moving robot prompted an emotional response from the adults in order to elicit social referencing looks from the child. Children with Down syndrome engaged in significantly fewer social referencing looks. Group differences were not found for coordinated joint attention looks, suggesting that the difficulty for children with Down syndrome is in cognitive appraisal abilities.

Adult↗
PubMed1994

Compliance with parental prohibition in autistic children.

In a controlled observational study of young autistic children ages 3 to 5, responses to parental prohibition were compared to those of mental-age-matched mentally retarded and normal children. The children were prohibited from eating a candy offered to them by the experimenter. Behavioral response, affect, and gaze patterns were compared across the three groups. Autistic children exhibited significantly less compliant behavior than did children in the two control groups; this behavior correlated with chronological age, not with mental age, language development, or parental behavior. Although affect and gaze patterns of the autistic children were different from the controls, these patterns were not correlated with compliant behavior. In conclusion, when compared to mental-age-matched control groups, autistic children are significantly less compliant to parental prohibition and they show different gaze and affect patterns.

Affect↗
PubMed1993

Pride and mastery in children with autism.

The goal of this study was to compare expressions of pride and mastery in samples of preschool autistic, mentally retarded and normal children. A paradigm was used in which children completed developmentally appropriate puzzles, both with and without praise. Results indicated that compared to the other children, as many autistic children smiled upon completion of the task, but many fewer looked up to share their pleasure with the parent or experimenter or drew attention to the task. Moreover, significantly more autistic children showed avoidant responses, particularly in response to praise. These findings are discussed in terms of theoretical issues regarding the development of pride and mastery in children with significant social deficiencies.

Autistic Disorder↗
PubMed1992

Responses to the negative emotions of others by autistic, mentally retarded, and normal children.

Attention, facial affect, and behavioral responses to adults showing distress, fear, and discomfort were compared for autistic, mentally retarded, and normal children. The normal and mentally retarded children were very attentive to adults in all 3 situations. In contrast, many of the autistic children appeared to ignore or not notice the adults showing these negative affects. As a group, the autistic children looked at the adults less and were much more engaged in toy play than the other children during periods when an adult pretended to be hurt. The autistic children were also less attentive to adults showing fear, although their behavior was not different from the normal children. Few of the children in any group showed much facial affect in response to these situations. The results are discussed in terms of the importance of affect in the social learning experiences of the young child.

Affect↗
PubMed1992

Empathy and cognition in high-functioning children with autism.

This study compares the ability of nonretarded autistic children (9-16 years of age) with the ability of normally developing children (9-14 years of age) to discriminate between various emotional states, to take the perspective of another regarding emotional states, and to respond affectively. The children's understanding of conservation was also assessed. While the children with autism did surprisingly well on the empathy-related measures, they performed less well than the normal children on these measures and on conservation. There was a closer association between cognitive abilities and affective understanding in the group of autistic children than in the control group.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1986

Continuity in mental development from infancy.

In this essay we document moderate continuity in mental development beginning in infancy and extending into childhood. Psychological opinion in the past has tended to favor discontinuity theories of cognitive development from infancy. In recent years, however, the foundations on which discontinuity positions were originally established have themselves come under question and new findings grounded in new assessment procedures have appeared, necessitating revision of opinion on this significant psychological and developmental issue. Our essay has several aims. We first review briefly the bases for contemporary discontinuity theories of mental development. Second, we present current findings that support the alternative proposition of continuity: Recent research demonstrates that infants who more efficiently encode visual stimuli or more efficiently recollect visual or auditory stimuli tend to perform more proficiently on traditional psychometric assessments of intelligence and language during childhood. Third, we scrutinize the assessment methods from which these continuity results derive. Fourth, we offer several models that help to explain the continuity findings. Fifth, we discuss critically the origins and the maintenance of continuity in mental development as it is coming to be conceptualized currently. Finally, we reflect on implications of continuity for the future of infant assessments specifically and for theories of early mental development generally.

Arousal↗