As children grown into adolescents, they are stereotyped to become self-absorbed teenagers. Recent research from Brigham Young University and University of Missouri suggests the opposite may be true. Dr. Laura Padilla-Walker led a 10 year study to track the prosocial behavior of adolescents. Prosocial behavior can be thought of as voluntary acts that positively impact strangers, friends, or family. These behaviors are valuable to study because they have been linked to adolescents’ self-worth, moral identity, well-being, work ethic, and academic success. The experiment measured 500 adolescents’ initial levels of altruistic acts, and continued to do so throughout their transition into adulthood. The individuals ranked their feelings of parental warmth, friend connectedness, and empathy to comprehensively depict prosocial behavior. Results showed that selfless acts towards strangers and friends began at a younger age than towards family. Additionally, prosocial behavior towards strangers increased across ages 12 to 17. These findings suggest that helping others out in early adolescence can lead to lasting positive outcomes in overall well-being. The benefits of prosocial behavior can be achieved at a young age by engaging in acts such as volunteering, assisting a friend, and displaying empathy. With the lack of long-term studies on this topic, getting involved in research is crucial for a fuller understanding of the positive effects of prosocial behavior.
Author: jem13015
Parent-child math activities lead to development of child’s vocabulary skills
It seems intuitive that reading to a child will improve their literacy skills, but can engaging in math activities also impact vocabulary learning? The connections between home literacy activities, such as storybook reading, and language skills are well studied; however, relationships between cross-domain skills, such as numeracy and literacy skills, are not as understood. In a recent study at Purdue University, Human Development and Family Studies researcher, Dr. David Purpura, more closely examined home numeracy environment and child outcomes. 114 children were tested for literacy and numeracy skills in the fall and spring of their preschool year, and their parents were surveyed on how often they engaged in numeracy activities with their child. The various parent-child math exercises included counting objects, identifying written numbers, and using the terms ‘‘more” and ‘‘less.” Researchers found numeracy activities not only aided in the development of math skills, but also positively impacted vocabulary skills. This finding shows the ability of the home setting to prepare children for more formal learning in the future. The link could be due to the conversation that takes place when children are first exposed to math concepts. By incorporating more numbers and quantities in everyday interactions with children, crucial development can take place across math and literacy domains.
Infants Can Learn the Value of Hard Work by Watching Persistent Adults
Can an infant pick up on your level of effort while you complete a task? It turns out that 15-month-olds are not only able to recognize persistence, but their behavior can also be influenced by observing persistence. In a recent study, researchers from Massachusetts Institute of Technology had infants watch adults either quickly complete a task, such as removing a toy from a container, or struggle to complete this task. The infants then where given a toy that seemed like it could be turned on with a button, but was actually disabled by the researchers. The study found that the group of infants whom had previously witnessed an adult have difficulty with a task pressed the button more times in effort to turn on the toy. Just by seeing an adult work hard, infants can emulate that same grit in their own behavior. Researcher, Julia Leonard, suggests that instead of parents being pressured to make everything look easy in front of their children, showing hard work may positively impact children. The ways in which we model perseverance around infants and children is especially significant because persistence, even over IQ, is a strong predicting factor of future academic success.
Kids Better Learn Moral Lessons from Stories with Humans, Rather Than with Human-like Animals
A major proportion of children’s media star human-like animal characters, but is this the most effective methodology for relaying moral lessons to children? A recent study by researchers at the University of Toronto focused on reading books with human characters, and books with anthropomorphic characters to examine different effects on learning. Both categories of books taught children ages four to six about sharing with others. The researchers evaluated altruistic behaviors before and after the book was read. The study showed that children were more likely to share after reading the book featuring humans when compared to the book with animal characters. Children seem to more easily pick up on concepts that realistically mirror their own life. This study shows the significance of learning techniques in the early cognitive development of children, especially with lessons of morality.
Infant Naps are Linked to Learning Word Meaning
In the first months of life, infants are able to grasp relations between objects and co-occurring words. During this rich period of learning, does sleep help to strengthen object-word relationships? A recent study from researchers in Germany investigated this relationship in infants aged 6 to 8 months. They exposed infants to new object-word pairings and then measured their brain activity after the infants had taken a nap. The study found that sleep was indeed associated with semantic encoding of words in long-term memory. This was especially true during longer periods of stage 2 sleep, indicating length of a nap can play a significant role in infant learning. Researchers additionally found brain patterns known to occur in children and adults that improve memory during sleep, also occur in infants. An infant’s sleep provides the brain an opportunity to categorize and filter what they have been exposed to, enabling further development.
Early Social-Emotional Functioning can Indicate Future Wellness
By pinpointing predictive characteristics observed in early elementary education, educators could positively influence children’s development into adolescence and adulthood. A large-scale 2015 study from researchers at Pennsylvania State University examined connections between social competence in kindergarten, and wellness in young adulthood. They measured qualities in children known as noncognitive skills, which include: interpersonal interaction, emotional regulation, motivation, and attention. Researchers have found that these characteristics serve as predictors for success in adulthood such as well-being, education, employment, crime, substance use, and mental health. These findings can beneficially impact school programs in providing early intervention for noncognitive skills in childhood, and to ultimately have lasting effects in adulthood. The study emphasizes the significance of social-emotional functioning, a subject that UConn KIDS researchers are also investigating.