The central question at issue was the role of both infant and parent temperament in determining child adjustment at age 4. Within the conceptual framework of the New York Longitudinal Study (NYLS), both infant and parent temperament were assessed. Factor analyses yielded three comparable infant and parent temperament factors: Mood, Energy, and Consistency. Correlations with teacher ratings of child adjustment indicated the most significant relationship to be with the infant girls' Mood factor (comparable to the NYLS high-risk "difficult" infant factor). No infant factors were found to relate to boys' adjustment, while maternal Mood was significant across sexes. Indices of the temperamental similarity within families also revealed sex differences relative to adjustment, with similarity across all family members significantly related to adjustment for girls and boy-father dissimilarity significant for boys. Discussion centered around continuity-discontinuity issues relevant to sex differences.

A study focused on insensitivity of adults to children was presented and discussed. The responses of 100 male and 100 female college undergraduates to hypothetical parent-child problem situations indicated a general lack of communication concerning the child's and their own feelings. However, when the problems involved adult needs being aroused and thwarted, theSs' responses were both more insensitive and destructive than when the confrontation centered around only the child's aroused needs. In the latter case theSs did focus their communications more on the child's feelings and how he or she could express them. The results have implications for understanding effective adult behavior and reciprocal adult-child influences on the development of child-behavior dysfunctions.

This study expanded upon our previous efforts (Stollak, 1968) in its investigation of interrelationships among several factors in the play encounters between selected undergraduates and clinic-referred 4 to 8 year old children. These factors included (a) personal characteristics of the undergraduates, (b) undergraduate behavior during the play sesstions, and (c) child behavior outside the play sessions including parent and teacher perception of child behavior. METHODA full description of the project can be found in another report (Stollak, 1973).To summarize: Early in October 1970 and again in October 1972 (in order to replicate the design) an advertisement was placed in the University newspaper asking for sophomore and junior level volunteers. Approximately 400 students attended meetings in 1970, and again in 1972, and completed three inventories: the Parent Attitude Research Instrument (Schaefer & Bell, 1958), a Sensitivity to Children projective questionnaire (Stollak, Scholom, Kallman & Saturansky, 1973) and a Personality Questionnaire designed to assess general "mental health."We were interested in controlling for specific personal characteristics of the undergraduates. Focusing just on the 1970 sample, from the large number of potential students, the ten males and ten females who scored "highest'' on all three inventories were designated "High Potential" students (HPS's) and the ten male and ten females who scored "lowest" were designated "Low Potential" students

The role of infant temperament in the development of learning disabilities was at issue. As infants, boys with severe learning disabilities were found to be (1) lower in activity level, (2) more irregular, (3) less approaching, and (4) more negative in mood than "normal" boys. Discussion centered around conceptualizing learning disabilities as the outcome of a developmental process. Thus patterns of early parent-infant interaction are established, based in part upon the infant's temperament, that may evolve into a learning disability.

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