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.

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.

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.

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.

mutability of intelligence can become a self-fulfilling expectation.Success in the workplace and in everyday life depends on a variety of competencies, not all of which are cognitive. A high level of general intelligence, as evidenced by performance on IQ tests, is unquestionably an asset, but it appears to be neither a necessary nor a sufficient cause of success. The goal of raising