Professor Alan Hayes

Maternal behaviors and child mastery behaviors were examined in 25 children with Down syndrome and 43 typically developing children matched for mental age (24-36 months). During a shared problem-solving task, there were no group differences in maternal directiveness or support for autonomy, and mothers in the two groups used similar verbal strategies when helping their child. There were also no group differences in child mastery behaviors, measured as persistence with two optimally challenging tasks. However, the two groups differed in the relationships of maternal style with child persistence. Children with Down syndrome whose mothers were more supportive of their autonomy in the shared task displayed greater persistence when working independently on a challenging puzzle, while children of highly directive mothers displayed lower levels of persistence. For typically developing children, persistence was unrelated to maternal style, suggesting that mother behaviors may have different causes or consequences in the two groups. © 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The transition from home to school is a major change in children's lives. Children vary in their "readiness" for this transition, and the marked differences visible in children's cognitive and social/emotional skills at school entry have implications for later outcomes. In this paper, Ben Edwards, Jennifer Baxter, Diana Smart, Ann Sanson and Alan Hayes examine the impact of living in financial disadvantage on children's school readiness and the role that other risk and protective factors play.

Matthew Gray, Ben Edwards, Alan Hayes and Jennifer Baxter provide a broad-ranging review of the potential impacts on Australian families of the global recession. The paper begins with information on the rates of unemployment and long-term unemployment since 1980 to the present day. The authors point out that several demographic changes mean that this economic downturn will be different for families than in previous years. Women are now engaged in the labour force at much higher rates than previously and, as a consequence, there are more dualincome families. Single-parent families may be particularly vulnerable in difficult economic times, given their reliance on a single income. Surprisingly, there is little direct evidence of the effect of unemployment in economic downturns on families, but there is fairly good international evidence on the impact of unemployment on families more generally. Gray et al. summarise evidence on the scarring effect of unemployment, and the impact of unemployment on mental and physical health, crime, family functioning and children. Also discussed is the impact of economic downturns on broader contextual factors, such as the geographic concentration of unemployment and disadvantage, housing, and social exclusion. There have been some substantial falls in asset values, particularly in the stock market, and this has flowed through to superannuation balances and the authors suggest that this may have an impact on families, as older workers may delay their retirement.

© 2008 Australian Institute of Family Studies. In many developed economies there is currently a focus on how the lives of the most disadvantaged in society can be improved and the role that governments can play in this. A number of European countries have embraced a social policy approach that places a priority on those who are excluded from the opportunities that promote wellbeing. This article provides a brief overview of social inclusion and related literatures and some of the issues surrounding the concept. It concludes that while social inclusion has been adopted as an organising principle for social policy in a number of countries, the experience of these countries is mixed and the extent to which the social inclusion agenda has been successful is contested. It concludes that it is important that Australia learns from the international experiences to take what worked and avoid some of the pitfalls. An overview of the other articles in the edition is also provided.

© 2008 Australian Institute of Family Studies. This opinion piece draws attention to the changing family and demographic trends affecting children today, including increases in divorce and single parent families, the increasing divide of disadvantage and affluence, and child abuse. These challenges can affect children's behavioural and relationship development, and are key considerations for future policy.

The Australian Temperament Project (ATP) provides a unique lens through which to view the pathways to, vulnerability and resilience that Australian children take from infancy to adolescence, and beyond. Commencing in 1983, the ATP is now completing its 24th year and 14th wave of data collection. The present paper provides an overview of the data on adolescent antisocial behaviour, substance use, internalising problems and aspects of positive development and wellbeing. Several pathways to vulnerability or resilience are described that vary in their age of onset. Constellations of common risk factors suggest that there may be overlapping priming factors for later mental health problems. A different mix of factors relates to pathways to wellbeing. This unique Australian study provides invaluable insights into stability and change in the pathways to mental health that children take across life. © Freund Publishing House Ltd.

The performance of 25 children with Down syndrome on delay of gratification tasks was compared with that of a mental age-matched group of typically developing children. Delay tasks included both other- and self-imposed tasks. Children with Down syndrome were significantly less able to delay gratification than the comparison group on two of the three tasks. Receptive language was associated with delay on the self-imposed task for the typically developing group but not for children with Down syndrome. It is hypothesised that there may be a lag in the development of self-regulation that is greater than the lag between chronological and mental age for children with Down syndrome, with expressive language playing a role in this lag. The practice of using mental age as the method for matching groups of children with Down syndrome with typically developing children is called into question by the results of this study.

To describe the physical growth patterns of infants born to narcotic dependent mothers (INDM) over a 12 months period and, if possible, to relate the growth to drug taking patterns during pregnancy. Methodology: The growth of a cohort of 43 INDM was measured during the first 12 months of life. Weight and length measurements were compared with percentile charts and converted to Z scores. Questionnaire data about drug taking practices, demographic variables and the neonatal period (including withdrawal scores) were obtained. Results: Twenty-four (55.8%) of INDM had evidence of neonatal drug withdrawal requiring treatment with phenobarbitone. At birth, Z scores for weight and length indicated relative intrauterine growth retardation. By 12 months, there had been some catch up growth, but Z scores for weight and length were still below zero. Persistent weight retardation at 12 months was correlated with methadone dosage during pregnancy, but not the need for phenobarbitone therapy. Conclusions: The growth patterns of INDM in the first 12 months of life indicated that at birth there was evidence of intrauterine growth retardation, but by 12 months the growth was little different from the rest of the community. There appears to be some influence of narcotic agents taken while pregnant on subsequent growth of INDM.

The case is presented of a 17-year-old boy with a recent diagnosis of Asperger's syndrome. Despite displaying a characteristic pattern of deficits in cognitive, social and behavioural functioning, isolated cognitive skills and a remarkable ability for calendar calculation, this boy was not diagnosed during childhood. Coexisting skills and impairments were explored through a description of developmental history and current functioning. The article considers the reasons for the disorder not being identified during childhood and discusses the case-study findings in relation to current issues about the prevalence of Asperger's syndrome, the difficulties of diagnosis and essential diagnostic criteria. Copyright © 1996 Sage Publications.

THE ROSTOCK Longitudinal Study commenced in 1970 and has prospectively monitored the development of children identified in the perinatal period as ¿at risk¿. The aims of the study are to identify some of the factors contributing to inter-individual differences in their development and to evaluate the prognostic significance of these factors. The results reported in the present paper underscore the limited prognostic value of single risk factors, the diminishing impact of organic perinatal risk factors over time, and the increasing importance of the psychosocial context in influencing developmental outcomes in childhood and adolescence. © 1991, Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. All rights reserved.

An explanation for the handwriting difficulties experienced by children with spina bifida myelomeningocele was sought within the framework of a closed-loop theory of motor skill acquisition. The handwriting performance of 34 children (16 boys and 18 girls) aged 6.16 to 13.42 years was detailed with available norms. Regression analyses were then performed for the five handwriting components of speed, alignment, letter formation, spacing, and size. The regressions for speed, alignment, and letter formation reached statistical significance. For speed, age provided the greatest explanation of performance (R2 = .62, p = .008). Alignment was explained substantially by age, handedness, scholastic aptitude, and kinesthesia (R2 = .55, p = .03). Letter formation was determined primarily by age and kinesthesia (R2 = .71, p = .001,). The overall regression was not significant for spacing (R2 = .39, p = .30), or size (R2 = .35, p = .43), although a significant single degree of freedom was detected for the effect of age. These findings are discussed in terms of skill acquisition theory.

A prospective study of children with galactosaemia is being undertaken at the Metabolic Clinic, Royal Children's Hospital, Brisbane. The purpose of the study is to collect biochemical, clinical, dietary, developmental and speech and language data. This paper describes the operation of the multiprofessional management programme and reports results for two groups of children: those who were diagnosed before the introduction of neonatal screening in 1982 (the prescreening group) and those who were identified by screening. The eight children in the prescreening group have shown intellectual development in the low-average to moderately-handicapped range. Most of them have speech and language difficulties. The screening group, all of whom are still in infancy or early childhood, appears to be developing normally, with the exception of one child who is showing problems with speech and language. The early results provide a basis for cautious optimism that neonatal screening and careful management will result in improved outcomes for children with galactosaemia.

Videotaped segments involving seven prominent Australian politicans were shown to students in one of three different conditions: video only, audio only, or combined audio and video. A further group of students read transcripts. The six segments for each politician represented three situations (speech, press-conference and interview). Subjects rated their impressions of the politicians as speakers. Factor analysis indicated two dimensions of ¿dynamism¿ and ¿favourability¿; the adjective ¿politically able¿ was analysed separately. Both politician and situation influenced ratings of dynamism, while, for both favourability and political ability, effects were related mainly to politician. Subjects working from the transcript rated politicians differently from those rating from tapes. Voting preference affected ratings of favourability and political ability, but not ratings of dynamism. The results point to effects for both the politicians' reputation and for context and non-verbal behaviour. 1988 Australian Psychological Society

Gifted underachievers are children who display a discrepancy between expected high achievement and actual¿ performance. Focussing on gifted children with a long-standing pattern of underachievement not explicable in terms of learning disability, this paper adopts a developmental perspective to the problem of gifted underachievement. Literature is reviewed on the affective development of gifted underachievers and the environmental factors which may foster or diminish success in school. It is argued that cognitive and affective variables do not operate independently and should not be considered in isolation from the environmental context of development. Further, gifted underachievers are not a homogeneous group, and some influences on achievement are situation-specific and highly variable. Finally, implications for intervention are discussed in light of the need to view children¿s development not as a dichotomy of cognitive and affective change but holistically, as a complex interaction of child and environment. ©1987, University of Queensland Press, St. Lucia, Queensland, All rights reserved. © 1988, Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. All rights reserved.

An infant with a deficiency of the enzyme uridine diphosphate galactose-4-epimerase was detected during galactosaemia screening of the Queensland newborn population. No case of epimerase deficiency has been reported previously in Australia and the incidence in our population is unknown. A deficiency of this enzyme is usually quite benign although two cases with galactosaemia-like syndrome have been reported. This infant is developing normally, both intellectually and physically, in spite of extremely high levels of red blood cell galactose-1-phosphate. The introduction of newer methods of galactosaemia screening in Australia will probably result in the detection of other cases of this enzyme deficiency.

Comparatively little research has focussed on the experiences of disabled children in rural communities where mainstreaming may be a matter of necessity, thus providing examples of ¿natural experiments¿ in mainstreaming. A pilot study is described in which case studies are presented of five children with disabilities who attended regular schools in isolated rural communities in Queensland; a number of factors are suggested which may be associated with the outcomes of mainstreaming for these children. Several key issues in rural mainstreaming are offered as bases for hypotheses to be examined in future research programs. © 1986, Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. All rights reserved.

Observations of six mother-infant dyads at infant ages of approximately 13 weeks, 20 weeks, 27 weeks and 35 weeks served as a data base to examine difficulties associated with the use of conversational features (such as the avoidance of coaction) in the analysis of mother-infant vocalization episodes. The difficulties are associated with procedures involving: (i) The pooling of data, (ii) The unit of analysis, and (iii) The selection of appropriate 'expected' values for dyadic parameters used in tests of statistical inference. To illustrate these difficulties, the use of the odds ratio statistic as a means of determining such dependence is examined and alternative approaches are suggested. © 1984, Sage Publications. All rights reserved.

Children from preschools in Australia (AUST) were compared with indigenous children from preschools at Hanuabada and Kaugere in Papua New Guinea (PNG). The effects of modelling and instruction, separately and together, on their performance in problem-solving tasks were evaluated. In addition, a within-culture comparison was made of the two PNG groups. ANCOVAS were computed with the factors group (PNG-AUST and Hanuabada-Kaugere), treatment condition (no modelling with no instruction, instruction alone, modelling alone, and instruction with modelling) and sex. Mental and chronological ages were included as covariates. The results showed that (a) the strategy adoptions were more frequent in the instruction with modelling and in the instruction alone conditions than in the control condition and the modelling alone condition was not different from the control condition, (b) PNG children in the three experimental conditions adopted the advocated strategy about three times as often as the Australian children, (c) no differences occurred between girls and boys in strategy adoptions but girls were quicker in completing the tasks than boys, and (d) chronological age was a predictor of group effects. These results were discussed in terms of a possible cognitive developmental mechanism in the performance of modelled behaviours. © 1975 International Union of Psychological Science