An emerging theme from ongoing work is that of the significant role of language and social communication in the development of children's literacy and memory skills. This unit will conduct three studies designed to clarify the multiple pathways to early cognitive and social competence. The first project is a multi-method, longitudinal investigation in which 2 year-olds who can be grouped together as either """"""""high"""""""" or """"""""low"""""""" in their language abilities are to be tracked for two years, with a particular emphasis being placed upon the impact of variation in both the family and school environments in shaping changes in literacy- and memory related skills. The second study is conceptually and methodologically linked to the first project and focuses on specific forms of conversational interactions between adults and children that may be most supportive of remembering. Adapting an experimental methodology, some mothers will be instructed to talk with their children in an """"""""elaborative"""""""" manner as they participate together in events that are constructed for them. A theme underlying this work is that variation in mother-child conversations about ongoing and previously experienced events may not only impact children's abilities to retrieve information about specific events, but also lead to more general developmental changes in remembering. The third investigation continues the intergenerational follow-up of an investigation begun in the first five years. Two cohorts of 695 female and male participants have been studied over the past 17 years. One cohort was in the 4th grade at the time of original enrollment (n=220), and a second cohort was in the 7th grade (n=475). Members of both cohorts were seen annually through the end of high school. Unit will conduct analyses of the cognitive and social paths of 252 offspring compared to the paths of parents when they, in their own time, were children. Using common measures this study will help bridge across generations and the Unit's domains of social and cognitive inquiry. Taken together, this Unit studies address the following questions: 1. How do children's language skills combine with family and preschool characteristics to produce alternative pathways to cognitive and social competence? 2. How are early family functioning and the home environment linked to developmental change that are important for later school success in children and in parents, in their own time? 3. What are the implications of early parent-child conversational interactions for children's memory and literacy skills? 4. What is the impact of the preschool environment and teacher child interaction patterns on early literacy and memory development.
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