Children of "the Troubles" in Northern Ireland: Perspectives and Intervention

The chronology of investigations focusing on the effects of "the Troubles" on the children of Northern Ireland is presented. Studies by Belfast psychiatrists, visitors from the United States, and Scottish and English psychologists dominated the first decade of the 25-year-old conflict and were marked by a distinctly pessimistic appraisal of the impact of the troubled situation on the children. Developmental psychologists from within Northern Ireland have been very active studying the children of their own country for the second decade of the crisis. The view from the "inside" is more complicated and, in some ways, more optimistic than the view from the "outside". In addition, results are reported from preliminary investigations involving children participating in a widely practised intervention scheme developed to ameliorate the detrimental effects of the troubled situation. The intervention programme may foster improvement in an individual child's self-perception but not necessarily in that child's perception of other and multiple stressors interact to determine the influence of such intervention schemes.

Direct Labeling, Tester Expectancy and Delay Maintenance Behavior in Scottish Preschool Children

The influence on Scottish preschool children's self-control of labels regarding patience given directly to the children themselves, and of the expectations regarding the children's patience provided to adult testers, was investigated. The children's self-control was assessed in a task in which each child's possession of accumulating candy rewards was made contingent upon the child's stopping of further accumulation. Preschool children directly labeled beforehand as "patient" demonstrated significantly longer delay maintenance than did preschoolers hearing a remark irrelevant to the task. A significant effect of tester expectancy was found, with children not directly labeled as "patient" beforehand being more sensitive to adult expectations than were labeled children.

American-sign-language statements and delay of gratification in hearing-impaired and nonhandicapped children

Hearing-impaired children were individually administered a task in which possession of accumulating candy rewards was made contingent upon the child's decision to stop any further accumulation of the candy. Hearing-impaired children, who under instruction periodically made American Sign Language (ASL) statements about the goodness of the reward, waited significantly longer before terminating the waiting period than did hearing-impaired children instructed to sign statements about the act of waiting and somewhat longer than did hearing-impaired children instructed to sign a neutral statement. Since the pattern of delay was unlike that reported in earlier investigations when nonhandicapped children verbalized similar statements and since variation in mode of communication did not influence delay in nonhandicapped children in the present investigation, the results were interpreted in terms of differences in cognitive controlling mechanisms between nonhandicapped and hearing-impaired children.