This thesis investigates the processes and systems that support recall in working memory. In particular it seeks to apply ideas from the adult-based dual-memory framework (Unsworth & Engle, 2007b) that claims primary memory and secondary memory are independent contributors to working memory capacity. These two memory systems are described as domain-general processes that combine control of attention and basic memory abilities to retain information. The empirical contribution comprises five experiments that specify how adults and children access, manage and report memory representations held in working memory. They provide a developmental perspective of the characteristics of these cognitive constructs. This thesis has combined traditional measures of primary and secondary memory (free recall) and methods used to classify individuals recall into the two independent systems, with new convergent paradigms in order to identify developmental trajectories of memory performance. The findings point towards qualitative and quantitative differences between how adults and children focus their recall from working memory. Primary and secondary memory capacities increase across childhood, but they seemingly develop at different rates. Between the ages of five- to ten-years children are reliant on the active maintenance of memory items within immediate memory, as controlled search and retrieval processes were far more demanding on children’s cognitive system. However, they did benefit from structured recall support and self-driven search processes, facilitating secondary memory. In addition, the experiments emphasised the impact of presentation modality on recall characteristics that are likely to be observed, and the susceptibility of information loss. Whilst auditory information reveals itself as highly accessible, it is also vulnerable to displacement and interference. In contrast visual representations appear to be more robust. Overall, the thesis will discuss the conceptual and empirical implications of whether the dual memory framework can help understand how working memory develops.

This thesis investigated the role of linguistic access in reference to mental states in children’s social understanding. The importance of access to, or an understanding of, mentalistic language has been stressed regarding the development of children’s social understanding (e.g., Astington & Baird, 2005). It was predicted that the exposure to the mental-state terms using specific grammatically embedded forms specifying certainty and/or the origins of information would enhance Korean children’s social understanding. There has been a vast body of research, showing the predictive role of executive function on the development of social understanding, in particular false-belief understanding (e.g., Carlson & Moses, 2001; Sabbagh, Xu, Carlson, Moses, & Lee, 2006). However, research on Korean children did not support the view on the general development between the two cognitive skills (e.g., Oh & Lewis; 2008). Thus, the current study explored the relationships between executive function and false belief understanding in response to the debate. Executive function, or higher-level self control, is necessary to fulfil goal-directed action inhibiting irrelevant alternatives (Welsh & Pennington, 1988). Children learning from adults, however, trust information selectively (Koenig & Sabbagh, 2013). As children are required to suppress distracting information for selective trust, it was expected that higher skills in executive function may predict performance on selective trust. Thus, the role of executive function on this social understanding was also examined (in Experiment 1 and 2 for false belief and 5 for selective trust). In Experiments 1 and 2 (N = 175) when a protagonist in a false-belief task expressed either his uncertainty (i.e., -keyss (-ul keya) = may) or certainty (i.e., -ci = really), the linguistic markers influenced 3- and 4-year-olds’ apparent grasp of false beliefs. The different levels of certainty (i.e., -hata = do or –ya hata = must do) were applied to the executive function measures. However, the effects of different linguistic markers on executive skills were not observed. Experiment 3 (N = 144) moved the focus from false-belief understanding to selective trust with the application of differential evidentiality in correct and incorrect speakers. Four types of tasks, presented within a 2 (certainty vs. uncertainty) x 2 (accuracy vs. inaccuracy) design, were administered (N = 36 for each task) to three age groups (3.6-4.5 years, 4.6-5.5 years and 5.6-6.5 years). In order to indicate direct access to information, -te (I saw) was used while –napo (It seems) was used for indirect information. The findings from the four tasks showed a crucial effect of accuracy over certainty in selective trust. Following on from the results of Experiment 3, Experiments 4 and 5 compared the children’s performance in epistemic trust experiments in which linguistic access to the protagonists’ mental states was specified using either two evidential markers (i.e., -te vs. – napo) identifying both certainty and the origins of the protagonist’s knowledge, or specific verb terms (i.e., know vs. think) that expressed certainty. In Experiment 4 (N = 59), the findings revealed different developmental patterns according to the use of the two types of linguistic references (evidential markers vs. explicit verb terms): sensitivity to speakers’ epistemic states using mental-verb terms was in evidence at the age four and by evidentiality around the age six. The final experiment of this work employed a battery of executive function measures along with two selective trust tests, using the same contrasting means of identifying the protagonists’ certainty and knowledge (evidential markers vs. different linguistic terms: N = 84). The findings replicated the different developmental patterns of selective trust found in Experiment 4. There were different associations between executive function and questions of two of the three levels of the standard selective trust measure. Verbal working memory predicted the children’s performance in judging who is correct when the test question used included evidential markers. Visual working memory did the same job when verbal mental-state terms were used. Finally inhibitory control predicted selective learning when verbal terms were used. Taken together, the findings suggest that (a) a grasp of certainty appears earlier than an understanding of evidentiality; (b) the grammaticalized forms of certainty and evidentiality are more likely to influence children’s linguistic access to mental states than more explicit mental-verb terms (positively in false belief and negatively in epistemic trust). These lead to the conclusions that: (c) a mastery of semantics and syntactic forms is needed in developing social-cognitive skills; (d) specific language markers identifying the sources of a protagonist’s knowledge may reduce demands of executive function in processing another’s epistemic states.

The literature related to the classification cause, prognosis and treatment of childhood conduct problems is reviewed, with particular emphasis on Behavioural Parent Training intervention approaches. The Child Behaviour Management Programme was developed and was piloted with a clinic-based group of referred parents. A parallel pilot study was conducted with non-referred parent in a community setting in order to provide a 'low-demand' comparison. Following the pilots, the outcome measures were amended for inclusion in Study Three, which was intended to form part of a larger, main study. Primary Attrition emerged as a major problem but the Reasons for Attrition Questionnaire (RAQ) did not secure an adequate response from non-attenders to elucidate their reasons. However, it provided positive consumer satisfaction data implying that those who attended were essentially satisfied with what they received. Following expansion of the clinical service and an increase in its referral-rates the Child Behaviour Course was run and evaluated in June 1996. This was a derivative of the CBMP, although the programme was more intensive over a shorter time and involved the attendance of the referred child for one day of the three. Positive treatment effects were achieved on all outcome-measures apart from the Beck Depression Inventory. Chapter Eight describes a further development of the CBMP to form the Family Day Programme (FDP) which involves the attendance of whole families for a series of 6 days. A retrospective survey was conducted to compare the perceived needs of individuals who had attended the CBMP, the CBC or the FDP.

This study examines the spontaneous causal attributions made by mothers about their child's behaviour, before and after they attended a Behaviour Management Group for the management of their child's conduct problem behaviours. The attributions of eight mothers were extracted and coded from discourse using the Leeds Attributional Coding System. It was found that mothers made more attributions to positive child behaviours, and fewer to negative child behaviours following the intervention. As predicted there were some changes from pre- to post-intervention in the nature of attributions made. For all types of child behaviour mothers shifted towards causal attributions which were universal, specific and internal to themselves post-intervention. Negative child behaviours were attributed to causes which were more unstable and specific following the intervention, suggesting mothers explanations were more benign post-intervention. Positive child behaviours were more often attributed to causes which were controllable to the mothers post-intervention, suggesting they were taking some credit for the emergence of such behaviours. Methodological issues, proposals for further research and clinical implications are discussed.

This review investigates the role of attachment security in the development of later externalizing behaviour problems. 33 studies were identified which have examined this relationship and these are discussed in terms of their key findings. The majority of these studies broadly support the idea that attachment insecurity and behaviour problems are linked. Differences in the findings across studies are discussed with consideration of the level of risk of the sample, gender of the children within the sample, type of measurement of behaviour problems, specific attachment classifications and the interaction of attachment with other variables. Future research investigating the nature of the interaction of attachment with other variables, particularly environmental risk, is suggested, as is further research into the mechanisms by which attachment influences future behaviour and the role of internal working models.

This review considers the concept of attachment and the range of processes it influences such as mentalisation, affect regulation and attentional control. Narrative measures of attachment for 4 to 7 year old children are reviewed to examine the extent to which they appear to measure attachment and overlapping processes. Wider issues in the use of narrative assessments in this age group are also reflected on. It appears that different measures are appropriate for exploring different kinds of research questions. Narrative measures of attachment representations for this age group vary in their ability to assess attachment, but findings together indicate theoretically consistent relationships between narratives and other indicators of attachment. However, in order to gain a wider sense of a child's internal world, measures need to be developed to tap more of the significant processes related to attachment. In their current form, narrative measures of attachment appear most useful in combination with other methods of measurement. Methods Literature searches were carried out using the Medline, Psychinfo and Embase search engines (1960 - 2006). The terms 'attachment', 'representations', 'narrative assessment', 'narratives', 'stories', 'doll-play', 'stories' and 'children' were used to generate citations, individually and in combination. The generated list of studies was supplemented by a review of their reference lists. Particular attention was given to seminal articles which had created and validated the various measures. Articles were included in this review on the following grounds: 1. The studies had used a narrative measure to assess children's attachment representations. 2. Measures had been used with children aged 4 to 7 years of age. Results A total of 51 studies were identified from searches. However from this number there were only 17 citations to studies which appeared relevant to the review, based on the above criteria. Relevant references from these articles were obtained to generate further articles of interest. Four narrative measures of attachment representations were selected as being of interest related to the above criteria (the Separation Anxiety Test, the Narrative Story Stem Technique, the Manchester Child Attachment Story Task and the Dolls House Play Task). Fourteen key articles were found which were related to the Separation Anxiety Test (SAT). Articles employing a variation of the 'Narrative Story Stem Technique' (NSST) were too numerous to examine. Therefore, studies which had used the measures were reviewed if they had tested reasonably high numbers of participants and appeared to be regarded in the field as particularly relevant, as reflected by frequent citations. Studies using the NSST have examined a wide range of phenomena, so only those examining representations which were most relevant to attachment status were selected. In total 39 articles utilising the NSST were reviewed. Only two relevant articles were found which were related to the Manchester Child Attachment Story Task (MCAST) due to the recency of its creation. Two articles were found which were related to the Dolls House Play Task (DHPT), however one of these was not related to the measurement of attachment. Three literature reviews were examined, however none provided a comprehensive review of all measures (Cassidy & Shaver, 1999, Oppenheim & Waters, 1995 Woolgar, 1999).

This article reviews the current literature concerning the role of child-mother attachment security and parent-child interaction in relation to children's responses to the arrival of a sibling. After an introduction to the area, 9 articles are reviewed in detail in terms of the following criteria: rationale for the research design and procedure main findings and relevance to the wider literature. The majority of the studies reviewed found significant increases in behavioural problems in target children in response to the birth of a sibling and several found changes to child-mother attachment security status and interaction over the transition. The overall findings of the review are discussed in terms of their relevance to the wider literature and suggestions for the direction of future research are given.

The goal of this research was to gain a more comprehensive understanding of how cognitive flexibility (CF) develops in early childhood. Previous research on cognitive flexibility development has tended to focus solely on studying 3- to 4-year-olds on a single paradigm that involves children switching from one task to another while resolving response conflict. For example, children switch from sorting coloured shapes by a rule (e.g., colour) to sorting the same stimuli by a new rule (e.g., shape). This has led to the pervasive, but simplistic idea that children achieve CF when they overcome perseveration at age 4 (e.g., Munakata, 2012; Zelazo et al., 2003). Consequently, theoretical accounts of CF development have focused on explaining why 3-year-olds perseverate. Perseveration has been explained as either a failure of working memory or a failure of inhibitory control, and little progress has been made in testing between these two accounts. Three approaches were combined in the current research to address this issue: 1) A new paradigm was used to study cognitive flexibility, capable of examining different types of flexible behaviour; 2) 2-year-olds were studied for the first time on measures of CF to learn about its emergence; and 3) both individual differences studies and randomised control training studies were used to examine how working memory and inhibitory control contribute to the development of CF. Together, the findings challenge the prevailing view that CF development begins with perseveration at age 3 and flexible behaviour at age 4 due to increases in working memory or inhibitory control by showing that: 1) overcoming response conflict is not the only way children can demonstrate flexible behaviour; 2) key developments in CF occur prior to age 3; and 3) both working memory and inhibitory control contribute to CF development depending on the task demands. Collectively, the findings provide a more comprehensive and nuanced account of cognitive flexibility development.

This thesis examines the role of early home literacy environment (HLE) in the literacy development of a sample of children at family-risk of dyslexia via an affected first-degree relative (FR) and a typically developing control group (TD). The first study described the HLE of 4-year-old FR children. Two distinct factors were identified: storybook exposure and direct instruction of orthographic forms. The amount of interactional literacy-related input that FR and TD children received at home was broadly equivalent. Second, the relationship of the early HLE to language and emergent literacy skills both concurrently and longitudinally (at age 5) was investigated. Storybook exposure predicted a wider range of child outcomes than previous research has suggested. Notably, a relationship between storybook exposure and phoneme awareness emerged later for FR than TD children. Direct instruction predicted children’s decoding skills in the first year of school. A pair of path models predicting decoding and reading comprehension skills at age 6 revealed multiple indirect pathways from early HLE to reading outcomes two years later. The magnitude of several longitudinal relationships was larger for FR than TD children. A direct pathway from early storybook exposure to reading comprehension was identified in the FR group only. Effects of family SES on reading outcomes were fully mediated by the HLE variables and oral language. In an observation study, the linguistic and socio-emotional quality of shared storybook interactions was found to be equivalent between FR and TD mother-child dyads. Children’s orientation to print at age 4 predicted word reading ability a year later, and interactional affective quality predicted children’s oral language skills. These findings are discussed, with a focus on the potential for rich early literacy-related experiences in the home to act as a protective factor in the literacy development of children at elevated risk of reading difficulty.

Nowadays it is uncommon to open a new book on child development and find no mention of the work of Jean Piaget. In his fifty years of academic life Piaget has published a phenomenal number of books and articles, has provided the impetus for even more research and has contributed a unique theory of child development to a field already crowded with ideas. An understanding of Piaget's work is essential to anyone interested in the development of the child; this thesis attempts to explain and extend the theory of moral development which has been proposed by this truly remarkable academic.