The role of sex hormone replacement therapy on self-perceived competence in adolescents with delayed puberty.

The objective of the present study was to determine the role of sex steroids in the development of self-perceived competence during adolescence. The Harter Self-Perception Scale was administered to 56 adolescents with delayed puberty who were receiving depo-testosterone (males) or conjugated estrogens (females) administered in 3-month blocks alternating with placebo. Treatment was given at three dose levels approximating early, middle, and late pubertal replacement levels. Hormone treatments had a significant positive effect for both males and females in one subscale domain--perceived job competence. Significant positive hormone effects were also obtained for perceptions of romantic appeal and close friendship in females and perception of athletic abilities in males. It can be inferred from the results of this study that the hormonal changes associated with sexual maturation have targeted influences on specific domains of self-perceived competence and that there are clear gender differences.

Pink and blue collar jobs: children's judgments of job status and job aspirations in relation to sex of worker.

Past work shows that even young children know that occupations are differentially linked to men and women in our society. In our research, we studied whether 6- and 11-year-old children's (a) beliefs about job status and (b) job interests would be affected by the gendered nature of jobs. When asked about familiar occupations, children gave higher status ratings to masculine jobs and expressed greater interest in jobs culturally associated with their own sex. To circumvent the extant confounds between job gender and job status in our culture, we also developed a new methodology in which novel jobs were portrayed with either male or female workers. Older children rated novel jobs portrayed with male workers as having higher status than the identical jobs portrayed with female workers. Portrayal sex had no effect on children's own interests in these novel jobs at either age. Methodological, theoretical, and educational issues are discussed in relation to sex-role development and vocational aspirations.

Self-assessment of physical sexual maturation in boys and girls with delayed puberty.

We studied 49 boys and girls with delayed physical sexual maturation during treatment with sex steroids. We found significant agreements, but also some disagreements between physicians' and subjects' Tanner sexual maturity ratings. We found neither effects of treatment with sex steroids nor gender differences, comparing ratings between physicians and patients.

The effect of sex hormone replacement therapy on behavior problems and moods in adolescents with delayed puberty.

OBJECTIVE: The objective of this clinical study was to determine the effects of sex steroids on behavior and mood in adolescents with hypogonadism. STUDY DESIGN: The experimental design consisted of a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, crossover trial lasting for 21 months. The study group consisted of 39 boys and 16 girls recruited from a pediatric endocrine clinic for delayed puberty. Depo-testosterone (to boys) or conjugated estrogens (to girls) was administered in 3-month blocks, alternating with placebo, at 3 dose levels approximating early, middle, and late pubertal amounts. The Child Behavior Checklist, Youth Self Report, Differential Emotion Scale, and Daily Mood Diary were administered after each placebo and treatment period to ascertain the effect of sex steroids on self- and parent-reported behavior problems and moods. RESULTS: The data demonstrated only one significant treatment effect, namely, an increase in withdrawn behavior problems during administration of low-dose estrogen in girls. There were no consistent sex differences. CONCLUSION: These results demonstrate that administered testosterone or estrogen has minimal effects on behavior problems or mood in adolescents.

Effects of estrogen or testosterone on self-reported sexual responses and behaviors in hypogonadal adolescents.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of administration of sex steroids on self-reported sexual responses and behaviors in hypogonadal adolescents. We used a randomized, double blind, placebo-controlled, cross-over, clinical trial as the experimental design. The subjects were 39 boys and 16 girls with delayed puberty. We treated girls with oral conjugated estrogen and boys with testosterone enanthate in 3 dose levels intended to simulate early, middle, and late pubertal levels. We administered a modification of the Udry sexual behavior questionnaire after each 3-month placebo and treatment period to detect the effect of sex steroids on self-reported sexual behaviors and responses. We employed a strict intent to treat statistical analytical model. The data showed significant effects of the administration of testosterone to boys causing increases in nocturnal emission and touching behaviors at the mid- and high doses. No other treatment effects on sexual behaviors or responses were seen in boys. For girls, there was a significant increase in necking caused by the administration of estrogen only at the late pubertal dose. No other treatment effects on sexual behaviors or responses were seen in girls. We noted some gender differences for thinking about sex, sexual "turn-on," and the nature of sexual behavior. The administration of physiological doses of sex steroids to boys or girls with delayed puberty have few effects on sexual behaviors and responses.

Estrogen or testosterone increases self-reported aggressive behaviors in hypogonadal adolescents.

A randomized, double-blinded, placebo-controlled cross-over clinical trial was used to determine the role of sex steroids on the development of aggressive behaviors in 35 boys and 14 girls. Depo-testosterone (to boys) or conjugated estrogens (to girls) was administered in 3-month blocks alternating with placebo at three dose levels approximating early, middle and late pubertal amounts. The Olweus Multifaceted Aggression Inventory was administered after each placebo and treatment period to ascertain the effect of sex steroids on self-reported aggressive behaviors. We employed a strict intent-to-treat analytical model. The data demonstrated significant hormone effects on physical aggressive behaviors and aggressive impulses, but not in verbal aggressive behaviors nor aggressive inhibitions in both boys and girls. These results are the first to causally relate the administration of physiological doses of sex steroids to changes in aggressive behaviors in adolescents.

Cognitive mechanisms in children's gender stereotyping: theoretical and educational implications of a cognitive-based intervention.

The study was designed to test the hypothesis derived from cognitive-developmental theory that multiple classification skill plays an important role in children's gender stereotyping and in their processing of counterstereotypic gender information. Children (N = 75; 5-10 years) were matched on pretest measures of gender stereotyping and multiple classification skill and then assigned to: (1) multiple classification training using nonsocial stimuli, (2) multiple classification training using social stimuli, (3) a rule training intervention, or (4) a control intervention. Children who had acquired multiple classification skill via training with social stimuli and those children trained on rules for occupational sorting showed significantly more egalitarian responding on a subsequent measure of gender stereotyping and superior memory for counterstereotypic information embedded in stories. Additionally, children who had acquired multiple classification skill via training with nonsocial stimuli showed superior memory for counterstereotypic information, despite demonstrating no greater flexibility on the gender stereotyping measure. Both theoretical and educational implications of results are discussed.

The role of attitudes and interventions in gender-schematic processing.

Research on gender-schematic processing has shown that children often forget and/or distort counterstereotypic information. This process may in part explain the limited impact of past intervention efforts in which children were simply exposed to counterstereotypic information. Here we attempt to reduce schematic-processing distortions by first teaching children decision rules about occupational sorting based not on gender but rather on interests and skills. It was hypothesized that this intervention would lead to greater flexibility in children's beliefs about what men and women can do. Assuming this effect was found, the study was designed to provide an experimental test of the hypothesized relation between attitudes and memory that had been demonstrated only correlationally in previous research. As predicted, the experimental intervention with elementary school children led to a reduction of occupational stereotyping. Children's own occupational aspirations were not, however, significantly affected. Consistent with the hypothesized effect of attitudes on memory, children in the experimental intervention showed superior recall of counterstereotypic information in a later memory test. Results are discussed with respect to the utility of cognitive-developmental theory for planning and evaluating future interventions.

Understanding maps as symbols: the development of map concepts in children.

We expect that many readers encountered this article with the beliefs that maps are highly specialized devices primarily used for wayfinding; that they represent the spatial world in a single, correct form; that they are readily transparent; and that their sole contribution to psychology is their role in externalizing environmental cognition. By discussing the myriad functions and forms of maps, by highlighting their symbolic nature, and by considering some of the misconceptions about maps, we have attempted to demonstrate the value of maps for addressing a wide range of developmental questions. Our review of past research literature suggests that research conducted within individual disciplines has both strengths and limitations. Work in the psychological tradition is characterized by attention to important subject characteristics and to carefully described and implemented research designs, procedures, coding, and analyses. At the same time, this work reveals, at best, highly restricted views about maps, and at worst, fundamental misconceptions about maps. Work in the geographic and environmental traditions, in contrast, samples a broader range of map forms and functions, but it suffers from inattention to procedural details that makes the conclusions less compelling than they might otherwise be. A conventional wisdom is emerging from the work in both traditions: That children's map understanding occurs extremely early and extremely easily. The limitations of both research traditions, however, suggest the need for caution in accepting this view. Developmental and cartographic theories provide a compelling reason to reexamine the early and easy view and suggest the need for alternative conceptual and empirical approaches. We have argued that future work should integrate the traditions of psychology and geography. Illustrative data from an interdisciplinary program of research were presented. We described work demonstrating the gradual and difficult process of mastering the representational and geometric correspondences that link the map to its referent in the world. Our data suggest that there are significant achievements in map conceptualization (the understanding of the concept of a map), map identification (understanding the formal components of a map), and map utilization (the ability to use maps). Our data support the view that maps are not transparent and that children's abilities to understand, use, and create maps are linked to their developing representational and spatial skills. In concluding, we should acknowledge that we have deliberately pushed interpretations about understanding maps as symbolic representations to the extreme. The reason for this strategy is simple: We believe that work on maps--both in the public schools and in academia--is assumed to be an expendable and irrelevant luxury.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)

Preschoolers' knowledge of their classroom environment: evidence from small-scale and life-size spatial tasks.

Preschoolers (N = 20) and student teachers (N = 10) were asked to reconstruct the complete layout of their familiar classroom using a small-scale model as well as using life-size furniture in their actual classroom. Children were given the model task once within a testing room (standard model) and once within their normally arranged classroom (cued model). Subjects were also given an isolated-location task in which they were asked to show the location of individual pieces of furniture, 1 at a time. Adults performed virtually perfectly on all tasks. Children demonstrated more knowledge about their classroom when no scale reduction was necessary (i.e., performance was significantly better in the classroom than on the model) and when information about spatial arrangement was available (i.e., performance on the cued model surpassed performance on the standard model). Nevertheless, some children still performed inaccurately, even with these additional aids. Results from the isolated-location task demonstrated that, when possible children rely on relational information in determining locations. Implications for conclusions about children's spatial competence are discussed.

Intellectual realism: implications for investigations of perceptual perspective taking in young children.

To examine the hypothesis that children's difficulties on traditional perspective-taking tasks are in part due to intellectual realism (inappropriately including what is known to exist in a representation of what is seen), 60 3-, 4-, and 5-year-old children were asked to select representations of various arrangements of blocks. In "visible" arrays, all blocks were visible to subjects; in "hidden" arrays, some blocks were occluded from view. Arrays were presented as already complete ("finished") or were constructed in front of the child ("unfinished"). Consistent with the proposed role of intellectual realism, children performed virtually perfectly on the visually simple (hidden) arrays when presented in finished form but erred on these same arrays when first presented in the unfinished condition. On visible arrays in which what is known to exist is fully congruent with what is actually seen, no difference between finished and unfinished conditions was found. These findings suggest that intellectual realism does influence performance on traditional perspective-taking tasks.