Child Psychology

Kinder zeichnen schon sehr lange. Und es ist schwer vorstellbar, dass sie es nicht in jeder Kultur getan haben, die den allgemeinen Gebrauch von Ritzinstrumenten oder Stiften und Formen der bildlichen Repräsentation kannte. Dennoch ist die ›Entdeckung‹ der Kinderzeichnung ein genuin modernes Phänomen. Seit dem 16. Jahrhundert ist ein Interesse der professionellen Maler am Phänomen Kinderzeichnung nachweisbar, aber erst in den 1880er Jahren werden die graphischen Versuche der Kinder zum Gegenstand wissenschaftlicher Reflexion. Die »Kunst der Kinder« etablierte sich in der Folge als ein wichtiges Instrument der Entwicklungs- und Intelligenzpsychologie, der Pädagogik und Psychoanalyse. Die Wissenschaften vom Kinde erschlossen das Zeichnen als ein Mittel der Kommunikation, welches Dispositionen, Bedürfnisse und Konflikte dokumentiert, die das Kind selbst (noch) nicht sprachlich artikulieren kann. Mehr noch als das Spiel oder die Phantasie- und Lügengeschichten soll die Kinderzeichnung seither Auskunft geben über Entwicklung, Intelligenz und Raumwahrnehmung, über psychische Veranlagung und psychoanalytische Ätiologie. Das Zeichnen wurde damit als Instrument einer Normalisierung des Kindes in Dienst genommen. Die Experimentalisierung der Kinderzeichnung brachte aber auch ein neues Verständnis der anthropologischen Funktion des Zeichnens hervor, das uns bis heute begleitet: Sie hat den Blick dafür geschärft, dass es sich schon bei der harmlosesten Kritzelei um ein Medium der Subjektwerdung des Kindes handelt, das es ihm ermöglicht und erleichtert ein erkennendes, denkendes und handelndes Subjekt zu werden.

This paper has been published in a somewhat different form in Meg Harris Williams' "Aesthetic Conflict  and its Clinical Relevance." - Karnac, 2018.

It outlines the various "knife-edge" defenses the infant mind must struggle with in the face of the emotional impact of the mother's beauty, particularly when there is no absolute guarantee of this being reciprocated.
An attempt is made to disambiguate this vulnerability from those which call into play defenses against (Kleinian) unconscious envy.
Both serve to protect the internal good/beautiful mother from destruction, in the infant mind.
One aspect of Narcissism, not usually emphasized, is the lack of conscious awareness of one's rejection of love and beauty when offered by another.
Instead, the narcissist remains almost totally merely conscious of his or her own feelings of being rejected, especially aesthetically.

. Reasoning about the height and location of a hidden object in 4.5 and 6.5month-old infants. Cognition, 38: 13-42. ' TkYis rescaxb was supported by a gram irom the Nationai institute of Child iieaith and Human Development (HD-21104). I thank Judy DeLoache and Usha Goswami for their careful reading of the manuscript: OOlO-0277/91/$9.50 0 1991 -Elsevier Science Publishers B.V. 14 R. Baillargeon improvement in performance brought about by the second box disappeared when this box was no longer in the same fronto-parallel plane as the box behind the screen. Different models are considered to describe the impressive quantitative and qualitative physical reasoning abilities revealed by these findings.

We begin this article by examining the role of intellectual disabilities within child psychiatry, highlighting the relatively steady role of disabilities and the recent movement to examine behavior in specific genetic syndromes. We next propose five questions for future work. Questions relate to (1) specifying the nature of gene-brain-behavior connections; (2) delineating environmental effects and gene-environment interactions; (3) understanding behaviors, physical characteristics, health issues, and other personal characteristics by which children with intellectual disabilities influence others; (4) clarifying the roles of gender and aging in behavioral functioning; and (5) working to improve pharmacological, educational, and other interventions and supports for children and their families. Although great advances have occurred over the past 50 years, intellectual disability research lags behind other areas of child psychiatry; much remains to be discovered that might help these children.

The Questionnaire for Crying, Feeding and Sleeping of an infant, constructed based on theory and factor analysis, is assessed for internal consistency, inter-correlations, and its relation to a behaviour diary. A clinical and a non-clinical sample are compared. The sample of in total 704 infants younger than one year consists of different subsamples. To test the differences between a clinical and a non-clinical sample assessed with the questionnaire, data of 134 infants brought to the outpatient unit for parents with their infants and toddlers and a matched sample are used. The principal components analysis results in three well-interpretable scales correlating with each other, which all show a high internal consistency. The connections to the diary records and the differences between the means of the clinical and the non-clinical sample are found in the expected directions. The results of the Questionnaire for Crying, Feeding and Sleeping, including the criterion of Wessel, are con...

Humans’ conscious awareness of objects in their visual periphery is limited. This limit is not entirely the result of reduced visual acuity. Rather, it is primarily caused by crowding—the difficulty identifying an object when it is surrounded by clutter. The effect of crowding on visual awareness in infants has yet to be explored. Do infants, for example, have a fine-grained “spotlight,” as adults do, or do infants have a diffuse “lantern” that sets limits on what they can register in their visual periphery? We designed an eye-tracking paradigm to psychophysically measure crowding in infants between 6 months and 15 months of age. We showed infants pairs of faces at three eccentricities, in the presence or absence of flankers, and recorded infants’ first saccade from central fixation to either face. Infants could discriminate faces in the periphery, and flankers impaired this ability. We found that the effective spatial resolution of infants’ visual perception increased with age, but...

Dyads of 8-year-old friends identified by sociometric friendship nominations were followed through the end of the school year to determine if they remained friends. These dyads as well as a control group of nonfriends were observed while participating in two structured tasks designed to stimulate real life social situations of potential conflict. When negotiating the sharing of an object, friends made more proposals than nonfriends, spent more time negotiating, and compromised more in making their counterproposals. Compared with dyads in which the friendship did not continue through the end of the school year, dyads of continuing friends exhibited greater sensitivity in their negotiations. During a fast-paced, competitive game, friends engaged in more competitive behavior and followed the rules more closely than did nonfriends. However, behavior in this game was unrelated to the continuation of friendship.

Background: Postpartum anxiety and depression has detrimental effects on the overall mental development of children. This study aims to assess the impact of postpartum anxiety and depression on children's mental development on all sub-scales in a Pakistani population.

In the current longitudinal investigation, we explored the continuity of and changes in the mental representations of the mother and an additional caregiver among forty-five 9-to 11-year-old children who had been severely maltreated and subsequently placed in long-term residential care, as well as the relationships between the content and structure of these representations and teacher's assessments of the child's externalizing and internalizing symptoms. At Time 1, a nonmaltreated comparison group was assessed concomitantly. Compared to nonmaltreated children, maltreated children scored higher for externalizing and internalizing symptoms and their maternal representations were found to be significantly less benevolent and integrated and more punitive. In addition, among the maltreated children, the additional caregiver representations were found to be more benevolent and integrated, and less punitive, than the maternal representations. After 30 months, the maltreated children's levels of externalizing and internalizing symptoms diminished and their maternal representations become more benevolent and less punitive, and the additional caregiver representations became less benevolent. Moreover, the Benevolence of the additional caregiver representation was found to predict these children's changes in externalizing symptoms beyond the effects of their symptomatology and its associations with the Benevolence of these representations at Time 1.

This study describes two experiments which investigate pattern construction by graphically gifted, autistic savants. We explore whether the notion of weak central coherence in autism might be extended to account for the relatively high frequency of savants among the autistic population. We also suggest that an awareness of constituent segments in wholes may be relevant to artistic talent in general.

A questionnaire assessing the satisfaction of children with their hospital stay has been developed and tested with 136 children (aged 6-12 years) at 2 Swiss hospital sites. Three out of 4 children were satisfied overall with their hospital stay. Their relationships with the professional medical staff, explanations they received, games they played, and environment, all received positive evaluations. The most critical points were pain, fear, and the absence of relatives. Ninety percent of the children appreciated that their opinions were sought. These results reinforce the importance of having questionnaires available for the children to consider their opinions to enhance the quality of care.

This qualitative descriptive study explored the understanding of physical activity from the perspectives of middle-school children (n = 12; ages 11-15 years) who participated in 15 collaborative exploratory meetings (∼1.5 hours/meeting) that were audiorecorded. Content analysis was completed; a pediatric nurse specialist and the participating children validated the findings. The children understood physical activity concretely, considering everything they did as physical activity based on their primary criterion of body movement. The children adeptly recalled activities and activity time duration, but struggled with categorizing the intensity of their activities. Domains of activity included home and school; social activities crossed both arenas. The study contributes to our knowledge of children's understanding of physical activity, highlighting the concreteness of the children's thinking, including their perspectives on evidence and conclusions based on their notions of evidence. Implications for nursing are discussed

Most contemporary text books of neurology and of psychology pay little attention to the function of the cerebellum beyond noting it to be an organ of motor control. A historical overview of research on cerebellar function is presented, from pre-Sherrinton suggestions of sensory and motor function, through the post-Sherrinton and dominant 20 th . Century view of "motor" function, to the 21 st . century perspective of "sensorimotor" function. The intrinsic capability of the cerebellum is briefly considered in terms of: its size/complexity/capacity; its information representation/processing characteristics (with "a particular computational function"); its sensory information processing capability; and, its role in sensorimotor regulatory control. It is suggested that the cerebellum can process sensorimotor stimulus information in a statistical (connectionist type) manner and respond to in on the basis of its own learning based sensorimotor representations, albeit at a "level" that does not necessarily involve cerebral "awareness".

This study explores the effect of media exposure on child's psychology according to parental perceptions. Aggression and self-concept are selected as parameters of children psychology. The combined role of education and occupation of mothers as moderators in relationship between media exposure and children's psychology are also analyzed. A survey was conducted with 400 parents of school going children aged between 6 to 12 years. The results show positive association of media exposure with psychology, self-concept and aggression among children according to their parents. Furthermore, the education of mother moderates the relation between media exposure and self-concept positively, while mother's occupation does not moderate this relationship. The results also indicate that mother's education negatively moderates the relationship between media exposure and aggression among children, however the occupation of mother positively moderates this relation. This study concludes that there is a strong effect of media exposure on children psychology as perceived by their parents.

This study sought to find out perceptions that primary school teachers have on their training and preparation in classroom questioning skills in primary teachers colleges of education. The study was guided by the following questions: 1) what are the perceptions primary school teachers have on their training and preparation in classroom questioning skills in primary teacher colleges of education? ii) What type of classroom questioning do teachers prefer using in their classrooms? iii) Is there a relationship between the teacher's initial training and preparation in primary teachers college of education and the type of classroom questioning they prefer using in classrooms? A descriptive survey research design was deployed. The study comprised 100 serving primary school teachers as respondents and these were chosen using systematic sampling. Questionnaires, semi-structured interviews and observation check list were used to collect data. The findings of this research indicate that: Serving primary school teachers were of the view that they were not well trained in classroom questioning skills during their pre-service training, with regard to low-order and high-order questioning, the serving primary school teachers preferred using low-order classroom questioning to high-order classroom questioning and the type of classroom questioning that primary school teachers used in their classes was related to the way they were trained and prepared in primary teachers colleges of education. The study recommended that there is need for participatory teacher training programmes because in this training model, teachers take an active role in the training process. Training of teachers moves away from being theoretical to being practical. Pre and post service teacher training programmes should focus on training primary school teachers in classroom questioning skills. Teacher Group Meetings (TGMs) should be utilised to improve teacher skills in classroom questioning skills.

This paper presents the results of an exploratory study on the psychosocial effects of the war situation and subsequent flight on South Sudanese children who were compared to a group of Ugandan children who did not have these experiences of war and flight. In addition to the independent variables such as sociodemographic variables and traumatic events and daily life stress, the dependent variable psychological consequences-according to parents and children themselves-as well as the influence of the mediating factors of social support and coping behaviour are presented.

This study examined associations among several measures of emotion regulation, and their links to depressive symptoms, in a sample of children ages 10-12 years old (N = 87). Both temporal features of emotion regulation and regulation processes involved in the evaluation, monitoring, and modification of emotion were assessed through parent and child report and behavioral observation. Children also completed a self-report measure of depressive symptoms. Children with more depressive symptoms were reported by mothers and rated by observers as having higher levels of negative affect intensity. Regarding emotion regulation processes, children with more depressive symptoms reported more biased interpretations of emotionally charged situations, less awareness of their emotions, and their mothers reported that they utilized less problem-focused coping and positive reframing when coping with upsetting events. Findings suggest that children with depressive symptoms experience a wide range of difficulties with emotion regulation.

This article describes methodological processes focusing on developmentally appropriate, creative data collection strategies for use with children and adolescents, illustrated from data-based research. The research reported includes adolescents' understanding of physical activity and engagement in designing a computerized questionnaire, adolescent decision making and consent to psychiatric treatment, social skills focus groups for children with behavioral disorders, and development of a longitudinal intervention study to improve the physiological-functional-psychosocial status of children with cystic fibrosis from three qualitative studies of children and adolescents with cystic fibrosis. Use of developmentally appropriate strategies is critical for successful research, contributing to our understanding of the world of children and adolescents.

Almost all locomotor animals respond to visual looming or to discrete changes in optical size. The need to detect and process looming remains critically important for humans in everyday life. Road traffic statistics confirm that children up to 15 years old are overrepresented in pedestrian casualties. We demonstrate that, for a given pedestrian crossing time, vehicles traveling faster loom less than slower vehicles, which creates a dangerous illusion in which faster vehicles may be perceived as not approaching. Our results from perceptual tests of looming thresholds show strong developmental trends in sensitivity, such that children may not be able to detect vehicles approaching at speeds in excess of 20 mph. This creates a risk of injudicious road crossing in urban settings when traffic speeds are higher than 20 mph. The risk is exacerbated because vehicles moving faster than this speed are more likely to result in pedestrian fatalities.

Children in foster care represent one of the most educationally vulnerable populations of students. There are estimated to be 542,000 children in the United States in foster care (US Department of Health and Human Services, 2003), most of whom are at great risk of school failure. These children have been removed from their parents' custody by the courts and placed in out-of-home care with relatives, in foster homes, or in group homes. The problems children in out-of-home care have in receiving an adequate education are considerable. Within US schools, the personal histories of these youngsters and the impact on school performance too often go unnoticed or are misunderstood. Few learning supports are made available by the schools to address the significant academic, emotional and behavioral problems many experience. This commentary describes the educational barriers to learning and achieving facing children in foster care as well as some innovative interventions to improve school outcomes.

Objective: The aim of the present study was to explore (1) how and with which specificity the young patient contributes to the visit; (2) the communicative-relational manner with which adults handle the child's interventions. Methods: Ten videoed visits with patients aged 2-6 years were selected. A content and discourse analysis was realized. Results: Results showed three macro-categories that seem to fully describe the young patient interventions: (1) The subjective experience regarding the illness; (2) The child's own learning process; (3) The child's medical knowledge. These contributions seem to be handled by the adults in processes that may or may not integrate the patient contributions. Discussion: Results confirmed the quantitatively limited child's contribution, but they also showed an active child, who communicates with the adults about the subjective experience of the visit or the illness, and who autonomously handle the learning process about the roles in the visit. Practice implications: Physicians should improve their communication skills to integrate the child's interventions. #

IT IS often claimed that young children do not understand the principle of the invariance of quantity. This conclusion is based on the results of the well-known conservation experiments by Piaget and Szeminska (1952) which apparently show that children below 7 or 8 yr ...

Children often have strong anxious feelings when their parents aren't in the immediate vicinity - but most quickly learn that Dad and Mom aren't gone forever.  Some children are less fortunate, and when a small child experiences a catastrophic loss of a loved one - parent, sibling -  the "lesson" can be totally debilitating if it passes unchecked into adulthood.

See also:
https://www.academia.edu/41948393/I_Want_My_Mother_A_Quick_Guide_to_Separation_Anxiety_-_Roy_Waidler

A number of relatively small-sample, genetically sensitive studies of infant attachment security have been published in the past several years that challenge the view that all psychological phenotypes are heritable and that environmental influences on child development-to the extent that they can be detected-serve to make siblings dissimilar. Using the twin subsample (N ϭ 485 same-sex pairs) of the nationally representative Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort, the authors provide evidence that parenting quality and infant attachment security observed at 24 months, as well as their covariation, are a product of shared and nonshared environmental (but not genetic) variation among children. In contrast, genetic differences between infants played a prominent role in explaining observations of temperamental dependency.

Introduction: The aim of the present study is to (a) describe the level of agreement between reports of health-related quality of life (HRQL) obtained from parents and young patients both on-and off-treatment and (b) explore the factors that may affect the level of agreement in the quality of life (QoL) between young patients and parental proxies. Patients and methods: The study group consisted of 149 young patients (77 children and 72 adolescents) with cancer followed up by an oncology in-patient clinic of a Greek children's hospital with one of their parents (n ¼ 298). After parental consent was obtained, data were collected using the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory (PedsQL) and a sociodemographic data form. Results: The data collection showed that the best agreement was for the physical (ICC ¼ 0.82) and the school domains (ICC ¼ 0.68), whereas the worst was for the emotional (ICC ¼ 0.48) and the social domains (ICC ¼ 0.52). In the off-treatment group, the mother's age was a significant predictor of the child-proxy difference on the physical sub-scale (F ¼ 9.804, P ¼ 0.003). There was a negative relationship between the mother's age and patient proxy difference on the physical sub-scale. In the on-treatment group, the educational level of the father was found to be a significant predictor for the physical (F ¼ 4.30, P ¼ 0.041), school (F ¼ 5.51, P ¼ 0.022) and total sub-scales (F ¼ 10.41, P ¼ 0.002). Parents with basic education tended to have worse agreement with their children's reports on the physical and school sub-scales, while parents with higher education had worse agreement with their children's reports on the total sub-scale. Conclusions: Our findings suggest that the children and adolescents with cancer reported better QoL than their parents. The predictors found to be significant need to be examined extensively by further studies.

With more and more families presenting with two or more children with autism, this revolutionary treatment method in autism is transforming the lives of these autistic children and their families. Not only that, this approach is healing the lives of the entire family, thus being the FIRST, scientifically proven healing approach in autism that is truly (W) Holistic in every sense of the term. This is a win-win situation for all, as one can see the RESULTS of this path-breaking treatment in autism, right from Day ONE. The Problem While it is known that there is a " risk " of another child with autism being born in a family where the parents already have one child with autism, the actual statistics for the same is lacking. This article is inspired by my experience in healing children with autism in families with more than one child with autism. Autism Treatment Approach The healing method that was applied was Intent Healing™ that is based on Applied Energy Medicine and Applied Intentional Epigenetics. One can know more details about the same by perusing these articles on the scientific basis of the same and the case reports of successfully healed cases here: http://www.intenthealing.com/blog/ and in this online course on 'The Energy Basis of Autism and the Solution' , where the Testimonials and the Evidence of successfully healed cases of Autism, in line with EBM (Evidence Based Medicine) applying Intent Healing™ is available here: http://authenticautismsolutions.usefedora.com The treatment method applied was as follows: 1. Energy assessments of both parents and the autistic children: The energy patterns of the parents and the children were assessed over two days and two nights and the reports shared with the parents. This helps in understanding the underlying specific causes for the symptoms of autism seen in each child with autism, which was unique to each child. 2. Individual healing sessions with each parent: These sessions were done over skype and as Remote Healing sessions timed according to the time zones where the parents lived. Intent Healing™ energies were channeled in the sessions and the individual parents' energies were realigned first. 3. Individual sessions for each child: These sessions were done as Remote Healing sessions while each child was sleeping in bed at different times of the night. In some cases the sessions were done for one child and once the symptoms disappeared in that child the ISSN 2379-7150 sessions were done for the other child who had autism and then the third child after that. In some cases with two children with autism the sessions were done on the same day at different timings and improvements in the symptoms in both the children with each session were noted and documented till complete disappearance of all the symptoms was achieved. Results 1. In all the cases improvements of the symptoms in the children were seen right from the very FIRST session. 2. With consecutive sessions, PROGRESSIVE improvements in the symptoms were seen and documented in both the children with autism in the cases where the families had two children with autism and those families with more than two children with autism, the improvements were seen in ALL the autistic children. 3. In ALL the cases of families with two or more than two children with autism, 70-80% of the limiting symptoms of autism in each child disappeared over a span of 20-30 days were the sessions were done on consecutive days with no break in between. In families where the sessions were done for each child one after the other (doing the sessions for one child only first till the symptoms disappeared and then moving on to the next child and so on), the time period for recovery was correspondingly longer due to the logistics involved. 4. The ENTIRE FAMILY including the parents got healed in the process. By this I mean the physical well-being of the parents improved and they had more energy to devote to their individual creative pursuits and careers and were able to see progress in ALL aspects of their lives individually, as well as collectively, as a family.

Everyone has their theory as to what makes the best learning environment and how people learn and develop. I personally believe that when we teachers establish harmonious, loving relationships with students and bring forth a safe trusting atmosphere surrounded by love, this makes the best learning environment. To hone the characteristics of an effective teacher, one must first become a servant of Jesus Christ. We serve others with love being the drawing factor and through the gifts and talents that the Lord has entrusted us. Teaching is one of the nine spiritual gifts given to man for the expansion of the kingdom of God. We must know we became a teacher in the first place, but most importantly, why did God choose us to be teachers. Also, the teacher must understand the role of an outstanding teacher versus a mediocre teacher. An outstanding teacher does nothing that any other teacher cannot do―it is just the question of knowing the principles of effective teaching and how to apply them (Slavin, 2015). These principles include understanding how to enhance student learning, providing the most effective and efficient way to teach students and having the ability to motivate students. One way in which the teacher can enhance learning is by using various resources that match a student’s learning style.

Análisis del personaje central de Entrañas de niño, Paquito, a la luz de lo planteado por Nietzsche en la Genealogía de la moral. Se destaca el paso del protagonista de ser un niño cruel a alguien a quien le enseñan la noción de pecado y sentimiento de culpa y comienza a encontrar otra vía para expresar su agresividad. Es su entrada en el "uso de razón", expresión coloquial antioqueña para dar cuenta del proceso de inserción en las normas de la sociedad y la cultura.

Sensory over-responsivity (SOR) towards tactile and auditory input can impact children’s participation in academic and social activities; however the prevalence of SOR behaviors and their relation to social-emotional problems and competence has not been rigorously studied. This study investigated SOR in a representative sample of elementary school-aged children (n=925, 50 % boys, ages 7–11 years) who were followed from infancy. Sixteen percent of parents reported that at least four tactile or auditory sensations bothered their children. Being bothered by certain sensations was common while others were relatively rare. Parents of children with versus without elevated SOR in school-age reported higher frequencies of early and co-occurring internalizing, externalizing, and dysregulation problems, and lower levels of concurrent adaptive social behaviors. Early identification of elevated SOR and assessment of concurrent social-emotional status are important to minimize their impact on so...

This study examines variability in patterns of peer group antipathy. Same-grade adolescent peer groups were identified from sociometric nominations of preferred affiliates in a community sample of 600 Finnish ninth-grade middle school students (mean age = 15.0years). Hierarchical linear modeling determined characteristics of youths in actor groups (nominators) that predicted antipathy for youths in target groups (nominatees) on the basis of target group characteristics. Most antipathies were based on dissimilarity between groups representing the mainstream culture and groups opposed to it. The higher a peer group's school burnout, the more its members disliked students in peer groups with higher school grades and students in peer groups with higher sports participation. Conversely, the higher a peer group's school grades, the more its members disliked students in peer groups with higher school burnout. Students in peer groups with less problem behavior disliked students in peer groups with more problem behavior. There was some evidence of rivalry within the mainstream culture: The higher a group's school grades, the more its members disliked groups whose members participated in sports.

The fears of childhood and adolescence may differ from one cultural context to another. We explored this possibility in 1200 American, Australian, Chinese, and Nigerian children and adolescents between 7 and 17 years of age. Responses to a standard fear survey schedule revealed significant differences in the number, content, pattern, and level of fears. Nigerian children and adolescents endorsed fears at higher levels than American, Australian, or Chinese youth who did not differ from one another. However, differences in the pattern and content of fears for boys and girls of different ages were noted across the countries. Results were interpreted within a cultural context, which suggested that cultures which favor inhibition, compliance, and obedience serve to increase levels of fear. Alternative interpretations are offered and limitations of cross-cultural research are explored.

The study was designed to develop and validate a self-report questionnaire on food neophobia in French children. We evaluated food neophobia in a specific cultural context, examining an age group that has hardly been studied (5-to 8-year-olds). The questionnaire items were based on methods known for changing neophobic behavior (imitation, information, flavor principle and external stimulation) in order to diversify food presentation situations. In addition, we used colored pictures of food for seven items. Thirteen items that referred to acceptance of unfamiliar food were selected out of 25 items tested in an earlier stage. Six hundred and three children filled out the food neophobia questionnaire and a food task used to check its predictive validity was given to 503 of them. A factor analysis emphasized the one-dimensional structure of the questionnaire. Results showed satisfactory internal consistency and good test-retest reliability. The children's choices and their willingness to try new types of food were significantly correlated with the questionnaire scores. Food neophobia conceived as a personality trait was discussed. r