Institute for the Study of Child Development

The nature of infant and childhood intelligence has been studied over the course of the first 21 years of life. Data from the infancy period onward have been analyzed to determine the multidimensional aspects of intellectual development. Our findings reveal that

• intelligence at any age is a set of separate mental abilities rather than a single general ability,
• there exists a complex relation among abilities across age, such that there are a variety of paths through which mental capacities can develop, and
• the child’s environmental circumstances interact with specific mental abilities to influence intellectual development. Researchers continue to explore how early skills relate to later intellectual development through childhood and adolescence.

The ability to take the perspective of another, to be able to guess what another might be thinking, requires the knowledge that others can possess different mental states than one’s own, or a theory of mind. We have developed research programs in order to investigate the correlates of the development of a theory of mind in young children.

Self-recognition, measured by visual recognition in the mirror and the onset of the use of the personal pronouns “me” and “mine,” has been used to mark the onset of an inner life, or consciousness. Our research has demonstrated that self-recognition emerges during the middle of the second year of life, at around the same time that children begin to display pretend play (e.g., making believe a spoon is an airplane). That both self-recognition and pretend play emerge at approximately the same time suggests commonalities in the processes underlying their development. The concept of self is a cognitive achievement that normally occurs around one and a half years of age. With the emergence of self, an elaboration of emotional life occurs such that emotions focusing on the self emerge. These self-conscious emotions include empathy, pride, shame, guilt, and embarrassment. Examination of the facial expressions and nonverbal behavior of young children placed in situations designed. There also are changes in the organization of the infant’s developing brain at this same time, in particular, increased myelinization, blood flow, and glucose utilization in the frontal lobes. Previous research indicates that this region plays a role in the metacognitive processes involved in the development of self-recognition and pretend play. In our studies, we assess infants’ self-recognition, pretend play, and personal pronoun use, and examine their relation to infants’ brain structure and function using magnetic resonance imaging.

The relation of cognitive ability to theory of mind has not been investigated. If gifted children are advanced in their ability to understand the mental states of others, this might explain why they are comfortable interacting with older children and adults, and why they often have difficulties relating to children their own age. The purpose of these studies is to investigate the development of theory of mind and its relation to intelligence, in particular giftedness. Results to date regarding children’s performance on tasks measuring perspective taking ability, a subset of theory of mind, follow.

The development of the ability to take the perspective of another has been looked at, and an age effect has been found. With increasing age, perspective taking ability increases and egocentric responses decline. However, in the original research, only two kinds of responses were considered: egocentric and correct perspective taking. It is possible to have a non-egocentric response that is not a correct perspective taking response. We were interested in exploring this problem and its role in the development of perspective taking ability. In addition, we were interested in the role of IQ in the development of this skill. If perspective taking also is related to IQ, gifted children should perform better than their chronological age peers, and as well as their older mental age peers. In order to study these problems, we compared the performance of average and gifted children of different ages on a perspective taking task.

Gifted and nongifted children aged 4, 6, and 9 years were asked to describe two different drawings. Following the description, each drawing was covered by a screen that allowed only a small, unidentifiable portion to be seen. The child was asked to hypothesize how a friend who had not seen the complete drawing would describe the partial drawing. An answer that was not related to the actual drawing indicated perspective taking ability, whereas an answer describing the actual drawing indicated an egocentric response. A third category, incorrect perspective taking, was assigned when a child gave a response that, while not egocentric, was not clearly perspective taking; e.g., “I don’t know” or an answer totally unrelated to what could be seen.

An age effect was found such that the older the child, the better the performance. A gifted effect was found such that gifted children performed better than their average chronological age peers and more equal to their older mental age peers. In addition, incorrect perspective taking was especially important in young children. The number of egocentric responses did not differ between gifted and nongifted 3½ to 4½year olds. However, gifted 3½ to 4½ year olds made fewer incorrect perspective taking responses and showed more correct perspective taking than nongifted. These data suggest that, as perspective taking ability is developing, the difference between gifted and nongifted children is not seen in the amount of egocentrism but in the number of perspective taking errors that are made.

We assessed the development of myelination in a group of children who received MRI examination for clinical reasons. We found a clear relation between age and quantitative changes in myelination in the frontal lobes. Self-awareness in these children also was evaluated. Future projects include the analysis of these data in order to investigate the relation between myelination and the development of self-awareness.
Brain Function and Name Recognition

We were interested in knowing if the brain activation patterns are different when hearing one's own name compared to hearing the names of others. In one study, adults listened to a series of names, including their own, while functional magnetic resonance images (fMRI) was performed. Brain regions activated during other's name conditions were the left and right superior temporal gyri, left and right medial temporal gyri, middle frontal gyrus, and the left and right inferior parietal lobe. Of special interest is the finding that the activation levels were higher in the same areas for each participant when hearing his own name than when hearing the alternate names. Unique areas of increased activation for one's own name were right inferior frontal gyrus, left and right occipital gyri, and Brodmann's area 40. Several areas of language processing were activated along with visual areas when hearing one's own name.

The adults indicated that their own name was associated with the concept of self and showed variations in their preferences for names. For example, one participant had no preference for any name, while three participants had preferences for two names, including their own. However, differences in preference did not account for differences in activation in fMRI. Based on the fMRI findings, there are specific regions of the brain involved in auditory self-recognition.

Factors such as family conflict and intellectual environment are being used to predict school behavior and achievement from first grade through the senior year in high school. This is being done through video recordings of parent-child interaction and family relationships, as well as ratings of family teaching skills.

Young children are socialized within the family and parents serve as the child's first evaluators. Work with older children suggests that girls learn to attribute failure to lack of ability--an uncontrollable factor, while boys attribute failure to lack of effort--a controllable factor. This project explores the early roots of these sex differences in cognitive style by observing parents' feedback to children concerning children's play and problem-solving behavior.

Learning to control and to manipulate social events and objects occurs from the earliest months of life. The Institute has conducted studies documenting developmental trends in such learning between two and eight months of age. Currently we are interested in how such learning is related to infants' generalized notions of control and memory. We are continuing to explore how early learning is related to concurrent socialization and later motivational styles.

The concept of self is a cognitive achievement that normally occurs around one and a half years of age. With the emergence of self, an elaboration of emotional life occurs such that emotions focusing on the self emerge. These self-conscious emotions include empathy, pride, shame, guilt, and embarrassment. Examination of the facial expressions and nonverbal behavior of young children placed in situations designed to elicit embarrassment (e.g., looking at themselves in a mirror, being complimented, dancing in front of their mothers and the experimenter) shows that embarrassment does indeed emerge after the development of a self system. Pride and shame are studied by observing children's facial, postural, and verbal expressions in response to success and failure on simple tasks. Children as young as three years show pride when they succeed and shame when they fail the tasks. More shame is observed when children fail easy as opposed to difficult tasks, and more pride is observed when difficult tasks are accomplished. Cultural and gender, as well as developmental, differences in these important self-evaluative emotions are being studied.

For years, research at the Institute has examined the development of self-awareness in children during the second year of life. Self-awareness can be indexed by the emergence of visual self-recognition, and it is an essential element in the emergence of personal pronoun use, pretend play, and the development of a theory of mind. Visual self-recognition is assessed by surreptitiously applying a spot of rouge to the child’s face and then observing whether he or she touches the spot when in front of a mirror.

In normally developing children, this mark-directed behavior typically begins around 18 months of age. In children with Down Syndrome, this mark-directed behavior occurs when children reach a mental age of approximately 18 months. We have obtained evidence to suggest that the emergence of self-recognition reflects the capacity for a meta-representation of the self, sometimes referred to as the mental state or the idea of “me.” For example, we found self-recognition to be a prerequisite for children’s expression of various self-conscious emotions, including embarrassment. In recent work, we sought to provide additional evidence that self-recognition reflects a self meta-representation by demonstrating relations of self-recognition to both personal pronoun use and pretend play. Personal pronoun use (e.g., “me” or “mine”) would seem to provide a verbal indication of a self meta-representation. Pretend play would appear to be a nonverbal manifestation of the ability to understand mental states, including one’s own as well as another’s, thereby providing the cognitive basis for a theory of mind. The origins of a theory of mind involve a self pretending; that is, the appearance of the self that knows that it knows and knows that its play is not real. We found that self-recognition is related to personal pronoun use and pretend play such that self-recognizers use more personal pronouns and show more pretend play than nonself-recognizers. The demonstration that these capacities are related confirms that in the middle of the second year of life a meta-representation of self or explicit consciousness emerges in the human child.

A major focus in the Institute's research on the development of emotions has been how children’s emotional lives change when they develop self-awareness. This major milestone occurs sometime between 15 and 24 months of age. We have documented the appearance of an early form of embarrassment related to exposure or being made conspicuous - for example, Shame Pride Embarrassment when being pointed at, complimented, or asked to do something silly - in young children almost as soon as they show self-awareness. In children between the ages of 4 and 6 we have studied age and sex differences in the appearance of evaluative emotions - shame, embarrassment, and pride - around failure and success at simple tasks.

We find that even at these early ages, there are individual differences with about 15% of children being shame-prone. We find that children’s negative emotions are related to their self-report of how badly they feel following failure, whether they judge the task as easy or hard, and their willingness to attempt it again. These individual differences might underlie children’s achievement related behaviors and how they cope with failures and disappointments generally.

A common concern voiced by parents is “Is it a problem that my child lies to me?” The fact is, children often lie to deceive others, typically to avoid punishment. So then, is lying a problematic behavior or indicative of moral ineptitude? In addressing these issues, three important questions were asked:

1. when do children acquire the skills to lie?
2. what is the difference between children who transgress and then lie versus those who transgress and tell the truth? and
3. are there cultural differences that might help explain these phenomena?
   Self-Control and the Development of Deception in Young Children

The study of deception allows us to examine what young children understand about others and about managing their own expressions. In our studies, we ask children (28-77 months) not to peek at an interesting object that is placed out of sight; however, we expect the child to do so (compliance). After leaving the room for 5 minutes, we then ask the child if he or she peeked (deception).

Approximately 80-90% of children peeked, and between 85-95% of the transgressors lied when asked about it. Thus, when given the opportunity, we find that children as young as 2½ years of age will lie about a transgression. We have found that children learn very early that they can control their expressions in order to fool others. This requires at least a basic knowledge that others do not know what you know (i.e., theory of mind). As children’s understanding of others’ mental states improves, 5- to 6-year-old children become able not only to control their expressions, they improve their ability to cover their tracks and/or successfully discard the evidence of their transgression.

Our studies found several factors that affect whether a child will peek and if they will lie about it afterwards. Children with stronger cognitive resources and those faced with fewer environmental challenges (e.g., family circumstances) were more compliant than other children. Given that other measures tapping impulsivity demonstrate that more competent children are less impulsive, it is not surprising that compliance in this task also was related to cognitive competence. In addition, this result highlighted the importance of children’s environments to their development of self-regulatory control. However, of the children who do peek, more competent children are more apt to lie about it. Age, IQ, socio-emotional competence (i.e., emotion knowledge), and better neonatal health predicted lying about peeking. The association between higher competence and lying suggests that, for those children unable to resist the initial temptation, lying is the adaptive response to their misdeed. Most peekers choose to lie about their behavior, particularly older and higher IQ children who “know better” than to confess. Hence, among young children, lying appears to be a sign of competence rather than a signal of pathology.

Differences in Self-Control and Deception between Japanese and American Preschoolers

Cross-cultural investigations show that cultural practices can make a difference when it comes to child compliance, but not to deception. Japanese parents tend to facilitate self-discipline, politeness, and attentiveness to others more than American parents, and Japanese socialization practices place a greater emphasis on child obedience to adult authority than do American practices. The question then becomes, do these teaching practices help Japanese children not to peek and/or to tell the truth compared to American children? In fact, cultural differences did emerge, such that the Japanese children were better able to resist temptation than the American children (59% resisted). Nevertheless, children in both cultures overwhelmingly chose to lie about their peeking behavior. This study suggests that self-control is influenced by teaching practices, and that it is normal and adaptive for children to lie to cover their tracks when they are too young to resist temptation.

Malingering is a form of deception in which one fakes illness for a reward. In this study, adolescents were asked to malinger trauma on a standardized, clinical measure (Draw-A-Person). Individuals first drew figures of a man, woman, and self. They then imagined they were in an auto accident and drew the figures again, as if they were claiming trauma from the accident. The drawings were objectively scored and compared. Results indicated that youths successfully malingered trauma by drawing more “primitively,” earning lower cognitive ability scores.

While the study of fear, smiling, laughter, surprise, disgust, and even sadness in infancy has been widespread, the study of anger in infants has been neglected. Infants can learn to control slides and music by pulling a ribbon attached to their wrist. In our studies, we find an increase in motoric response concomitant with increases in negative emotions, particularly anger when their ability to activate this outcome is thwarted. Individual differences appear quite early, with some babies showing more sadness than anger in response to frustration. Further work on whether the sadness or anger response may be related to a depressive-prone or aggressive temperament style is being explored, as well as its relation to how mothers respond to their babies’ distress.

The emotion and learning project first examined changes in facial expression of emotion when 2- to 8-month-old infants learned a simple instrumental action. Both age-related changes and stability of individual differences have been studied. Prototypic enjoyment, interest, and surprise expressions are observed when infants learn to pull a ribbon to turn on a slide of a happy baby and children’s voices singing a pleasant tune. Negative expressions such as prototypic anger and sadness occurred when infants became fatigued, bored, or frustrated.

Complimenting this project has been work examining the range and variability of infant facial expressions in response to a variety of specific stimuli designed to elicit emotion, for example, a balloon popping, arm restraint, a masked stranger, etc. These studies confirm that basic facial expressions of emotion emerge by 4 months of age, and that certain stimuli elicit appropriate and expected expressions on average. Often, however, a range of expressions and consistent individual differences in response to specific stimuli can be seen between 4 and 12 months.

In recent work, we have observed emotion expressions when young infants are frustrated by a change in what they expect. Once infants learn that they can control the pictures and music, we change the rules of the game. We find that infants become angry when their access to the pictures and music is altered. When the pictures and music are abruptly turned off so that the infants can no longer pull to see them, they begin to pull more to try to get the slideshow back. They also show facial anger. The most annoying situation, however, appears to be having the pictures and music come on randomly, regardless of their pulling. In this case, infants stop pulling and express even more anger. In ongoing work, we are studying other forms of frustration and have added measures of cardiac variability to our measures of emotional behavior. By adding physiological measures, we can better understand how anger and other negative emotions are related and explain individual differences in emotional responses.

If babies as young as 4-5 months show anger when they are frustrated, how this expression arises and whether it becomes a stable part of children’s behavioral styles are important questions to parents and clinicians alike. Our work suggests that early maternal responsiveness is a factor influencing whether babies express negative emotions, including anger. We find that mothers who are most responsive to their infants’ vocal signals in the home setting had infants who were less likely to express anger and sadness in the laboratory when they experienced a mild frustration at 4-5 months. Responsive mothers seem to help babies maintain positive emotions and dampen negative emotions.

We followed these infants, seeing them again at 20 months of age, and observed their responses to other forms of frustration. We asked mothers to interrupt their play and restrain them from returning to a bag full of toys in one situation. Later, we placed an attractive toy under a large plexiglass cube out of their reach. Both situations were mildly frustrating for toddlers; however, infants who expressed anger in the learning lab at 4 to 5 months were less likely to insist on returning to the toys, and they persisted unsuccessfully in obtaining the toy from under the cube. In contrast, the most persistent children at 20 months were those who had shown less anger and had the more responsive mothers earlier. Our results suggest that responsive mothers help young babies suppress negative emotions, and that, over time, these children seem to be better in control of their emotions when they encounter mildly frustrating environmental events. These children do not become upset or over-active. Lack of responsive mothering, on the other hand, seems to allow expression of more negative emotions in young babies and leads to persistent, unproductive efforts to overcome frustration as toddlers. Work currently underway is attempting to replicate these findings and relate them to individual differences in children's physiology.

At very early ages, children begin to understand which emotions go with which situations. Individual differences are found in young children's knowledge of which situations trigger the negative emotions of sadness and anger. Likewise, as early as three years, children can voluntarily produce positive expressions, while the negative emotions appear more difficult to express voluntarily even for five-year-olds.

Success or failure produce not only emotional responses (pride or shame), but also self-reflections. Among these are attributions about the causes of success and failure. Is the outcome due to internal factors (one's own ability or effort) or external factors (task difficulty or luck)? Is the cause due to the nature of the self (global) or to particular events and actions surrounding the outcome (specific)? Our work in this area shows that children as young as three years perceive tasks as either "easy" or "hard," and that these perceptions are related both to the child's internal (self-focused) versus external (task-focused) explanations for success or failure, and to whether or not pride or shame is displayed. Individual differences in children's expressions of shame and pride also are related to what parents say to children about their performance in achievement settings. We have found that children’s shame is related to the amount of positive evaluative feedback provided by parents during a difficult problem-solving task; the more positive parental comments, the less shame. Parental statements that were global (that is, general, nonspecific positive or nonspecific negative comments) are related to greater expressions of shame.

Gifted children constitute a precious resource that can help shape a brighter future for themselves and their community. The education of young gifted children, particularly in minority and educationally disadvantaged environments, continues to receive inadequate attention. Given the deleterious effects of poverty on the young gifted child, it is imperative to identify precocious children as early as possible and provide them with enrichment activities to prepare them for school.  This program serves preschool and early elementary school-aged children. It is an intervention program, the aim of which is to facilitate the identification of gifted urban children and maintain their cognitive strengths. Recognizing the important role school and family play in the educational development of children, this project further provides teacher and parent training workshops in early childhood education.

The poor use health services less frequently than the non-poor, even when services are provided at no or reduced cost. One strategy for encouraging poor families to take greater advantage of available health care is to offer them incentives for doing so. Nationwide, there have been experiments offering cash payments for regularly attending prenatal care clinics, for vaccinating preschool children, and for compliance with various treatment regimens. Likewise, payments have been used to encourage adolescent mothers to postpone additional pregnancies. Do such programs work?  We have undertaken the first systematic review of these programs and find that incentives are a promising strategy for improving health care use among the poor.

The C.A.R.S. Safety Study

The primary cause of injury and death in young children is motor vehicle crashes. Car safety seats, when properly used, have been proven effective in reducing traffic fatalities. Despite mandatory restraint laws, use of car seats has been surprisingly low, especially in inner city areas. The C.A.R.S. project was designed to increase car seat use among toddlers in inner city areas by providing two services to the community: 1) provision of car seats, along with instruction on their proper use, and 2) education regarding the importance of seat belt and car seat use. Results showed that, when inner city families are given car seats for their toddlers, car seat use increases dramatically. This was the case regardless of whether education regarding the importance of seat belt and car seat use accompanied the car seat distribution. An increase in the use of seat belts for other children riding in the car also was found. Increases in the use of car seats and seat belts continued to be seen one year after families received car seats.

The Car Seat Brochure Study

Certain interventions have been proven effective in increasing car seat and seat belt use among inner city families.  Our C.A.R.S. Safety Study showed that giving car seats to poor families dramatically increased the use of car seats for toddlers and seat belts for other children riding in the car. These effects still were observed one year after car seats were distributed. In an attempt to reach a large number of inner city families in a cost effective manner, we  have designed a brochure geared toward a low literacy audience. This brochure has been distributed to families throughout Newark through their day care centers. The project will evaluate the effectiveness of this strategy on increasing car seat and seat belt use.

Parent education is an important element in preventing exposure of children to hazards in the environment. Education regarding lead poisoning prevention is conducted by the Lead Poisoning Prevention Education and Training Program of UMDNJ-School of Osteopathic Medicine on an ongoing basis. One means of delivery involves the recruitment of parents through day care centers in the greater Newark area. The purpose of this project is to evaluate the effectiveness of these education sessions in explaining to inner city parents the dangers to young children of lead exposure, alerting parents to possible sources of lead in the environment, and educating parents regarding behaviors in the home which could be changed in order to help prevent lead exposure.

This project aims to prevent aggressive behavior and promote adjustment in five- to eight-year-old children.  Adults are trained to teach the children problem-solving skills and self-control. They encourage the children to generate nonaggressive solutions to problem and conflict situations. The program provides an opportunity for children to develop  good relationships with  competent adults, to build self-esteem, and to improve their own abilities for coping.  Findings to date indicate that  mentoring services can reduce aggression, especially in young boys.

The use of cocaine during pregnancy reached alarming proportions in the mid 1980's with the widespread availability of “crack” cocaine. Tens of thousands of fetuses in this country continue to be exposed to this drug of abuse every year. There are compelling data suggesting that cocaine affects the developing central nervous system, primarily pathways utilizing monoaminergic transmitters such as the prefrontal, orbitofrontal, and mesolimbic cortices. These brain regions are implicated in attention, inhibitory or effortful control requiring suppression of a dominant response in order to perform a subdominant one, making complex decisions requiring planning, and regulating emotional states. In addition to potential biological effects, children exposed to cocaine often are raised in chaotic, stressful high risk environments that might potentiate the impact of cocaine on developmental outcome.

Our study is designed to examine effects of prenatal exposure to cocaine on specific aspects of mental and emotional development. Children are being followed from birth through school age. A major aim is to separate the adverse effects of the chaotic, impoverished home environments in which many of these children are reared from any permanent brain damage caused by prenatal drug exposure. Another important area of inquiry is whether exposure to cocaine during gestation affects later behavioral and physiological responses to stress. Our findings so far suggest that the ability to calm following a stressful situation, be it withdrawal of a mother’s attention or a painful inoculation, is diminished in infants exposed to cocaine.  However,  it appears that problems emerge only if the infant was exposed to heavy cocaine use during gestation. Difficulty adapting to stressful situations may have wide ranging consequences for later emotional, social, and cognitive functioning. We are currently examining the mediating role of response to stress on outcomes during toddlerhood and early childhood. These findings will help pinpoint the most effective areas for intervention with this population of children.

Preterm birth remains one of the most frequent complications of pregnancy in this country. The developmental morbidity associated with prematurity and co-occurring perinatal medical problems is a significant concern. One of the most significant medical risk factors is intraventricular hemorrhage (IVH), bleeding into the developing brain, as this is a complication that potentially affects the central nervous system directly.

A longitudinal study of the effects of intraventricular hemorrhage on development has followed small preterm infants from birth to three years of age. Other common medical complications of prematurity and the quality of children's home environments have been examined, in addition to intraventricular hemorrhages, as predictors of specific functional deficits. Neurological, mental, motor, language, and lateralized skills have been assessed at six age points. Analyses have indicated several major findings:

1. The consequences of intraventricular hemorrhages are relatively circumscribed during this age period. Motor skill is primarily affected and only when hemorrhages are severe.
2. Overall medical condition during the neonatal period, independent of intraventricular hemorrhages, is a very powerful predictor of cognitive and motor development over the first three years of life.
3. Quality of the home environment, including the amount of stress and support experienced by the family, overshadows medical status as a determinant of language and cognitive development.
4. There is an interaction between early medical status and the home environment which affects cognitive outcome in the second year of life. The home environment has little impact on the development of the most severely medically compromised children. This interaction was no longer apparent at three years of age.

The ability to communicate socially requires social cognition, which involves thinking and knowing about other people and their actions. The development of social cognition is an important aspect of mental health and successful mental functioning, leading to the development and maintenance of fulfilling relationships. Social cognition requires a sense of self, or self-awareness. It also requires the development of a theory of mind; that is, an understanding that one’s thoughts and feelings are not necessarily the thoughts and feelings of others.

A striking clinical symptom of autism spectrum disorders (ASD) is social-interpersonal communication failure, characterized by an abnormal apprehension of the relation between self and others. This is caused by a distorted or absent theory of mind, which in turn is caused by failures in the development of self-awareness. For example, normal children are known to recognize themselves in a mirror between 15 and 24 months of age; however, some children with ASD do not show that they recognize themselves in a mirror long after most children have achieved this developmental milestone. In addition to indicating a failure in the development of self-awareness, those children who do not exhibit mirror recognition have been found to be more likely to lack communicative speech and to be rated lower in overall functioning.

We have found evidence that self-awareness related to language perception, in particular recognizing one’s own name, is indexed by different patterns of brain function in adults and children. Studies also indicate that subjects with ASD have abnormalities in brain structures related to processing emotional and social stimuli. Based upon these findings, we have begun a research program using fMRI with young children with ASD. The goal of the current project is to include a greater number of children and more behavioral measures of self-awareness. This project also will include other names, as well as “hello,” the child’s own name, and numbers in the fMRI condition. Results of the fMRI will be related to results of the behavioral measures and the severity of ASD, with particular emphasis on communicative skills.

We expect that the localization and degree of differentiation in brain function found in normal people when presented with one’s own name versus other names, words, or numbers will be present in some children diagnosed with ASD and absent in others. We predict that children with more severe ASD, especially those with impaired communication skills, will show less differentiation in brain function between hearing their own name and hearing other names, words, and numbers. We expect the degree of differentiation between one’s own name and numbers, for example, to be related to the severity of autistic symptoms. Finally, we expect this degree of differentiation and the severity of autistic symptoms to be related to behavioral measures of self-awareness.

Social communication skills are impaired or absent in children with autism. In this study, we examined a case of a 4-year-old child with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), evaluated her performance on standardized psychological tests of language and communication, and performed a functional MRI under sedation while she listened to auditory stimuli. Psychological testing at age 3 years had included the Differential Abilities Scales (DAS), the Test of Visual Motor Integration (VMI), the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales, and the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS-G module 1). The child wore headphones and heard words repeatedly while fMRI data were collected. The words were presented as blocks in three separate runs. One run presented the word “hello”, the second run presented her name, and the third run presented random numbers ranging from one to fifteen.

The subject's high level of activity and inattention impacted the testing session; therefore, the results are a minimal estimate of her abilities. The general conceptual ability score on the DAS was below the first percentile, and her adaptive behavior composite on the Vineland was in the low range. She was unable to copy simple line drawings on the VMI. In ADOS testing, she showed poor eye contact and occasional echoing, and she failed to show shared enjoyment in interactions. However, she did give a responsive smile to social smiles, and although she did shift her gaze when she heard her name, she failed to make eye contact with the examiner who spoke her name.

Brain activation in response to words differed depending upon the word content. For the word “hello,” brain activity was found in the right inferior parietal lobe, left superior temporal gyrus, and right dorsolateral portion of superior frontal gyrus. When she was presented with her own name, brain activation was found in the right superior frontal lobe, specifically the orbital portion and the right dorsolateral region. The greatest activation occurred when numbers were presented, with reliable findings in the right medial portion of prefrontal gyrus; bilateral anterior cingulate; bilateral precuneus; and bilateral portions of frontal gyrus, including precentral, paracentral, and postcentral regions. Overall, brain activation was found in response to words spoken to a sedated child with autistic spectrum disorder. Brain activity was highest to numbers, with activation in portions of the frontal lobe, anterior cingulate, and precuneus.

Increasingly, clinicians have become aware of the importance of shame and self-blame in the etiology of psychological difficulties in the presence of stressful or traumatic events. Interpersonal conflict, various forms of maltreatment, and other situations in which individuals might feel personal responsibility for the negative events of life, as well as their shame and self-blaming attributions, have been linked to a variety of problems, including depression, hostility, and post-traumatic stress symptoms. The Institute's research program in this area has focused specifically on children and how a child's gender and age impact on shame, self-blame, and emerging behavioral difficulties in response to sexual abuse and other forms of maltreatment, enuresis, and the presence of a sibling with disabilities.

The experience of shame as a consequence of sexual abuse is a primary mechanism related to subsequent behavioral problems. Our work is directly concerned with attributions as they are related to self-evaluative emotions, especially those attributions made regarding the cause of abuse. We have been able to show relations between sexual abuse, shame, and adjustment in a longitudinal study of sexually abused children aged 8 to 15 years. We examined the relations of severity of sexual abuse, shame, and attribution to symptoms of depression, using risk and protective factors as covariates. Our findings indicate that within six months of the reported abuse, both severity of abuse and shame were related to depressive symptoms. However, by one year after report of the abusive incidents, only the amount of shame was related to depressive symptoms. More importantly, children whose shame stayed the same or increased showed increases in depression.

We also have examined shame in relation to other forms of maltreatment, including physically abused and neglected children. The nature of parenting in maltreating families - severely physically punitive and/or psychologically aggressive and rejecting - is hypothesized to affect shame in children. The results of this study and more recent work indicate that maltreated children show less pride when they succeed and more shame when they fail relative to children from the same background who have not been maltreated. Among physically abused children, however, severe punitiveness appears to suppress shame and other emotions, especially in boys. Maltreated girls show more shame when they fail a task and less pride when they succeed compared to nonmaltreated girls. Boys, on the other hand, show a suppression of both shame and pride. These sex differences have important implications for behavioral therapy with these children since for girls maltreatment might result in depression, whereas for boys maltreatment might result in a suppression of emotion in general and, potentially, in an increase in aggression, since boys are not constrained by feelings of shame, guilt, or regret. Observations of these boys do indicate higher amounts of behaviors such as throwing or roughly pushing the test materials away, verbally aggressive statements and, occasionally, angry faces.

The link between mind and health has long been recognized (Mens sama in corpore sano). Research in behavioral medicine is replete with examples of the effects of stressful life events, lifestyles, and personality attributes on subsequent illness in adults. Our past work examined the relation of newborn and young infants’ behavioral response to stress to various health outcomes. A high response to stress in newborns was related to fewer health problems at older ages, whereas a high response to stress by 2 months was related to more heath problems at older ages. Consistent with our cortisol results, we believe that a high stress response in newborn and young infants is a sign of more optimal functioning (i.e., more vigor), whereas a high stress response in older infants is a sign of less adaptive functioning.

We have been investigating differences in infants’ cortisol and behavioral responses to stress. From birth there are large individual differences in children’s response to stress. Using inoculation as the stressor, we have examined age change in infants’ cortisol response to stress. There is an age-related decline in magnitude of cortisol response between 2 and 6 months, but no further age change in magnitude of cortisol response between 6 and 18 months of age. Stable individual differences in cortisol response are apparent only from 6 months, remaining stable through 18 months of age. Whereas a high cortisol response indicates more optimal functioning in the newborn period, a high cortisol response indicates less optimal functioning by 6 months of age. Together these findings indicate considerable developmental change in adrenocortical functioning during the first 6 months of life, with the more mature organization of the adrenocortical system not present until approximately 6 months of age. Comparable results were obtained when we compared infants whose inoculations involved one versus two injections. In comparing infant cortisol and behavioral stress responses, we have found, at best, only modest relations between the two types of response. Since individual differences in the mode of expression of stress are likely, from a purely measurement point of view, both cortisol and behavioral measures are needed to adequately assess differences in stress. The absence of behavioral indications of stress does not necessarily mean that infants are not stressed.

Our work also has addressed environmental and constitutional variables associated with differences in infant cortisol response to stress. We explored the role of socialization and genetic factors in infant response to stress by contrasting the stress responses to inoculation of Japanese and Caucasian American infants. Observations of the infants’ behavioral distress indicate that the Caucasian infants are more reactive than the Japanese infants. On the other hand, Japanese infants show a greater cortisol response, suggesting higher internal levels of stress. To also address whether socialization factors impact infant responses to stress, we assessed the relation of mothers’ soothing behavior to their infants’ stress responses. Maternal soothing to inoculation and to other more everyday episodes of infant distress (e.g., diaper change, dressing) was observed. There was no evidence that maternal behavior was efficacious in lowering infant cortisol or behavioral response to stress. Our results to date suggest that temperament might play a strong role in individual differences in infant stress response. In this regard, we have identified relations between infant temperament and cortisol response. For example, greater negative emotionality (i.e., a more difficult temperament) is associated with a higher cortisol response across 2 and 6 months of age.

Response to stress involves both a reactivity and a regulation component. Reactivity refers to the peak response following a stressor, whereas regulation refers to the subsequent dampening of response following the peak. In our recent work, we have begun to examine both reactivity and regulation differences in infants’ cortisol and behavioral responses to stress. Differences in cortisol reactivity and regulation were observed by assessing cortisol levels at regular intervals following the stressor; that is, during the period of time that peak response and response dampening would be expected to occur. Results show that reactivity and regulation are unrelated for both cortisol and behavior. The independence of reactivity and regulation suggests that measures of both are needed to more completely characterize infant cortisol or behavioral response to stress. Moreover, there is considerable variation in the timing of the peak cortisol response, suggesting that obtaining only a single post-stressor cortisol sample might not provide a sensitive measure of cortisol reactivity in individual cases.

We have been investigating the relation of children’s cortisol response to their expression of the self-conscious emotions of pride, shame, and embarrassment following task success and failure. In a sample of 4-year-old children, we found that a high cortisol response is related to children’s expression of shame and embarrassment following failure, but that cortisol response is unrelated to children’s expression of pride following success. Longitudinal data suggest that a high cortisol response from early infancy (a relatively higher cortisol response by 6 as opposed to 2 months of age) is related to shame and embarrassment, but unrelated to pride. We believe that a high response to stress makes it more likely that children will engage in self-focused attention. Self-focused attention refers to attention directed internally toward one’s feelings and thoughts as opposed to externally toward the environment. Given that negative self-evaluation is stressful, the intense and prolonged self-focused attention following failure brought on by a high response to stress increases the likelihood that children will attribute the negative outcomes internally to the self rather than externally to the situation and, therefore, that they will express shame and/or embarrassment. Consistent with this view, in previous work we found that a high cortisol response from infancy is related to the earlier emergence of visual self-recognition. Self-recognition reflects the capacity for a self meta-representation that makes self-focused attention possible.

There is reason to believe that prenatal exposure to drugs might adversely impact children’s cortisol response to stress. In one study, we examined the effect of prenatal alcohol and cigarette exposure on infants’ cortisol response to inoculation at 2 and 6 months of age. Cortisol response at 2 months was lower for the non-exposed than exposed infants, whereas cortisol response at 6 months did not differ between the exposed and unexposed infants. The 2-month group difference in cortisol response reflected a higher pre-stressor cortisol level in the exposed infants. In a second study, we examined the effect of prenatal cocaine exposure on infants’ cortisol response to inoculation at 2, 6, and 12 months of age. Across age, we found a sex difference in the effects of prenatal cocaine exposure on cortisol response. A high cortisol response to stress associated with prenatal cocaine exposure is present in boys, but not in girls. This finding is consistent with recent results from other prenatal cocaine exposure work at the Institute that boys might be more adversely affected by prenatal cocaine exposure than girls.

Prenatal exposure to HIV or to antiretroviral therapeutic agents such as AZT might affect the integrity of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis. We are studying reactions to the stress of inoculation in infants exposed to HIV and AZT in utero. Our results indicate a high cortisol response to stress in exposed infants which, relative to controls, already is present by 2 months and is maintained through 12 months of age. It is hoped that this research will facilitate our understanding and management of the disease process in infected children, as well as our knowledge of the impact of these exposures on increasing numbers of uninfected children.

• Suri, K., Whedon, M., & Lewis, M. (2023). Perception of audio-visual synchrony in infants at elevated likelihood of developing ASD. European Journal of Pediatrics. Published online February 23, 2023, https://doi.org/10.1007/s00431-023-04871-y

• Lewis, M. (2022). (Emotions Topic Ed.). Encyclopedia on Early Childhood Development. (R.E. Tremblay, M. Boivin, & R.D. Peters, Eds). Published online September 26, 2022. https://www.child-encyclopedia.com/emotions
• Lewis, M. (2022). The self-conscious emotions. In R.E. Tremblay, M. Boivin, & R.D. Peters (Eds), M. Lewis, (Emotions Topic Ed.), Encyclopedia on Early Childhood Development. Published online September 26, 2022. https://www.child-encyclopedia.com/emotions/according-experts/self-conscious-emotions

• Suri, K., Minar, N., Willson, E., Ace, J., & Lewis, M. (2021). Face memory deficits in children and adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder. Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment, 43(1), 108-118. Published online January 5, 2021, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10862-020-09840-5
• Lewis, M., & Minar, N.J. (2021). Self-recognition and emotional knowledge. European Journal of Developmental Psychology. Published online February 25, 2021, https://doi.org/10.1080/17405629.2021.1890578
• Christensen, R.E., & Lewis, M. (2021). The development of disgust and its relationship to adolescent psychosocial functioning. Child Psychiatry & Human Development. Published online June 23, 2021, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10578-021-01208-4
• Karpova, N., Zhang, D., Beckwith, A., Bennett, D., & Lewis, M. (2021). Prenatal drug exposure and executive function in early adolescence. Neurotoxicology and Teratology, 88, 107036. Published online October 11. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ntt.2021.107036

• Bennett, D.S. & Lewis, M. (2020). Does prenatal cocaine exposure predict adolescent substance use? Neurotoxicology and Teratology. Published online June 11, 2020, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ntt.2020.106906
• Park, P.S. & Lewis, M. (2020). On the measurement of self-conscious emotions. Child Psychiatry and Human Development. Published online November 13, 2020, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10578-020-01094-2

• Bennett, D.S., Borczon, E., & Lewis, M. (2019). Does gender nonconforming behavior in early childhood predict adolescents’ depressive symptoms? Sex Roles. Published online February 1, 2019, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-019-1010-4
• Allen, J.W.P. & Lewis, M. (2019). Who peeks: Cognitive, emotional, behavioral, socialization, and child correlates of preschoolers’ resistance to temptation. European Journal of Developmental Psychology. Published online September 12, 2019, https://doi.org/10.1080/17405629.2019.1665014
• Lewis, M. (2019). The self-conscious emotions and the role of shame in psychopathology. In V. LoBue, K. Perez-Edgar, & K. Buss (Eds.), Handbook of Emotional Development (pp. 311-350). Cham, Switzerland: Springer.

• Lewis, M. (2018). From deception to authenticity: The rise of narcissism and the death of etiquette. Research in Human Development, 15, 211-223. Published online September 14, https://doi.org/10.1080/15427609.2018.1502546
• Lewis, M. (2018). Emotions. In M.H. Bornstein, M.E. Arterberry, K.L. Fingerman, & J.E. Lansford (Eds.), The SAGE Encyclopedia of Lifespan Human Development (pp. 735-738). Los Angeles, CA: SAGE Publications. http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781506307633.n275
• ewis, M. (2018). Shame. In M.H. Bornstein, M.E. Arterberry, K.L. Fingerman, & J.E. Lansford (Eds.), The SAGE Encyclopedia of Lifespan Human Development (pp. 1996-1997). Los Angeles, CA: SAGE Publications. http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781506307633.n740
• Barrett, L.F., Lewis, M., & Haviland-Jones, J.M. (Eds.) (2018). Handbook of Emotions, 4 ^th edition (Paperback edition) . New York: Guilford Press.
• Sauce, B., Wass, C., Lewis, M., & Matzel, L.D. (2018). A broader phenotype of persistence emerges from individual differences in response to extinction. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 25, 1943-1951. First published online November 13, 2017 https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-017-1402-9

• Lewis, M. (2017). Selfhood. In B. Hopkins, E. Geangu, & S. Linkenauger (Eds.), Cambridge Encyclopedia of Child Development, 2 ^nd ed . (pp. 487-491). Cambridge, England. Cambridge University Press.
• Kogan,N., Stricker, L.J., Lewis, M., & Brooks-Gunn, J. (2017). Research on developmental psychology. In R. Bennett & M. von Davier (Eds.), Advancing human assessment: The methodological, psychological, and policy contributions of ETS (pp. 453-486) . Cham, Switzerland: Springer Nature/Springer International Publishing.
• Sauce, B., Wass, C., Lewis, M., & Matzel, L.D. (2017). A broader phenotype of persistence emerges from individual differences in response to extinction. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review. Published online November 13, https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-017-1402-9.
• Gold, J. (2017). Michael Lewis. In V. Zeigler-Hill & T.K. Shackelford (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences. New York: Springer. Published online April 12, 2017. DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_2207-1

• Barrett, L.F., Lewis, M., & Haviland-Jones, J.M. (Eds.) (2016). Handbook of Emotions, 4th edition. New York: Guilford Press.
• Lewis, M. (2016). The emergence of human emotions. In L. Feldman Barrett, M. Lewis, & J.M. Haviland-Jones (Eds.), Handbook of emotions, 4 ^th ed. (pp. 272-292). New York:  Guilford Press.
• Lewis, M. (2016). Self-conscious emotions: Embarrassment, pride, shame, and guilt. In L. Feldman Barrett, M. Lewis, & J.M. Haviland-Jones (Eds.), Handbook of emotions,4th ed. (pp. 792-814). New York: Guilford Press.
• Lewis, M. (2016). The development of guilt as repair in childhood.  Emotion Researcher, ISRE’s Sourcebook for Research on Emotion and Affect, Andrea Scarantino (Ed.). http://emotionresearcher.com/the-development-of-guilt-as-repair-in-childhood/, May 29, 2016.
• Lewis, M. (2016). World Views and Reference Bias [Review of the book Great Myths of Child Development, by S. Hupp & J. Jewell (Eds.)] PsychCRITIQUES, 61(22), Article 4, May 30, 2016.
• Lewis, M., Stoicescu, L., Matthews, T., & Seshadri, K. (2016). Self-recognition and self-referential behavior. In F. R. Volkmar (Ed), Encyclopedia of autism spectrum disorders. New York: Springer. Published online: DOI 10.1007/978-1-4614-6435-8_102037-1

• Bennett, D. S., Birnkrant, J.M., Carmody, D. P., & Lewis, M. (2015). Effects of prenatal cocaine exposure on pubertal development. Neurotoxicology and Teratology, 47, 146-153.  http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ntt.2014.11.005
• Lewis, M., Haviland-Jones, J., & Barrett, L. (Eds.)  (2015). Handbook of Emotions, 3 ^rd edition. (Chinese Translation). Beijing: Publishing House of Electronics Industry.
• Lewis, M. (2015). The origins of lying and deception in everyday life. American Scientist, 103, 128-135.
• Lewis, M. (2015). Why we need to study emotional development: A response to the review of The Rise of Consciousness and the Development of Emotional Life.  PsycCRITIQUES, 60(2), Article 8.  http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0038521
• Lewis, M., Sullivan, M. W., & Kim, M.S. (2015). Infant approach and withdrawal in response to a goal blockage; Its antecedent causes and its effect on toddler persistence. Developmental Psychology, 51(11), 1553-1563.. DOI:10.1037/dev0000043 (online September 21, 2015).
• Lewis, M. (2015).  Emotional development and consciousness. In W.F. Overton & P.C.M. Molenaar (Eds.) Handbook of Child Psychology and Developmental Science, 7th Edition (Vol. 1:  Theory & Method) (pp. 407-451).  Hoboken, NJ:  John Wiley & Sons.

• Allen, J.W.P., Bennett, D. S., Carmody, D. P., Wang, Y., & Lewis, M. (2014). Adolescent Risk-Taking as a Function of Prenatal Cocaine Exposure and Biological Sex. Neurotoxicology and Teratology, 41, 65-70 . *PMC3966432
• Berzenski, S.R., Bennett, D.S., Marini, V.A., Sullivan, M.W., & Lewis, M. (2014). The role of parental distress in moderating the influence of child neglect on maladjustment. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 23, 1325-1336. DOI: 10.1007/s10826-013-9791-5. (Online: July 3, 2013).
• Lewis, M. (2014).  The Rise of Consciousness and the Development of Emotional Life. New York: Guilford Press.  (Awarded the 2014 William James Book Award from the American Psychological Association ).
• Lewis, M. & Rudolph, K. (Eds.) (2014). Handbook of Developmental Psychopathology, 3 ^rd Ed . New York. Springer.
• Lewis, M. (2014). Toward the development of the science of developmental psychopathology. In M. Lewis & K. Rudolph (Eds.), Handbook of Developmental Psychopathology, 3 ^rd Ed . (pp. 3-23). New York. Springer.
• Oades-Sese, G. V., Cohen, D., Allen, J., & Lewis, M. (2014). Building resilience in young children the Sesame Street way. In S. Prince-Embury & D. Saklofske (Eds.), Resilience interventions for youth in diverse populations. (pp. 181-201). New York: Springer.
• Oades-Sese, G. V., Matthews, T., & Lewis, M. (2014). Shame and pride and their effects on student achievement.  In R. Pekrun & L. Linnenbrink-Garcia (Eds.), International Handbook of Emotions in Education. (pp. 246-264). New York: Taylor and Francis/Routledge.

• Bennett DS, Marini VA, Berzenski SR, Carmody DP, Lewis M. (2013). Externalizing problems in late childhood as a function of prenatal cocaine exposure and environmental risk.   J Ped Psychol 38, (3),296-308. (Online December 17, 2012). DOI:10.1093/jpepsy/jss117.
• Bennett DS, Mohamed FB, Carmody DP, Malik M, Faro SH, Lewis M. (2013). Prenatal tobacco exposure predicts differential brain function during working memory in early adolescence: a preliminary investigation. Brain Imaging and Behavior, 7(1), 49-59.  (Online: July 21, 2012). DOI:10.1007/s11682-012-9192-1.
• Berzenski, S.R., Bennett, D.S., Marini, V.A., Sullivan, M.W., & Lewis, M. (2013). The role of parental distress in moderating the influence of child neglect on maladjustment. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 23, 1325-1336. DOI: 10.1007/s10826-013-9791-5. (Online: July 3, 2013).
• Sullivan, M.W., Bennett, D.B., & Lewis, M. (2013). Individual differences in the cortisol responses of neglected and comparison children. Child Maltreatment, 18, 8-16.  (Online: July 2, 2012). DOI: 101177/1077559512449378. MedLinx version: http://www.mdlinx.com/nursing/news-article.cfm/435870

• Carmody, D. P., & Lewis, M. (2012). Self representation in children with and without Autism Spectrum Disorders. Child Psychiatry & Human Development. 43, 227-237. DOI: 10.1007/s10578-011-0261-2.
• Lewis, M. & Kestler, L. (Eds.) (2012). Gender Differences in Prenatal Substance Exposure. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
• Sullivan, M. W., & Lewis, M. (2012). Relations of Early Goal-Blockage Response and Gender to Subsequent Tantrum Behavior. Infancy, 17(2), 159-178. DOI: 10.1111/j.1532-7078.2011.00077.x

• Carmody, D. P., & Crossman, A. M. (2011). Artful Liars: Malingering on the Draw-A-Person Task. The Open Criminology Journal, 4, 1-9. [ http://www.benthamscience.com/open/tocrij/]
• Carmody, D. P., Bennett, D. S., & Lewis, M. (2011). The effects of prenatal cocaine exposure and gender on inhibitory control and attention. Neurotoxicology & Teratology, 33, 61-68. [ PMID: 21256425] doi: 10.1016/j.ntt.2010.07.004

• Carmody, D. P., & Lewis, M. (2010). Regional white matter development in children with Autism Spectrum Disorders. Developmental Psychobiology. 52, 755-763. [ PMID: 20564327]
• Gursky, B., Kestler, L. P., & Lewis, M. (2010). Psychosocial Intervention on Procedure-Related Distress in Children Being Treated for Laceration Repair. Journal of Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics, 31(3), 217-222.
• Lewis, M., Takai-Kawakami, K., Kawakami, K., & Sullivan, M. (2010). Cultural differences in emotional responses to success and failure. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 34(1), 53-61.  *PMC201616
• Sullivan, M. W., Carmody, D. P., & Lewis, M. (2010). How neglect and punitiveness influence emotion knowledge. Child Psychiatry and Human Development. 41, 285-298.  DOI:10.107/s10578-009-0168-3 [ PMID: 20099078]
• Thornton, K. E., & Carmody, D. P. (2010). Quantitative electroencephalography in the assessment and rehabilitation of traumatic brain injury. In R. A. Carlstedt (Ed.), Handbook of Integrative Clinical Psychology, Psychiatry, and Behavioral Medicine. New York: Springer, p. 463-508.
• Thornton, K. E., & Carmody, D. P. (2010). Depression, Love, Happiness and the qEEG in a single case study. Biofeedback, Vol 38 (#1), 13-18.

• Bennett, D. S., Mohamed, F., Carmody, D., Bendersky, M., Patel, S., Khorrami, M., Faro, S., & Lewis, M. (2009).Response inhibition among early adolescents prenatally exposed to tobacco: An fMRI study. Neurotoxicology and Teratology, 31, 283-290. * PMCID: 2771740
• Crossman, A. M., Sullivan, M. W., Hitchcock, D. M. & Lewis, M. (2009). When frustration is repeated: Behavioral and emotion responses during extinction over time, Emotion, 9(1), 92-100. * PMC1482732
• Kestler, L., & Lewis, M. (2009). Cortisol response to inoculation in 4-year-old children. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 34, 743-751. *PMCID: 1916767
• Lewis, M. (2009). Is there life after death?   Applied Developmental Science, 13(3), 149-152.
• Thornton, K.E., & Carmody, D. P. (2009). Traumatic brain injury rehabilitation: QEEG biofeedback treatment protocols. Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback, 34(1), 59-68. [ PMID: 19199027].
• Thornton, K. E., & Carmody, D. P. (2009). Eyes-closed and activation databases in predicting cognitive effectiveness and the inefficiency hypothesis. Journal of Neurotherapy, 13, 1-21.

• Bennett, D. S., Bendersky, M., & Lewis, M. (2008). Children’s cognitive ability from 4- to 9-years old as a function of prenatal cocaine exposure, environmental risk, and maternal verbal intelligence.  Developmental Psychology,44(4), 919-928 . *PMC2556289
• Hochhauser, C., Gaur, S., Marone, R.  & Lewis, M. (2008). The impact of environmental risk factors on HIV-associated cognitive decline in children. AIDS Care, 20(6), 692-699.
• Lewis, M. (2008). The Emergence of Human Emotions. In M. Lewis, J. Haviland-Jones, & L. Feldman Barrett (Eds.), Handbook of emotions, 3rd ed. (pp. 304-319). New York:  Guilford Press.
• Lewis, M. (2008).  Self-conscious emotions: Embarrassment, pride, shame, and guilt. In M. Lewis, J. Haviland-Jones, & L. Feldman Barrett (Eds.), Handbook of emotions, 3rd ed. (pp. 742-756). New York: Guilford  Press.
• Lewis, M. & Carmody, D. (2008). Self representation and brain development. Developmental Psychology, 44(5), 1329-1334 .
• Lewis, M., Haviland-Jones, J., & Barrett, L. (2008). Handbook of Emotions, 3rd edition. New York: Guilford Press.
• Sullivan, M. W., Bennett, D.S., Carpenter, K., & Lewis, M. (2008). Emotion knowledge in young neglected children. Child Maltreatment, 13(3), 301-306. PMC20099078
• Thornton, K. E., & Carmody, D. P. (2008). Efficacy of traumatic brain injury rehabilitation: Interventions of QEEG-guided biofeedback, computers, strategies, and medications. Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback, 33 (2), 101-124. [ PMID: 18551365]

• Bennett, D., Bendersky, M., & Lewis, M. (2007). Preadolescent health risk behavior as a function of prenatal cocaine exposure and gender. Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics, 28(6), 467-472.
• Bennett, D. S., Ragland, S., Herres, J., Sullivan M. W., & Lewis, M. The Ability of Parenting Scales to Identify Others with a History of Neglect: A Comparison of Three Measures. (Abstract) Annual Conference of the Eastern Psychological Association March 24, 2007.
• Carmody, D. P., Moreno, R., Mars, A., Seshadri, K., Lambert, G., & Lewis, M. (2007). Brain activation to social words in a sedated child with autism. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 37, 1381-1385.
• Lewis, M. (2007). Early Emotional Development. In A. Slater & M. Lewis (Eds.), Introduction to InfantDevelopment, 2nd ed.  (pp. 216-232). England: Oxford University Press.
• Lewis, M. (2007). Self conscious emotional development. In J. L. Tracy, R. W. Robins, & J. P. Tangney (Eds.), The self-conscious emotions: Theory and research (pp. 134-152). New York: Guilford Press.
•   Lewis, M. (2007). Social Development. In A. Slater & M. Lewis (Eds.), Introduction to Infant Development, 2nd ed. (pp. 233-251). England: Oxford University Press.
• Lewis, M., & Takahashi, K. (Eds.). (2007). Human Development: Special Issue:Beyond the dyad: Conceptualization of social networks. (Japanese Translation).Switzerland: Karger.
• Slater, A., & Lewis, M. (Eds.).(2007). Introduction to infant development, 2nd edition. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.

• Bendersky, M., Bennett, D., & Lewis, M. (2006). Aggression at age five as a function of prenatal exposure to cocaine, gender and environmental risk. Journal of Pediatric Psychology, special issue on prenatal drug exposure, 31(1), 71-84. 
• Bennett, D. S., Mohamed, F. B., Carmody, D. P., Bendersky, M., Patel, S., Martinez, M., Faro, S. H., & Lewis, M. (2006). Behavioral inhibition in children prenatally exposed to tobacco: An fMRI study. (Abstract) NeuroImage, 31, Supplement 1, 550.
• Bennett, D. S., Sullivan, M. W., & Lewis, M. (2006). Relations of parental report and observation of parenting to maltreatment history. Child Maltreatment, 11(1), 63-75.
• Carmody, D. P., Bendersky, M, Dunn, S. M., DeMarco, J. K., Hegyi, T., Hiatt, M., & Lewis, M. (2006). Early risk, attention and brain activation in adolescents born preterm. Child Development, 77(3), 384-394.
• Carmody, D. P., & Lewis, M. (2006). Brain activation when hearing one’s own and others’ names. Brain Research, 1116, 153-158.
  Crossman, A. M., & Lewis, M. (2006). Adults’ ability to detect children’s lying. Behavioral Sciences and the Law, 24: 703-715.
• Dennis, T., Bendersky, M., Ramsay, D., & Lewis, M. (2006). Reactivity and regulation in children prenatally exposed to cocaine. Developmental Psychology, 42(4), 688-697.
• Lewis, M. (2006). Review of Nadel, J. & Muir, D. (Eds.), Emotional Development: Recent Research Advances. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. In Infant and Child Development, 15(4), 443-445.
• Lewis, M. (2006). Universals and cultural influences in emotional life. International Society for the Study of Behavioural Development Newsletter, 1(49), 15-17.
• Lewis, M. & Carmody, D. P. (2006). Self representation and brain development. (Abstract) Program for the Annual Convention of the Association for Psychological Science, 18,220.
• Lewis, M., Ramsay, D. S., & Sullivan, M. W. (2006). The relation of ANS and HPA activation to infant anger and sadness response to goal blockage. Developmental Psychobiology, 48, 397-405.
• Lewis, M. (2005). La rete sociale e le relazioni multiple. In M.L. Genta (Ed.), La socializzazione in età prescolare (pp.17-35). Rome, Italy: Carocci. [Translation: The social network. In M. L. Genta (Ed.), I am, you are: Children’s competence and the discovery of others at 4 years.]
• Lewis, M. (2005). Origins of the self-conscious child. In W. R. Crozier & L. E. Alden (Eds.), The Essential Handbook of Social Anxiety for Clinicians (pp.81-98).West Sussex, England: John Wiley &Sons, Ltd.
• Lewis, M. (2005). Selfhood. In B. Hopkins (Ed.), Cambridge Encyclopedia of Child Development. Cambridge, England. Cambridge University Press.
• Lewis, M., & Sullivan, M. (2005). The development of self-conscious emotions. In A. Elliott & C. Dweck (Eds.), Handbook of Competence and Motivation (pp. 185-201). New York: Guilford Publications, Inc.
• Lewis, M., & Takahashi, K. (2005). Introduction: Beyond the dyad: Conceptualization of social networks. In M. Lewis & K. Takahashi (Eds.), Human Development Special Issue, Beyond the Dyad: Conceptualization of Social Networks (pp. 5-7). Switzerland: Karger.

• Bennett, D. S., Bendersky, M., & Lewis, M. (2005). Antecedents of emotion knowledge: Predictors of individual differences in young children. Cognition and Emotion, 19(3), 375-396.
• Bennett, D. S., Bendersky, M., & Lewis, M. (2005) Does the organization of emotional expression change over time? Facial expressivity from 4 to 12 months. Infancy, 8(2), 167-187.
• Bennett, D. S., Sullivan, M. W., & Lewis, M. (2005). Young children’s adjustment as a function of maltreatment, shame, and anger. Child Maltreatment, 10(4), 311-323.
• Carmody, D. P. (2005). Psychometric characteristics of the Beck Depression Inventory-II with college students of diverse ethnicity. International Journal of Psychiatry in Clinical Practice, 9(1), 22-28.
• Carmody, D. P., & Crossman, A. M. (2005). Youth deception: malingering trauma. Journal of Forensic Psychiatry and Psychology, 16 (3),477-493.
• Hochhauser, C. J., Lewis, M., Kamen, B. A., & Cole, P. D. (2005). Steroid induced alterations of mood and behavior in children during treatment for acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Support Care Cancer, 13, 967-974.
• Lewis, M. (2005). The child and its family: The social network model. Human Development. Special Issue: Beyond the Dyad: Conceptualization of Social Network, 48(1-2), 8-27.
• Lewis, M. (2005). Shared intentions without a self. [Commentary on M. Tomasello, M. Carpenter, J. Call, T. Behne, & H. Moll’s paper, “Understanding and sharing intentions”]. Behavioral and Brain Sciences. 28(5), 707-708.
• Lewis, M., & Ramsay, D. (2005). Infant emotional and cortisol responses to goal blockage. Child Development, 76(2), 518-530.
• Lewis, M., & Haviland-Jones, J. (Eds.).(2005). Psychologia emocji (Polish translation of Handbook of Emotions, 2nd edition). Sopot: Gdanskie Wydawnictwo Psychologiczne.
• Lewis, M., & Takahashi, K. (Eds.). (2005). Human Development: Special Issue:Beyond the dyad: Conceptualization of social networks. Switzerland: Karger.
• Thornton, K. E., & Carmody, D. P. (2005). EEG biofeedback for learning disability and traumatic brain injury. Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Clinics of North America, 14(1), 137-162. [ PMID: 15564056]