What Children and Adolescents Know and Need to Learn about Cancer.

Despite cancer's devastating effects on health and longevity, and the critical role of health habits formed during childhood and adolescence in its prevention, children's knowledge of contributors to cancer is understudied. In this paper, the first developmental analysis of the literature, we outline relevant theoretical perspectives and three early emerging intuitions about illness evident among preschool children-contagion/germ, contamination, and unhealthy lifestyle theories-and then review research on elementary and secondary school students' awareness of risk factors for cancer in light of these early intuitive theories. Our analysis centers on the 16 studies we could locate, done in seven countries, that allowed calculating the percentages of children of different age groups who mentioned various risk factors in response to open-ended questions or endorsed them in response to structured questions.

Characterizing Children's Intuitive Theories of Disease: The Case of Flu.

To advance the study of children's knowledge and understanding of disease, we devised a methodology for assessing key features of intuitive theories laid out by Wellman and Gelman (1998). We then assessed a disease-relevant biological ontology, causal propositions involving unobservables, and coherence in explanations of influenza offered by children aged 8 to 13. Use of disease-relevant terms and mention of propositions in a biological theory of flu causality, although not coherence or connectedness of ideas, increased with age.

Development and Coherence of Beliefs About Disease Causality and Prevention.

Guided by a naïve theories perspective on the development of thinking about disease, this study of 188 children aged 6 to 18 examined knowledge of HIV/AIDS causality and prevention using parallel measures derived from open-ended and structured interviews. Knowledge of both risk factors and prevention rules, as well as conceptual understanding of AIDS causality, increased with age. Younger children displayed more advanced knowledge in response to structured questions than in response to open-ended questions.

Gender differences in preschool children's commentary on self and other.

To examine gender differences in commentary about self and others in same- and mixed-gender contexts, the authors analyzed dyadic conversations involving 78 children in 5 preschool facilities. Compared to girls talking to girls, boy talking to boys made more statements with negative connotations for others and less often pointed out self-other similarities. No gender differences were observed in mixed-gender contexts.

Rich man, poor man: developmental differences in attributions and perceptions.

In an examination guided by cognitive developmental and attribution theory of how explanations of wealth and poverty and perceptions of rich and poor people change with age and are interrelated, 6-, 10-, and 14-year-olds (N=88) were asked for their causal attributions and trait judgments concerning a rich man and a poor man. First graders, like older children, perceived the rich man as more competent than the poor man. However, they had difficulty in explaining wealth and poverty, especially poverty, and their trait perceptions were associated primarily with their attributions of wealth to job status, education, and luck.

Age and ethnic differences in cold weather and contagion theories of colds and flu.

Age and ethnic group differences in cold weather and contagion or germ theories of infectious disease were explored in two studies. A cold weather theory was frequently invoked to explain colds and to a lesser extent flu but became less prominent with age as children gained command of a germ theory of disease. Explanations of how contact with other people causes disease were more causally sophisticated than explanations of how cold weather causes it.

Differences between Black and White elementary school children's orientations toward alcohol and cocaine: a three-study comparison.

To trace the origins of race differences in substance use, this study examined differences between Black and White elementary school children's knowledge of alcohol and cocaine, beliefs about their short- and long-term effects, and attitudes toward and intentions to use them across three independent samples (N = 181, N = 287, N = 234). Black children were more negatively oriented toward alcohol and cocaine than White children from an early age. Most notably, in all samples Black children had less positive attitudes toward adult alcohol use and lower intentions to use alcohol.

Teaching a coherent theory of drug action to elementary school children.

This study examined whether two versions of a drug and alcohol curriculum explaining how substances affect behavior and health, one version more causally coherent than the other, were more effective than a control curriculum on disease in changing school-age children's (N=327) beliefs and attitudes regarding cocaine and alcohol. Few differences were found between the two drug and alcohol curricula. Compared to children receiving the control curriculum, however, both treatment groups demonstrated greater understanding of the circulation of alcohol and cocaine throughout the body, the true long-term effects of these substances, and the stimulant effects of cocaine.

Biological background knowledge and learning from a drug and alcohol education program.

The authors asked whether having a base of relevant biological knowledge put school children in a better position to understand the effects of alcohol and cocaine and to learn about these effects when exposed to a curriculum presenting a physiological theory of drug action. Participants were 337 ethnically diverse 3rd- through 6th-grade students who were pretested, trained, and posttested. Multiple regression analyses revealed that knowledge of the basic functions of the heart, blood, and brain predicted certain drug-knowledge variables.

Age differences in alcohol and cocaine expectancies and attitudes.

Positive and negative expectancies regarding the behavioral effects of alcohol and cocaine were assessed and used to predict attitudes toward their use across four age groups (5-7, 8-10, 11-14, and 18-25, N = 121). Regardless of gender and minority status, children and early adolescents appeared to overgeneralize their beliefs about alcohol to a less familiar drug, cocaine, perceiving the effects of the two drugs similarly. Only college students differentiated between drugs, perceiving cocaine as less likely than alcohol to produce drunkenness and more likely to have stimulant and elation/empowerment effects.