2022, Vol.35, No.2

THE KOREAN JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY 2023 KCI Impact Factor : 1.67

pISSN : 1229-0718 / eISSN : 2671-6542
https://journal.kci.go.kr/baldal

Although it is well established that childhood trauma presents a risk factor for borderline personality disorder in later life, its specific mechanism has been relatively underexplored. Therefore, this study aimed to examine the association between childhood trauma and borderline personality traits, focusing on the mediating roles of early attachment and adult attachment. A total of 233 college students (100 men, 133 women) participated in the study and completed self-report questionnaires assessing childhood trauma, early attachment, adult attachment, and borderline personality traits. Results indicated that early attachment and adult attachment sequentially mediate the relationship between childhood trauma and borderline personality traits among college students. These findings support the role of attachment in the development of borderline personality traits and related problems.

Number sense refers to the ability to read numbers and understand numerical magnitudes and their relations, and is a foundational skill for math learning. This study examined 1st (n=47) and 2nd (n=34) graders’ number sense acuity and their mental representation and problem-solving strategies using a numberline estimation (NLE) task. First graders completed the 0-100 NLE task and 2nd graders completed both the 0-100 and 0-1000 NLE tasks. Results showed that 2nd graders are more precise when representing numbers on the numberline than 1st graders. Additionally, 2nd graders applied more benchmark-based strategies (e.g., midpoint) in the NLE task than 1st graders. Finally, a linear model was found to be more suited for depicting the patterns of 1st and 2nd graders’ numerical estimates in the 0-100 and 0-1000 NLE tasks than a logarithmic one. Taken together, these findings suggest that as students grow older, their number sense and problem-solving strategies tend to be increasingly articulate and that the linearity of their mental representation becomes more obvious. Moreover, the high precision and linearity of numerical estimates in the current study can be interpreted as reflecting a positive influence of the transparency of the base-ten number structure in the Korean language.

In this study, kindergarteners and first-to-third graders were assessed in Korean literacy (word reading, word reading fluency, spelling, and reading comprehension) and cognitive skills (phonological, orthographic, and morphological awareness, as well as naming speed, left-right reversal, and vocabulary). This study aimed to compare the literacy skills between poor readers and all children in each grade, as well as to determine the rate of cognitive deficits that appear in poor readers. We found that the average score of poor readers was more than a year below that of all children on all literacy tests. In particular, the proportion of children who could not read CV and CVC Gulja (written syllable) in the test immediately prior to entering elementary school was 48% and 95%, respectively, in the poor readers, whereas it was 7% and 24%, respectively, in all children, demonstrating a significant difference between the two groups. More than 30% of poor readers in the second and third grades had deficits in all types of cognitive skills except left-right reversal. The findings of this study suggest that it is necessary to identify and intensively train children who have not mastered how to read CV and CVC Gulja in the early first grade.