Examined the relation between a history of maltreatment and cognitive control functioning in two groups of preschool and early school-age maltreated and nonmaltreated children. Administered several measures of cognitive control functioning to each child in situations that did or did not arouse aggressive fantasies and affects. Maltreated and nonmaltreated children showed differences in the developmental status of cognitive control functioning when cognitive controls were assessed in a relatively neutral, nonaggressive context, with maltreated children showing developmentally impaired cognitive control functioning on a number of tasks. Maltreated children also differed significantly from nonmaltreated children in terms of shifts observed in cognitive control functioning when coordinating aggressive compared with nonaggressive stimuli with associated fantasies and affects. Discussed findings with regard to maltreated children's regulation of emotion, their aggressive impulses, and their internal working models of relationships.

Inpatient children (6 to 15 years) were assigned to high-aggression (N = 70) or low-aggression (N = 90) groups on the basis of their performance with an action test of aggression. These groups (along with age and sex variables) were compared with two tests of the leveling/sharpening cognitive control-one presenting nonaggressive stimuli and the other, stimuli that aroused aggressive fantasies/affects. The high-aggression children showed more cognitive sharpening when managing aggressive stimuli and more leveling with nonaggressive stimuli. A significant interaction with sex was also observed. The findings were interpreted as supporting the concept of cognitive-affective balance (i.e., the unique manner in which personalities coordinate and meet both the requirements of external stimuli/tasks and those of fantasies/affects). The results are discussed in terms of aggression as a personality characteristic and whether or not psychosexual identity and sex are syntonic. The concept of cognitive-affective balance is related to other models addressing the relationship between cognition and personality/emotions.

Guided by the hypothesis that imagining actions is a way of rehearsing actions in the service of effective adaptations to reality, various characteristics of imagined motion, assessed by the Rorschach Test, were compared in hospitalized suicidal and nonsuicidal preadolescents and adolescents, and in public school children. A number of differences were found for example, suicidal children imagined less vigorous motion than distinguished suicidal and nonsuicidal children and preadolescent and adolescent suicidal children. Further, the scale devised to assess imagined motion successfully predicted about 75 percent of the suicidal children. Implications for diagnosis and treatment of suicidal children are discussed.

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