A child's age, cognitive ability, and exposure to death in the environment have been documented as major factors affecting the formation of a mature death concept. The present study investigated the relationships between these three factors (age, cognitive ability, and death experience) and children's understandings of death, as well as the relationship between mothers' communicative competence and children's understandings of death. Thirty-seven children (ages 48-96 months) completed three cognitive tasks and answered four dichotomous questions about death. Their mothers (N = 37) responded in writing to 16 questions about death that children are likely to ask. Results showed significant relationships between age and understanding, between seriation ability and understanding, and between death experience and understanding. There was no statistically significant relationship between maternal response competence and children's understandings of death. Implications are discussed.

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Much attention has been given to self-disclosure as an important component of parent—adolescent relationships. The authors address gaps in the current literature via a multimethod, multicultural design, interviewing 120 adolescents in Costa Rica, Thailand, and South Africa about their reasons for disclosing to parents, and then constructing items to represent the essence of the interview data and administering these items (along with measures of the parent—adolescent relationship and adolescent characteristics) to 2,100 adolescents in the same cultures. Analyses focus on discerning reasons for disclosure and on identifying profiles of adolescents who are more likely to disclose. Results reveal that adolescents from different cultures generally disclose for similar reasons and in similar patterns and that adolescents who disclose report social competence and, consistent with past research, positive parenting.