Infants 6 1/2 months of age were first trained to discriminate a very salient speech contrast and subsequently were tested for their recognition of the contrast when it was embedded within redundant or mixed "context" syllables. Also assessed was the effect on recognition of positioning the target syllable differently within a…

Metaphors were embedded at Reaction or Outcome positions in a story grammar structural form. Recall of metaphors and literal statements with comparable meanings was equal among seven-, nine-, and 11-year-olds. Recall was better if statements were in the Outcome position, but metaphors were comprehended equally well in both positions and had no…

The sustained altruism of volunteers at a telephone crisis-counseling agency was examined. The rate of sustained altruism of normative volunteers in highly cohesive training groups was increased to a level comparable to that of autonomous volunteers, while the altruism of autonomous volunteers was not affected by the training group experience.…

Videotape recordings were made of the kick and step movements of six infants seven months of age, while they were in supine and upright positions on a stationary and moving treadmill. When placed on a moving treadmill, infants performed alternating stepping movements with many characteristics of mature walking. Implications are discussed. (RH)

Significant relationships were found between linguistic maturity of children, speech of parents, and children's helping behavior. Mean length of utterance was a better predictor of cooperative behavior than child age; no comparable relationships were found for parents' nonverbal behaviors. Results support a hypothesis of verbal mediation of…

Investigates strategies of 10-year-olds and 14-year-olds in tasks requiring prospective memory. Subjects were instructed to perform activities after waiting 30 minutes. As predicted, strategic time-monitoring occurred more frequently in the home than in the laboratory. Emphasizes the power of the laboratory as a contrasting context for…

A total of 97 children three to seven years of age were identified as high-, medium-, or low-exploratory and participated in both independent sessions and 1 of 2 types of supportive sessions with an adult. Support consisted of either close attention by the adult to the child's exploration or modeling and direction by the adult. (Author/RH)

Proposes that young children employ two ordered, nonverbal classification strategies to interpret vague referential instructions: first, they rely on context; then, if the first strategy fails, they guess. If the guess goes uncorrected, they conclude that it was correct. Two studies provide evidence supporting children's use of the hypothesized…

Three studies investigated: the effect of parent involvement on the exploratory behaviors of children rated as high-, moderate-, or low-explorers; whether maternal presence increased the exploration of low-exploratory children, decreased the exploration of high-exploratory children, or both; and whether maternal presence or mother/child…

Two experiments investigated young children's ability to use the spatial context in which objects are encountered to aid later recall of the objects themselves. Results indicated that, at least in meaningful situations, the ability to use the spatial context of items to facilitate item recall is present from a very early age. (Author/RH)

Third- and fifth-graders, like adults, quickly named words preceded by either an incongruous or a normal incomplete sentence. Results (1) support the assumption that context effects on children's word recognition are caused by spreading-activation and expectancy-based-attentional processes operating simultaneously and (2) indicate that word…

Assesses the effect of same and different recognition experience intervening between acquisition and retrieval on cued recall for episodic information. Second and fourth graders and college adults were shown cue-target word pairs at acquisition and the cues alone at retrieval. In general, results showed that same experience facilitated memory for…

Study One examined Swedish and American children's understanding of what constitutes fair criteria for the distribution of goods (i.e., distributive justice). Study Two compared children's distributive justice in family and peer contexts, and Study Three attempted a longitudinal assessment of distributive justice reasoning in two different…