"Making Assessment Work: Ten Practitioner Beliefs" was developed by the National Practitioner Advisory Group on Using Data to Inspire SEL Practice (NPAG), a group of social and emotional learning (SEL) practice leaders convened to provide insights on SEL. Educators, program leaders, and policymakers recognize the value of holistically…

Discusses differences between authors' view of conversation and Ervin-Tripp's (included in this issue) on the similarities between adult and child conversation, planfulness in achieving topic coherence, the generalization of research results to other groups, and the socialization of conversational behavior. Also presents evidence supporting their…

This study assessed social perspective taking in 57 children classified as educable mentally retarded divided into 3 age groups from 8-16 years. Significant differences in social perspective taking were obtained between the three groups in understanding individuals and between the older and two younger groups in understanding friendship.…

Recent American research has explored developmental trends in gender segregation of children's peer groups. However, it is important to differentiate systematic trends in children from systematic changes in their environments. This report, based on data gathered from 1972 to 1975, presents evidence on gender segregation in Kipsigis children's peer…

Children ranging from fifth to twelfth grade, and their parents, were presented with items pertaining to family transgressions and asked to judge the legitimacy of parental jurisdiction, justify its wrongness or permissibility, and assess its contingency on parental authority. (PCB)

Examines the extent to which the changes in friendship during a school year influence children's impressions of their friendships and their preference for sharing over competition with friends. Also studied the differences between friendships in middle childhood and early adolescence, using multiple methods and measures. (HOD)

Systematic observations of affiliative interaction in 15 stable peer groups were conducted across three years in an urban day care center. Groups contained 193 French-speaking children ranging in age from one to six years. (Author/RH)

Examines the quality of conversation produced by small groups of subjects in fifth, ninth, and twelfth grades and the last year of college. Results supported Piaget's sequence of conversational development. However, topical coherence apparently is not fostered by focused turns but emerges as a generalization of the normative constraints applying…

Criticizes Dorval and Eckerman (included in this issue) for their findings' lack of generality due to the artificial nature of the conversational groups studied. Also both age changes in the ability to plan large conversational units and the functions of particular kinds of turns within these larger units are left unexplored. (CB)

Type and quality of nonfamilial child care were found to have no significant effect on peer social skills, sociability with strange adults, and child personality. The major determinants of personality maturity were background variables. Prior social skills and age were the best predictors of peer social skills. (PCB)

Previous research on friendship selection has failed to focus on how the selection process changes with age or in differently organized environments. This review of the literature takes a life-course perspective on the selection of friends, charting research results on three aspects of the selection process: (1) the number of friends and their…

Examines cognitive processing and semantic influences on the developmental patterning of everyday social explanation in a cross-cultural investigation undertaken among American and Hindu adults and children (ages 8, 11, and 15). (HOD)

Explores the underlying knowledge that children have about the relationship between the structure of requests and the relative status of speakers and listeners. Shows that the three age groups (preschoolers, 5-year-olds, and 10-year-olds) could systematically differentiate the requests by means of syntactic directness or semantics. (HOD)

Investigates the influence of infant-mother attachment patterns on the development of peer interaction between the toddler and preschool periods. Notes that, in an initial encounter with an unfamiliar peer, attachment patterns appear to be related more to the child's attractiveness as an interactive partner than to the child's own active interest…

Examination of developmental scores of 198 infants and young children with Down's Syndrome attending exemplary early intervention programs found more similarity to other children in Personal Social and Adaptive Domains and less similarity in Communication and Cognitive Domains of the Battelle Developmental Inventory. These differences were…