Explored the simultaneous sequential transition patterns of preschoolers' social play within classroom settings. Found that the proportion of social-play states did not vary during play episodes even when accounting for type of activity center, gender, and SES. Found a reciprocal relationship between parallel-aware and other social-play states…

Two studies examined the influences of concordant and nonconcordant attachment relationships to mothers and to child caregivers on children's behavior in child care. In both studies, the child's level of competence in play with the caregiver and engagement with peers was a function of attachment security with both mother and caregiver. (NH)

Compared free-play social behaviors of preschoolers with special needs in two inclusive preschool programs with those of typically-developing classmates, matched by age and sex. Found that children with no/little productive language spent more time in solitary pursuits than others and seldom initiated interactions. Children who were incapable of…

A microanalytic description of teachers' interactions with children suggests that the sociomoral atmospheres of three types of classrooms differ considerably. Children in the direct-instruction classroom experience an almost totally unilateral relationship with the teacher; in the constructivist classroom, there is more reciprocity and intimacy;…

Traces the effects on young people through age 15 of three well-implemented preschool curriculum models--the High/Scope model, the Distar model, and a model in the nursery school tradition. (HOD)

Differences in social behavior of middle-class kindergartners with and without previous day care experience were compared through classroom observations and teacher ratings during the second semester of kindergarten. (BB)

Concluded that type of child care given 140 preschoolers (center-based, family day care, or in child's own home) had no apparent impact on children's sociability or personality maturity, as measured 24 months after the study began. However, the quality of care, family social support, and child gender helped predict personality maturity and social…

Results of a study on the relationship between children's sociomoral development and the sociomoral atmospheres of three types of kindergarten classrooms suggest the possibility that heavily academic, teacher-centered programs hinder children's development of interpersonal understanding and their broader social-cognitive and moral development. (LB)