"Early Childhood Development" celebrates the rich diversity of development among children in all neighborhoods in the United States and around the globe. It examines the physical, social, emotional, linguistic and intellectual characteristics of children from birth through age 8. Within each development domain, it considers the typical…

Educational pioneers believed that the early childhood curriculum was inappropriate for most of the children. It needed to be modified to meet each child's maturing needs, abilities, and interests. The pioneers advocated that education should be more hands-on and assist children to function successfully in society. They recommended the initiation…

Intellectual (cognitive) development, the emergence of increasingly sophisticated forms or levels of understanding, reasoning, and rationality is an ongoing process of reflection, coordination, and social interaction that begins in early childhood and continues, at least in some cases, long into adulthood (Moshman, 2003). In this process, language…

Reports on the results of a two-year longitudinal study of mother-infant dyads (N=23) observed during a free-play session when infants were six and eight months of age. Children were assessed for language and intellectual outcomes during the second and third years of life. This information may help school professionals design effective strategies…

Reviews some of the major cognitive, social, and emotional achievements of young children and discusses some of their limitations. Divides description of development into intellectual, language, social, and emotional development. Notes that this division represents adult categories of thought and does not represent young children's actual modes of…

Discusses children's play in conjunction with intellectual development, language, and social benefits. Suggests that play develops personality, encourages personal relations, stimulates creativity, adds to happiness, and advances learning. Encourages parents and teachers to provide children with richly varied play experiences to promote cognition,…

"More" and "less" were analyzed into two meaning dimensions, "occurence" and "quantity", which were hypothesized to be developmentally related to acts of addition and subtraction. (SBT)

Games through which parents, family day-care centers, and large day-care centers can provide learning opportunities for children are presented. The primary aim of these activities is to encourage intellectual and language development. The sections of the book, which are not arranged by age, are as follows: Sorting and Matching Games, Building an…

In this book Piaget considers the way children learn about the world. He addresses such questions as the following: How does a child learn to perceive the world around him? How, for example, does he learn that by grasping an object, he can pull it towards him, or that a ball of clay, flattened, is no smaller than it was before? How does he learn…

The concepts of front, back, and side may be easily understood in relation to an intrinsically fronted item, but with a nonfronted object they depend on situational or psychological cues. A study investigated a child's awareness of the front, back, and side of his own body and of fronted and nonfronted objects. Researchers hypothesized that a…

Developmental data on 612 home reared, Down's Syndrome children, from birth through 16 years of age, were collected over 20 years from an outpatient clinic for mentally retarded children and were statistically analyzed to ascertain normative times of motor, language and intellectual developmental behaviors. (Author/MC)

Five experiments are carried out to determine the comprehension of passives by children. Results obtained demonstrate that comprehension rests on knowledge of syntactic structure. V - NP were interpreted as verb-object. Passives lacking a preposition were interpreted as actives. Competence in passives may be at a high level before performance is…

In response to increased interest in early childhood programs, this report, prepared by the Pennsylvania Department of Public Instruction, presents the goals of kindergartens and the rationale for their existence. Both supportive and nonsupportive statements on compulsory kindergarten are included. Child development charts describe the physical,…

Children in grades 1-3 were asked to retell and explain a series of riddles. Ability to recall riddles was not predictive of ability to explain them. Three cognitive factors seemed to determine level of riddle competence. Implications concern the relationship of riddle competence to reading ability and metalinguistic facility. (CHK)

Contains 15 articles investigating and discussing issues generated by Piaget's theory of cognitive development. Discusses and examines questions related to object permanence, transitivity, conservation and the concept of necessity as these relate to children. Deals with the origins and causes of development, logical development, social and…