Here is a new approach to kindergarten language arts, developed through a blend of the authors' skills in education and theater. Language enrichment is their goal, action dramatics their technique. Discover how to make your classroom a place where the action is! (Editor/RK)

Points put some of the current needs and problems in the provision of child care services and some of the directions we must move to better meet the needs of young children and their families. (Editor/RK)

This paper outlines a proposal to cover four very early stages for the acquisition of negation systems in natural languages. It emphasizes the formal linguistic devices as the major variables that determine the various language-specific developmental sequences. (CHK)

In response to O'Brien et al., who examined predictors of child outcome among at-risk infants as possible eligibility criteria for early intervention programs, this paper notes that most biological risk factors in infants are not adequately predictive of developmental dysfunction. It stresses that when social problems are the cause of…

Explores the impact of community violence on the development of young children, especially those with developmental disabilities. Characteristics of young children's responses to stress and trauma are reviewed and child, family, and community factors which contribute to resilience are identified. Intervention approaches are suggested. (Author/DB)

Extends the concepts of utilization deficiencies in a review of 30 years of memory-training research. Finds that over half of training conditions showed at least one type of utilization deficiency. Utilization deficiencies were more common for younger than for older children and were more likely when training involved multiple, rather than single,…

Describes the experiences of a group of Head Start professionals as they spread the word about Head Start in South Africa and Zimbabwe. Provides a day-by-day itinerary for the nine-day trip and descriptions of the visits to various schools and learning centers. (MOK)

Argues that sociodramatic play in early childhood education provides children with developmental gains in social, emotional, cognitive, intellectual, language, and creative spheres. Stresses the importance of proper teacher education and practice of classroom sociodramatic play. Summarizes survey of preschool and kindergarten teachers regarding…

Examined the impact of high-quality middle-level teacher preparation programs. Subjects were 2,139 teachers from 5 states. Middle schools with grades six through eight configurations were selected. Results showed that respondents prepared in comprehensive programs, had separate licensure, or who had taken more courses tended to give more favorable…

A one-year follow-up study of children who had lost both parents and were placed in orphanages (n=19) or foster homes (n=18) in Iraqi Kurdistan investigated the orphans' situation and development. The children in orphanages were found to have higher frequency of post-traumatic stress disorder than the foster care children. (Author/CR)

Studied personal context and continuity in the thinking of 23 Swedish students from grade 2 through grade 8 using data from a longitudinal study of conceptualizations of ecological processes. While there was substantial conceptual development, there was also a strong element of personal continuity for these students. (SLD)

This interview study investigated mothers', fathers', and first-born children's ideas about child development among Palestinians in an urban Israeli community. Findings indicated that parents of first-born girls emphasized school-related skills, independence, politeness, and compliance as most important for girls, whereas parents of first-born…

The validity of the Diary of Early Language (Di-EL), a parent report technique, was evaluated with nine children with profound hearing loss using cochlear implants or hearing aids. Lexical data, reported by parents using the Di-EL, agreed with results of the Mac Arthur Communicative Development Inventories and the Rossetti Infant Toddler Language…

The language transcripts of seven children with Down syndrome (DS) and seven typically developing children with comparable mean length of utterance levels were compared for verb argument structure. Findings suggest that syntactic difficulties may delay children with DS in overcoming the optional subject phenomena and the lesser number of anomalous…

Surveyed social agencies' awareness of possible developmental problems of alcohol and substance abusers' children, extent to which agency felt it could deal with the problem involving the family, and development of services for children of substance abusers. Found that many agency workers considered involvement in family problems to be part of…