Current interest and controversy about the use of microcomputers with young children led to a study of 13 3- to 5-year-old girls and boys enrolled at the De Anza College Child Development Center in Cupertino, California. Designed to determine the effectiveness of the computer in enhancing language experiences and development of cooperative play…

An alternative to the standard "rule based" account of a child's acquisition of the past tense in English is presented in this paper. While the rule based assumption suggests that children typically pass through a three-phase acquisition process in which they first learn past tense by rote, then learn the past tense rule and overregularize, and…

Proceedings of the 1984 Music in Early Childhood Conference held at Brigham Young University are presented in this document. Part I contains keynote addresses; Parts II through IV, respectively, consist of reports by research teams, synopses of workshops, and abstracts of research sessions. Keynote speakers addressed a broad scope of issues…

Questions of how and why early childhood education has come to rely on a psychological perspective are examined and problematic aspects of the discourse of early childhood education are explored. An overview of the history of early education discusses the replacement of idealistic by pragmatic perspectives, the influence of Darwin's use of the…

These five booklets, containing information on how parenting can effect children's school achievement, are part of a series of 22 innovative booklets designed specifically to help parents understand and help their children learn. Booklet #1, "Parents--Teach Your Children to Learn [Before They Go to School]," defines intelligence and…

Considerable attention has been paid to the question of whether altruism increases with age through the years of childhood and early adolescence. The relationship between age and helping was examined for 128 boys and 128 girls in the first experiment. A second sample of an additional 256 participants was then studied to investigate factors which…

This paper considers the psychological aspects of children's drawings. The utility of the Draw a Person Test (DAPT) for different types of pscyhological research is discussed, and the non-intellectual and cultural factors of the DAPT are described. Suggestions on the administration, scoring, and interpretation of drawings are given. The next two…

The old saying, that a single spark can start a prairie fire, appears in many forms and in different cultures carrying a range of shifting implications and meanings. In this article, William Ayers writes that in some instances, prairie fires are not always catastrophic. They are naturally occurring events necessary and renewing; removing the thick…

A survey of the yearbooks published by the National Society for the Study of Education (NSSE) in the twentieth century indicates that philosophers of education changed the direction of their work. In the nineteenth century, educators turned to philosophers for answers to questions about the aim of education. As the twentieth century advanced,…

A high school course in early childhood growth and development is described. It is offered as part of an exploratory career program and is scheduled for a full school year for three hours a day. Students acquire entry level skills in a laboratory nursery school. (AJ)

The purpose of this article is to demonstrate that important aspects of aesthetic education are neither technical nor abstruse, and that elementary school teachers particularly can develop in children an openness to aesthetic experience. (Author)

The Learning Problem Indication Index an instrument intended to help identify the preschool child with potential learning problems, was evaluated with 432 children (ages 4 to 19 years) from varying backgrounds referred to the Pupil Appraisal Center at North Texas State University. (DB)

Using children's books about death as examples, suggests that perhaps we push children too quickly through the developmental tasks of childhood and that more research into the maturation process is needed before we succumb completely to "reality" teaching. (TO)

Based on the assumption that the content and symbolism of nursery rhymes reflect the particular needs of those who respond to them, this paper analyzes Mother Goose rhymes in relation to the psychological stages of child development. Each basic need of the child, as defined in Bruno Bettelheim's "The Uses of Enchantment," is applied to…

This student manual, developed and field tested within a State school for deaf students, was written to help teenagers prepare for the role of parent. The need to talk to the child, or to get others to talk to the child, is stressed. Ten major units, each containing from two to eleven lessons, are presented. Each lesson plan includes a title,…