Analyzes why mothers make metacognitive decisions affecting how they scaffold books for children, interviewing them while they watched a videotape of booksharing events with children. Indicates that mothers, regardless of children's ages, made specific strategic metacognitive decisions about how text was best shared with their children. Concludes…

Comparison of the home environments provided by 38 low-income mothers with IQs less than 75 and 27 low-income mothers with IQs over 85 found significant differences, indicating greater developmental risk for children of low IQ mothers resulting from environmental deprivation. Most of the variance was in the area of interaction. (Author/DB)

Reviews the findings of the eight studies in this special section on children and ethnic/political violence, focusing on the contributions and limitations of research in this area and suggestions for future research. (MDM)

Describes an early childhood educator's experience in using the Orff-Schulwerk approach in a preschool environment. Discusses the combination of whole language and Orff-Schulwerk approaches. Provides information on how to build a repertoire of music and words and create the reading/writing connection. Provides a list of sources for Orff-Schulwerk…

Discusses Maria Montessori's view of the elementary child's educational needs. Maintains that older children need opportunities to use their reasoning abilities to come to a state of peace, stability, and security at the second plane of development. Discusses the teacher's role in cosmic education to incite curiosity and to teach responsibility.…

Presents conceptual analysis of U.S. and Japanese early education discourse, contrasting cultural assumptions and views of self that inform each context. Finds Japan holds progressive, child-centered but not developmentalist views that promote self in terms of cultural values; the United States emphasizes the individual child defined by…

Reviews research that supports the value of music education, focusing on topics such as young children listening to music, the child as actor in relation to music, brain research, and being exposed to music education. Addresses how the research affects educational decision-making and provides some facts and statistics. (CMK)

Provides a rationale for the participation of children in development for school health. Addresses why participation should be promoted and how children can participate. Explores ways to assess children's participation by presenting case studies from Nepal, Zambia, and Botswana. Offers strategies for developing children's participation and for…

This study developed and evaluated a model of good practice linking diagnosis and intervention in young children with autism. Ten toddlers with autism underwent an intervention involving home visits, modeling, workshops and written information with parents as 'therapists' in naturally occurring situations. Within 18 months all children made…

A longitudinal study of 94 low-socioeconomic-status rural Appalachian and 67 middle-class Pennsylvania mothers with infants found that, contrary to expectations, low-SES rural mothers were comparable to middle-class mothers on maternal self-efficacy, significantly higher on responsive attitude to infant crying, and comparable or better on…

Cultural safety has its current origins among the Maori peoples of New Zealand. The reader is encouraged to consider how rituals of encounter that promote cultural safety might enhance the cultural competence of workers and improve the quality of services offered in a variety of settings. (Author)

Uses a sociometric analysis to explore the differential organization of boys' and girls' peer groups. Finds that boys structure their peer groups by creating a large central cluster composed of smaller integrated clusters, whereas girls form small clusters unrelated to one another. Nevertheless, girls are aware of and sensitive to the status of…

The theory that children's development of strategies-of-science experimentation is a consequence of developments in theory of mind was examined with 72 children in grades one, three, and five. Ability to predict, explain, and affect the reasoning of a doll or cartoon character predicted performance in planning controlled experiments and in…

Suggests that the study of memory needs to be situated within broader conceptual and research contexts. Examines how four contexts accommodate memory phenomena: (1) knowledge; (2) comprehension; (3) context/function; and (4) strategy. Suggests that memories are best examined as knowledge structures resulting from efforts to understand, and that…

Juxtaposes research on school-age programs with studies of self-care and out-of-school activities, discussing what each type of after-care arrangement involves and how prevalent it is. Reviews research on how the arrangements contribute to children's development and examines program features especially related to outcomes for children. (SLD)