Presents theory and research to help preschool teachers understand literacy-enriched play centers, in terms of their purposes and outcomes. Describe a pilot project using play centers in a preschool classroom and provides guidelines for planning and using such a center. (ET)

Evaluated hypotheses examining the role of family characteristics prior to child-care placement in determining child-care use and later child adjustment with a sample of 189 infants and toddlers and their parents. Results provided preliminary support for the hypothesis that parent and child psychological, social, and health characteristics may…

Home interviews conducted with 102 families of children with developmental delays assessed ecocultural family resources, values, goals, and proactive adaptive efforts. Factor analyses on the ecocultural measures revealed 12 salient factors. Some factors were unique and statistically independent of traditional home environment measures. Significant…

Examination of the profiles and developmental trajectories of adaptive behavior of 80 children with Down's syndrome indicated a significant weakness in communication skills (especially expressive language), relative to daily living and socialization skills. Children ages 1-6 showed significant age-related gains in adaptive functioning, but older…

Discussion of children in single-parent families focuses on contributions fathers make to children's development; proposes a model for viewing fathers' roles in literacy; and suggests programs for libraries and schools to involve fathers and compensate for fathers' absences, including a bibliography of children's literature with positive male role…

Discusses costume play as a means for children to safely become other beings, cultivate their own style, experience culture, experiment with new materials, and escape their anxieties. Notes characters from children's literature who used or wanted costumes, and provides a creative activities sampler. (AEF)

Presents a two-tiered approach to classifying the acts and conditions of caregiving, based on the conception of caregiving as a regulator of human behavior and development. The first tier deals with the structural and functional aspects of caregiving inputs, and the second tier deals with the dynamic aspects of caregiving inputs. (TJQ)

Critiques the new taxonomy to describe proximal aspects of the caregiving environment proposed by Bradley and Caldwell in this issue (PS 523 016). Offers three concerns, but also concludes that the system integrates existing research on the caregiving environment and advances understanding of environmental theory from the objective, if not from…

This article examines contextual issues relevant to the application of developmentally appropriate practices to young children with special needs. Appropriate practices recognized by the National Association for the Education of Young Children are compared with those published by the Division for Early Childhood of the Council for Exceptional…

Research investigating the role of computers in the primary classroom is closely linked to the body of knowledge concerned with theories of learning and child development. Presents research as an attempt to provide scientifically supportable reasons why computers are effective in education and examines the educational application of cognitive…

Introduces Developmentally Appropriate Practice (DAP) and explains how those practices are effective with five- through eight-year olds. Key elements discussed are: children learn by doing through active engagement, the idea of play with intent and purpose, and moving from the simple to the complex in planning for learning in active and engaging…

Evaluates a project designed to provide information support to low-income, low-education, first-time fathers. Significant differences were found between fathers who were provided appropriate child-rearing information and those who were not. Following their babies' birth, fathers in the intervention group more accurately pinpointed the age at which…

Today's emphasis in health education is on prevention of serious illness through lifestyles that promote wholeness. The article reviews stages in child development and gives health educators ideas for class activities in the area of self-esteem, exploring development of self-worth, belonging, competency, and power. (SM)

Rasch calibration procedures were applied to item-response data for the 1,262 infants and toddlers comprising the standardization sample for the Mental Scale of the Bayley Scales of Infant Development. Analyses tend to confirm the psychometric integrity of the instrument. (Author)

Assessed 215 children's relatedness to their teachers. Children were 7 to 13 years old, and 115 of them had received social services related to maltreatment. Five patterns of relatedness to teachers were identified. Maltreated children were less likely than nonmaltreated children to display optimal patterns of relatedness to teachers. (BC)