This article reviews literature and research on otitis media, focusing on definitions; occurrence, including such influences as age, socioeconomic status, genetics, child care situation, feeding techniques, and sex; fluctuating hearing loss; psychological, linguistic, and cognitive development; and developmental deficits in speech, language,…

Mismatch between gesture and speech was used to study cognitive processes that characterize the transition between incorrect, but rule-governed, problem understanding to correct rule-governed understanding among 90 fourth graders in Chicago (Illinois). Data support the idea that the transitional state is characterized by concurrent activation of…

Assessed developments in the theory of mind suggested by changes in the organization of cognitive verb extensions during elementary school years. Found three major changes with development: increased understanding of the role of memory in input functions, increased interrelatedness of memory- and comprehension-related verbs, and increased…

Describes a variety of analytic tools available to address questions about development, including growth-curve methods, hierarchical regressions, and both primary and secondary data analysis of project and extant data. Demonstrates some of these techniques using extant data from two projects to examine questions about treatment efficacy and…

Examined rhyming ability of 67 children, ages 3 to 6, who had experienced at least average language stimulation. Found that 4 years 2 months was pivotal age; 17% younger and 76% of children this age and older able to rhyme. Devised suggestions for rhyming books and a sequence of rhyming activities to develop and refine rhyming skill. (KB)

Analysis of data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth shows that long-term poverty has substantial influences on both cognitive ability and achievement, but time patterns differ. Childhood is a much more crucial period than adolescence for development of cognitive ability, but adolescent achievement is influenced more by adolescent…

Distinguished experimentally between the learner's use of independent grapheme-phoneme correspondences and determined whether in the initial year of reading instruction sublexical relations can be formed. Results could not be given alternative explanations by the developmental bypass hypothesis nor by accounts which predict exclusive use of onset…

Investigated suppression of activation and retrieval paths to information stored in long-term memory. Subjects were 94 children in grades 1, 3, and 5. Found that the ability to intentionally inhibit the maintenance and recall of irrelevant information improves over the elementary years, and children are less able than adults to withhold production…

Offers a typology of emergent literacy skills, reviews research relating emergent literacy to reading, and reviews evidence linking emergent literacy environments and development of emergent literacy skills. Proposes that emergent literacy consists of inside-out skills and outside-in skills that are influential at different times during reading…

Examines the traditional place of play in contemporary early childhood programs in light of new directions in theory and curriculum, the push for educational outcomes, and perceived pressures of the global market economy. Maintains that a new focus on teaching through play may provide a way to reconcile demand for outcomes with a concern for…

Three experiments explored 5- and 7-month-olds' intermodal coordination of proprioceptive information produced by leg movements and visual movement information specifying these same motions. Results suggested that coordination of visual and proprioceptive inputs is constrained by infants' information processing of the displays and have…

Argues that the operating characteristics of perceiving and remembering provide a foundation for progress on detailing the processes through which knowledge is realized in real-time tasks and in detailing the processes of developmental change. Includes three examples to illustrate how forming developmental hypotheses in terms of perceiving and…

Responds to Needham and Baillargeon's criticisms and offers an alternative resolution of the conflicting results between the laboratories regarding abilities of infants less than 12 months to use property/featural information for object individuation. Maintains that kind concepts are acquired as infants approach their first birthday and that…

Fatherchild and motherchild engagements were examined longitudinally in relation to children's language and cognitive development at 24 and 36 months. The study involved a raciallyethnically diverse sample of low-income, resident fathers (and their partners) from the National Early Head Start evaluation study (n290). Fatherchild and motherchild…

The article considers nursery rhymes as the foundation for learning. It is said that nursery rhymes carry all the parts of language that lead to speaking and reading. Because rhymes are short, they are easy for children to repeat, and become some of the first sentences children utter. The rhymes expand vocabulary, exposing children to words they…