Latent class analysis (LCA) has been successfully applied to tasks measuring higher cognitive functioning, suggesting the existence of distinct strategies used in such tasks. With LCA it became possible to classify post hoc. This important step forward in modeling and analyzing cognitive strategies is relevant to the overlapping waves model for…

Turkish mothers' self-efficacy beliefs and their interactional behaviors with their children with language delays are described and explored. Participants included 19 mother-child dyads. Mothers' interaction with their children with language delays was videotaped for 30 minutes in a free-play context. Regarding mothers' interactional behaviors,…

Behavioral problems are frequent among post-institutionalized Eastern European adoptees. However, risk factors related to outcomes have not been fully delineated. We evaluated 50 Eastern European adoptees, age 8-10 years, with their adoptive families for more than five years. Cognitive and behavioral outcomes and parenting stress were evaluated in…

Children's acquisition of developmental milestones is examined within the framework of a developmental-interactive system. Piaget's stages of cognitive development are reviewed and developmental aspects of language acquisition including inner language and expressive language are discussed. (JMB)

A former child "prodigy" recounts her experiences at school to suggest that intellectual achievement is not always due to extraordinary analytic reasoning ability and that precocity may be nonrationl. J. Stanley responds by citing others' work on the topic and suggesting the construct may not survive strong scrutiny. (CL)

Discusses when one can infer children's use of a rule, the mechanisms underlying the development of rule use, and the relation between understanding and execution. Contrasts relational complexity theory with cognitive complexity and control theory. (Author/KB)

Reviews two books by L. S. Vygotsky and A. R. Luria: (1) "Studies on the History of Behavior: Ape, Primitive, and Child"; and (2) "Ape, Primitive Man and Child: Essays in the History of Behavior." Both books are based on a book published in 1930 that examined the phylogenetic, historical, and ontogenetic development of human…

Three experiments tested a model identifying object labels as discrete attributes of the object in which the relative weight of the label decreases with children's age. Results indicated that labels contribute to similarity judgment in a quantifiable manner, labels' weight decreased with age, and effects of labels were likely to stem from the…

Current models of psychological development rely heavily on connectionist models that use supervised learning. These models adapt network weights when the network output does not match the target outputs computed by some agent. The authors present a model of motor learning in which the child uses exploration to discover appropriate ways of…

The relationship between written words and their pronunciation varies considerably among different orthographic systems, and these variations have repercussions on learning to read. Children whose languages have deep orthographies must learn to pronounce larger units, such as rhymes, morphemes, or whole words, to achieve the correct pronunciation…

Joe L. Frost is Parker Centennial Professor Emeritus at the University of Texas, Austin, and one of America's leading experts on play and playgrounds. In addition to having taught child development and early childhood education at Texas and several other universities, he has written or edited fifteen university-level textbooks and more than one…

It is paradoxical that many educators and parents still differentiate between a time for learning and a time for play without seeing the vital connection between them. Educators are very serious about education in CES schools. However, in their earnest attempts to engage students in meaningful and thought-provoking work or dialogue, is it possible…

Although the "efficacy" of Intensive Behavioral Intervention (IBI) for young children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) has been well documented in small model programs, IBI's "effectiveness" (i.e., does it work in the "real world"?) has been less studied and may not be as impressive, e.g. Bibby, Eikeseth, Martin,…

Reported here are the results of analyses to describe the patterns of identification and academic and developmental outcomes for children with disabilities, conducted as part of the 2004 National Assessment of the implementation of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). This report provides background context for National…

Using data from the first 2 phases of the NICHD Study of Early Child Care, the authors examine the links between maternal employment in the first 12 months of life and cognitive, social, and emotional outcomes for children at age 3, at age 4.5, and in first grade. Drawing on theory and prior research from developmental psychology as well as…