This qualitative study examined whether and how preschoolers' social interactions during buddy "reading" supported their use and learning of theme-related vocabulary. Data included 32 transcribed videos of 14 preschoolers engaged in buddy "reading." Interaction analysis and constant comparative methods were applied to identify (1) patterns of…

This study, involving 40 young siblings of either handicapped or nonhandicapped children, found that siblings of handicapped children engaged in more parallel and social play and were more nurturing with their siblings than were control children. Mothers were more likely to deliver commands, directives, and reprimands to siblings of handicapped…

Thirty-three deaf and 33 hearing children were videotaped playing with their hearing mothers at 22 months and 3 years of age. The deaf and hearing dyads differed at 22 months only on communicative competence. In addition, interactions in deaf dyads were mother dominated and less harmonious than in hearing dyads. At 3 years, the deaf children also…

A study was conducted to compare teaching and control patterns used by mothers of 4- to 6-year-old trainable mentally retarded (TMR) children to patterns used by mothers of nonretarded children, and to evaluate an analysis strategy identifying sequential behavior chains from observational data. Literature was explored on three topics: cognitive…

To determine whether maternal involvement reflects her expectations about her child's ability to solve the tasks at hand, a group of 32 boys and their mothers were studied. Sixteen of the boys were classed as reflective and 16 were classed impulsive on the Matching Familiar Figures Test. The boys were matched on age (8 years 9 months and 8 years 6…

This study addresses itself to the development of a valid method for identifying a high-risk group of preschool children. The design used is longitudinal and attempts to relate early child and parent behavior patterns to various outcome measures as the child grows older. This paper reports the behavior patterns of a group of two-year-olds and how…

This position paper surveys recent study results on the variable effects of both socioeconomic status and parent-child relationships on the development of competence in young children. Research results imply that certain ways that parents interact with their children are more effective than others in aiding the development of a child's social,…