A large linguistic distance exists between spoken Arabic and the Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) the literary language (a diglosia). Novice readers, therefore, struggle with the complex orthography of Arabic as well as the mastering of MSA. Here, we tested whether structured activities in MSA would advance kindergarteners' MSA aptitude by the end of…

This study examines the relationships between school poverty status, family income status, and reasoning ability for the purpose of understanding the role of school poverty on reasoning skills. Cognitive ability scores of students attending mixed-poverty schools were compared to their counterparts attending institutions with low, high, and extreme…

In recent years, models of giftedness have incorporated personal and social variables which influence IQ, rather than taking IQ into account exclusively. Among the various options presented in this context, authors have proposed dynamic assessment techniques as a method for revealing the potential capacity in different groups, independently of the…

This exploratory research studied middle-class mother's primary reason for registering their young children, mean age 6.9 years, in adapted motor and sports programs and their perceptions of their children upon entering the program and upon completion. Analyses also examined the possible relationship between mothers' age, education or children's…

Examines the relationship between smiling behavior and the correctness of responses on a pictorial word-recognition task for 4-and 8-year-old children. (Author/AJ)

The present study was designed to assess the effectiveness of certain cognitive training tasks on children in group settings under natural preschool conditions. Thirty-five children, aged 47-63 months, were divided into six experimental groups and received various cognitive tasks. Results indicated that most children experienced at least moderate…

Examines the nonintentional responses of 141 middle-class first graders to Piagetian-type moral reasoning stories. (CM)

Forty middle-class mothers and their 12-month-old infants participated in an examination of the extent to which infant sociability and home experiences were correlated with cognitive capacity. (JMB)

Compared the attention patterns of 40 toddlers and their mothers with or without dysphoric symptoms in a situation that allowed both common and independent foci of attention. Found that dysphoric mothers appeared to attend to an event in common with their children less frequently than did nondysphoric mothers. (MOK)

The objectives of this study were to determine: (1) whether or not cognitive processes differ between advantaged and disadvantaged groups; (2) the capacity of pupil response to measure cognitive ability as compared to measurements of cognitive processes depending on verbal ability and environment; (3) whether pupil response can predict future…

The author reacts to the impending reauthorization of the Head Start program by questioning evidence of its long-term impact and making several recommendations for reform: (1) Strengthen Head Start school readiness standards; (2) Guarantee civil rights protections for faith-based providers; (3) Encourage state innovation and improvement; and (4)…

To determine whether cognitive level rather than social class differences influence problem solving strategies, children from two SES levels were matched on cognitive abilities (preoperational, transitional and concrete operational) and administered a partial reinforcement task. (BD)