Early fine motor ability is significantly associated with later achievement, even after controlling for typical child-level predictors of school outcomes. Previous longitudinal studies have confirmed this but typically have not included low-income, at-risk populations. Research has distinguished two different aspects of fine motor skills: those…

Because math knowledge begins to develop at a young age to varying degrees, it is important to identify foundational cognitive and academic skills that might contribute to its development. The current study focused on two important, but often overlooked skills that recent evidence suggests are important contributors to early math development:…

Compared the recognition, perceptual saliency, and naming of color to that of other perceptual object attributes in 2- to 5-year-olds as a function of language age. Found that although color was perceptually salient relative to other visual attributes, no selective impairment to color cognition was found relative to motion, form, and size.…

The degree of reality perception of cartoon and human-fantasy televised episodes was measured in four- and five-year-olds. Five-year-olds had a more mature reality perception than four-year-olds. Only five-year-olds had a more mature reality perception of cartoon than of human fantasy episodes. (Author/RD)

Two tasks of word identification were proposed to children in their last year of upper preschool classes. The results show that identification is not based on an holistic processing but on an analytic one: some letters are enough, especially the first ones. Moreover, their order does not matter. During this period where reading is visuo-semantic…

Training in perspective-taking skills (the ability to imagine how objects look relative to one another from another person's point of view) resulted in considerable transfer of learning to other tasks and continued subject superiority over controls seven months later, indicating an inter-stage change in cognition. (MJB)

Cortical blindness is defined and its diagnosis is explained. Guidelines and sample activities are presented for use in a cognitive/visual/multi-sensory stimulation program to produce progress in cortically blind infants. The importance of using the eyes from birth through early development in order to form the nerve pathways responsible for…

Investigates the learning abilities of infants, how handicapped children learn, and what types of programs can be used to help handicapped children to learn. (RK)

Explored evidence of perseveration, or the inability to shift from one mental activity to another, in three to seven year olds. In a visual task, perseveration was prominent for three year olds and absent for children over four. On a verbal fluency test, there were different results for three types of perseveration. (BC)

This study examined infants' change in visual information pick-up, from an infant-like stimulus-locked visual scanning pattern to an adult-like cognitive control of visual information pick-up. Subjects were 21 children between 25 and 42 months of age. Eye movements were videotaped in a preferential looking situation and later analyzed as still…

Identifies the cognitive skills necessary for children to accurately comprehend projective size on television. Traces the acquisition of these skills and identifies the role of media experience in facilitating comprehension by assessing the extent to which different types of television fare require the use of different cognitive skills. (MS)

Conclusions derived from drawing research indicate that young children can be trained to see and respond to the distinctions of their observation and that these distinctions can enrich their drawing experiences. These distinctions include spatial information obtained from observation. Three basic factors influence young children's spatial…

The directory includes descriptions of over 130 developmental screening instruments for preschool and elementary aged children. The first section provides background regarding the development and use of screening programs, including the legal and social implications of screening. The second section discusses the criteria (administration,…

THIS STUDY REPORTS THE FIRST PHASE OF A 5-YEAR LONGITUDINAL INVESTIGATION OF THE COMPARATIVE EFFECTIVENESS OF A HIGHLY STRUCTURED PRESCHOOL PROGRAM AND A TRADITIONAL NURSERY SCHOOL PROGRAM IN AMELIORATING THE LEARNING DEFECTS OF CULTURALLY DISADVANTAGED CHILDREN. THE HIGHLY STRUCTURED PROGRAM IS INTENDED TO OVERCOME PARTICULAR WEAKNESSES OF…

The Maplewood-Richmond Heights Pre-School Program designed Preschool Skills Checklists, I and II to evaluate all 3- and 4-year olds, during the first month of school, to determine where to begin teaching each child according to his immediate level of achievement. The teachers informally checked the children on the skill sheets throughout the year…