The fact that a mother works has no universally predictable effect on a child, according to recent research. Factors which do matter include: (1) child's age and sex; (2) family's social position; and (3) nature of the mother's work. Improved child care and working conditions are needed. (PP)

Investigated occupational stereotypes of nursery school, kindergarten, third- and sixth-grade children, and the effects of their acquiring the concept of gender stability. Assessed (1) personal aspirations, and (2) ideas about jobs men and women do. (Author/GC)

Sensitivity to differences in lexical stress was studied in monolingual French-, German-, and Swedish-speaking four- and five-year-olds. For most discriminations the older children performed better, but for a trisyllabic discrimination not found in French, the older children performed less well, supporting an attunement theory of language…

The article reviews research regarding the peer relationships of children considered gifted because of IQ or academic rank. Studies are noted with preschool, elementary, and high school gifted populations. (SB)

To investigate the development of preschoolers' social-cognitive play behaviors, ten preschoolers (two, three and four years old) were observed in their classrooms on 15 occasions by a time-sampling schedule. Social-cognitive behavior coding (Parten and Smilansky) indicates that children's play became more social as they grew older. (Author/PN)

Three experiments investigated the conditions under which redundant verbal information would facilitate a listener's performance. Kindergarteners, first graders, and fourth graders were asked to select which of several groups of pictures a message (either redundant or constructive) described. Verbal redundancy was found to facilitate only older…

Twenty preschoolers and 10 student teachers were asked to reconstruct the complete layout of their classroom by using a small-scale model as well as by using life-size furniture in the classroom itself. Children's performances were significantly better in the classroom than they were on the model. (Author/MP)

Investigates the effects of predisposed and distinctiveness-based salience on children's classifications in 96 preschoolers and fifth graders given a classification task designed to reflect a developmental shift from integral to separable perception. (Author/MP)

Compared age differences in search tasks for two groups of children (N=40) and an adult control group (N=20) who completed a similar visual search task, i.e., determining whether a predesignated target character occurred in a character string. The mean search latency decreased with age. Results showed a qualitative difference in processing letters…

Distribution of behavior disturbance in the childhood and postschool years was examined for a five-year birth cohort of mentally retarded young adults. Differences were noted for higher and lower IQ levels, age, and sex. Approximately 60 percent had some behavior disturbance in childhood and young adulthood. (CL)

Memory of incidentally learned material was investigated across three developmental levels in immediate and delay conditions. Incidental learning increased with age with or without specific instructions, suggesting that previously reported divergent developmental trends may not be the result of the type of paradigm. (Author.PN)

Describes in detail use of the British Ability Scales with 83 children aged 8-16 having specific reading difficulties, i.e., dyslexia. Subtests involving speed of precessing and short term memory were poor; tasks involving reasoning and spatial imagery were average or above average. Reading abilities were below expected levels. (Author/JAC)

Examined adult age differences in use of context to study and retrieve information. Young and old adults were presented with a series of homographs (targets). Recognition memory for targets was tested. Recognition decreased in both groups as the retrieval context became more dissimilar to the study context. (Author/JAC)

Evaluated effects of perceived choice upon comprehension and memory of prose reading passages. Compared choice and no choice conditions with young and elderly adults and only elderly groups. Results indicated both age- and vocabulary-related deficits. However, perceived choice conditions did not produce any consistent improvement in performance.…

Younger (age 20-35) veterans showed better performance on learning and psychomotor tasks than did older (age 55-70) veterans. Positive attitudes toward aging, and greater life satisfaction were associated with better performance on the behavioral tasks in the older group. Results suggest age-related behavior may be related to psychosocial…