An auditory technique for studying semantic priming and lexical access, single-word shadowing, was applied in three separate experiments: priming in word pairs; priming in sentence context; and comparison of priming in children aged 7-11 and elderly adults. Results indicate that, because shadowing works across ages and does not require reading, it…

Examined incidence and intensity of separation anxiety at preschool entry. Found that the majority of 3- and 4-year-olds were rated as having relatively low levels of age-appropriate anxiety and fears. Four-year-olds were rated more fearful than 3-year-olds. Prior separation experience, sex, age, and general anxiety were related to separation…

Results from a study of the development of word-decoding skills in 60 8-year-old and 60 10-year-old children are consistent with models suggesting that children become proficient in phonological decoding first, and then shift gradually to a more direct orthographic-decoding strategy. (SLD)

A re-engineering of the educational system is proposed that focuses on mastery and more substantial learning activities and eliminates the constraints to learning that arise from the current insistence on grouping children by age. It is argued that eliminating age-based grouping has advantages that outweigh social disadvantage. (SLD)

Examined the distribution of two Hebrew nominal structures in spoken and written texts of two genres produced by 90 native-speaking participants. Written texts were found to be denser than spoken texts lexically and syntactically as measured by a number of novel N-N compounds and denominal adjectives per clause; in older age groups this difference…

Results from a battery of 17 diverse tests completed by 877 white and 855 black students in grades 3 through 8 support Spearman's hypothesis that the white-black difference in test performance is predominantly a general intelligence ("g") difference rather than a unitary developmental difference affecting all factors in test performance.…

Tested with adolescents and adults two predictions from Markovits and Barrouillet's developmental model of conditional reasoning related to the effects of the association between antecedent and consequent terms and the formulation of the minor premise on uncertainty responses. Found results consistent with hypotheses and indicating importance of…

Presents a study in which children (n=600), ages five to nine, completed Jean Piaget's horizontality task using a square water bottle. Finds a significant sex difference in the pretest performance of the horizontality task beginning with eight year olds. Includes references. (CMK)

Surveyed public school teachers regarding their perceptions of conflict in their schools, noting grade-level differences. Teachers perceived students as being pulled out of school due to student- and family-related factors. Students perceived they were pushed out of school due to school environments. Crucial elements in working with youth were…

In responses of the emerging (n=176, "twenty-something" students) and entrenched (n=49, nurses aged 40-68) nursing work force, the older group cited competence, approachability, and caring as desirable faculty traits; the younger group chose approachability, communication, professionalism, and supportiveness. There were similar…

Three experiments investigated 2- to 6-month-olds' perception of the continuity of an object trajectory that was briefly occluded. Results across experiments provided little evidence of veridical responses to trajectory occlusion in the youngest infants, but by 6 months, perception completion was more robust. Results suggest that perceptual…

Three studies explored whether children's tendency to extend object names on the basis of sameness of shape (shape bias) is specific to naming. Findings indicated that 2- and 3-year-olds showed shape bias both when asked to extend a novel name and when asked to select an object of the same kind as a target object; 3-year-olds also showed shape…

Five studies examined preschoolers' understanding of linguistic form class and pragmatic context in presence of a single exemplar or multiexemplars. Data indicated that by 2 years, children use linguistic form class, and by age 3, use pragmatic context. Young children have begun to understand the distinction between generic and nongeneric noun…

Evaluates age and gender differences in physical self-concept of Turkish university students. The Physical Self-Perception Profile was administered to participants for assessing physical self-concept. Multivariate analysis of variance revealed a significant main effect for gender, but no significant main effect for year in school. Univariate…

Examines the attitudes of educators among four groups of Hebrew-speaking Israeli Haredim Jews towards teaching English at the elementary and the high school levels, examining issues of language policy, and gender and age differentiation. (VWL)