Questions designed to assess children's reactions to the ending of friendships were asked in structured interviews involving 64 children (30 third graders and 34 sixth graders). Subjects, divided almost equally by sex, were mostly white and primarily middle-class. Questions were specifically designed to elicit information regarding (1) why and how…

Research has demonstrated that perceived health, while related to objective determinants of health, is a separate determination of individuals using different information than others. To investigate the relationship of ego development to perceptions of health, 192 subjects (64 college students, 64 adult community residents, and 64 retired older…

Rigidity, as it relates to aging, refers to motor/cognitive, personality/perceptual, and psychomotor functioning. To investigate the relationship of rigidity to intelligence and educational level in younger and older adults, and of rigidity to age and sex, 48 young adults (25 male, 23 female), with a mean age of 23, and 45 older adults (21 male,…

Using a path analysis on simplex pattern models of adolescent drug use, Potvin and Lee (1980) studied the personality and perceived environmental variables associated with drug use. To evaluate the appropriateness of the drug use models derived by Potvin and Lee, a structural modeling methodology using LISREL VI was applied to the data from their…

This three volume report presents findings from an interview study with 103 children and adults regarding their awareness and conceptions of handicapping conditions and from a followup study of preschool handicapped and nonhandicapped students. Volume I details the design and results of the interview study focusing on Ss in five age groups:…

In two separate experiments, children (2nd and 7th graders) and adults generated oral descriptions of the picture stories in the WISC-R picture arrangement task. Comprehension of the stories was assessed by subjects' use of logical connectives and by mention of subtle themes in interpreting the more difficult stories. In both experiments and on…

Three samples (N=474; N=389; N=417) of special education and mainstream teachers were asked to complete the Teacher Stress Survey (TSS). Developed for the study, the TSS consisted of questions on personal and professional characteristics and on perceived teacher stress in terms of six factors: (1) professional distress, (2) discipline and…

The development of linguistic politeness in 7- and 9-year-old Italian children was examined. A total of 80 subjects, 40 males and 40 females, produced requests according to different contexts which were graphically presented. Factors considered for such contexts were: sex of the speaker; sex of the addressee; status of the addressee, either peer…

While research provides many examples of preschoolers' overconfidence and overestimation of performance, there has thus far been relatively little investigation of the source of these qualities. Recent research suggests that even 2- and 3-year-old children possess a "theory of mind," and know that they and other people think, know,…

Two studies investigated the origins of message evaluation skills in preschool children. In the first study, 14 preschoolers and 14 second graders were asked to evaluate the informativeness of pictorial messages in a referential communication task in two sessions. Results showed that the younger children overestimated the informativeness of…

Malcolm Knowles is attributed with developing the most cogent model underlying the assumption that teaching adults should differ from teaching children and adolescents. His andragogical model is based on the premise that adult learning differs from preadult learning. Two studies have examined whether teachers do actually use a different style when…

A study investigated how children report epistemic modality and focused on two main questions: (1) How do children reproduce modal devices that are present in the original (to-be-reported) discourse? and (2) How do children use different linguistic means of quotation--direct, indirect, or other--in this situation? Sixty monolingual French-speaking…

A questionnaire to identify the time to adjust, sources of stress, and importance of services was completed by 241 residents (68 percent), median age 70 years, of a continuing care retirement community (CCRC). The answers to these questions provided valuable information; however, an equally important finding was the variability of responses…

Age, gender, and/or previous experience seem to be related to the performance/learning of new perceptual motor tasks. This study sought to determine the relative interrelationships of age, gender, and the depth of sport experience on initial practice of a complex perceptual motor soccer task for 46 children 4- to 9-years-old who were enrolled in a…

Age differences in intellect as reflected by performance on the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (Revised) (WAIS-R) were evaluated for persons aged 20 to 74 years. Educational attainment levels were held constant. The WAIS-R sample included 1,480 men and women in the following seven age groups--20-24 years (n=250), 25-34 years (n=250), 35-44…