This study was designed to measure adult performance as related to age. Using methodology derived from information theory, information processing ability was measured with the individuals performing as a communication system. Fifty-five school teachers, ranging in age from 20 to 66, served as subjects. In four groups, the subjects judged the sizes…

This document is an English-language abstract (approximately 1,500 words) of a report on an investigation started in 1957 by Martti Takala and Penti Pitkanen at the University of Jyvaskyla, Finland, to examine the connections between physical fitness and other measures of individual difference. The report deals with the structure and development…

SELECTED ASPECTS OF COMPOSITIONS, WRITTEN BY INTERMEDIATE GRADE CHILDREN (FOURTH, FIFTH, AND SIXTH GRADES), WERE STUDIED TO REVEAL GROWTH GRADIENTS OF WRITTEN LANGUAGE BY THE FOLLOWING CHARACTERISTICS (1) SEX, (2) CHRONOLOGICAL AGE, (3) GRADE LEVEL, (4) GEOGRAPHICAL LOCATION, AND (5) RESIDENCE AREA. THE SUBJECTS WERE 14,400 CHILDREN IN FOUR…

The relationship between physically and psychologically stressful experiences and the anxiety and self concept of 33 male and 11 female participants (aged 16-38 years) in a 23-day Colorado Outward Bound (OB) course was analyzed. It was hypothesized that the effects of the OB experience would: be the same for male and female participants; alter…

The Sex Stereotype Measure II (SSM II), a 32-item picture-story technique, was developed to assess children's knowledge of conventional, adult-defined, sex-trait stereotypes. The procedure was based on stereotype characteristics identified by college students using the Adjective Check List item pool. A second procedure, the Sex Attitude Measure…

Three expressive writing tasks from the 1974 national assessment of writing are summarized and discussed in this report. Results indicated that for a majority of students, first-draft expressive writing is unstructured and lacking in coherence. The tendency to integrate feelings and to organize them in coherent expressions develops between the…

This research paper summarizes several experiments in which children's speech volume was compared to the varied background noise against which they spoke. Age was found to be an important factor: 4 1/2-year-olds, as contrasted with 6 1/2-year-olds, failed to adjust their speech to make it audible over noise when talking about complex stimuli.…

Second graders, fifth graders, and college students heard 12 stories that varied systematically by situational domain, outcome, and causal attribution. Students were asked to infer the story character's emotion at the end of the story and give reasons for it. Contributions and limitations of Weiner's attribution-emotion model are assessed in light…

Spanish-speaking children of Mexican descent living in California were tested on the acquisition of 18 Spanish consonants. The 120 subjects (aged 3 to 5:7 years) were equally divided into eight age groups, and the median ages (50%) and upper age limits (90%) of customary production of each consonant were determined. (Author/JDD)

Assessment of ethnic attitudes in 232 English- and French-speaking children aged five to 12 reveals that positive attribution to one's own ethnic group and negative attributions to the other group decrease with age. Cognitive rather than social desirability factors are important in the development of children's ethnic attitudes. (Author/BJV)

When kindergarten, second grade, fourth grade, and college students listened to stories and were asked to predict and explain the story character's behavioral or emotional reaction to a new event, the use of personality attributions to predict and explain future reactions increased with age. (RH)

Proposes a theoretical framework of sibling conflict that includes temperamental characteristics of the siblings, the parent-sibling relationship, and the interaction between these factors. Continuing research validates this framework. (BJV)

Compares the different criteria used to identify poor spellers and readers from good spellers and readers. Findings reveal that visual memory of orthographic sequences may help to differentiate between poor and good spellers. (CB)

Interviews conducted with 36 children demonstrate that boys and girls speak about the goals and concerns of children differently. Girls were more likely than boys to describe children who do the following: (1) seek practical help; (2) are too overcome with emotion to confide in others; and (3) want to be alone to resolve their problems.…

Members of cross-generational networks, which are primarily among kin, are likely to share basic values or to avoid issues that might cause conflict. Mother-daughter bonds are both the strongest through life and the most complex, linking household units into modified extended family networks. Critical conceptual methodological problems abound.…