Trained 20 elderly and 20 adolescent volunteer counselors in empathic listening, and gave 20 volunteers information regarding the aging process. Counselors and nursing home residents met twice a week for five weeks. Nursing home residents who received a volunteer counselor improved significantly in level of depression, but neither mode of training…

Examines the distinction between moral and conventional norms between 60 boys and girls in the first and fourth grades in Israel. Results are interpreted in terms of two distinct orientations to social norms: one where the criteria for social judgment of behaviors are consequences to others and law; the other where norms have absolute validity.…

Psychometric intelligence and adaptive competence constructs were compared in five- to seven-year-old children in a rural Phillippine barrio. Individualized psychometric subtests of intelligence, indigenous with respect to content, and a form for obtaining adults' ratings of children's adaptive competencies, were developed. (Author/LMO)

Teachers of learning disabled, behavior disordered, educable mentally retarded, and nonhandicapped students ages 6-18 (N=1913) rated their students on the Abbreviated Teacher Rating Scale, a measure used to assess hyperactivity. Prevalence, distribution, and patterns of hyperactivity were analyzed, as well as age and sex differences.…

Examination of data from four General Social Surveys (1976, 1977, 1980, 1982) focuses on questions related to intellectual freedom, especially library censorship. Responses are analyzed together with selected demographic variables to determine which broad segments of society give majority support to censorship and which do not. (7 references) (EJS)

Using third, sixth, and ninth grade students of Anglo, Black, and Hispanic ethnicity, a study examined their use of the conjunctions "and,""but,""because," and "even though." Results indicated that for all groups, correct use of conjunctions was correlated with reading comprehension. (HOD)

Investigates the influence of infant-mother attachment patterns on the development of peer interaction between the toddler and preschool periods. Notes that, in an initial encounter with an unfamiliar peer, attachment patterns appear to be related more to the child's attractiveness as an interactive partner than to the child's own active interest…

This study of undergraduate and graduate students examined the potential relationship between spatial aptitude and videogame use to: (1) determine relationship between scoring ability on videogames and spatial aptitude as defined by standardized tests; (2) explore potential gender differences; and (3) examine effects of videogames practice on…

Lists sources of stress among Southeast Asian refugees as: (1) the Vietnam war and evacuation; (2) underemployment and unemployment; (3) cultural differences; (4) changing roles within the family; and (5) social disruption or inadequate social ties. Also details major groups at risk, correlations between stress and children's age on migrating, and…

Conducted two experiments on kindergarten to third-grade children in which it was hypothesized that the degree of adult intervention would not make a difference in play treatments and that thematic fantasy play would serve to construct metalinguistic understanding. Hypotheses were confirmed. There was also significant interaction between adult…

In third-grade and tenth-grade subjects, results included (1) the absence of age differences in proportionalized short-term retention and (2) significant age differences in long-term retention only between groups that had received a different number of learning trials. (Author/CI)

A metaanalysis of elementary school computer-assisted instruction (CAI) research found that lower achievers profit more from CAI; it is more effective in primary grades; boys may learn more than girls; drill and practice produces highest effect sizes; and no relationship exists between year of study publication and effect size. (MBR)

Discusses students' formation of concepts about energy, classifying responses as living/nonliving, human (vitalism or activity), and nonhuman (supply or demand). Observations were based on class discussions and free writing, followed by questioning to check on stability of concepts. Also collected and reported are student responses (examples of…

Students of high intellectual ability and their parents were tested on a battery of cognitive tests. Vernon's model of intelligence best fit results. A verbal-educational and a practical-spatial-mechanical factor explained most performance variance. Among children, age related to verbal but not spatial or mechanical abilities. (Author/RD)

A wide array of data was gathered in a nationwide study, including parent and child interviews, intelligence test and achievement test scores, and teacher ratings of children's classroom performance. Results indicated extensive differences favoring intact family children, which persisted when IQ and socioeconomic status measures were controlled.…