Reviews two long-term case studies examining the art produced by two artistically gifted Down Syndrome patients. Their work shows a unique personal style characterized by flat, nonperspective compositions, canonical and mixed profile shapes, and symmetry. Both artists depict androgynous persons in their untutored drawings. Includes drawing samples…

Discusses the use of writing to enhance learning in mathematics from a conceptual development perspective. Shuell's phases of learning are described as a general model for conceptual development and subsequently matched with Britton's categories for transactional-informative writing. Sample mathematics assignments for each writing category are…

Explores the impact of a personal development project on the attitudes, behavior, and understanding of British high school students. The study circulated questionnaires to students from nine different locations in two districts. Responses clearly demonstrated that Personal Development Planning results in more appropriate choices being made at key…

Introduces the constructivist theory of mathematical learning, and illustrates its application in a curriculum focusing on fundamental concepts. How knowledge is constructed, how concepts mature, and what it means to learn and to know mathematics are presented. Pedagogical implications of adopting a constructivist perspective on knowledge and…

Teaching strategies are becoming increasingly oriented toward guiding students' knowledge construction through cooperative learning. Enhancing students' cognitive development is a priority; students must "learn how to think." Inquiry instruction provides students with tools to make decisions based upon available evidence and an opportunity to…

The authors explore the relationships between social justice attitudes and actions, the social construction of identity, and cognitive development.

New knowledge of the perceptual, discriminative, and memory capabilities of very young infants has opened the door to further evaluation of these abilities in infants who have risk factors for cognitive impairments. A neurophysiologic technique that has been very useful in this regard is the recording of event-related potentials (ERPs). The…

Scholars, practitioners, and laypeople at one time or another have questioned what learning is and how it can be measured once it is defined. Many use the term interchangeably with growth, change, development, knowledge, education, cognition, or acquisition as it is commonly considered in educational practice. However, most generally assume a…

The Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES), sponsored by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families (ACF), was first launched in 1997 as a periodic longitudinal study of program performance. This report is the fourth in a series that uses data from the FACES 2006 cohort to describe…

Sociocultural theory has challenged existing notions of cognitive development by suggesting that psychological functioning is specific to its social context and is dependent on the mastery of culturally defined modes of speaking, thinking, and acting. This book provides a representative sample of work on the social and cultural foundations of…

A study examined whether a half-day or all-day kindergarten readiness program was the more beneficial in preparing students for kindergarten. A questionnaire was drawn up after research into this domain and submitted to 45 faculty members at a child development center. The findings were found to be somewhat evenly divided between the half-day and…

The role of sociodramatic play in children's cognitive, social, and physical development is discussed, drawing on observations of work with parents and their children ages 3-5. The paper focuses on the way the teachers guided and facilitated play taking cues from the children. A training session was provided to the parents on ways to play with…

As our knowledge of young children grows, so does our awareness of the importance of the first few years of life. This book is written for students of child care at the college level, for those who work with children in the first three years of their lives, and for anyone who wants to understand more about what researchers and theorists have to…

Intended for use in Florida training programs for caregivers of infants and toddlers with disabilities, this guide presents an overview of the Model of Interdisciplinary Training for Children with Handicaps (MITCH); offers a user's guide to the series; and provides specific information for presenting Module 12, which focuses on visual impairments.…

This second volume of the Assessment, Evaluation and Programming System (AEPS) test and its associated curriculum describes the AEPS curriculum components for the developmental range from birth to three years. Section I describes the relationship between the AEPS test described in Volume 1 and the corresponding curriculum. Procedures for general…