This study seeks evidence for the validity of the concept of egocentrism in children. Three standard egocentrism tests are intercorrelated to determine the degree to which they appear to be measuring a single construct (convergent validity); whether the three tasks intercorrelate more than they do with a theoretically unrelated task (discriminant…

Research supported by a grant from the Carnegie Corporation.

To further investigate the relationship between divergent thinking and bilingualism, 23 Anglos and 108 Mexican Americans from a semi-rural West Texas community and 24 Mexican Americans from San Antonio, enrolled in the fourth grade, of low socioeconomic status, and with an average age of 10 years 6 months, were divided into 5 experimental groups,…

Commentary and advice in four legal areas are offered in this newsletter on educational law. First, the document outlines preventive legal review for public educators in four basic steps, including anticipation of legal challenges, evaluation of the challenges' legal merits, consideration of the policy issues raised by potential challenges, and…

To help public schools minimize litigation, this newsletter recommends constitutional and legal training for public school officials and examines relevant court cases involving school official liability, intelligence tests, and religion in the schools. According to the authors, the Maine v. Thiboutot and Owen v. City of Independence cases…

A study explored the relation between Piagetian conservation tasks, IQ scores, and reading test scores. A series of 16 items involving conservation tasks for area, length, weight, and volume were presented to 516 students in grades four through nine. The scores on these conservation items were correlated with students' scores on achievement and IQ…

To assess the effects of age differences, type of task, intelligence (IQ), and reading achievement on referential communication performance, third and fifth grade children were asked to communicate messages for three types of tasks: word pairs, picture descriptions, and school-locations directions. The latter was specifically designed to assess…

The existence of a global language proficiency factor is discussed. This factor, cognitive/academic language proficiency (CALP), is directly related to IQ and to other aspects of academic achievement. It accounts for the bulk of reliable variance in a wide variety of language learning measures. Three propositions concerning CALP are reviewed. (1)…

Recent legal decisions, coupled with Federal and State statutes, require the New York City Board of Education to follow definite guidelines in providing equal educational opportunities for its handicapped children. Among the problems raised are those of classification and labeling, criticized by some as a procedure that focuses more on pathology…

This paper presents and evaluates the broad results of pre-school intervention experiments and programs aimed at fostering the intellectual and social development of "disadvantaged" groups. Among the general findings discussed are (1) there is a "sensitive," or even "critical," period in child development, an age at…

Part of a set of 10 booklets on talented and gifted education, the booklet discusses the identification of talented and gifted students. A definition of talented and gifted students is offered, and its implications for school programs considered. State of Oregon guidelines for talented and gifted programs are presented. General and specific…

TWO RESEARCH PROJECTS CONCERNING CHILDREN FROM LOW SOCIOECONOMIC OR CULTURALLY DIFFERENT BACKGROUNDS WERE REPORTED. THE FIRST PROJECT STUDIED THE EDUCATIONAL AND VOCATIONAL ASPIRATIONS OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPILS FROM TWO SOCIOECONOMIC GROUPS. IT WAS QUESTIONED WHETHER CULTURALLY DEPRIVED CHILDREN IN A SUBURBAN AREA COMPARED WITH CULTURALLY…

TO HELP TEACHERS WORK WITH CHILDREN WHO ARE SOCIAL ISOLATES IN THE CLASSROOM, 800 ELEMENTARY SCHOOL STUDENTS WERE ASKED TO NAME 3 CHILDREN (1) WITH WHOM THEY WOULD LIKE TO PLAY AND DO THINGS AFTER SCHOOL, AT RECESS, AND AT NOON, (2) WITH WHOM THEY WOULD LIKE TO WORK IN THE ROOM, (3) BESIDE WHOM THEY WOULD MOST LIKE TO SIT, (4) BESIDE WHOM THEY…

THE PURPOSES OF THIS PILOT PROJECT WERE (1) TO ATTEMPT TO EVALUATE THE EFFECT OF THE LOCAL PROGRAM ON BOTH INDIVIDUAL CHILDREN AND THE GROUP AND (2) TO INVESTIGATE THE SENSITIVITY OF THE TEST INSTRUMENTS EMPLOYED IN EVALUATING SUCH A PROGRAM. SIXTY-ONE CHILDREN WERE ENROLLED IN THE LOCAL HEADSTART PROGRAM AND WERE ADMINISTERED THE STANFORD-BINET,…

THE OBJECTIVE FOR THIS STUDY WAS TO FOSTER PREKINDERGARTEN CHILDREN'S DEVELOPMENT THROUGH A PERSONALIZED PROGRAM BASED ON ASSESSMENTS OF EACH CHILD'S DEVELOPMENTAL SKILLS, USING NEW TESTS AND INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIALS ADAPTED TO INDIVIDUAL NEEDS. OF FOUR EXPERIMENTAL CLASSES, THREE FOCUSED ON AN AREA OF WEAKNESS (MOTOR, AUDITORY-LANGUAGE, OR…