Describes the author's experiences in the evaluation training program at Northwestern University (1978-1980) in a postdoctoral fellowship in methodology and evaluation research. Also discusses the value of the friendships and professional relationships formed at that time. (SLD)

All the articles in this collection share at least three common features. First, they all give a narrative account of a change that took place within an activity system; in this, they follow Vygotsky's (1978) injunction to investigate the history of the system in order to understand its "causal dynamic basis" (p. 62). Second, in so doing, they…

This philosophical essay is inspired by a four-year pedagogical relationship that continues in its altered form today. The main focus of this piece is the transformation of a mentor as an immediate addressee into mentor as a "superaddressee," an influential third listener who oversees observable dialogues. I explore the mutual responsibilities of…

Purpose: This is a comment for all those writers who claim that organizations cannot learn. The author consistently rejects this notion. Rather the author contends that organizations can learn, in at least two different ways. Design/methodology/approach: The author reviews some of the common arguments against organizational learning, and tries to…

Tracking the functional development of specific regions of the prefrontal cortex in children using event-related potentials (ERPs) is challenging for both technical and conceptual reasons. In this paper we outline our strategy for studying frontal lobe development and present preliminary results from children aged 7-17 years and young adults using…

Over a three-semester period in a large undergraduate human development course, students were assigned to 5-7 member groups to work together in preparing for an exam in one of the five content units in the course. Their exam performance was tracked over three units: a baseline unit in which students worked only individually, a unit in which they…

Background: Prospective population-based follow-up study of 120 individuals with autism followed from childhood to adulthood. Methods: Individuals with autism, diagnosed in childhood, were followed prospectively for a period of 13-22 years and re-evaluated at ages 17-40 years. The instruments used at follow-up were the DISCO, WAIS-R, WISC-III,…

Evaluation of client progress is an important topic in communicative disorders research and clinical literature. Goal attainment scaling (GAS) is a technique for evaluating individual progress toward goals. Despite recognition of GAS as a clinical-outcome assessment technique in other clinical professions, the current debate on measuring client…

This article describes an innovative program that assists individuals with their personal development and teaches them to craft lives of meaning and purpose. Framed around developmental, relational-cultural and life span transitional theories, the program explores themes such as identity, security, relationships, beliefs/values and dreams/visions…

This manuscript addresses adoption and the related gifts and challenges faced by adoptees. Challenges such as the search for identity, reconciliation, and identifying how they belong are also discussed. This manuscript also addresses common myths and misconceptions about the adoption experience. A creative intervention, using super heroes and…

Molding intellectuals is one of the expectations people have, which comes from a deep-rooted belief in education. The humanity hypothesis of this belief is to take knowledge and the pursuit of knowledge as the only prescription for human beings. This hypothesis overturns the relation of knowledge and life. Intellectuals make scientific paradigm as…

Adventurous activities are growing in popularity as a form of leisure and recreation, yet many non-participants find it difficult to understand what motivates people to seek out situations in which there is an element of danger and risk. This research examines the meanings of long-term participation in outdoor adventure for women working in…

In the United States, the concept of youth-adult partnership remains innovative. The notion that youth and adults can collaborate on issues of importance runs counter to prevailing societal norms, public policies, structures and standards of practice. There is not much cultural or policy support for managers seeking to integrate youth-adult…

The current study focuses on data collected from children in the United States shortly after the Yugoslavia-NATO conflict. Fifty-six children in two Midwestern states were asked to draw a picture of peace and a picture of war. Two major themes, peace as interpersonal interactions and peace as negative peace, emerged from the qualitative analysis…

Although thermal conditions influence the development of living organisms in a wide variety of ways, this topic has been recently ignored in humans. This paper reintroduces thermal conditions as a topic of importance for developmentalists by presenting an example of how thermal conditions are hypothesized to influence a particular developmental…