This book is designed to enhance understanding of what is important for parents, coaches, and teachers to know when making choices about non-school-based programs for children. The book begins with "Preface" (Patricia A. Sullivan" and "Introduction" (Liane M. Summerfield.) The first section, "Team Sports" (Danny R. Mielke), which applies to a…

Noting that early intervention can be an effective method to help children who have special needs and their parents, this study explored the relationship between a mother's knowledge of development and the age at which she recognizes her child's special needs. The second portion of the Knowledge of Infant Development Inventory was used to quantify…

This 1-year qualitative study collected observational and interview data on 12 preschool children concerning their initial computer use. Children had the choice to use a computer during center time in their preschool. Findings indicated that initial computer use with a mouse was found to occur at approximately 36 months. Some possible gender…

This article deals with an important question in the area of developmental psycholinguistics. It studies the conditions for a presyntactcic utterance to become a "canonical sentence" or "canonical utterance" at the stage of the two-word combinations. Two main points are highlighted: (1) how a prelinguistic utterance between 9-12 months of age can…

This study examined research on children's block play, using content analysis to review 75 documents that focused on such play. Each document was coded by type (empirical study or nonempirical article) and by 15 topics and 76 subtopics grouped into 4 broad categories: (1) environment/ecology; (2) block play and the school curriculum; (3) block…

This paper explains the creation and validation of the Narrative Comprehension of Picture Books task (NC task), an assessment of young children's comprehension of wordless picture books. Study 1 explored developmental improvements in the task, as well as relationships to other measures of early reading. Subjects, 158 K-2 students, were…

This guidebook for parents and early intervention personnel was developed by the "Let's Play! Project," a 3-year federally supported project that worked to promote play in infants and toddlers with disabilities through the use of "low-tech" assistive technology. The guide is organized around six emerging stages of play development: (1) sensory…

This volume compiles papers from a 1996 conference on communication held at Clark University (Worcester, Massachusetts). The goal of the conference was to share the work and ideas regarding the development of communication and meaning comprehension. The papers are organized into three parts, covering the organization and the origins of…

In recent years, much stimulating research has emerged in relation to children's theories of mind, construed as the understanding of others' intentions, beliefs, and desires. Within that context, there is renewed interest in the developmental origins of social cognition. An expression of that new interest, this book assembles current…

Distilling the essential elements of the report "Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children," this paper summarizes how reading develops and how reading instruction should proceed. After an introduction and overview, sections of the paper summarize the following: highlights for parents, caregivers, preschool teachers, directors, teachers,…

If counselors are to meet the needs of adolescent clients they must understand the unique perspective of this population. This includes understanding of not only the presenting problem that the client brings, but how adolescents experience the counseling process and counselor/client relationship. The primary interest of the author was what…

At any given time, any given child may hold different, even competing, understandings of the strategies and processes involved in reading, writing, and coordinating the two. And different children's developmental paths may differ in significant ways even though they eventually achieve common outcomes. Different developmental paths notwithstanding,…

This book presents activities to help elementary school teachers show their students that physical activity can be meaningful and fun. Focused on skill development and fitness rather than competition, these activities take a progressive, developmentally centered approach that will help teachers meet a range of individual needs so that every…

This action research project describes a program to increase the application of spelling skills in students' writing. The target population consisted of first grade students in a middle-class community in the northern suburb of a large metropolitan area. The problems of inadequate application of spelling skills to student writing were documented…

Of 48 male subjects in an initial 2-year interval follow-up interview study of social perspective-taking levels, 41 subjects were reinterviewed 3 years later according to the same interview procedures. Results supported the hypothesized sequential order of developmental levels. (Author/MP)