This paper describes how the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education is using constructivist theory and research to inform educational policy and practice. The state's most concentrated and comprehensive effort in this direction is Project Construct, a unified instructional approach for children ages 3-7. The project consists of…

This study examined infants' change in visual information pick-up, from an infant-like stimulus-locked visual scanning pattern to an adult-like cognitive control of visual information pick-up. Subjects were 21 children between 25 and 42 months of age. Eye movements were videotaped in a preferential looking situation and later analyzed as still…

Noting that parents raising adolescents need to know when to be quiet and when to act, as well as what to do when something needs to be done, this guide for parents offers guidelines for handling the complex situations and dilemmas that teenagers often present. Topics covered include managing teenage risk-taking, the relationship between…

A study examined preschoolers' metacognitive self-regulatory behaviors. It was hypothesized that tasks that omitted or greatly decreased verbalization would allow preschool children to exhibit evidence of metacognitive self-regulatory behaviors. Subjects were 20 preschool children, half identified as special needs and half designated as typical…

The study sought to examine developmental processes of substitution in the pretend play of Down's syndrome children and to clarify the onset mechanism of subskills in decontextualization, which refers to the progress from imitation to substitution and then to invention. Eighteen Japanese children, aged 29-55 months, with Down's syndrome were given…

This book describes a study of childhood experiences with creating personal space in the outdoors, the role these spaces play in children's evolving sense of self, and implications of place-making for education. Chapter 1 describes the author's personal interests that led to the study, the study population, and the way in which each study site was…

Employing a child-centered approach to the growth and development of children from birth to age 16, this book describes in detail the personal, social, and intellectual development of children as they progress from infancy through adolescence. It contains anecdotes and examples that capture the unique qualities of each age and stage of child…

The proposals concerning working memory outlined in this paper involve the architecture of working memory, the reasoning mechanisms that draw on it, and the ways in which working memory may develop with age. Ways of assessing task demands and children's working memory capacities are also considered. It is noted that there is long-standing evidence…

This literature review on young adults with mental retardation brings together two previously disparate areas of research, community integration and young adult development. After a discussion of various theories addressing the young adulthood stage of development, the paper summarizes research on young adults with mental retardation in the…

Information on the values of woodworking for young children and ways to introduce and manage a carpentry center for them are provided in this guide. The following topics are included: (1) the values of woodworking on child development; (2) how the teacher can use the center to provide for the integration, discovery, and development of woodworking…

A descritpion is provided of "Growth and Development," an overview course for two-year college allied health majors which outlines the processes through which the infant, young child, and adolescent mature physically, socially, and emotionally. First, the course description presents the goals and emphases of the course, curricular placement…

A series of studies with adults resulted in a standardized test to assess children's comprehension of main ideas in simple narratives. The test, utilizing stories from the WISC-R picture arrangement task, was then employed in a developmental investigation with second, fifth, and eighth grade students. Each student completed the WISC-R arrangement…

Male and female adults revise their perceptions of control three times in their lives, between the ages of 20 and 65. To investigate the relationship between experienced control in terms of loci of control (internal, external), situations (opposite sex, same sex), and direction (from or over the environment), and the developmental stages of men…

Perry's scheme of intellectual and ethical development was examined for sex differences with respect to content areas for which sex differences have elsewhere been suggested: occupational choice, interpersonal relationships, and sexual identity. In addition, the content area religion and ego development, as measured by Loevinger's sentence…

To determine the designs, procedures, and findings of studies related to an investigation of the developmental aspects of the writing processes of children, a literature search was made of documents indexed in "Current Index to Journals in Education" (CIJE) and "Resources in Education" (RIE). A search was also made of the literature in…