The basic objectives of this research, which involved children in the 2nd, 5th, 8th, and 11th grades, were to describe children's uses and perceptions of animals and to discern possible developmental stages in the evolution of attitudes toward animals. Personal interviews were conducted with 267 children from 16 public schools randomly selected…

One of the most dramatic changes in the American culture in recent years is the emergence of a family unit experiencing stages of disruption and reorganization as a common pattern. The stereotypical middle-class, suburban family continues to exist, but other variations of families exist also, family units for which past guidelines and assumptions…

A study examined sentence production errors and syntactic complexity in students' writing in two modes of discourse and at three grade levels. Subjects, average and high developmental students enrolled in seventh, ninth, and eleventh grade classes, each wrote two compositions, one in the descriptive the other in the persuasive mode. Data analysis…

Instructional materials on parenting skills for parents of adolescents are provided, with teaching guides for extension service agents. Organized as a series of five leaflets followed by five corresponding lessons, leaflets for parents concern: (1) a review of parenting skills and an overview of the course of instruction; (2) evolution:…

This practicum report was designed to help child development students differentiate between the preoperational and concrete operational stages of the Piagetian cognitive hierarchy. The 36 on-campus and 63 instructional television students used a Piagetian Game booklet, which is included in the appendix. Using this booklet, students were able to…

Designed for Montessori teachers with little background in the plastic arts, this discussion points out that, while the Montessori program has many features that support creative development, presently, no art curriculum exists. The article indicates the limitations of Maria Montessori's ideas and attitudes about the role of art in the education…

A study compared students' ability to read their stories written with invented spellings with their ability to reread their stories rewritten with conventional spellings. Fourteen first graders wrote stories using invented spelling and read the text aloud. The stories were then transcribed into conventional text by an adult and reread by the…

Data drawn from videotapes of children aged 20 to 32 months were analyzed for patterns in the use of various self-reference forms at an age when children rarely refer to others compared to their use at an age when children more regularly refer to others as main participants. First, the distribution of the forms…

Although the stepfamily has become a significant family system in the United States, the amount of empirical research on stepfamily living is limited. The definitions of a stepfamily as any family in which at least one adult is a stepparent is a simple one, yet the issues and dynamics involved in stepfamilies are complex. The structures, roles,…

Different writing voices are linked to early adult developmental issues that are gender-related. Research by Donald Graves has shown that gender affects topic choice in girls' and boys' writing as early as age seven. Adult developmental theories provide frames for looking at the growth potential of writers and locating gender-related issues. The…

Media attention and public concern focused on child sexual abuse in day care have presented early childhood educators with opportunities to educate parents, the public, and the media about child sexual abuse and quality child care. This paper provides information concerning the sexual abuse of children in day care settings. Topics addressed…

The paper reports on a study of the rate of language learning of 12 children aged 2 to 10 with severe to profound bilateral hearing losses. Intended to help deaf children learn spoken language at the same rate as average hearing Ss, the intervention stressed three qualities of linguistic information: (1) clarity, (2) appropriateness, and (3)…

A study of children's ability to conserve gender identity was made to: (1) investigate whether constancy would be achieved according to the developmental sequence proposed by Kohlberg (1965) and found in subsequent studies; (2) see if the pattern of conservation of referent-type followed the same sequence found in previous studies; (3) assess age…

This paper describes the process of investigating a teacher's knowledge and pedagogical philosophy through using a biographical rendition of a teacher's knowledge grounded in a construction of present teaching practice, based on ethnographic data. A case study is presented demonstrating how a major component of one teacher's present knowledge of…

This study investigated the use of the developmental level of kindergarten children's art work as a predictor of readiness for first grade. The sample consisted of 55 children (33 girls and 22 boys) in three kindergarten classes. All were over 5 years of age and had not attended kindergarten before. The kindergarten screening measure used a…