Preliminary evidence indicates that children begin to generalize knowledge in a new way at approximately 3 years of age. Forty children between 1.5 and 3.5 years of age were given two tasks of graded complexity. The first and simpler task used four nonoverlapping classes, each composed of four identical objects. Two of the classes were tagged with…

Examined were the relationships of children's (1) negotiation of play context and (2) enactment of pretend episodes to (3) children's social adjustment, social acceptance and social cognition. It was predicted that negotiation and enactment of pretend play would be relatively independent, and that enactment would be strongly related to indices of…

A three-factor model for the management of early childhood stuttering is proposed that takes into account stuttering's psychosocial, psycholinguistic, and physiological aspects. The primary focus of the present article is the psycholinguistic factor. To this end, a rationale for the use of language-based therapy is presented, together with…

A school psychologist implemented a practicum designed to increase the prosocial behaviors of children attending a preschool center that integrated handicapped (N=26) and nonhandicapped (N=22) children. Observations had indicated that many of the children at the center were unable to work and play with others without hitting and getting hurt in…

This paper reviews work on the representation of knowledge from within psychology and artificial intelligence. The work covers the nature of representation, the distinction between the represented world and the representing world, and significant issues concerned with propositional, analogical, and superpositional representations. Specific topics…

Numerous forms and meanings of validity have been developed to provide researchers with the opportunity to assess the many potential sources of ambiguity that exist in any research finding. A Validity Network Schema (VNS) developed by Brinberg & McGrath (1982) is extended and elaborated in order to describe the components of the research…

The study examined an approach to train three adolescents with moderate mental handicaps to use the conversational skills of initiating a topic and continuing the conversation by cueing an adult listener to speak. The instructional techniques of modeling, prompting, delay, and social reinforcement were used in intervention. A single subject…

As part of a 5-year investigation of skill generalization in severely handicapped students, a literature review was undertaken within each of three general approaches: performance pattern studies, ecological studies, and self-control studies. The first paper, "Descriptive Analysis of Extant Research Literature concerning Skill Generalization…

This study reports the development of a sentence preference test designed to contrast tendencies to abstract, generalise and particularise in thinking. (Editor)

The study investigated maintenance of responding by four severely to moderately mentally retarded persons (12 to 16 years old) in a community living center who were taught methods of exiting the house in fire emergency situations. Training included instructions, modeling, behavioral rehearsal, social and tangible external reinforcement, and self…

The purpose of this study was to determine the influence and the relative salience of imagery and contextual cues in the mediation of preschoolers' emotional stereotypes. Fourteen male and 14 female preschoolers enrolled in a university summer preschool program were presented with six hypothetical emotional situations in story form -- 2 each for…

Internal validity is described as a matter of how well a particular instance of data collection or generation can be described and explained. It is a property of the procedures used in the collection or generation of data. The notion of internal validity is examined in order to establish a method of quantitatively estimating it. A coefficient of…