At the Child Language Development Center at the University of Rochester, basic research in children's verbal behavior and the exploration of procedures for extending successful laboratory techniques to the typical preschool setting are being continued. Experiments in contingency management and the establishment of requisite antecedent behaviors…

This review of professional literature on the psychology of language summarizes and interprets selected books and articles published during the period 1957-60. The literature, selected on the basis of importance and applicability to education, is considered under the following headings: theories, research techniques, verbal learning, and…

To investigate the type of classroom testing format most appropriate for the Southwest Regional Laboratory (SWRL) Mod 2 Reading Program, three types of teacher-administered tests for the SWRL Second-Year Communication Skills Program were developed and tried out during the 1970-71 school year. The tests were administered by the classroom teacher as…

The emotional and social effects of divorce on a child's personality and development are discussed. The characteristic psychological reactions of the child are described in terms of guilt, rejection failure, resentment, anxiety, self concept, self pity, and hostility. Suggestions are given for the parent and teacher to help children adjust to the…

A student's choice of an answer to a test question is a coarse measure of his knowledge about the subject matter of the question. Much finer measurement might be achieved if the student were asked to estimate, for each possible answer, the probability that it is the correct one. Such a procedure could yield two classes of benefits: (a) students…

A picture-board sociometric interview for preschool children is described and information on reliability and validity is presented. While the reliability of this measure of peer popularity is low to moderate using test-retest or split-half measures, the interview data does seem to predict other relevant measures of the social behavior of young…

This appendix includes seven papers which focus on various aspects of the learning processes of children ages 5-7: (1) S. Thompson, "Transitions to concrete operations: A survey of Piaget's writings" (in outline form); (2) S. H. White, "Changes in learning processes in the late preschool years," an examination of cross-cultural…

Data available from the Fall and Spring administration of the Stanford Achievement Test: Intermediate I: Form X and the Otis-Lennon Mental Ability Test for all Title I pupils in the State of New Hampshire plus a random sample for the entire state, made possible the item-by-item comparison of Fall and Spring performance on the same groups of…

One of the many criticisms leveled at standardized testing is that the time limits commonly used require a speed component of performance which may act to the disadvantaged of certain culturally defined groups. Recent studies by the authors examined the question of differential time limits and group performance for standardized academic aptitude…

Data from the 1969-70 and 1970-71 Head Start Planned Variation (HSPV)Study were used to examine program-child interactions. An effort was made to determine whether different preschool programs have different cognitive effects on different types of children. Seven hypotheses for the analysis of the data were generated from the results of the HSPV…

Teachers are urged to improve their teaching through the effective use of pattern drills by examining the construction and function of the drills. Forty-eight questions with answers elaborate upon generalities and technicalities of drill design and their classroom use. (RL)

The hypothesis of this 3-year study was that contact with supportive influences (peer leaders, personal counseling interviews, group counseling sessions, and warm, sincere, interesting teachers) would improve the academic performance of underachieving secondary school students. The subjects, 440 seventh, ninth, and 10th graders from the Kalamazoo…

A study made to identify the critical educational needs of the State of North Dakota is presented in the six chapters of this report and its appendixes. Chapter I, Introduction, discusses historical considerations and provides an overview of the report. Chapter II contains a comprehensive but concise description of the technical procedures…

Low achieving, low socioeconomic students, because of a multiplicity of little-understood background factors, seem to fail not because of an initial lack of motivation to learn, but because basic learning processes taught them by their own communities are not contiguous with those required for academic success. The study attempts to determine if…

In man-computer communication, the computer responds only as it is programed to respond. A human's response is more complicated because it depends on the "pre-programed" ways that humans process information. The three functions a man performs on received information are conservation (in which messages are retained whole), reduction (in which…