Presents methodological and factual analyses of children's use of imitative speech as a strategy in language acquisition. The impact of conversational interactions and picture-story books on the speech of one girl aged 20 to 32 months is demonstrated. Four methodological problem areas are analyzed. (Author/RH)

The influence of televised modeling and modeling plus direct instruction was examined on the induction of complex forms of seriation behavior. The television only and TV plus direct instruction groups made significant gains from pre- to post-test, which were maintained during retention testing. Theoretical and training implications were…

Author and environmental educator Tom Wessels discusses how to infer a landscape's history from plants and other clues found on site. Reading the landscape enables people to develop a stronger connection to place. Understanding historic landscape changes is essential to understanding current environmental issues. He also discusses his teaching…

Describes an elementary school classroom project in which university student artists are invited to participate in the classroom prior to their student teaching experience. Discusses the mechanics for developing such a project. Points out ways in which this is beneficial for all concerned. (KO)

Describes a "Visual Arts Day" held in an elementary school in Kutztown, Pennsylvania. Art students from Kutztown University create an in-school field trip by coming to the school to display, demonstrate, and discuss their art work. Points out the possibilities for positive dialogue concerning the purposes of art. (KO)

Utilizing four pairs of preschoolers with Down's Syndrome, the efficacy of two prompt-fading procedures (decreasing assistance and graduated guidance procedure) was compared during instruction of two self-help skills. The efficacy of observational learning was also examined. Both prompt-fading procedures and observational learning were effective…

Attempts to determine whether children can use social-pragmatic cues to determine "what kind" of referent, object, or action an adult intends to indicate with a novel word. Doubts that children assume that a novel word refers to whatever nameless object is present. Suggests that lexical acquisition rests fundamentally on children's…

Examines whether knowledge of functional properties of a referent for a new name influences children's first guesses about whether that name refers to an object or a substance. Suggests that children do not rely on a single source of information, but rather draw on various kind of information, including perceptual characteristics of the entities…

Three children (ages 10-13) with moderate mental retardation were taught, in a triad, to perform chained snack preparation tasks, with each student being directly taught one task and the other two observing. Results indicated that each student learned the skill taught directly and nearly all of the steps of the chains observed. (Author/JDD)

This study examined the effects of similarity to prior examples in predicting errors in dermatologic diagnosis. Two interpretations about the acquisition of expertise are independent cues and instance-based categorization. The subjects (N=16) were first-year family medicine residents from McMaster University (Ontario). (MLW)

Examines young children's gender role development, focusing on the impact of television viewing. Maintains that role models and imitation are extremely influential factors shaping gender-typed behavior. Identifies gender bias in television programming, including music television and commercials, and discusses gender bias in children's television…

In this article I explore the ethical terrain of experiential learning activities drawing on my experiences leading college students on field trips into criminal justice settings. Though there are numerous educational benefits to adopting experiential learning activities, the rewards must be evaluated in light of the potential harms to nonstudent…

This study investigates how the combination of instructor modeling and question prompts for peer-questioning influences students' online questioning and answering activities. Fourteen students in a turfgrass management online class at a large land-grant university participated in two three-week sessions of online discussion. Two randomly selected…

This paper addresses optimal strategies in teaching essential life and communication skills to children with Down syndrome, autism and other developmental delays. Evidence from the literature concerning the relative efficacy of hand-over-hand (self-modeling) in contrast to passive observational teaching techniques (e.g., video modeling) shows the…

The early childhood education program at Massachusetts' Middlesex Community College has included a service learning component for the past 3 years. Service learning participants have the opportunity to observe several different public and private early care and education programs in the community and to discuss the programs with other students.…