Lists tips to enhance toddler-adult relationships focusing on respectful interactions and a constructive environment. Emphasizes the following developmental needs and interests of toddlers: (1) supporting development; (2) planning the environment; (3) guidance for toddlers; (4) toddler play; (5) developmental milestones for toddlers; and (6) what…

Describes the kinds of literacy knowledge ("knowing in doing") preschool children may express during play. Provides evidence of literacy understanding, strategies, and skills as children negotiate routines, roles, and rules in play. Discusses how literacy in play differs from the literacy learning later demanded in school, and includes…

This article addresses the effects of disasters on elementary-age children and their needs for mental health. Suggests possible school-based interventions and provides a case study of a traumatized first-grader, demonstrating how child- centered play therapy can be used in school settings. (Contains 57 references.) (GCP)

Recounts a teacher's initiation into the process of documentation over several weeks as she joined toddlers on a "fishing trip." Draws on Piagetian and Vygotskian theories to understand and enhance children's play. Discusses how documentation is used to communicate and converse with children and offers teachers opportunities to…

Explored the simultaneous sequential transition patterns of preschoolers' social play within classroom settings. Found that the proportion of social-play states did not vary during play episodes even when accounting for type of activity center, gender, and SES. Found a reciprocal relationship between parallel-aware and other social-play states…

Fathers and mothers of firstborn infants completed parental responsibility surveys; recorded accessibility and direct interaction time in caregiving, play, and outings; and were videotaped in free-play with their infants at age 9 and 15 months. Fathers spent less time interacting with their infants than mothers and invested less time in…

Examined relation of maternal monitoring and play rules to sixth graders' friendship quality, social behavior, and depression. Found that monitoring was not related to supervision, peer, or restriction play rules. Girls with more monitoring had friendships with less conflict and higher positive qualities. Supervision rules related to boys'…

Effects of fenfluramine on autistic children, aged 7-16, were examined in double-blind testing with placebos. Serotonin levels, intelligence and behavior tests, videotaped free play data, and other tests were used for assessment. Serotonin decreased with administration of fenfluramine, and increased with reinstatement of placebo. No tests…

Asserts that reading and writing are governed by the same logic that dominates social relations. Suggests that, because women suffer disproportionately from the effects of male-dominated culture, they may also suffer disproportionately when participating in play or when being tested on literacy skills. Questions the view that play is…

Describes some boisterous physical games which might be useful in promoting learning, especially in elementary mathematics classes with the socially disadvantaged. Provides a discussion of Jerome Bruner's theory which undergirds such activities. Presents results of an experiment using these methods with 160 children. Finds the case for using play…

Analysis of mothers' pragmatic language use and children's language levels during free play sessions suggested that a mother-driven, direct influence model may be inappropriate for many mother speech-child language development relationships and points to the feasibility of child- and mother-driven explanatory models for indirect relationships.…

A total of 69 male and 132 female undergraduate students rated the extent of their experience in a variety of child-rearing activities that involved routine physical care and play. Males reported lower levels of experience than did females. The discrepancy was greater with care activities than with play activities. (RJC)

The study compared social interaction behavior between eight nondisabled and eight disabled elementary students in either an individualistic goal-structured condition or a cooperative condition. For disabled students, the cooperative condition was associated with more social interaction during activity sessions, but not during free play sessions.…

The verbal exchanges between mothers and their 30 children, aged 3-4, were observed during semistructured play. Results showed that mothers of gifted children were more likely than mothers of normal-ability children to model metacognitive strategies in 3 areas: predicting consequences, activity monitoring, and reality testing. (JDD)

Consideration of underlying neurological and psychological deficits suggests that the autistic syndrome results from the coexistence of at least two distinct constellations of functional impairments: deficits in mechanical language skills, as in the developmental dysphasias; and deficits in social relatedness, play, and nonverbal communication, as…