Investigates the level of object mastery motivation between children with Down syndrome and children without disabilities of matched mental age. Reveals that participants from both groups displayed age-appropriate behavior when playing with toys, while those with disabilities interacted less than the comparison group with the effect-production and…

Describes one child's varied use of two languages, English and German, as she interacts with her adult caregivers during play. Two broad questions were used to guide the study: (1) What kinds of activity are the child and her adult interlocutors involved in? How does the child use her two languages to constitute her involvement in play?…

This study, with 180 deaf or hard of hearing infants and toddlers grouped into four age ranges, found highly significant interrelationships among the four categories of play and the four aspects of communicative development studied. The development of autosymbolic play, age of hearing loss identification, and symbolic object distribution accounted…

Notes factors for determining feasibility of field trips: age of children, value, uniqueness, children's interests, safety, distance, cost, and responsibility. Presents guidelines for organizing field trips including rules, supplies, and parent notification. Includes suggestions for traditional and alternative trips such as backyard field trips.…

Observed 56 preschool children during free play to record occurrences of four types of affect: moderate and strong positive affect, anger, and distress. Also collected teacher ratings of social competence and peer sociometrics. Found that social competence and peer acceptance were associated with strong positive affect, whereas anger and distress…

Focuses on the role of music in children's daily lives. Offers examples of children's experiences with music, based on observations of and discussions with children. Believes that teachers should let children's behaviors and needs shape music education programs. (CMK)

These eight articles describe successful public library programs for teens. Highlights include programs emphasizing immigrants' cultures; viewing film adaptations from appropriate books; summer book discussion groups; using music to promote reading; using teen and senior citizen volunteers to help restore books; teens as computer tutors for other…

Examined observational data on daily activities in a day care center to articulate different manifestations of playful actions and analyze their role in creating and maintaining togetherness. Found that, in their play, children were subjects and active agents in creating their own culture, realized throughout the day by means of humor, fantasy,…

According to Russell et al. ("Developmental Rev" 1998; 18: 313) child-parent interaction could contain horizontal qualities, similar to child-peer interactions. To study this, child-parent and child-peer play interactions were compared on several observed horizontal and vertical characteristics in 55 7-year-old children interacting with their…

There is a dearth of literature on multicultural aspects of play therapy, particularly for Mexican-American children. According to Landreth (2002), it is of utmost importance that children be able to communicate in a way that is most natural to them. The literature currently reflects a playroom based mostly on middle class European-American…

The Pediatric Volitional Questionnaire (PVQ) was used along with the Test of Playfulness (TOP) to assess 16 children with cerebral palsy who took part in a study of virtual reality play intervention. Both observational measures are designed to assess children as they are engaged in occupations in one or more environments. Virtual reality offers an…

Background: Children with language impairment (LI) experience social difficulties, including conflict management. This paper is therefore motivated to examine behavioural processes guiding preschool peer conflict progression, which ultimately contributes to overall development. Aims: To describe behavioural sequences in conflicts between children…

Three questions were asked that explored the linguistic fine-tuning hypothesis and how parents might model language: (i) do parents significantly tune to their children's productive language or non-verbal cognition during play? (ii) is the level of the linguistic tuning different in the Down syndrome (DS) population compared to a typically…

Musical play is part of children's culture. They sing and dance in rhythmic and pitched patterns alone, together, and with toys, household items, and yard objects. There are, however, cultural variations in how children participate in musical play and at what ages they are expected to play in certain ways. As guardians of children's musical…

Governments and health authorities are expressing concern about increasing levels of obesity, diabetes and physical inactivity in children. In response to such concerns, it is common to adapt strategies for adults to children, and to conduct adult-focused research. This paper describes a research study commissioned by the South Australian…