A resource and activity guide for the developmentally disabled that focuses on functional and constructive play is presented. Some basic ideas for fostering dramatic play among the severely developmentally disabled are also introduced. In following a developmental approach, this guide identifies goals and objectives, and explains the relevance of…

Numerous physical, mental, and behavioral activities that parents and their 3- to 5-year-old children can enjoy together are suggested in this activity guidebook. The guide suggests ways parents can give their children a good start at developing the abilities and ideas that are fundamental to all future learning at home before the children begin…

This booklet outlines what it is like to grow up as a child in Finland, and explains how Finnish society is looking after the new generation. The depiction begins with the birth of a child to a Finnish family, and progresses through sections describing the family as the basic unit of society, health programs, child health clinics, pediatrics in…

A classroom-oriented therapeutic program was devised for four pragmatically impaired preschoolers who showed little spontaneous language use within the classroom. Intervention strategies focused on facilitating interactions during free play and were based on four principles for practitioners: be child-oriented; engineer the environment; use…

Home movies of eight normal children and eight children later diagnosed as autistic were analyzed based on: (1) Piagetian criteria of sensorimotor development and semiotic functioning, and (2) developmental levels of action competencies. The age range covered was 4 to 42 months of age. The analysis showed that, from the second year of life, timing…

Examined were the cognitive and social play behaviors of hearing impaired kindergarten children. Relations probed included those between: (1) children's social and cognitive play and sign-based or oral-aural-based classroom instruction; (2) children's overall efforts to communicate and type of class instruction; and (3) the quality of children's…

Introduced by a parable on the value of children's play, this guidebook includes a list of 10 developmental functions of play, a discussion of matters for consideration in selecting and organizing equipment and facilities for early childhood programs, and a description of indoor and outdoor program resources for children's activities. Various…

The first, theoretical section of this investigation of the dramatic process examines the function of imagination and spontaneity. This section notes that the imaginative process occurs in the preconscious and need not be limited by the external world or by memory and suggests that spontaneity, like imagination, is an intuitive response dependent…

Focusing on the influence of cultural background on learning among black children, this book examines black culture and its effects on childrearing, play behavior, and cognition and explores the development of curricula relevant to blacks. Chapter 1 examines distinctive features of black life in the United States, emphasizing their West African…

This paper reviews the literature concerning attitudes of fifth and sixth grade students to provide background information for instructional designers and scriptwriters from the Skills Essential to Learning Project, which develops television/film series and related print materials for different grade levels to enhance the teaching of thinking…

The date is September 9, 2005. This article is set in a rural Wisconsin community, a thousand miles north of New Orleans, where Hurricane Katrina is about to make landfall. The four- and five- year- olds in Mrs. Olson's classroom have never experienced a hurricane or seen flood waters rise to cover the farms and houses they know, but they cannot…

A schizophrenic boy was studied longitudinally with regard to language behavior and hierarchic integration during 13 10-minute interviews, at 3-month intervals commencing at age 3 1/2 years and ending at 7 years of age. (Author/MC)

Games, both from the folklore heritage of children in Spanish-speaking countries and those created in the classroom, are excellent ways to teach language to children because they accomplish their language goals while entertaining and involving the children, often physically. Most games, because they are rigidly patterned and repetitious, are…

There are four general approaches to treatment for the symptomatic child. In individual child psychotherapy, the child is seen alone and play therapy is often utilized to help the child become aware of his feelings and express them more appropriately. In conjoint parent-child psychotherapy and counseling, the child is seen together with one…

This paper discusses the value of role play in facilitating children's language development and suggests strategies for using role play effectively in early childhood and intermediate classrooms. Role play requires the child (1) to listen and observe peer talk and action and to use language memory, attention and concentration behaviors; (2) to…