Background: This study is the first to evaluate the "Social Communication Questionnaire" (SCQ) and the "Developmental Behaviour Checklist-Autism Screening Algorithm" (DBC-ASA) in the same sample of school-aged children with intellectual disability (ID) with and without Pervasive Developmental Disorders (PDDs). Method: Parents of 49 children (36…

To further explore central developmental themes of emerging adulthood, the authors conducted a study that combines qualitative and quantitative data about the types of personal growth and decline reported by a sample of emerging adults, who also described the life events and other experiences that brought about these personal changes. After…

In this article, the author reviews the research on young children's emerging writing and presents a comprehensive synthesis of this research on emergent writing. She discusses children's early writing knowledge; writing skills development; the social process of learning to write; teacher support; and a supportive environment. She also lists six…

Intended for parents of K-8 children who want to take an active role in their children's reading, writing, and spelling development, this handbook presents guidelines, tools, and strategies to help children spell better, read better, and write better. The handbook provides developmental guideposts to track children's literacy; tips for helping…

For the field of human development, the synthesis of older theories of the environment, newer context theories, biological theories, and systems theories permit the generation of new models for the developmental process. This paper reviews, compares, and contrasts recent theories of development and presents a synthesis that can guide future…

This final project report examines how to successfully develop a national approach for the infusion of aging content into the K-12 grade curricula. As the U.S. society is "graying," the students in schools should be exposed to aging information on the increasing responsibilities for the care of aging family members with a realistic view of their…

Originally written for students at St. Thomas' Hospital in London, this guide to child development offers an overview of child development for parents, teachers, and all adults concerned with raising children. Many of the book's ideas come from direct work with children and draw on Rudolf Steiner's approach to child development. The book's…

Theories concerning cognitive development or complexity include one developed by W. G. Perry, Jr., and his colleagues (1970). Research related to Perry's scheme is analyzed to suggest ways by which this particular theory can be validated. The first part of the paper describes Perry's scheme and assumptions of cognitive development theories in…

Findings from a study that designed a theoretical compensation system for school administrators incorporating concepts of career/work development and adult life stages are presented in this paper. Methodology involved: a literature review of compensation practices in education; a discussion of new forces in the field affecting considerations in…

Dissatisfied with traditional approaches to beginning reading practices dominated by phonics, basal reading series, and workbooks, and more importantly, influenced by research and knowledge about how children learn to read, teachers/educators launched a grass-roots whole language movement in the early 1980s. However, the term "whole…

Goals and challenges pertaining to infant sensory and perceptual development are discussed. It is suggested that the inability of researchers to think and talk wisely about "partial accomplishments" in development creates a barrier in developmental research. Conceptual schemes are needed to accommodate these partial accomplishments. Three major…

This study examined individuals' concepts of human nature in Germany, the United States, and Indonesia. Three procedures were used with about 100 subjects in each country. Only the second procedure, a presentation of a story involving a character's dilemma that has moral and social consequences, is reported here. In each culture, there were some…

This report describes an in-service education program offered to teachers at a rural northeastern Head Start program to help them assess children's overall development by looking at their level of language development. The program focused on the case conference, a forum in which coordinators, teachers, home visitors, and sometimes parents meet to…

This study addressed the question of developmental processes underlying gender differences in aggression. Specifically, the study examined stories young children tell about nice or mean social interactions. A total of 100 middle-class 3-year-olds participated in storytelling sessions with trained experimenters. Subjects also completed the Peer…

A discussion of functional language proficiency considers several widely-accepted theories of cognition, draws parallels between specific stages of intellectual maturity and development of second language proficiency, and suggests ways in which teachers may be able to help students progress from one stage to another within the context of foreign…