According to a national telephone survey by the Pew Internet Project, 99 percent of boys and 94 percent of girls ages 12-17 play computer, Web, portable, or console games; and 50 percent play such games daily. The survey report, Teens, Video Games, and Civics, examines the extent and nature of teens' game playing and sheds some light on the…

The purpose of this article is to qualitatively explore the affordances for risky play in two different preschool outdoor environments, an ordinary preschool playground and a nature playground, based on Gibson ("The ecological approach to visual perception," 1979) theory of affordances and Heft's and Kyttea's (Heft in "Children's…

Discusses criteria of young children's dramatic play and various definitions of pretend play characteristics. Delineates differences and similarities between dramatic play and drama. Concludes that the term "dramatic play" can cover all kinds of pretend play, including symbolic, representational, imaginative, fantasy, thematic,…

Traditionally, we think of play as children's work, and this work is often considered trivial and meaningless. However, when the definition of play is explored, its multiple meanings encourage us to understand play as an important vehicle for the propulsion of society. Play has become a hot topic in households and classrooms and for political…

Public schools are currently operating in a pressure-cooker of accountability systems in which they must teach students to high standards and meet ever increasing targets for student proficiency, or face increasingly severe sanctions. Into this mix is thrown educational technology and the funding for that technology. The literature espouses the…

(Purpose) After an extensive search, which included the Internet, four state Departments of Education, and national and state agencies for the gifted, were told by a national agency for gifted children that no standards, specifically for gifted preschool children, existed. The purpose of this paper is to create standards for a preschool gifted…

Despite the speed at which Second Life has been adopted by universities and schools to teach courses, little educational research and theory addresses this multiplayer online "world." This case study explored undergraduate university instructors' teaching methods and tools within a virtual environment. It also considered whether instructors are…

Long before babies understand words, they understand touch. The first experience of compassion infants receive is gentle, caring touch, which gives a strong message, especially when accompanied by eye contact and a soft tone of voice. The kind of relationship a compassionate caregiver strives to develop with an infant creates attachment, an…

To meet the needs of a diverse student population while addressing the knowledge and skills outcomes of the curriculum, faculty should develop a repertoire of instructional models. Research-based instructional models from the fields of education and health care have been developed to support various learner outcomes. Emphasis on evidence-based…

Children with autism often lack complex socially expressive skills that would allow them to engage others more successfully. In the present study, video modeling was used to promote appropriate verbal comments, intonation, gestures, and facial expressions during social interactions of three children with autism. In baseline, the children rarely…

Children's play behaviors are generally fun for them, but the same cannot be said for children who need clinical help. Play therapy seeks to resolve psychosocial difficulties and reestablish a child's ability to play and function normally (O'Connor, 2000). Ecosystemic play therapy (EPT) integrates a variety of techniques and theories to create a…

The purpose of this study was to determine if levels of teacher education and experience would influence how teachers respond to children's play needs in a preschool classroom. The interactions of eight teachers--three of whom were categorized as high education/high experience, three as low education/high experience, and two as low education/low…

This article is based on materials gathered from qualitative research interviews among eight-year-old and nine-year-old children participating in an after-school programme (ASP) in Oslo, and investigates how bodily play affects their sense of coherence (SOC). In line with Maurice Merleau-Ponty, children's lived experiences are regarded as layered…

This study describes the communication repair behaviors used by nonverbal students with developmental disabilities in the interactions they were involved in with their teachers during free play activities. All children were students at centers serving student with developmental disabilities at Anadolu University in Turkey. Data were collected by…

Aim: To investigate the relationship between motor ability and early social development in a cohort of preschool children with cerebral palsy (CP). Design: Population-based cohort study. Methods: Participants were 122 children with CP assessed at 18, 24 and 30 months, corrected age (ca). Motor ability was measured by the Gross Motor Function…