This book is designed to be a quick and easy resource for anyone teaching physics for the first time. Written after extensive research, this book is filled with reliable labs, demos and activities that work well in the classroom. Also included are lesson plans, diagrams, and teacher notes for every activity. The book is not the end--it is just a…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of DISCOVER, a performance-based assessment in identifying gifted Lebanese students. The sample consisted of 248 students (121 boys, 127 girls) from grades 3-5 at two private schools in Beirut, Lebanon. Results showed evidence for DISCOVER's concurrent validity with the Raven Standard…

Locus of control is a construct that reflects an individual's perception of control over his or her own destiny. The thesis is that people adopt either an internal or an external orientation. Internally oriented persons consider success the result of ability and effort. Externally oriented individuals attribute success to luck, fate, or powerful…

This paper addresses the problem of heterogeneity of samples of learning disabled (LD) children by comparing five different systems for identifying homogeneous subgroups in terms of their ability to predict longitudinal reading and mathematics scores. One hundred and sixty LD children served as subjects. Three of the five subgrouping systems were…

This longitudinal study examined two groups of children, boys in one sample and girls in another, to assess whether programs such as Head Start and Follow Through produce lasting measureable effects. Low-income children were examined separately from middle-income children and, within the low-income sample, a separate analysis was made for…

A case study of a pair of extremely deprived twin boys focuses on their verbal communication. Talkativeness alone was not regarded as a measure of intelligence, but attention was paid to the less talkative twin's greater use of imaginative speech. Speculations are made on the evolutionary role of creative speech. (IS)

This collection of articles offers theories and thoughts presented at the 1998 Teaching for Intelligence Conference. They highlight a wide and diverse range of views on pedagogy, achievement, and the state of education. Section 1, "The Need for Intelligence in Schooling," includes "On the Habit of Informed Skepticism" (Theodore R. Sizer);…

This article describes critical events that have shaped gifted education, including: intelligence testing, world wars, deployment of the Sputnik and resulting legislation, civil rights, the work of advocacy organizations, the study of creativity, the changing roles of women, school reform, technology and computers, and teacher effectiveness. (CR)

Background: Little is known on the adult outcome and longitudinal trajectory of childhood developmental language disorders (DLD) and on the prognostic predictors. Method: Seventeen men with a severe receptive DLD in childhood, reassessed in middle childhood and early adult life, were studied again in their mid-thirties with tests of intelligence…

In this article, the author relates her difficult experiences as a novice teacher when she started teaching bilingual third-graders in Spanish at Spangler Elementary School in 2002. She relates that her teaching strategy of balancing rigor and sweetness had its rewards as her students' rate of reading proficiency on the Colorado Student Assessment…

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is the most prevalent of the childhood behavioral disorders, yet is widely misunderstood and often difficult to correctly diagnose. Using a neuropsychological framework, this study explored the usefulness of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Third Edition (WISC-III) and Wisconsin Card…

This document examines the use of measurement tools to evaluate children's psychological development. The first part of the document discusses the identification and quantification of developmental landmarks and the reasons for evaluation. The second part reviews several evaluation instruments. The Ruth Griffiths mental development scales are used…

The Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence (WPPSI) has recently undergone a major revision and restandardization to update its 20-year-old norms, extend the age range down to age 3 and up to age 7 years, update and revise its test items, and increase its appeal to young children. This paper presents the results of a concurrent…

This paper views the adaptive behavior of individuals with mental retardation as a coping response to the biological and social demands of the environment. Adaptive skills are contrasted with adaptive behaviors, with skills being based primarily on developing new learning and habituating specific responses. Adaptive behavior represents a more…

This report summarizes the work conducted for the Artificial Intelligence Measurement System (AIMS) Project which was undertaken as an exploration of methodology to consider how the effects of artificial intelligence systems could be compared to human performance. The research covered four areas of inquiry: (1) natural language processing and…