Summarizes research concerning the disengagement theory of aging and examines awareness of finitude. Interviews with residents of old-age institutions revealed awareness of finitude to be a better predictor of disengagement than chronological age. Future research should examine this predictor in noninstitutional settings. (Author)

Presented are the theoretical characteristics of social identity in early adolescence (ages 10 to 15). It is suggested that no longer is identity thought to begin with adolescence, but may have its beginnings in the preteen years. The article draws heavily on Eriksonian concepts. (Editor/KC)

The amount of anxiety suggested the need for clinical intervention to reduce procedure-related distress in children with cancer. Younger children exhibited consistently higher levels of distress than older children and displayed a greater variety of anxious responses over a longer time span. (Author/BEF)

An examination of the role of metacognitive thinking (a secondary level of understanding in which an individual shows knowledge of his/her own cognitive process and products) in the cognitive training of exceptional students is presented. (PHR)

Category theory concept of a commutative diagram was used to construct a model of the way in which symbolic processes are applied to problem solving. It was shown that several different levels of thought can be distinguished within the basic model. Two experiments testing the theory are reported. (Author/RD)

The author reviews some research, particularly that of Roger Sperry, substantiating the existence of different thinking styles in the two brain hemispheres and the development of this differentiation in infancy and childhood. She draws some implications for elementary teaching. (SJL)

Addresses whether value change over the life course is a result of period shifts or individual maturation and differences in values among age strata are a function of cohort experience or individual maturation. Shows that on only one of the four dependent measures was aging directly implicated. (Author)

Reviews major court cases and arguments for the abolishment of corporal punishment in schools. Discusses psychological arguments against it and lists disciplinary alternatives. (SK)

Sport sociology as an academic specialty and its stages of development are described. Problems confronting future developments in sport sociology include critical mass, academic status, and ideological orientation, both in physical education and in sociology. (CJ)

Multidimensional scaling procedures were applied to checklist measures of stages from the Tiedeman-O'Hara decision-making paradigm. Responses from two adolescent samples were analyzed to test the hypothesis that stages are ordered and represent the dominant psychological states. Results did not support stage dominance theory. (Author/RC)

Drawings and writings of two children produced for each year from age four to eight were presented to "experts" in the field of style to see if they could determine which student did each picture or paragraph, based on stylistic consistencies. Concludes that style is inherent in a child's first compositions. (HTH)

Overviews characteristics of preoperational thought, summarizes Piaget's theory of the peroperational child's view of reality, explores implications of the preoperational stage of development for early childhood science education, and provides general guidelines for an early childhood science curriculum. (Author/RH)

Investigates the hypothesis that those individuals who have not reached their full potential in moral reasoning given the limits set by their stage of Piagetian development would advance significantly more than those who have reached their potential in response to a moral education program. (Author/SS)

Demonstrates that a representation of a figure through object reconstruction is prerequisite to recognizing the object figure from a collection of figures, which in turn is prerequisite to representing the object figure using a pencil-and-paper reproduction. (RL)

Finds that the object concept scores of 104 infants were relatively independent of IQ and background variables, showing that object concept is the most stable developing function in infants and an accurate reflection of infant cognitive potential. (RL)