Presents three activities for teaching spelling to students in grades 2-6 using individualized weekly spelling lists made up of developmentally appropriate words. (SM)

This article looks into why infants learn to talk, using a series of illustrative proposals as to the short- and long-term consequences to the infant behaviors that lead to linguistic competence. The goal of the article is to encourage investigation of behavioral dispositions that nudge the child toward proficiency in the use of the spoken…

A study of 90 children in third, fourth, and fifth grade investigated the students' ability to detect the idioms embedded in 12 humorous items and their ability to explain the idioms. Results showed that idiom comprehension improved significantly between the ages of 8 and 11 years and that idiom detection was easier than idiom explanation. (CR)

This discussion of planning for individuals with autism using a life-span perspective considers stages and transitions across life, noting the special difficulty these individuals have with transitions; changing perspectives on disability in the United States; and characteristics of comprehensive life-span programs (sophisticated diagnoses, strong…

Replies to a report on three toddlers who evidenced a late vocabulary spurt. The article argues that differences in assessing productive vocabulary and the questionable inference that size of the lexicon is a reliable indicator of the vocabulary spurt make it inappropriate to compare these children to previous studies directly measuring change in…

Conceptualizes cohesion as contextually adapted clause level redundancies and focuses on emergent literacy. Analyzes 96 texts for indices of context/register appropriate cohesion and wording choices. Finds significant income and emergent reading category main effects. Suggests developmental patterns and an identifiable level of code-switching…

Whether mental attentional capacity increases as a linear function of age during normal childhood development, as predicted by the neo-Piagetian developmental theory of J. Pascual-Leone (1970 and later), was studied with 215 children aged 5 to 12 years. Results provide only partial support for the Pascual-Leone theory. (SLD)

Examined developmental stability and change in children's private speech during the preschool years across-task constituency in children's self-speech, and across-setting relations between private speech in the laboratory and behavior at home and in the classroom. Clear associations were found between children's private speech use in the…

Four studies explored children's beliefs about the stability of positive traits among three groups. Findings indicated that younger children were more likely than older children or adults to believe that negative physical and psychological traits would change positively, that they could control the expression of a trait, and that extreme positive…

Offers a detailed examination of both external and internal assets that middle school students may have, and discusses those that can be significantly affected by middle schools. Describes what successful middle schools do, and discusses teacher training and positive youth development. (SR)

The second of a four-part series on the development of infants and toddlers, this article reviews current research on social and emotional development during the first two years and provides a selected list of activities designed to promote infants' optimal development. Attachment behavior and affective behavior are two major topics explored. (EV)

Studied developmental changes in the experience of solitude between late childhood and early adolescence. Fifth through ninth graders (N=483) provided experience-sampling reports on their companionship and subjective states at random times over a week. Found that in early adolescence solitude comes to have a more constructive role in daily life as…

Asserts that the key to assisting those trying to negotiate the "survival" dimensions of their first years as teachers or center directors is immediate responsiveness to concerns and needs. Recommends on-site mentors to support first-year teachers/administrators in reflective practice and to serve as sounding board, colleague, coach, and…

This study used a pluralistic model to examine the procedures used by two preschoolers to achieve written productions using invented orthographies. The model allows children's procedural variations to be taken into consideration by understanding the hierarchy of different processing modes available to children in completing the task and…

Compares concepts defining Kohlbergian stages of moral development with those associated with orders of hierarchical complexity determined with a generalized content-independent stage-scoring system. Finds that Kohlberg's sequence generally matches that identified with the scoring system and that contract and authority concepts match the concepts…