Examined the relation between 3- to 5-year-olds' beliefs about the tendency for antisocial behavior to remain stable over time and their reasoning about peer interactions. Found that children who endorsed sociomoral stability beliefs were less likely than their peers to make prosocial inferences, were rated by their teachers as less likely to…

This article first considers how plasticity of the brain in response to differential experience was discovered in research with laboratory rats around 1960. Animal research soon followed on effects of enriched experience as therapy for brain dysfunction. Relations between animal research and some human therapies are considered. (Contains…

Three experiments investigated 2- to 6-month-olds' perception of the continuity of an object trajectory that was briefly occluded. Results across experiments provided little evidence of veridical responses to trajectory occlusion in the youngest infants, but by 6 months, perception completion was more robust. Results suggest that perceptual…

Three studies explored whether children's tendency to extend object names on the basis of sameness of shape (shape bias) is specific to naming. Findings indicated that 2- and 3-year-olds showed shape bias both when asked to extend a novel name and when asked to select an object of the same kind as a target object; 3-year-olds also showed shape…

Focuses on the tensions between two psychological frameworks in the negotiation of teaching practices, curriculum, and ideas about what constitutes childhood: (1) the theories of Jean Piaget focused on behavior at different developmental stages; or (2) the Susan Isaacs research that took a general view of children's intellectual capabilities. (CMK)

Reports on a study designed to determine whether there is a common level of logic, related to age, underlying children's responses to musical and spatial analogical tasks. Finds that there is a relationship between age and children's responses to analogical tasks whether one uses musical or spatial relationships. Discusses implications for music…

Two antithetical views of the sense-making potential of young children are explored: the Piagetian egocentric view and the sociocentric view. The article suggests that empirical research demonstrates socially construed perspective-taking tasks do not show the young child to be egocentric, but sociocentric. (IAH)

The theoretical framework, methodology, findings, and implications for three studies which explored the relationship between adult development, collaborative action research, and instructional supervision are discussed. Each study concluded that educators define and practice supervision in qualitatively different ways depending upon their own…

Analysis of longitudinal data on the phonetic development of Swedish infants (N=4) from 1 through 17 months of age showed five distinct stages in early vocalization development: glottal; velar/uvular; vocalic; reduplicated consonant babbling; and variegated consonant babbling. Comparison with infants of differing linguistic backgrounds indicated…

The proposed framework assumes six developmental stages according to mean length of utterance in morphemes. Within each stage, syntactic forms and semantic relations interact. In assessment, each utterance is analyzed for features which describe current language abilities. Language goals are developed based on existing and expected features.…

To test whether the critical language learning period applies to second languages, the English proficiency was studied of 46 Asians varying in age at which they moved to America. Results on a grammaticality judgment task support the hypothesis; early arrivals were significantly superior to later arrivals in English proficiency. (TJH)

Evaluation of the speech of five Dutch-speaking adolescent girls with Down's syndrome found that speech errors tended to be identical to the error patterns in young normal children supporting the view that misarticulations in Down's syndrome subjects are mainly the result of a delay in speech development. (Author/DB)

Tested the hypothesis that focusing attention on relative performance will promote ego involvement and undermine intrinsic motivation in school-age children but not in preschoolers who do not have a normative conception of ability. (PCB)

Reading improvement in school-age children is the focus of the 10 articles within this supplement. Topics include recent research findings, classroom activities, teaching methods, computer-based instruction, literature-based programs, home-based activities, stages of reading development, and reading resource materials. (IAH)

Tests a model of the factors that influence groups to follow various paths as they make decisions. Uses three panels of contingency variables to predict properties of the group's developmental path. Finds that group decision paths and their properties can be predicted as a function of task and relational contingencies. (MS)