A program developed for undergraduate students at Michigan State University that trains and utilizes students as mental health agents working with normal and clinic-referred children is examined. The program helps develop in the students communication skills with young children for use in mental health treatment or preventive capacities.…

Viewed from an ecological perspective, maternal sense of competence and social support would be expected to influence a mother's spontaneous interactions with her infant. In this study 29 mother-infant dyads were visited in their homes when the infants with cerebral palsy were 18 months old. Infants' solitary spontaneous play and mother-infant…

The purpose of this study was to explore the preferences of primary-aged, non-handicapped children for particular handicapping conditions, including visual, hearing, and orthopedic impairments. Of particular interest were the following questions: (1) Do young children understand the nature of a given handicap? (2) Are young children capable of…

This study investigated effects of a nonsexist curriculum on preschoolers' dramatic role play behavior and usage of language and play space. A quasi-experimental design included two preschool groups, one of which received a treatment component that consisted of a nonsexist curriculum. The treatment group included 12 males and 10 females between…

Intended to accompany the children's play "The Prince Who Wouldn't Talk" by James Brock on a tour of elementary schools, this guide is designed to help prepare students for the production, stimulate them to new thinking, and create follow-up activities for the classroom. The guide's first section gives a brief history of the Children's…

The teacher's guide and parent booklet on play are both intended to provide encouragement and ideas for parents of young handicapped children. The teacher's guide stresses the importance of positive parent-child interactions, addresses specific problems of some children (such as lack of mobility or perseveration) during play, and offers…

This study was designed to investigate the effects of child-centered group play sessions (using the play therapy interaction approach) and sex differences on self-control, free play, and sociometric ratings in young bilingual Puerto Rican children. The participants in the study were 48 bilingual Puerto Rican four- and five-year-old children from…

A collection of 56 classroom games to be used in grammar instruction in English as a second language includes five game categories: (1) traditional, competitive games modified to allow students to work in small groups and show themselves and the teacher how much or how little grammar they know; (2) Silent Way or Silent Way-inspired exercises in…

Two studies are presented which investigate the influence of various toy structures on the frequency of individual fantasy play forms in 3- to 6-year-old children. In the first study, the effects of high-realistic/high-complexity and low-realistic/low-complexity toy structures were compared. There were significant main effects for the factor toy…

Ways hospitals can promote the psychological and social well being of young patients are explored in this paper. First, the importance of familiarizing the child with the hospital is emphasized. Second, emotions hospitalized children may feel and the possible causes of those emotions are listed. Third, methods hospital personnel can use to help…

An electric preschool is a classroom or center for children 3 to 5 years of age in which the curriculum with its supportive activities, materials, and equipment depends more on technology that is powered by electricity than on manually operated objects. Certainly, preschoolers need stimulating and safe environments managed by adults who allow them…

The project studied videotaped unstructured play sessions between 16 Downs Syndrome (DS) infants (aged 6 months and 12 months) and their mothers, to investigate the relationship between maternal attention-directing strategies and the infants' response to toys. A comparison group consisted of 16 high-risk premature infants matched by mental and…

This study demonstrates that symbolic play has merit as a curricular tool for early literacy development. Naturalistic observation of four prekindergarten teachers and their classes revealed ways in which teachers can facilitate early literacy development by functioning as participants within the context of young children's spontaneous symbolic…

A total of 103 preschool children of lower and middle socioeconomic status families were observed in three preschool programs during 15 standardized free play periods for the purpose of investigating preschool children's preferences for different types of traditionally used play materials. The influence of age, sex, and socioeconomic status (SES)…

The connections among language learning, language education, and children's wordplay are explored in this book. Each chapter examines some aspect of the interrelations between wordplay activities and the goals of language education. The book is divided into three sections, with the first section exploring wordplay and language learning in the…