Notes that infant curriculums involve every aspect of child development and should be appropriate for the individual child. Highlights characteristics of ideal curriculums, and provides guidelines for assessment of child and curriculum, and of communication regarding curriculum. (LBT)

Advocates providing opportunities for child-initiated literacy experiences within a free play setting in early childhood education programs. Presents a rationale for meaningful academic content in preschools, including the need for early adult models and advantages of free-play over structured settings. Details methods of promoting literacy in…

Describes a unit plan for teaching "Lord of the Flies" that allows students to respond freely to the reading and to "get out of their seats" and experience the first chapter of the book. Includes guidelines for the response-based approach, for discussion groups, and for character portfolios. (NH)

A study of 41 Puerto Rican and African American preschoolers found they used three strategies to obtain objects from peers: movement toward objects, verbal intentions with movements toward objects, and verbal intentions. Students were most successful when they combined physical movement toward an object with a request, statement, or claim.…

Analyzed videotapes of 3- to 7-year-old Singaporean children to document play and language level. Data analysis revealed a developmental trend in play and language scores, several significant gender differences in Smilansky's and Parten/Piaget play categories but no significant gender differences in language scores. Socioeconomic status…

Explored preschoolers' emotion regulation skills within a pretend play context using a negatively valenced event designed to elicit a high level of arousal. Found that children's success in continuing pretend play was related to emotion regulation skills in other contexts, whereas their effectiveness at resolving conflict was not. (TJQ)

Through the process of distancing, children develop an understanding of the differences between themselves and others, themselves and objects, and objects and representations. Adults can support progressive distancing in children who are congenitally deaf-blind by applying strategies, such as the hand-under-hand exploration of objects, the…

Recent studies have pointed to the importance of second language learners' use of repetition for conversational participation and language learning. This study researched the significance of repetition, varying in type and complexity, for second language learning children's verbal participation in play as well as their academic language skills and…

Fatherchild and motherchild engagements were examined longitudinally in relation to children's language and cognitive development at 24 and 36 months. The study involved a raciallyethnically diverse sample of low-income, resident fathers (and their partners) from the National Early Head Start evaluation study (n290). Fatherchild and motherchild…

This case study of an African American elementary school female who is homeless illustrates how ASCA's National Model meets the needs of students who are homeless. The needs of children who are homeless and the rationale for school counseling interventions--including assessment, classroom guidance, group play therapy, and consultation--are…

This study evaluated the psychometric properties of an observational rating system for assessing preschoolers' peer entry and play skills: Observed Peer Play in Unfamiliar Settings (OPPUS). Participants were 84 preschoolers at risk for psychopathology. Reliability and concurrent validity are reported. The 30-min paradigm yielded reliable indexes…

This group study investigated the impact of teacher facilitation on the social interactions of young children during computer activities. The study compared 18 dyads comprised of children with and without disabilities who received teacher facilitation during computer activities to a group of children who did not receive teacher facilitation. The…

Playdates are a regular part of life of many preschool age children, and when a child with disabilities cannot participate in the typical playdates of childhood, they, and their parents, feel isolated and lonely. This article discusses different aspects of running successful playdates for children with autism and other developmental disabilities.…

In Roberts and Strayer (1996), we reported that emotional expressiveness and anger were important predictors of empathy for school-age children, and that empathy strongly predicted prosocial behaviors aggregated across methods and sources. In this paper, we report how empathy was associated with direct observations of anger and aggression in peer…

This is a account of the play behaviors of an individual who has autism as remembered by himself and his mother. He recalls that what was fun for him was not the same as play activities of typical children. His mother comments on how this made her son increasingly different. (Author/CR)