Using an advance organizer, an instructional aid designed to precede a main passage and to provide an effective organizational framework for older adults who may not have spontaneously employed their own strategy for understanding written material, a study investigated whether (1) reading comprehension could be instructionally influenced and (2)…

A study of differential brain hemisphere involvement in second language acquisition is reported. The study examined the idea that the right hemisphere is progressively more involved the later the second language is acquired. Various techniques for monitoring hemispheric functioning are described, especially the Evoked Potential (EP) technique. In…

The first of a series of four, this booklet is designed to interest and involve 9- to 11-year-olds in learning about human development. "Fun to Grow On" focuses specifically on helping elementary school children share and enjoy some simple activities with preschool children. The activities are intended to teach older children that (1) each person…

The beneficial effects of changing an answer on a multiple choice test were examined for elementary school students, with particular emphasis on the answer-changing behavior of minority versus non-minority groups and high-income versus low-income students. Test booklets from students in grade 2 and answer sheets from students in grades 4, 6, and 8…

This study attempts to integrate and extend previous research by multivariate investigation to determine multidimensional relationships among both the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised (WAIS-R) subscales and the demographic variables for the 1981 WAIS-R standardization sample. Canonical correlation with orthogonal rotation of composite…

Studies conducted in the 1960s (Aldous and Hill, 1969) examining the quality of life in families based on their affective and financial resources identified the childbearing stage and the stage when adolescents were present as especially stressful periods. Findings from the 1978 Quality of American Life survey (Campbell and Converse, 1980) were…

Fertility research among four groups of Chicanas showed intragroup differences in fertility rates and in relationships between fertility and independent socioeconomic variables. A literature review suggested that research on minority group fertility failed to recognize intragroup variations. Data from the 1980 Public-Use Microdata Sample yielded a…

Using the 1976 Survey of Income and Education, and focusing on Hispanics aged 14 to 25, analyses were conducted to assess when in the schooling process Hispanics drop out. Findings suggest that over 40 percent of all Hispanic dropouts leave school before reaching the 10th grade, with most of the pre-high-school attrition occurring at the junior…

A study was conducted to investigate developmental aspects of the logical organization of reasons among 30 boys and girls from each of the first, sixth, and tenth grades. Participants were administered the Responsibility Story Test, a measure consisting of stories portraying moral dilemmas and corresponding semistructured interview schedules.…

The popular view that children have an advantage in learning a second language has considerable support in research, although it is not uncontested. One approach proposes that the child possesses a unique capacity for language that the adult no longer has. Another view argues that the child's brain is more flexible. A third approach assumes that…

When in childhood concepts about alcohol and drinking begin to develop has just begun to be investigated. A study was conducted to examine cognitive, maturational, and differential exposure influences on the acquisition of concepts about alcoholic beverages in preschool children. Knowledge about alcoholic beverages and drinking was assessed in 65…

Recognizing the need for some form of evaluation of students' ability to understand the organization of ideas in different subject areas, a study was conducted to evaluate 450 paragraphs written by students aged 12 to 17. Students chose one of three groups of four words each to write on. Each group represented a category, the subjects being…

After a pilot study identified possible responses that children and adolescents give when defining concrete and abstract nouns, a study investigated the development of concrete noun (specific objects) and abstract noun (concepts) definitions given by 10, 14, and 18-year-olds, as well as whether abstract and concrete nouns are defined in a parallel…

Human beings have as great a capacity for losing or forgetting a language as they do for learning one. Many have lost language skills due to a lack of a linguistically appropriate environment in which to use a particular language. Millions of individuals who have studied a second language in high school or college for several years have lost the…

Are young children able to become competent in two languages simultaneously? In an attempt to answer this question, Singaporean Chinese, Malay, and Indian children of 3.5 through 6 years of age who attended six different types of preschool centers were grouped into age bands separated by an interval of 6 months and were given four English tests…