Declining family size plus the widespread belief that only children experience adjustment difficulties provided the impetus for this investigation comparing the characteristics of only children with children raised in multiple-sibling families. Results indicated that being reared as an only child actually provided a slight developmental advantage…

Based on the Preschool Recreation Enrichment Program (PREP), the manual--one third of which consists of appendixes--is intended to assist recreation personnel in developing programs addressing the motor and associative learning needs of preschool children who demonstrate delays in motor, language, and/or socialization skills. The manual describes…

Examination of the social development of Iran reveals that quantitative leaps in the growth of traditional communication indicators, such as the mass media, did not necessarily mean growth in the social communication system as a whole. The intrinsic communication needs of modern Iranians for identity, legitimacy, and community have remained…

This report describes the comparisons of three groups of 1976-77 kindergarten students in the Seattle, Washington public schools: (1) early entrants who were screened by the Student Services Office; (2) early entrants admitted by school principals; and (3) a random sample of non-early entrants. The groups were compared on the basis of teacher…

Social cognitive abilities were evaluated in 23 deaf students (3 to 6 years old) through tasks requiring spatial perspective taking, cooperation, and receptive language. As hypothesized, language ability proved to be a prediction of both other variables, with the high correlation between language and perspective taking indicating a definite…

The possibility that child behavior could affect parental choice of socialization technique was examined. Girls, age nine, (N=3) were trained to act high and low in person-orientation, and served as confederates. Female college students (N-24), who were unaware that the children were trained, each participated in one session. Results demonstrated…

Several related studies of empathy and altruism in children were conducted to answer such questions as: (1) What are the very early signs of empathy and altruism in children? (2) What kinds of transformations in these behaviors take place during development? and (3) How do rearing experiences influence these behaviors? Data related to these…

This study develops an action research approach to the investigation of children's games and sports activities. Eight hypotheses concerning the differential effects of participation in organized sports and participation in child-directed games are generated from a review of theory and research. Hypothesis 1 postulates that participation in…

DESCRIPTIONS OF PHYSICAL FACILITIES, A VERBAL AND NON-VERBAL INTERACTION ANALYSIS MEASURED ON A (1) TASK-ORIENTING, (2) MAINTAINING SOCIAL ORDER, AND (3) FACILITATING SCALE, TEACHER INTERVIEWS, AND OBSERVER VERBAL REPORTS ASSESS A SELECTED SAMPLE OF CLASSROOMS WITHIN THE 1965 CAMBRIDGE SUMMER HEAD START PROGRAM. PERFORMANCE OF HEAD START AND…

A model of identity formation, based on the cognitive developmental stages of social perspective-taking, was tested to determine if identity is achievable through cognitive strategies of considering the self in relation to friends, family, peers, and society. Two separate studies, one involving college students (N=28) and one involving high school…

The paper reviews aspects of a young child's emotional development occurring in social interactions and discusses implications for children having, or at risk of having, emotional and behavioral problems. Contributions of ethology and ecology are cited in an examination of the child's interaction with the family. Research findings are reviewed on…

One of a series of papers which focus on 10- to 15-year-old adolescents, this publication describes these young people as they work through developmental tasks in environments (families, communities, peer groups, and schools) that are part of their daily lives. This description is used as a basis to accomplish the following: (1) a further…

Two classrooms of first graders (n-40) were administered Damon's moral judgment measure, Spivack and Shure's social problems solving measure and Stanford-Binet vocabulary. Concurrently, two observers recorded in the children's school environment incidences of successful resolutions of interactions, amount of derogation, and the number of times a…

A SOCIAL COMPETENCY SCALE DESIGNED TO RATE PRESCHOOL CHILDREN AGED TWO YEARS, SIX MONTHS THROUGH FIVE YEARS, SIX MONTHS WITHIN A NURSERY SCHOOL CONTEXT WAS DEVELOPED AND STANDARDIZED. AFTER EXTENSIVE OBSERVATIONS OF PRESCHOOLERS, DISCUSSIONS WITH PRESCHOOL PERSONNEL, AND REVIEWS OF AVAILABLE MATERIAL THE FIRST FORM OF THE SCALE WAS WRITTEN, BASED…