Sociodemographic characteristics, delinquency and dependency referral histories, and psychosocial functioning were compared for three groups of youth (N=9,583) at a juvenile assessment center. Findings indicate that eight- to twelve- year olds tend to be ethnic minorities, live in mother-headed households of low economic status, and have a…

Explores the historical roots of universalistic thinking about children's nature, their needs, and what constitutes healthy development. Considers the opportunities for a new psychology of childhood to be reconstructed in ways that pay more attention to the cultural dimensions, as well as to the socio-cultural process, of the subject. (Author)

President Kennedy helped fulfill his vision of research on and attention to mental retardation by creating the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the President's Panel on Mental Retardation. The President's Panel helped create Mental Retardation Research Centers (MRRCs). Peabody College of Vanderbilt University's Kennedy…

Susan Gray and Nicholas Hobbs were influential in the development of the Kennedy Center at Peabody College of Vanderbilt University, which was designed to include an emphasis on research and training in education and human development. This paper describes Gray's and Hobbs' work and explains how their vision extended to the creation of the Kennedy…

Discusses the evolution of research on mental retardation, which was enhanced by support from the Kennedy family, President Kennedy's determination to place a high priority on the issue, development of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, and creation of 12 national Mental Retardation Research Centers, including the unique…

Describes the development of the Kennedy Center for Research and Human Development at Peabody College of Vanderbilt University, which is renowned for outstanding training of researchers and for its work in the field of mental retardation. Discusses Kennedy Center researchers, the Center's philosophy, the Center's research, and the Center's role in…

Investigated the use of relative clauses in French children's narrative monologues. Narrative texts, based on a picture book without text, were collected from monolinguals age 5, 7, and 10 years and adults. Researchers coded relative constructions. Use of relative clauses in general-discourse functions preceded use in more specific narrative…

Investigated personal storytelling among young working-class and middle-class children, observing them at home at age 2; age 6 and 3; and under-one year. Analysis of generic properties, narrative content, and emotion talk revealed a complex configuration of similarities and differences. Differentiation between working-class and middle-class…

Investigated whether children age 2; age 0-2; and 2 years used grammatical and caregiver cues in sentence comprehension and how different types of cues interacted. Children listened to sentences and identified pictures. Results indicated that children used caregiver cues (e.g., short length and position of key words) in sentence comprehension.…

Analyzes five fifth graders' talk about a historical fiction novel. Focuses on students' conversational competence within the three-week unit by examining their developing competence in sustaining topics and themes, taking the perspective of the "other," and developing content and theme understandings. Suggests that these abilities…

Compared verbal and visuo-spatial working memory (WM) performance under initial, gain, and maintenance conditions for nine age groups from 6 to 57 years to determine if differences were attributable to specific or general processing functions. Found support for a general-capacity explanation of age-related differences, reflecting demands placed on…

Notes the difficulty of finding quality day care for special needs children. Discusses Project Specialcare, designed to support family child-care providers who accept such children into their programs. Describes how providers participated in Saturday sessions focused on a topic followed by open discussion and how the advice and counsel of a…

Studied the psychometric characteristics of a developmental assessment in mathematics composed of 19 performance tasks for students in grades K-3. Reports convergent validity coefficients, internal consistency reliability, interrater reliability, and task orderings. (SLD)

Describes the Healthy Families America (HFA) initiative, a program that seeks to expand the availability of high-quality, intensive home-visitation services. Reports on evaluation of HFA programs, which have not shown significant improvements in children's development and maternal social support so far. (SLD)

Discusses young teenagers' adoption of animal personas in their creative writing classes, and the way these classroom activities follow Montessori principles. Considers both the role of imagination in the animal identification and the psychological and pedagogical significance of the underlying development of unconscious kinship with Earth and its…