Proceedings of the 1984 Music in Early Childhood Conference held at Brigham Young University are presented in this document. Part I contains keynote addresses; Parts II through IV, respectively, consist of reports by research teams, synopses of workshops, and abstracts of research sessions. Keynote speakers addressed a broad scope of issues…

Questions of how and why early childhood education has come to rely on a psychological perspective are examined and problematic aspects of the discourse of early childhood education are explored. An overview of the history of early education discusses the replacement of idealistic by pragmatic perspectives, the influence of Darwin's use of the…

These five booklets, containing information on how parenting can effect children's school achievement, are part of a series of 22 innovative booklets designed specifically to help parents understand and help their children learn. Booklet #1, "Parents--Teach Your Children to Learn [Before They Go to School]," defines intelligence and…

Considerable attention has been paid to the question of whether altruism increases with age through the years of childhood and early adolescence. The relationship between age and helping was examined for 128 boys and 128 girls in the first experiment. A second sample of an additional 256 participants was then studied to investigate factors which…

Research indicates that sexual abuse of children is widespread and underreported. Since child development workers are among children's first contacts, the emotional and physical well-being of the young children in their care depends to a large degree on workers' awareness of characteristics of sexually abused children and abusive parents. In turn,…

This paper considers the psychological aspects of children's drawings. The utility of the Draw a Person Test (DAPT) for different types of pscyhological research is discussed, and the non-intellectual and cultural factors of the DAPT are described. Suggestions on the administration, scoring, and interpretation of drawings are given. The next two…

The old saying, that a single spark can start a prairie fire, appears in many forms and in different cultures carrying a range of shifting implications and meanings. In this article, William Ayers writes that in some instances, prairie fires are not always catastrophic. They are naturally occurring events necessary and renewing; removing the thick…

A survey of the yearbooks published by the National Society for the Study of Education (NSSE) in the twentieth century indicates that philosophers of education changed the direction of their work. In the nineteenth century, educators turned to philosophers for answers to questions about the aim of education. As the twentieth century advanced,…

Analysis of responses of 482 sixth graders, classified as either peer oriented or adult oriented, reveals that while the peer-oriented children generally conform to a socially undesirable peer subculture, they are unsatisfied and anxious about it. Sex differences are discussed and comparisons made with other research. (Author)

A high school course in early childhood growth and development is described. It is offered as part of an exploratory career program and is scheduled for a full school year for three hours a day. Students acquire entry level skills in a laboratory nursery school. (AJ)

The purpose of this article is to demonstrate that important aspects of aesthetic education are neither technical nor abstruse, and that elementary school teachers particularly can develop in children an openness to aesthetic experience. (Author)

The Learning Problem Indication Index an instrument intended to help identify the preschool child with potential learning problems, was evaluated with 432 children (ages 4 to 19 years) from varying backgrounds referred to the Pupil Appraisal Center at North Texas State University. (DB)

Using children's books about death as examples, suggests that perhaps we push children too quickly through the developmental tasks of childhood and that more research into the maturation process is needed before we succumb completely to "reality" teaching. (TO)

This research attempted to expand Piaget's study of children's thinking to include the content and the development of their concepts of death and the impact of experience on those concepts. One hundred twenty-two, middle-class, native-born boys and girls, aged three through twelve years were interviewed. Concepts were found to be composed of nine…

The relationship between children's knowledge of particular situations and their comprehension of stories about them was investigated. Children in kindergarten and grades two, four, and six heard stories about differentially familiar situations and then answered questions. "Scripts," characterizing knowledge about stereotypical events, were…