This report reviews the status of early childhood education (ECE) programs in UNICEF's Middle East and North Africa region. The report compiles information about ECE programs in 18 countries based on a questionnaire sent to UNICEF country offices and other sources. The introduction sets out the economic and social rationales for investing in early…

Geared toward early childhood educators, reading and writing teachers, bilingual and English as a Second Language teachers, and to courses in these fields, this yearbook examines the issues of linguistic and cultural diversity in early childhood programs. Following an introduction (Eugene Garcia and Barry McLaughlin) on the cultural context…

This paper discusses the use of child development charts to assess the social, self-help, gross motor, fine motor, and language development of infants and young children. It examines the roles of teachers and parents in observing and assessing children's development and provides 2 checklists, one for infants from birth through 21 months (at…

Schemas are cognitive structures or forms of thought, like pieces of ideas or concepts. Patterns in children's behavior, or in their drawings and paintings, indicate common themes or threads (schemas) running through them. The action research study described in this report examined the effects on children's learning of intervening in their…

Studies on child language acquisition suggest that Japanese children begin to use a variety of linguistic signs very early. However, even if young Japanese children learned the social pragmatic functions and interactional dimensions of such linguistic means and communicative devices, they might not have acquired the subtleties of those devices…

This two-part study examined aspects of family environments that are considered to be influential in the development of young children's creativity. Mothers of children ages 4 to 6 years were surveyed on their valuing of particular personality characteristics (The Ideal Child Checklist) and specific features of the home environment (The Creative…

"Speak Out for Children" is the quarterly newsletter of the Children's Rights Council (CRC), which is concerned with the healthy development of children of divorced and separated parents. The newsletter consists of feature articles and regular sections and columns. Feature articles for volume 11, issue number 1, are: "U.S.…

Although the basic growth changes for teenagers are the same as they were 20 or 30 years ago, the environment in which these changes occur has changed. This book describes the characteristic changes in human behavior which take place from year to year between the ages of 10 and 14. Part 1 of the book describes the longitudinal research, which…

These three newsletter issues, published by the Children's Rights Council (CRC), are concerned with the healthy development of children of divorced and separated parents. Feature articles in issue number 1 of this volume are: (1) "Commission to Focus on Custody/Access"; and (2) "Congress to Move on Welfare Reform." Feature articles in issue number…

This booklet is designed to offer new parents clear, common-sense advice on how to nurture infants and preschoolers. It advises parents to set the stage for what their children learn in school and beyond. Six sections focus on specific activities that contribute to early childhood development and well-being in the first 6 months, from 6 to 12…

This paper discusses the United Nations' Convention on the Rights of the Child, which was adopted in 1989 and, over the next approximately 3 years, was ratified by 117 member countries. After a brief historical overview of children's rights, the paper presents a summary and analysis of the Convention's preamble, which states the preconditions of…

During the years 1986-1988, a Swedish research project called "Sons" tried to provide some tentative answers to questions raised by the recent focus on gender issues in peace education. A total of 20 feminist and 20 traditional mothers of sons were interviewed concerning their ideas about the development of their sons and about the difficulties…

This paper describes a computer-simulation model of the way in which basic reasoning processes develop in children. The model, based on PRISM-II programming language, was designed to reflect the manner in which world knowledge can be used to construct strategies for reasoning. The model learns strategies for performing transitive inference by…

This videotape workshop, available in both English- and Spanish-language versions, demonstrates some of the 260 weekly "Slow and Steady, Get Me Ready" developmental activities for children from birth to age 5. The videotape is narrated by the retired kindergarten teacher who developed the activities based on her 25 years of experience. The…

This resource book assists in selecting appropriate instruments to use in assessing preschool children suspected of having disabilities. For each of the 68 tests reviewed, the following information is provided: author, publisher, copyright date, price, purpose, description, range of children, testing time, scoring, examiner, standardization,…