This article examines contextual issues relevant to the application of developmentally appropriate practices to young children with special needs. Appropriate practices recognized by the National Association for the Education of Young Children are compared with those published by the Division for Early Childhood of the Council for Exceptional…

Research investigating the role of computers in the primary classroom is closely linked to the body of knowledge concerned with theories of learning and child development. Presents research as an attempt to provide scientifically supportable reasons why computers are effective in education and examines the educational application of cognitive…

Introduces Developmentally Appropriate Practice (DAP) and explains how those practices are effective with five- through eight-year olds. Key elements discussed are: children learn by doing through active engagement, the idea of play with intent and purpose, and moving from the simple to the complex in planning for learning in active and engaging…

Investigated North American children's and adults' familiarity with, and liking for, fairy tales. Results support the hypotheses that children's liking for fairy tales relates significantly to their involvement in imagining activities and that more general imagining involvements are likely to be associated with, or to mediate differences in, the…

Evaluates a project designed to provide information support to low-income, low-education, first-time fathers. Significant differences were found between fathers who were provided appropriate child-rearing information and those who were not. Following their babies' birth, fathers in the intervention group more accurately pinpointed the age at which…

Early childhood educators in public school settings are influenced by trends and practices in the field of early childhood and elementary education. The paper examines those trends, conflicts between current trends and realities, and the dilemma of early childhood educators in developing quality programs in elementary schools. (SM)

Today's emphasis in health education is on prevention of serious illness through lifestyles that promote wholeness. The article reviews stages in child development and gives health educators ideas for class activities in the area of self-esteem, exploring development of self-worth, belonging, competency, and power. (SM)

This paper presents bibliotherapy as a feasible method for preventing or curing problems of gifted and talented youngsters. It describes stages in bibliotherapy, examines who can benefit from bibliotherapy, discusses ways in which bibliotherapy may benefit gifted students, and outlines steps in implementing a bibliotherapy program. (JDD)

Rasch calibration procedures were applied to item-response data for the 1,262 infants and toddlers comprising the standardization sample for the Mental Scale of the Bayley Scales of Infant Development. Analyses tend to confirm the psychometric integrity of the instrument. (Author)

Assessed 215 children's relatedness to their teachers. Children were 7 to 13 years old, and 115 of them had received social services related to maltreatment. Five patterns of relatedness to teachers were identified. Maltreated children were less likely than nonmaltreated children to display optimal patterns of relatedness to teachers. (BC)

Describes a process approach to teaching and learning in preschool settings. The approach uses child-initiated play in a prepared environment, and encourages children's formation of symbolic mental representations through social interaction and mediation. Offers guidelines for the implementation of the process approach. (MM)

Investigated effects of wellness promotion guidance activities among fifth grade children (n=62). The results revealed enhanced self-esteem and higher knowledge of wellness information among children who participated in the wellness promotion activities, as compared to a control group of nonparticipants. (Author/NB)

Examines the relative adjustment of Kibbutz and city children in Israel. The Kibbutz is a collective farm or rural settlement in Israel. Hypothesis that Kibbutz-adopted children would show better adjustment is not supported by the study. Indicates that no differences exists in the adjustment between adopted children of the Kibbutz and adopted…

This value-added analysis of the short-term effects of early intervention on 489 preschool children found that children with language impairments or multiple disabilities made developmental gains beyond that predicted by maturation alone in several skill areas, whereas children with speech impairments benefited in the cognitive domain only.…

This investigation compared 19 adolescents' perceptions of the nonspeech personality characteristics of voice-disordered and normal-speaking children. Listeners, who rated recorded speech samples, showed a significant tendency to judge the normal speakers more positively than the voice-disordered speakers. Results suggest developmental trends in…