Abstracts of 40 selected books and articles on the topic of interactions between children and their environments are provided in this document. Works abstracted were selected from a pool of over 1200 items. The abstracts are organized into five categories: (1) theories of child care and play; (2) child-environment research; (3) descriptions of…

The paper explores the social and cultural processes in the schooling rituals of graduate students in anthropology. Four areas of concern are noted. The first area concerns rites of passage and professional competence. The author explains that the period of graduate professional schooling represents the second stage of a rite of passage after one…

This guide for teachers provides both suggestions for teaching high school students about parenting young children and questions and answers extracted from 10 books that focus on parenting and related topics. Among the topics discussed are self esteem, play, sex fairness, child development, nutrition, equality in marriage, pregnant students, and…

The PREP Program Field Test Project had four major objectives: the development, implementation, and formative evaluation of an inservice training package designed to help teachers of young moderately mentally handicapped children implement an individualized instruction play program based on the PREP Program motor development materials and methods;…

This collection of papers, nineteenth in a series of 20 documents completed by the Children's Environments Advisory Service for the International Year of the Child, 1979, reports on the proceedings of an international symposium held by The Child in the City Programme at the University of Toronto under UNESCO sponsorship, in June 1979. Delegates…

Teacher reinforcement of indoor play equipment utilization was employed as a procedure to increase the peer social interaction of an asocial four-year-old female child. Touching peers, using peers' names, verbalizations, solitary or parallel manipulation, cooperative construction, and cooperative thematic play were dependent variables. Treatment…

This longitudinal study of the development of nonverbal behavior in the first 3 years of a child's life focuses on four factors: the relation between physical and vocal interaction between the child and his mother, observed cuses which can be used to interpret the child's communicative intent at different age levels, frequency of occurrence and…

This study investigated the relationship between cognitive style and the use of play areas in the nursery school. The participants were 28 preschool children (13 girls and 15 boys) attending the Laboratory Nursery School at the University of California at Davis. Each child was observed for 12 one-hour sessions over a 10-week period. A time…

This paper reports an exploratory investigation of motor patterns characteristic of maternal gameplaying behavior conducted with forty-eight 4-, 6- and 8-month-old infants and their mothers. Videotapes of 6-minute laboratory mother-infant play sessions were segmented into maternal games which were categorized according to the type and complexity…

Playfulness, a personality trait consisting of sense of humor, manifest joy, and spontaneity, was demonstrated to relate to divergent thinking at the kindergarten and high-school levels. The differential valence given to it by kindergarten-teachers and JHS- and HS-teachers was discussed in relation to creative potential. There was a consensus of…

A report on adventure or "junk" playgrounds--areas that provide opportunities for children to build, dig, and play with materials under their own direction--begins with brief sections on the establishment of the original playground in Copenhagen, and the first American experiment, in Minneapolis, in 1950. The main body of the report is…

This book is a collection of the papers presented at the fifth International Interdisciplinary Conference on Piagetian Theory and the Helping Professions, held at the University of Southern California on January 24, 1975. The conference was sponsored by University Affiliated Program at Childrens Hospital of Los Angeles; 44 papers are included.…

This paper presents a framework useful for preschool and elementary teachers in developing a basic understanding of competency and play and their interrelationship. Specific guidelines are given for observing and planning toward increasing opportunities for competency and play. Competency is viewed as consisting of growth, risk-taking, and a…

An analysis of the ideas of John Locke and Benjamin Spock examines two questions: (1) authors' popularity in their own lifetimes, and (2) congruence and change in American conceptions of child rearing over two centuries. Comparisons of Locke's "Some Thoughts Concerning Education" and Spock's "Common Sense Book of Baby and Child…

This collection of articles presents ideas about the value of children's play and suggests practical ways to implement good play experiences and select appropriate play materials. Articles examine play as an agent of social values, play and thinking, play and child development, the environmental opportunities for play factors that can destroy the…