This article examines how an optimal interpersonal exchange between caregiver and infant occurs, including factors that promote developmental skills, heighten rapport with the caregiver, and elicit optimism about the future. The process of "previewing," in which caregivers make predictions concerning their infants' imminent developmental…

Comparison of 107 kindergarten children who either were or were not in a gifted program and received or did not receive special training in synectics (a strategy to facilitate creative thinking) found significant improvement in creativity scores for experimental but not control groups but not more for gifted than for nongifted children. (Author/DB)

Outlines how contemporary reading theorists conceptualize reading fluency, discussing why it is a good indicator of reading process efficiency. Suggests ways to foster development of reading fluency. Children must acquire the automatic word and phrase processing that enables fluent reading and lets them allocate cognitive capacity to…

Discusses a new language curriculum model called the "merry-go-round model," which involves the use of levels rather than courses. By emphasizing skill acquisition rather than course completion, this system allows individual progression and groups students according to their level of skill development. Assessment in this program is…

Discusses the results of a study of the teaching and learning of mathematics in 21 countries, conducted by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement. Reports that a clear distinction between support for broad educational objectives and for the learning of narrow skills did not exist among teachers. (SG)

Context is a powerful tool for understanding educational organizations, devising professional development programs for school administrators, and preparing future administrators. Specific strategies should be expanded for harnessing that power in analyzing educational settings, transferring knowledge across settings, and developing appropriate…

This paper describes computer-aided cognitive rehabilitation for mentally deficient persons. It lists motor, cognitive, emotional, and educational prerequisites to such rehabilitation and states advantages and disadvantages in using the prerequisites. (JDD)

This study of 82 hearing-impaired children (ages 6 to 36 months) sought to provide normative data concerning their communication efforts and to document the course of development of these earliest communication efforts. The study found that certain cognitive abilities and strategies are prerequisite to the development of certain language…

Examined the ability of children from 6 to 12 years of age to draw human figures and to reconstruct the drawing abilities they possessed at earlier ages. Found that diachronic thinking, or the ability to understand a present situation as a stage in an evolving process, developed with age. (MDM)

Discusses the selection of material for vocal performances by high school students. Describes adolescent voices as young with little vocal technique and only partially developed or unused register. Includes considerations of breath management, tessitura, energy, subject matter, and language. Provides a list of songs meeting appropriate…

This analysis of the effects of self-management training on the acquisition, maintenance, and generalization of skills of persons with mental retardation found self-management training to be useful in promoting the maintenance of behavior change first effected by external control procedures. Training effectiveness may depend upon the cognitive and…

The Miami University (Ohio) School of Interdisciplinary Studies has implemented a program of quantitative thinking across the curriculum. Four aspects of quantitative reasoning (learning from data, quantitative expression, evidence and assertions, and quantitative intuition) are developed in the core curriculum as a foundation for further…

Discusses the use of computers in developing social studies skills. Lists social studies skills as those related to acquiring information, organizing and using information, and those related to interpersonal relationships and social participation. Includes addresses of vendors of computer resources recommended. Describes different software and how…

Special education teachers (n=158) of students with severe disabilities indicated that they believed that friendships between their students and nondisabled peers are possible and beneficial to both and that such friendships are more likely when students are partially mainstreamed. However, teachers felt that functional skills are better developed…

Integration of knowledge is as critical to understanding as is new knowledge. Specialization requires new forms of integration. Graduate programs should teach future faculty to synthesize, seek new relationships between parts and whole, relate past to future and present, and find patterns of meaning not seen through traditional disciplinary…