This study investigated the issue of whether a shift occurs in infant play goals at around the beginning of the second year in terms of the organization of object-directed and caregiver-directed attention and preference for toys that require the caregiver's involvement. A total of 108 infants of 10, 15, and 29 months were observed playing with…

Toddlers (41 girls and 35 boys) between 18 and 37 months of age were given four gender discrimination tasks each consisting of 6 pairs of color drawings. Three of the tasks employed color drawings of preschool girls and boys holding either a sex-typical toy, a sex-atypical toy, or no toy. The fourth employed pictures of sex-typical masculine and…

A study was conducted to investigate age changes in children's noncompliant and resistant behaviors and their relation to parental control strategies during the toddler period. Specifically, the study explored possible changes in the form of children's oppositional behavior (or "negativism") and investigated how parental control…

Coding systems developed for a study of the way mothers influence the cognitive development of their 2- to 4-year-old children are described in this report. The coding systems were developed for the analysis of data recorded on videotapes of 3 mother-child situations: 8 minutes of interaction starting with a reunion between mother and child, 5…

This experiment was designed to investigate the possibility that young children use syntax to constrain and focus verb meanings in their interpretations of novel scenes and novel verbs. Subjects were 24 children, 12 males and 12 females, of 23 to 27 months, all raised in English-speaking homes. Their mean productive vocabulary was 240 words. A…

The bibliography lists books and journal articles which are available on loan (to Illinois residents only) from the Illinois Birth to Three Clearinghouse. The 79 items listed focus on many aspects of autism, such as diagnosis, possible genetic links, social and pragmatic deficits, sleep problems, developmental therapy, drug therapy, behavior…

Between their second and fifth years, young children learn approximately 15 new words a day. For every word the child hears, he or she must choose the correct referent out of an infinite set of candidates. An important problem for developmental psychologists is to understand the principles that limit the child's hypotheses about word meanings. A…

A study was conducted (1) to investigate whether adult observers would label the same stimulus behavior in young children differently according to both their own gender and the gender of the children, and (2) to explore differential labeling by respondents' ethnicity. In addition, demographic variables for respondents (such as age, education…

Public concern about day care now focuses on infants and toddlers who began receiving out-of-home care before they had established attachments to their parents. In 1987, public conscience was inflamed by a series of reports in the popular media and the professional literature that underscored potential risks inherent in out-of-home care intiated…

A scheme for classifying attachment patterns is proposed that retains important elements of Ainsworth's system, but extends it to allow for the inclusion of more deviant patterns of behavior. The proposed scheme asserts that attachment relationships can be ordered on a continuum of felt security based upon an organizational interpretation of the…

Designed for child caregivers deciding to add an infant or toddler component to their child care center, this article briefly reviews the history of child caregiving and points out steps to consider in implementing such a component. (RH)

Children ages 1 1/2 to 3 years were tested to determine their comprehension of the terms "in,""on," and "under." It was found that children who listened to a pretest story involving the objects to be used in the study showed markedly better comprehension of the terms than children not exposed to the pretest activity.…

Investigates language-normal one-year-olds' (N=14) and language-impaired two- and three-year-olds' (N=10) acquisition of words referring to three types of action. Findings revealed that, although both groups produced few of the words, the language-normal subjects comprehended the different types of action, whereas the impaired subjects did not.…

Presents two studies that describe behavior of very young children in tasks requiring self-control. Behavior of 27 two-year-olds completing a task was observed and coded in Study 1 using a 10-category coding system. In the second study, 82 children 24 to 36 months old were observed in three delay tasks. Significant effects were found for age and…

Pairs of toddlers were observed with mothers in a context structured to assess sharing behavior. Children were separated by a barrier; one child had toys and the other had no toys. The situation was then reversed. Sharing for the initially deprived peer was related to extent to which the partner had shared, suggesting operation of principle of…