With reference to Fenson's (1984) study of American children's pretend actions and utterances, this study examined the development of pretend actions and utterances in the play of 16 Japanese firstborn children. Subjects, whose cognitive and language development had been followed experimentally since the age of 6 months, were nonretarded…

In December 1986, the Governor of the State of Illinois appointed a task force to make recommendations on how each sector of society could contribute to narrowing the gap between the availability of day care services and the child care needs of working parents. The 51-member task force was composed of representatives of private industry,…

This restatement of policy, which updates a 1984 edition, offers a framework for thinking about issues in child care for infants and toddlers. The statement discusses: (1) the particular needs of infants and toddlers; (2) public policies supporting parents who remain at home to care for infants and toddlers; (3) professional recognition and…

This program quality review instrument for California's infant and toddler programs focuses on seven functional program components. Components include: (1) philosophy, goals, and objectives; (2) administration; (3) maintenance of a developmental profile on each infant and toddler; (4) provision of a developmental program; (5) parent education and…

Two types of operating principles thought to play an important role in early lexical development are discussed. The principles are those concerned with: (1) assignment of reference or meaning to words; and (2) formation and evolution of categories. Discussion also addresses related issues, such as the developmentally important relationship between…

To find predictive relations between measures taken in infancy and later scores on intelligence tests, a study was made that measured in the infant those cognitive processes examined later in life. Operant conditioning tasks were employed which required 3-, 7-, and 11-month-old infants to execute some response to produce an environmental…

A study attempted to determine dimensions of maternal adaptation of language to the level of their young children's speech, and whether patterns of maternal adaptation can be described as interactive maternal styles. Links were sought between aspects of maternal language adaptation and child language level. Participating were 6 mother-child dyads…

A concept of seductive mother-toddler relationships was initially validated. Subsequent research showed "seductiveness" was stable, though transformed, from 24 to 42 months; the same mothers were not found to be seductive with male or female siblings; mothers seductive with boys were derisively hostile toward daughters. (Author/RH)

Observation of adult response to children's initial overextensions (use of the correct label, correction of error, and demonstration of object attributes) revealed that demonstrations were the most important factor in inducing toddlers to assign an object to its adult category. (Author/CB)

Attempts to clarify and empirically examine the role played by a toddler's self-comforting skill in facilitating the separation-individuation process. Study did support the prediction that the mother's fostering of independence would predict secure attachment. The effects of mothers' style of comforting were also examined. (Author/RWB)

Examines speech samples from six children aged 2 years to 2 years, 5 months, with Mean Lengths of Utterance ranging from 2.93 to 4.14, were examined for evidence of six syntactic categories: determiner, adjective, noun, noun phrase, preposition, and prepositional phrase. (HOD)

A total of 36 American and African mothers and their children in three age cohorts from 6 to 36 months of age interacted around age-appropriate teaching tasks. Major behavioral differences between cultural groups and tasks were demonstrated. (Author/RH)

That a mother's affective illness may interfere with her ability to relate to her child in ways that promote a secure attachment is documented in these data. Depression decreased the likelihood of secure attachment between mother and child. Children of unipolar and bipolar depressed mothers had different patterns of attachment. (RH)

Mothers reported their toddlers' reactions to child-directed and child-observed emotions expressed by others. Results indicated that (1) self-concern and angry defiance were more frequent, and concern for others less frequent, when anger was expressed, and (2) maternal anger toward the toddler was associated with prenatal period attitudinal…

Children's earliest experiences set the stage for school success and adult productivity. In the first three years of life, the brain grows at breakneck speed, creating more than a trillion pathways for learning and development. By the age of three, 85 percent of the brain's capacity is in place, creating the ability to speak, learn, and reason.…