Intended for use with the Creative Curriculum for Early Childhood, this integrated ongoing student assessment toolkit is designed for preschool teachers to help them focus on all aspects of a child's development, thereby giving them a way to ensure that all children in their classes are making progress. The assessment kit uses a strength-based…

This book presents information as to how teenagers select their friends. Material was garnered through a review of the literature and hundreds of interviews. The book opens with a focus on how teenagers make friends, and includes such issues as the power of self, finding groups, peer impact, the merging process, seeking significance, and putting…

This book presents options for early childhood educators to consider as they make decisions concerning how best to foster the development of children's social competence. The book maintains that social competence is most likely to be acquired and strengthened in an atmosphere of warmest acceptance, respect, and deep faith in the child's capacity…

A practicum project was developed and implemented to reduce the incidents of aggressive behavior and impulsive actions among kindergarten students by means of win-win situations for conflict resolution. The objectives for the program were to achieve: (1) a 25 percent decrease of impulsive and aggressive behavior; (2) 50 percent of the target group…

This manual describes the buddy skills training program, which provides teachers with a set of tested strategies designed to facilitate interactions and support the development of friendships between preschoolers with and without disabilities. The training procedures are philosophically based on social exchange theory. To support the concept of…

This report describes the Expressive Arts Project, which was designed to develop and demonstrate a developmentally appropriate, activity-based expressive arts curriculum model, that will enable children with disabilities to have access to activities in the arts that are an accepted part of regular early childhood programs in typical settings. The…

Based on the assumption that a knowledge of child development is essential when planning an early childhood program, this booklet provides information on the typical development of children from birth to two years. The booklet begins with a description of stages of physical, mental, and social development and presents a chart illustrating the…

A study examined how one group of marginalized women, the incarcerated, construct their sense of self. Using the notion of nonunitary subjectivity to analyze life history narratives, the study demonstrated how they create and sustain thematic coherence in their sense of self and how they manage contradiction, primarily through constructing a split…

Based on a nationwide survey of more than 1,000 adolescents 13 to 17 years old and drawing on the experiences of the 17-year-old author, this book explores social labeling and what it means to adolescents. The book is presented in three parts. Part 1, "What's in a Label?" explains what labels are and how they develop. Part 2, "How…

This training module presents a social skills curriculum designed to be utilized as a tool for parents and teachers to increase levels of interaction between preschool children with and without autism. The curriculum consists of five social skills that were chosen based on evidence suggesting that they tend to result in more lengthy interactions…

This paper describes Project PLAI (Promoting Learning through Active Interaction), a 4-year research-to-practice project designed to develop and validate an early communication curriculum for infants who are deafblind and their caregivers. The curriculum provides a step-by-step approach to assist caregivers in recognizing their infants' early and…

This teaching guide presents a rationale for proactive social skills training for persons with mental retardation as well as over 100 examples of such instruction across the K-12 continuum. Chapter 1 provides a conceptual framework of social competence with principles of what, when, and how to teach social skills. Chapter 2 discusses the direct…

A cooperative learning model was used in Florida to change the state-mandated grade 12 course called Family Life and Sex Education, which had been found deficient in meeting students' educational and social needs. Pretest data before the change in model indicated a lack of knowledge that had a detrimental effect on thinking and problem-solving…

In April, 1919, at the request of the Board of Education of Memphis, Tennessee, the United States Commissioner of Education submitted the conditions on which the Bureau of Education would make a survey of the public school system of that city. This study of the Memphis schools is intended to be a study of policies and practices; not of persons.…

Argues that the content of language arts education is directly linked to the personal growth of students, which is the central purpose of education. Includes suggestions for classroom application of this concept. (DF)