Reviews empirical research concerning loneliness among college students to sensitize family life specialists to the importance of loneliness within this age group. Presents a profile of the lonely college student from research findings which relate loneliness to personal attributes, interpersonal behaviors, and social network conditions. Discusses…

After informally studying his first grade class, a teacher tentatively concluded that some students are phonetic learners and some are not. A faster method of identifying phonetic and nonphonetic learners is needed. No study that fails to consider differences in learning styles can possibly yield valid results except by chance. (MLH)

Examines adoption issues including family member loss, infertility, transracial adoptions, special-needs adoptions, older child adoption, inherited traits, adoptive family, biological parents, and open adoption. Suggests specific therapeutic interventions including redefinition, use of paradox, family therapy approaches, group therapy, and…

Goal-related detection and processing of text were studied as functions of individual differences in reading ability for 43 fourth-grade students. The awareness that relevant information was present greatly improved the performance of more able readers; poor readers gained no advantage from a similar difference in awareness. (SLD)

Compared prospective participants in The Forum, large group awareness training program, with nonparticipant peers and with available normative samples on measures of well-being, negative life events, social support, and philosophical orientation. Prospective participants were significantly more distressed than peer and normative samples and had…

Brains are biological, but minds are cultural achievements. What really counts in schools is teaching children the excitement of exploring ideas, helping youngsters formulate their own problems and resolution strategies, developing multiple literacy forms, imparting the importance of wonder, creating a sense of community, and recognizing each…

Reviews biological bases of twinning and descriptions of 10 research designs. Summarizes findings from a selected sampling of twin studies of learning disabilities, personality and temperament, attitudes, psychopathology, and social behavior. Discusses findings with special reference to the activities of mental health practitioners and counselors.…

An elementary school teacher in a K-8 Minneapolis public alternative school describes the benefits of choice for her own children and for those in her multiage classroom. Her school's whole-child approach allows students to structure their learning time and teachers to choose the most nurturing learning strategies to suit each child's needs. (MLH)

The paper reviews research studies on individual differences in students' predispositions to learning either in quiet or with sound. One study with 64 sixth graders found students achieved higher standardized reading test scores and had better attitudes when taught in congruent, rather than incongruent, environments. (DB)

Suggests that the effectiveness of specific teaching approaches may be highly dependent on individual learning styles. Reviews issues related to matching teaching and learning styles and identifies ways in which style information can be used to enhance instruction. (SK)

Reports that, even though young infants can discriminate among different facial expressions, there are individual differences in infants' expressivity and ability to produce and discriminate facial expressions. (PCB)

This study aimed to describe developmental differences in five-, seven-, and nine-year-olds' understanding of displaced aggression and to identify social and cognitive correlates of these differences. Understanding of displaced aggression increased significantly with age. (RH)

Discusses the problems of using chronometric analysis, a common cognitive psychological method, for educational assessment. Suggests that cognitive assessment has not reached the precision needed to analyze individual differences. (FMW)

Examines consensus as a function of group members' decision rule orientations. Finds that for groups that interacted verbally, consensus was more likely between groups composed of members with matching (rather than differing) rule orientations. Discusses implications for group consensus and the decision rule orientation construct. (MM)

Studied 112 preterm infants to determine developmental changes and stability of individual differences. Results indicate significant developmental gains with age, and highly significant individual stability of performance across age. (RJC)