Superstitious behaviors persist across time, culture, and age. Although often considered irrational and even potentially harmful, superstitions have recently been shown to have positive effects on stress levels, confidence, and ultimately, performance. However, it remains unclear how people conceive of superstitious behaviors, specifically,…

We are expected to behave appropriately to suit social situations. One form of behavioral control is the selection of a linguistic register that is appropriate to the listener. Register selection errors can sometimes be interpreted as rude behavior and result in having a bad influence on the relationship with the listener and the evaluation by…

"Child Development and Learning" integrates concepts of learning and development into one comprehensive text for understanding child development. At its core is the belief that learning and development are intertwined. As children learn, they also develop. As children develop, they also learn. With an understanding of how children…

Assessment is a crucial component of gifted education. Not only does it facilitate the recognition of the potential and specific needs of gifted students, it also monitors the progress and growth of gifted students, and allows for the evaluation of gifted education programs. In the present review, we synthesize the literature on assessment in…

Results of the field validation survey of the revised initial and new advanced Council for Exceptional Children (CEC) Division for Early Childhood (DEC) early childhood special education (ECSE)/early intervention (EI) personnel standards are presented. Personnel standards are used as part of educational accountability systems and in teacher…

Young children are frequently exposed to sounds such as speech and music in noisy listening conditions, which have the potential to disrupt their learning. Missing input that is masked by louder sounds can, under the right conditions, be "filled in" by the perceptual system using a process known as perceptual restoration. This experiment…

The current experiment examined the use of plausibility judgments by children to reject distractors presented on "yes/no" recognition memory tests. Participants studied two lists of word pairs that shared either a categorical or rhyme association, which constituted the global nature of the two study conditions. During the recognition memory tests,…

New Jersey's early learning system is poised for change. The momentum for providing an aligned and coordinated system of early education is building. Yet, in order for such a system to successfully come to fruition, advocates the author, more work is needed. Collaboration between the state's Division of Early Childhood Education (DECE),…

The division of cognitive labor is fundamental to all cultures. Adults have a strong sense of how knowledge is clustered in the world around them and use that sense to access additional information, defer to relevant experts, and ground their own incomplete understandings. One prominent way of clustering knowledge is by disciplines similar to…

Ten years ago, in 1996, poet and children's book author, Pat Mora began celebrating "book joy" by founding a children's book and reading day, El Dia de los Ninos/El Dia de los Libros or Children's Day/Book Day. Dia is modeled on National Children's Day Celebrations in Mexico held since 1925 when it was launched in conjunction with a…

The purpose of this article is to explore the relationships among art, language, and communication through the use of children's art books in early childhood teaching. By children's art books, meaning books for children that serve as contexts for reproductions of artworks, are stunning works of art themselves, engage the curiosity and thinking of…

We are delighted to welcome you to the International Psychological Applications Conference and Trends 2014, taking place in Porto, Portugal, from 4 to 6 of April. Psychology, in our time, offers a large range of scientific fields where it can be applied. The goal of understanding individuals and groups (mental functions and behavioral…

This volume of transformed research utilizes an activist approach to examine the notion that nothing is apolitical. Research projects themselves are critically examined for power orientations, even as they are used to address curricular problems and educational or societal issues. Philosophical perspectives that have facilitated an understanding…