The LOGO programing language developed for children includes a set of primitive graphics commands that control the displacement and rotation of a display screen cursor called a turtle. The purpose of this study was to examine 4- to 7-year-olds' understanding of single turtle commands as transformations that connect turtle states and to…

This study looked at preschool and first-grade children's ability to draw script-based and text inferences in comprehension of stories they heard. In two experiments, children were asked to recall brief stories and answer two inference questions: one script inference question requiring them to fill in information about the event that was not…

The Behavior Observation Scale (BOS) was administered to 53 autistic children, 35 mentally retarded children matched for MA, and 33 normal children (all 2 to 5 years old) in an attempt to quantify autistic behavior. Ss were observed 3 days for 3 minutes through a one way mirror in a playroom setting where occurrence of 67 behaviors on the BOS was…

Fifteen English-speaking and fifteen French-speaking preschool children were each videotaped during two play sessions, one with a native and one with a non-native peer. Length of verbal utterances toward the non-native listener was significantly lower than toward the native listener, supporting the notion that native speakers adapt the amount of…

To test effects of family constellation on children's acquisition of sex-role, the sex-role behavior of 175 children between the ages of 3 and one half and 6 years from one-child and two-child families was compared. Included in the design were five categories: only children, and four additional categories based on sex and relative age of siblings…

The broad hypothesis that children whose histories imply the possible presence of an intellect-reducing condition will score lower on an IQ test than children whose histories do not imply such conditions was tested in a study designed to illustrate the distinction between average and normal IQ. Health and behavior histories of a sample of second…

An experiment was conducted to determine the validity of the theory that language-disordered children use the same strategies in acquiring phonological phenonema, in this case consonant clusters, as normal children do but at a later age. In acquiring productive use of consonant clusters, normal children go through three stages: (1) reduction or…

In this paper, the authors systemize the complex phenomenon known as pretend or make-believe play, defined as involving some transformation of the here and now in which the child is actually situated. Observations were made of three age groupings of dyads of middle class nursery school children. The activity of a pair of children, alone in a…

Procedures used during a 5-week assessment phase of a simultaneous communication program for five severely dysfunctional nonverbal children (5-9 years old) are described, and techniques for assessing autistic children are discussed. Indications from measuring the gestural communication of 5 dysfunctional Ss following communication training include…

According to the theory of Piaget, until the age of two the chief developmental factor of a child is the permanence of an object or the ability to retain mental images. Between two and six he begins to use mental images, and as he develops the ability to retain a mental image he begins to imitate things from the past which he has seen or…

Discusses results of study that attempted to determine whether subject-auxiliary inversion occurs in yes-no questions before wh-questions and whether noninversion errors are characteristic feature of acquisition of wh-questions. Findings do not support previous claims that inversion is acquired in yes-no questions before wh-questions. Rather,…

This paper offers ways of introducing young children to global history and geography at the age of four when they traverse a period of intuitive sensitivity to time and space. Through this instruction they develop lasting interest in history and geography. The curriculum used, "The First Frontier," presents space as world geography and time as the…

This guide explains the concept of "special play" and provides instructions for parents on how to use this daily 15-minute play period to encourage positive behaviors in their young children. The purpose of special play is to create situations in which children become aware of feelings that they have not previously recognized, build children's…

The present study examined the effectiveness of a multimodal intervention for young children with ADHD. Fifty families were randomly assigned to three treatment conditions: (1) child group training only (N=18); (2) child and parent group training only (N=14); and (3) child and parent group training and parent/teacher consultation (N=18). Child,…

This paper distills the history of early childhood education in Russia as a backdrop to a discussion of Patty Smith Hills visit to the nursery schools and kindergartens of the Soviet Union in the 1930s. The paper begins with a discussion of the introduction of early childhood education in the late 1800s, the lack of educational advances during the…