This study determines whether children who see an object hidden in a location in one space can retrieve an analogous object hidden in an analogous location in a different space. Participants were 16 31-months-old and 16 38-months-old children. After a familiarization experience, half the children observed a stuffed dog hidden in a room, tried to…

This study examined the effects of nutritional supplements on the duration and level of spontaneous play of 55 mildly to moderately malnourished toddlers living within the tea plantations of West Java, Indonesia. Infants were randomly assigned by their day care centers to one of three supplement groups: (1) energy and micronutrient supplements;…

This study compared the degree to which young children were placated during a standard medical evaluation by the presence of their mother, blanket, mother plus blanket, or no supportive agent. Participating were 64 three-year-olds who underwent 4 routine medical procedures. Children were rated by their mothers as attached or nonattached to…

To identify the role of the child's own action in the development of the ability to coordinate perspectives, a spatial localization task was presented to 2 groups of children: 16 children between 18 and 24 months old, and 16 children between 42 and 48 months old. A reward was hidden randomly in one of two identical left-right locations on a…

Survival analysis computes functions for occurrence or non-occurrence of an event over a time period for a particular group of subjects. This study compared survival analyses to traditional ANOVAs and Chi-square analyses on a data set of imitation scores of 18-month-old toddlers. The 48 subjects were randomly assigned to two experimental…

This study examined correlations between temperament and demanding behavior in toddlers. Subjects were eight mothers and their children from 18 to 27 months of age. Mothers were interviewed in their homes and completed the Toddler Temperament Scale and the Parenting Stress Index. Mother-child interactions were videotaped for the duration of the…

Two studies investigated how mothers of young children anticipate and interfere in events which may result in injury to their child. The first naturalistic study examined 150 mothers of firstborn children between 1 and 3 years old in Sweden. Mothers were interviewed and instructed in reporting about events which they anticipated would cause injury…

This study compared infants' responsiveness to modeling versus instruction and examined the issue of whether providing supplementary linguistic information makes modeling and instruction more or less effective. A total of 72 infants between 15 and 21 months of age participated in the study. Subjects were randomly assigned to conditions which…

Fred Rogers, creator and host of the television program "Mister Roger's Neighborhood," believes strongly in several propositions concerning the healthy development and education of young children. These ideas include the following: (1) to grow up to be healthy, very young children do not need to know how to read, but they do need to know how to…

To examine children's patterns of social interaction in group care, the activities and verbal behavior of 50 preschool children attending 5 Japanese day care centers in metropolitan Tokyo were observed and recorded during a total of 20 minutes of free play for each child. Participants were equally dispersed across five age categories each…

Focusing on gender as a stimulus variable, this study explored whether performer and respondent's gender and ethnicity would affect the labeling of toddler behavior. In addition, such demographic variables as age, education level, and contact with children were investigated. From a subject pool of 928, a total of 528 subjects were drawn, equally…

In order to assess the potential role of imitation in early socialization, a study was conducted to investigate the content and development of children's imitative behavior in the home. Data consisted of incidents of immediate and deferred imitation collected over a 4- to 8-month period by mothers trained in observational recording. Subjects…

Toddlers (2 to 3 years) and preschool children (5 to 6 years) were repeatedly presented with a six-tone melody, then tested for their discrimination of a variety of pattern features, including the specific component frequencies, successive intervals, and general melodic contour. To manipulate the information-processing demands of the task, the…

Three experiments investigated the processes by which 2-year-olds acquire the language to express category hierarchies. The first experiment studied how children use current linguistic knowledge to constrain the potential meanings of new words. This experiment compared interpretations of new words given to objects the children could already name…

A survey of research findings on environmental and person variables provides clues as to what is required in a high quality infant-toddler program. One of the most important components of such a program is a loving, responsive caregiver. Research has shown that there are specific adult qualities that nurture the roots of intellectual competence,…