Comparing 969 economically disadvantaged children attending Head Start, other preschools, or no preschool, this study assessed the Project's effectiveness. Findings indicated that Head Start provided an especially enriching preschool experience, and was an impressive instrument of short-term change in children. Gains in behaviors other than…

Experiment 1 examined the position that mirror-image confusions reflect an inability among three- to five-year-olds to determine whether their performance level differences reflect differences among nonreaders already attending and those not yet attending to reading cues. Experiment 2 examined the Experiment 1 four- and five-year-olds, identified…

Examines the immediate and long term effects of sociometric testing on preschool children's peer interactions. Positive and negative nomination as well as rating-scale sociometric measures were administered individually to children from two preschool classrooms, and behavioral observations of peer interactions were conducted before, after, and…

Concepts of body parts and their relationships were assessed in children ages three, four, and five, as well as in adults. Three specific questions were addressed: (1) What do children understand about such "partonomic" relations? (2) Is there an order in the acquisition of partonomic concepts? and (3) Do children exhibit any confusions in their…

Group play increased and solitary play decreased during the nine-month period children were studied, while parallel play did not vary much in overall occurrence. (CM)

Studies the relationship between egocentrism, empathy, and altruistic behavior in three- to nine-year-old children. (CM)

Four- and five-year-old Euro-American children participated in a study of moral reasoning, vicarious emotional responding, and prosocial behavior. Found that higher levels of moral reasoning were positively related to prosocial behavior. Children high in both other-oriented moral cognitions and sympathy were most helpful toward peers. (Author/DR)

Examined the impact of object boundaries on 3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds' quantitative reasoning. Asked subjects to choose between alternative collections that differed in number and size of cookies and in aggregate amount. Found that children were influenced by size of individual cookies at 3 years but were generally unsuccessful in aggregating size…

In this study of Oklahoma's universal pre-K program, the authors relied on a strict birthday eligibility criterion to compare "young" kindergarten children who just completed pre-K to "old" pre-K children just beginning pre-K. This regression-discontinuity design reduces the threat of selection bias. Their sample consisted of…

Observations of social and dependency behavior were made on 48 children in two nursery schools. The findings indicate that in settings with higher teacher/child ratios, children interact significantly more with adults and less with peers. (JMB)

The parental antecedents of overt child compliance were investigated by home observation of 136, 2 1/2-year-old male twins and singletons. The findings stress the impact of "power assertion" in the immediate situation, but an analysis of long-term effects support a cognitive view of child rearing. (JMB)

Data were generally consistent with the view that preschoolers and elementary schoolers can respond to memory probes by applying arithmetical processing to running gist from recently solved problems. Discussed are two competing interpretations of the development of working memory: fuzzy-trace theory and the generic-resources hypothesis. (Author/RH)

Evaluates the relative contribution of a number of child characteristics to the prediction of social acceptance. Predictor variables included positive social interactions, occupied behavior when not interacting, mental age, chronological age, and sex. Results supported the efficacy of helping social isolates to interact positively with peers.…

The hypothesis tested was that the evaluations and affective responses which accompany ongoing behavior may operate as reinforcers and punishers, thus exercising control over the persistence of those behaviors. Results indicate potent systematic effects due to the differing content of such evaluations and the associated affect or affective tone.…