Changes in attitude were examined over a one-year period in pre-, early, and later adolescent samples. Self-esteem, locus of control, and achievement motivation were examined. The amount of attitudinal change evidenced by subjects at each age level varied with the kind of attitude being assessed. (Author/RD)

Four studies examined preschoolers' use of the cue of action initiation to infer another's desired goal. Found that differences in action initiation play an increasingly important role in 3-year-olds' mentalistic explanations of action, and that this development may be related to other critical changes occurring in their developing theory of mind.…

Discusses two major contributions of Liben and Bigler's work: (1) introduction of new measures of sex typing; and (2) the proposal that there are two plausible ways in which gender attitudes and sex typing of self might be related. Considers the importance of context on gender salience for information processing. Asserts that Liben and Bigler's…

Responds to concerns that individual items included as stereotypes in the Occupation Activity Trait Scales (children's and adult's versions) are not highly stereotyped. Discusses future directions for research, noting that a developmental approach is critical to understanding gender differentiation establishment and that it is also important to…

A test battery that corresponded to the Gesell Developmental Assessment (GDA) was given to 400 4-6 year olds. A truncated version of the GDA had moderate reliability and predictive power. Experienced judges sometimes differed in their assessments of a child's developmental level and recommendations for grade placement. (GLR)

Second and fifth graders from five sociometric status groups were interviewed for their attributional, emotional, and behavioral responses to hypothetical social encounters with same-sex and same-grade peers with the same sociometric status. Results demonstrate that children's manner of processing social information is a complex phenomenon based…

Findings from two studies of middle to late adulthood indicate that elderly people are effective in maintaining a sense of control and a positive view of self and personal development. Argues that the resiliency of the elderly hinges on the interplay between activities that alleviate developmental losses and accommodative processes by which…

Young, middle-aged, and older adults practiced a squaring algorithm. Working-memory and calculation errors were counted. Practice reduced the number of both types of errors; eliminated initial age-related calculation error differences; and slightly reduced initial age-related working-memory error differences. (BC)

Used the Twenty Statements Test to investigate the development of self-concept of Chinese students in grades 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14. As students' age increased, their self-concept became more abstract. Comparisons between Chinese and American students indicated differences in the content and speed of the concrete-abstract development of self-concept.…

This study investigated whether classroom quality is related to child progress in meeting developmental milestones. The study used the "Assessment Profile for Early Childhood Programs: Research Version," a developmental checklist administered by teachers in a Head Start program. Findings indicated that pre-assessment and child age…

Seventy preschoolers, first, and third graders (average ages of 4 1/2, 6 1/2 and 8 1/2 years, respectively) participated in interviews which used stories and pictures to assess their perceptions of the sources of self-knowledge (self-observation, social feedback, and social comparison). Assessments were made of level of role-taking and salience,…

This study examined individual patterns of the maturation of auditory evoked potential (AEP) in normal infants to determine whether longitudinal data show less variability than cross-sectional data, and to further assess the effect of stage of sleep on AEP. The AEPs for 10 children were examined by repeated testing between the ages of about two…

The effects of conservation activities on children's acquisition of Piaget's conservation concepts were investigated. One hundred and twenty-eight seven-to nine-year-old children in four classrooms were given pre- and post-evaluation measures of conservation ability. The experimental group completed a set of 42 self-directed conservation…

The present report is the fourth of a series concerned with mental functioning and its development in early childhood. The study attempted to discover whether the same children tested at intervals of one or more years showed similar development in thinking ability from age to age. Longitudinal test protocols were obtained for 92 children at 3…

Function of attention in infants is explored. Assuming (1) that infants respond differently to novel situations than to familiar ones; (2) that the infant's pattern of response is a partial reflection of the process of acquiring a perceptual memory of the stimulus, and (3) that sex differences may occur in the rate of habituation, 120 infants…