Austin Independent School District provided full-day prekindergarten to 5,196 4-year-olds in 2008-2009 at 66 schools. Seventy percent or more of students made measureable gains on a test of receptive vocabulary, and average gains showed growth about two times greater than that expected for 4-year-olds after a 7-month period.

In educational research and evaluation, a sample of subjects usually received some type of programmatic treatment. Outcome scores for these students are then compared with outcome scores of a control or comparison group. M. Lewis and H. McGurk (1972) have pointed out that there are some implicit assumptions when this approach is applied to…

The influence of intelligence, self-concept, and causal attributions on metamemory and the metamemory-memory behavior relationship in grade-school children was studied. Following the assessment of intelligence, self-concept, and causal attributions, 105 children each from grades 3, 5, and 7 were given a metamemory interview and a sort-recall task.…

From the monthly Saturday Review supplement, "Education in America, sponsored by the Charles F. Kettering Foundation.

Recent efforts have been made to develop more age-appropriate intelligence measures for the elderly to determine the nature of age differences and changes in adult cognitive development. Spatial and reasoning performances of young, young-old and old-old individuals were compared on traditional versus familiar and presumably more meaningful…

This study attempted to find which factors determine the course of mental growth. The hypotheses were as follows: (1) early growth rates are rapid, chaotic, and uneven; (2) intellectual functions become more complex at age 2; (3) language is of overriding importance in intellectual growth; (4) more developed individuals have a longer infancy…

This paper presents a review of the literature concerning the infant Apgar scoring system and its relationship to later mental and motor development. Since 1952, the Apgar scoring system has provided a viable means of assessing the infant's immediate postnatal condition. Researchers have demonstrated that while the 1-minute Apgar score is a useful…

An investigation of the continuing development of infants involved in a program of enriched group care is presented. The 30 advantaged infants had working mothers, and the 9 disadvantaged infants had nonworking mothers. In the original study, they were enrolled in private day care and involved in a program of total environmental care and parent…

This book aims: (1) to describe and evaluate psychological research on poor children's intellect; to this end, the following questions are dealt with: What is the nature of poor children's mental abilities? How do these abilities develop? (2) to analyze the psychological assumptions underlying several attempts to reform education; and, (3) to…

Intelligence is here defined in terms of component processes, and three programs are reviewed that train aspects of intelligence as specified by this theory: Feuerstein's "Instrumental Enrichment," Lipman's "Philosophy for Children," and the "Chicago Mastery Learning" program. Central suggestions are provided for…

A study comparing the effect of the Distar reading program and the Lippincott Basic Readers on the cognitive and creative development of 136 kindergarten and first grade children. The major difference between these two approaches is degree of teacher control. Only one significant difference was found between the two approaches. (MS)

Stephens et al. (EJ 055 112) committed a serious methodological error in holding chronological age constant in their IQ measures and allowing it to vary in their Piagetian developmental measures. This error is unrelated to differences in factor rotation methods used by these authors and was not answered in their reply. (CTM)

Describes the status of controversies regarding the definition of intelligence, its measurement, and the relative roles of heredity versus environment in the development of individual differences. Intelligence tests alone are inconclusive in examining individual children. (Author/BJV)

The Mayes Motor Free Compilation (MMFC) assesses mental ability in young (under age 2) children with motor disabilities. This study evaluated the concurrent validity of the MMFC by administering it and the Bayley Scales of Infant Development to normal children. Findings suggest that the MMFC provides a valid estimate of mental age, even without…

D.V. Cicchetti, A.S. Kaufman, and S.S. Sparrow (this issue) use six criteria to evaluate the published findings from seven different studies of PCB exposure and neuropsychological function. They point out a number of weaknesses or flaws in each study and conclude that these weaknesses make the overall conclusion that PCB exposure negatively…