Offers a detailed examination of both external and internal assets that middle school students may have, and discusses those that can be significantly affected by middle schools. Describes what successful middle schools do, and discusses teacher training and positive youth development. (SR)

Discusses the use of a dynamic approach to explain how young children master motor skills and perform an array of cognitive feats including word learning. Introduces a perspective that is a departure from established scientific theories of the mind. Argues that a child's physical, mental, and social lives arise out of a shifting interplay between…

This expanded edition of a 1982 book by Erik Erikson summarizes his work on the stages of the human life cycle, including chapters on psychosexuality and the cycle of generations, major stages in psychosocial development, and ego and ethos. An additional chapter on the ninth stage sets forth his philosophy on old age--i.e. the 80s and 90s--and how…

The Career Development Inventory--Adult Form was used to measure career development, and three instruments were used to measure the life cycle or personal phasic development in order to seek a relationship between the adult life cycle and the professional career development cycle for women and men. Population for the study was a random sample of…

Psychosocial theory, based on the ideas of Erik Erikson and Robert Havighurst, is proposed as a useful framework for conceptualizing the potential for growth within the family. Erikson's (1950) eight stage theory of psychosocial development and Havighurst's (1959) concept of developmental tasks are used to take account of the stages of development…

Considers adult educational needs according to the idea of developmental tasks along with changes in adult life cycles and calls for changes in adult education and legislation. (MF)

Refocusing indicates a more accurate view of a developmental-emergent process. The preretirement age is a new era in which couples as individuals can begin to experiment with different rhythms and patterns of life. (Author)

Assessed J. F. Wohlwill's notion of way-stations in development by investigating developmental interdependencies among children's solutions to three proportionality tasks: a balance beam task, a probability judgment, and a juice-mixing task. (SKC)

Argues that Susan Sugarman's article in this issue contains some valid criticism of assumptions in developmental psychology, but that some of her conclusions regarding other assumptions need to be questioned. Suggests that many problems raised by Sugarman would disappear if developmental psychologists concentrated on children's early achievements…

Research results reported in this special issue show that egocentricity and staging, both central ideas in the Piaget-Kohlberg account of human development, are myths. The appearance of egocentricity and staging can be accounted for by a subtle combination of ethnocentricity and the effects of inappropriate methodologies. (RM)

Tells how undergraduate student volunteers tested children, ages 3 to 10 years old, to reveal their development in language, conservation of volume and weight, and moral judgment. These videotaped sessions were then used in class to illustrate important concepts. (JDH)

The question of how to integrate developmental (Piagetian) and psychometric conceptions and assessments of intelligence is considered. A solution which incorporates the contributions of each position--intelligence as forms and as traits--is offered. Premises and objectives of each tradition are reviewed and compared. Overlaps make synthesis…

Perceptions of parents and their adolescent children about a number of developmental tasks were compared for 508 Dutch families. Parents consistently indicated later ages for the achievement of developmental tasks than did adolescents, but they had similar views of the sequence in which achievement of developmental tasks should occur. (SLD)

Data on 52 individuals with and 62 individuals without autism were analyzed to assess developmental aspects of the DSM-III-R (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual III, Revised) diagnostic system. Findings indicate that DSM-III-R criteria are more developmentally oriented and more behaviorally specific than previous criteria, but the diagnostic…

Young children's thinking is subject to constraints which interfere with instruction, and a developmental approach may be useful in minimizing the detrimental effects of these constraints. The approach is particularly beneficial to handicapped children, those who require remedial work, and adults with inadequate working memory for the specific…