The unintended academic and social consequences for students experiencing the transition from elementary to middle school have been well documented. A mixed method study was conducted to examine the perceptions and attitudes of 6th grade students, parents, and teachers from four middle schools in a large suburban school district in Southeastern…

Subjects of this study were 144 White, middle-class children in kindergarten, first, second, and fourth grades. Children were interviewed individually about their explanations for both academic and social outcomes and their evaluations of their own outcomes. Self-evaluations became less positive in both domains and less similar across domains with…

Describes a series of exercises designed to develop student's perceptual skills and to improve the processes of comparing, describing, and developing subsets. Includes suggestions for adapting the exercises into science lessons, providing tips for developing each into complete units. Units include human-made objects, leaves, shells, rocks, and…

This study was designed to determine whether children's judgments of another's emotional state are based on egocentric or perspectivistic reasoning processes. A total of 91 children, between the ages of 3 and 10, at three grade levels, were shown a series of photographs containing conflicting situational and expressive cues to the pictured child's…

Despite external changes such as those of magnitudes, the functional properties of the visual system also improve with increased age. According to Jean Piaget's centration/decentration theory, the process of perceptual development might continue until adulthood and even after. However, perceptual development should not be understood in all of its…

Sensory thinking is the process of bringing experienced aspects of the child's world into his focal awareness, usually through a medium such as language. (Author/IRT)

Research literature on childrens' causal understanding in oral and written settings is reviewed. Results show that maturation and task complexity both influence childrens' causal understanding. However, the findings are contradictory, and no generalizations could be made about which factors influence causal understanding and at which ages they are…

The hypothesis that overall-similarity relations structure both adults' and children's classifications of heterogeneous objects (objects that differ in a variety of ways) was supported in two experiments. When objects varied simultaneously on many dimensions, adults and children constructed classifications that maximized within-category similarity…

This activity book teaches elementary school students about good vision and eye safety through a combination of puppet plays, stories, songs, and games. Nine games are provided to help children develop vision skills including visual memory, visual perception, directionality, spatial orientation, and visual-motor responses. Master Plans for making…

Eighty first and third graders were presented one of two brief videotaped social interactional episodes. Half viewed an unambiguous tape in which affective response was congruent with situational context; the other half viewed an ambiguous tape in which nonverbal affective response was incongruent with situational context. (MS)

Findings of this Israeli study suggest that perception is affected by lables, learning, and selective attention; that these effects are determined developmentally; and that as age increases, the effects of verbal cues diminish, while the effects of perceptual cues increase. (Author/DLS)

Two studies of the development of children's moral relationships with nature addressed such questions as: (1) What does it mean to say that we have an obligation not to harm the natural environment? (2) Does the natural environment feel pain? (3) Does it have rights? or (4) Is moral obligation an inappropriate construct by which to understand the…

Argues that early childhood experiences with processes as diverse as language, mathematics, emotion, and music determine which neurons grow and remain active in the brain. Early exposure to these processes results in receptive programming. Discusses the implications for schools, teachers, and parents. (MJP)

One of three related documents produced in response to a need for direct instruction in thinking skills, this program for middle school or junior high school students bases its approach on involvement of students in direct experiences. The book contains four units. Focusing on perception, Unit 1: "Experiencing the Arts" begins with ways sensory…

THIS GUIDE TO THE STUDY OF MUSIC IN THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL EMPHASIZES THE CENTRALITY OF INTELLECTUAL APPREHENSION IN THE MUSIC EDUCATION PROGRAM. THE IMPORTANCE OF DEVELOPING A GENUINE UNDERSTANDING OF THE ART OF MUSIC IS EMPHASIZED. AN INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER PROVIDES A DISCUSSION OF A CONCEPTUAL APPROACH TO MUSIC LEARNING AND NAMES AND DEFINES THE…