To examine beliefs and practices regarding developmentally appropriate practices in early education, administrators, teachers, and parents from four countries completed surveys based on National Association for the Education of Young Children standards. Results illustrate the countries' different views and highlight the need for more parent…

Families (n=725) with young children with disabilities completed the Parenting Stress Index (PSI), and their scores were compared with the PSI's normative sample. No differences were found between samples on parent-related stress, supporting the normality or family strengths perspective. A normative table of PSI scores for families with children…

Assessed attachment/indiscriminate friendliness in children who spent at least eight months in Romanian orphanages (RO); a nonadopted, never-institutionalized Canadian group; and an early-adopted Romanian group. Found that RO children showed more insecure attachment and indiscriminate friendliness than others. Insecure RO children had more…

AIDS is a genuine concern for young schoolchildren, as a significant number begin having unprotected sex before completing elementary school. The most effective sex-education programs stress delaying the age of first intercourse and adopting safe sexual practices. Principals' supportive behaviors and prevention education tips are discussed. (MLH)

Used responses from open-ended interviews with 10 families of young children to develop a 60-item family literacy questionnaire examining families' perceptions of their contributions to emergent literacy. Matched questionnaire factors with those emerging from literature review on family variables influencing literacy. Found 95 percent agreement on…

Mapped existing literacy practices in early childhood classrooms and explored the understanding and perceptions of staff and families. Rated classrooms and staff. Identified five staff concerns for providing environmental support for early literacy development and noted staff belief/practice differences between low- and high-ranking classrooms.…

A study using three domains of the short form of the Parental Stress Index examined parental stress in 184 hearing mothers of young children with hearing impairments. Mothers demonstrated significantly less parental distress than a normative, hearing group. Predictors of stress included frequency of hassles, social support, annual family income,…

A study explored the perceptions of 397 parents and 26 service coordinators on early intervention program practices that affected collaboration. Factors included program philosophy and climate, service delivery (including options for service delivery), teaming approaches, administrative policies and practices (including quality of program…

Reading specialists, as well as members of the general public, have long sought to understand why so many children in the United States read below grade level and why so many of its adult citizens are illiterate. While problems associated with reading are not unique to the United States, it is noteworthy that some nations do not experience major…

Objective: The purpose of this research was to investigate, within an at-risk population, parent and child characteristics associated with a mother's self-reports of severe physical assault and assault on the self-esteem of the child in the first 3 years of life. Design: The study population consisted of a community-based sample of mothers of…

This study assessed the relationship between cognitive style and reading readiness, and examined effects of age and gender on measures of cognitive style and reading readiness. Subjects were 33 males and 27 females between 4 and 7 years of age. All subjects scored within the average range of intellectual functioning and were not color blind.…

The booklet presents excerpts from a December 1984 conference (Washington, D.C.) on disabled and at-risk infants, toddlers, and their families. Parents' perspectives are offered on care for medically vulnerable infants and children (by the mother of a ventilator-assisted child), services for children with mild developmental delays (by a mother of…

Summarizes beliefs and values about child rearing from documents written by experts on the mid-17th to mid-19th centuries. The experts argued that children are innately good rather than evil; environmental factors accounted for differences among children rather than innate factors; and children were autonomous rather than passive learners. (HOD)

To explore the developmental course of racial attitudes, a study assesed racial attitudes in Black children aged four- to five-years and six- to seven-years-old, focusing on reasons for age-related changes in children's attitudes as well as the role of parents in the development of children's attitudes. (HOD)

This report provides a compilation of indicators of school readiness used in national, state, and local surveys in the United States, delineating the advantages and disadvantages for each indicator. The report begins with a legend to assist in interpreting the tables and includes contact information for national and state surveys. The remainder of…