Examines the influence of verbalization on children's tendencies to postpone immediate gratification in terms of increased delayed reward. Subjects were 46 preschoolers ranging in age from 36 to 72 months. (MP)

School children frequently fail to adequately understand terms associated with musical pitch although research shows that even infants with normal hearing can perceptually discriminate fine pitch variations. This study investigated children's perceptions of dimensions of sound by focusing on their choice of musical sounds and relevant…

To study development of social speech, 18 dyads of children, ages 3 1/2 to 5, were videotaped in 15-minute play sessions. Results suggest that early forms of social speech entail a surprising level of interpersonal understanding, and that these speech forms are amenable to systematic study. (ST)

Compared physically abused male preschoolers (N=11) with nonabused matched controls on the McCarthy Scales of Children's Abilities and the Wide Range Achievement Test. Significant differences were found on the Verbal and Memory Scales and the General Cognitive Index of the McCarthy. No behavioral differences were noted. (Author/JAC)

Assessed age-related changes in 2- to 4-year olds' verbal and nonverbal memory for the same unique event. Found that children's performance on each memory measure increased as a function of age. Children with more advanced language skills reported more during the verbal interview and exhibited superior nonverbal memory relative to children with…

Mental state language during conversations about the past was assessed in a short-term longitudinal study. Twenty-one mother-child dyads discussed several previously experienced events when the children were 30 and 42 months old. Over time, children's mental term use--although quite low--did increase, and both mothers and children talked more…

Thirty-one 4-year-old Negro boys attending a research preschool in Chicago were observed during a play session. Preliminary evaluation of the data from the observations indicated a marked heterogeneity in the subjects with regard to verbal facility, cognitive development, and quality and nature of object relationships. Poor correlation was found…

Using play-material scales, SES, age, and sex as predictor variables, this study employed regression against the subvariables of the McCarthy Scales of Children's Abilities of verbal, perceptual-performance, quantitative, memory, and motor abilities. Findings suggest that SES is predictive of verbal, quantitative, memory, and motor, while age is…

Examines genetic influences on language by assessing 158 preschool twins on vocabulary comprehension, semantic knowledge, morphology, syntax, and articulation. Vocabulary comprehension was significantly influenced by heredity, whereas performance skills were influenced by between-family environmental factors. (Author/AS)

The purpose of the present study was to test the utility of a model of young children's social cognition as a predictor of preschoolers' social competence with same-age peers. The model investigated in this study proposes that three, relatively independent, domains of social-cognitive processes are pertinent to young children's peer relations. The…

Relationships between pretraining skills, learning, and posttest performance were studied in spatial and verbal tasks for 84 preschool children. The measurement model that fit the data best maintained separate verbal and spatial domains. The best structural model included paths from pretest and learning assessments to posttest performance within…

Describes some preliminary results comparing two groups of children's performance on a set of Piagetian conservation tasks. Findings highlight the need to sensitize parents and teachers to current views on appropriate learning environments for young children, particularly the strategies they might use to make sense of their experiences. (TJQ)

Study examined whether phonemic sensitivity is limited to alphabetically literate individuals. Children not exposed to reading instruction were given pairs of phonological sensitivity tasks. Novice readers scored higher in phonological sensitivity than nonreaders of equivalent letter knowledge, when controlled for verbal ability; among nonreaders,…

This study examined differences in sensory-motor, cognitive, and verbal impairment between 10 Japanese preschool children with Asperger Syndrome (AS) 10 children with high functioning autism (HFA) using the Japanese version of the Miller Assessment for Preschoolers. AS children surpassed HFA children in verbal skills but HFA children were better…