Children's performance on multidimensional classification tasks was examined in two experiments. In Experiment 1, preschool, first-, and third-grade children were shown a standard stimulus and were then asked to judge whether several comparison stimuli were the same as or different from the standard. Comparison stimuli differed from the standard…

This study investigated the effects of a program of mother-child interaction using children's books on the verbal skills of culturally disadvantaged 3-year-olds. A total of 47 subjects were involved in the study, with white and black children, males and females equally represented in experimental, placebo and control groups. After only three…

Finds that preschool children remember lower case letters better if generally encouraged by their mothers to produce verbal responses and if their mothers have specifically taught lower case letters. Discusses three mechanisms that may explain this effect: mnemonic support for the child; membership in sociolinguistic group; and the teacher's being…

Language development was studied in 310 pairs of 4-year-old twins. Rotated factor analyses indicated presence of a general language factor (L) and a general nonverbal factor (NV). Moderate genetic influence was found for L and NV abilities. Bivariate genetic analysis estimated a genetic correlation of .63 between L and NV abilities. Results…

Three- and 4-year-old children were tested using videos of puppets in various versions of a theory of mind change-of-location situation, in order to answer several questions about what children are doing when they pass false belief tests. To investigate whether children were guessing or confidently choosing their answer to the test question, a…

We examined individual differences in developmental trajectories of emotion situation knowledge (ESK), at three time points throughout elementary school in a sample of children from economically disadvantaged families. Results showed that ESK and the subscales of joy, fear, anger, shame and interest exhibited positive growth from the first to the…

The present study investigated the relation between executive functioning and symptoms of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD) in children aged 4-6. A population-based sample (n = 201) was used and laboratory measures of inhibition, working memory and verbal fluency and teacher ratings of…

The theory underlying the measurement of intellectual growth by the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT) and its congruence with the objectives of the Appalachia Educational Laboratory (AEL) Early Childhood Education Program is explored. The PPVT was administered to a sample of 160 3- and 4-year-old children in three treatment groups: (1)…

An experiment demonstrating that children in Piaget's preoperational stage, who generally still cannot give conceptually correct answers to questions about rate and time, evidence an ability to imitate a given rate-time relationship demonstrated by the experimenter. (ST)

To ascertain differences in cognitive ability, 50 monolingual and 50 bilingual Hispanic children enrolled in the same remedial education program for preschool four-year-old children in a large, urban school district in Arizona were administered the Cooperative Preschool Inventory in English. Subjects were matched on the basis of total scores to…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the linguistic differences in the spontaneous speech of language-deviant children in two very different situations. Spontaneous speech samples of eleven five-year-old language-deviant children were obtained from: (1) the traditional adult-child therapy situation using appropriate stimulus materials; and…

After taking base rate measures of verbal behavior, using a specially devised Story Telling Test and selected sub-tests from the Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities, 34 children with a mean age of 4-4, attending a year-round Head Start program, were assigned to matched experimental and control groups. The children in the experimental group…

To assess the relative strengths of mothers' education, parenting styles, and children's preschool experience in predicting children's verbal attainment scores, this study used data derived from a cohort of 5,362 children born in March, l946. Although preschool experience was an independent and significant predictor of verbal attainment scores,…

Discusses how young children learn the art of communication and negotiation through conversations with their peers. Notes how such verbal explorations help children comfort one another, become assimilated into other children's games, and resolve conflicts. (HTH)

Mothers and caregivers of 28 preschoolers were trained to facilitate children's play. Play training of adults was shown to be an effective mechanism for enhancing preschoolers' verbal cognition. Training of mothers and caregivers was more effective than training of caregivers only. (CB)