Considered variations in pubertal timing, specifically age at menarche, and association with various antecedents, including heredity; weight and weight for height; stressful life events; family relations; absence or presence of adult male in household; and psychological adjustment, in 75 premenarcheal adolescent girls. Found complex interactions…

This study compared the object naming, object recognition, reading, and spelling abilities of 22 adults, half with written language difficulties and half without. Significant positive relationships were obtained between object naming ability and reading ability, object naming and spelling, and reading and spelling performance. Results suggest that…

Interviewed Hindu religious renunciates living in Varanasi and Pondicherry, India. Analysis of excerpts from three representative interviews indicated that these men rated as highly mature by Western developmental models, but Western correlates of life satisfaction were not found to hold for these men. Considers implications for Western aging,…

This review of the male preponderance in the prevalence of learning disabilities examines such factors as gender-related etiology differences and learning style differences; complications of pregnancy and infancy; effects of male hormones on the nervous system; and sex differences in maturity rates. (JDD)

Three studies examined naturalistic concepts of moral maturity in young through older adults to develop a more comprehensive understanding of moral excellence than in dominant theories. Findings indicated that naturalistic notions of moral excellence contained themes of principled reasoning, also referenced aspects of moral character and virtue…

Analyzed the discourse of 9- to 12-year-olds on the subject of their development, creating an ethnographic account of the meaning of development in peer culture. The interviewed children distinguished a linear concept of development as both a natural process and a goal. Their discourse continually reconceptualized the relations between the sexes…

Thirty-nine young adults' experiences in the eight years following their college graduation reveal possible conditions that promote complex interpersonal development between ages 22 and 30. Stories of how two participants acquired the internal identities needed to develop mutual relationships with others are used to depict cocurricular…

Positive rites of passage are sorely lacking in today's society. In our culture, teenagers experience several passages: the major transformation at puberty, a challenging transition from middle to high school, and completion of high school. Two programs show how educators can guide students from adolescence to responsible adulthood. (MLH)

Widening participation initiatives tend to focus on raising the aspirations of the working class rather than changing educational cultures. However, any analysis must take account of the role of the educational institution itself in creating and perpetuating inequalities. Participation in higher education (HE) is an inherently more risky, costly…

Although there were significant maturity differences between races among discrepant achievers in work knowledge, reading and arithmetic, these differences did not occur for achievement levels in either of these domains. Maturity differences between achievement levels were only observed for reading achievement. (Author/AM)

A validation study of 30 married females and 30 married males was conducted on a theoretical model of stages in interpersonal development developed by Bar-Yam Hassan (Bar-Yam Hassan & Bar-Yam, 1987). According to the model, the five stages of adult interpersonal development are: (1) Social Relatedness versus Self-Insistence, or need for Approval;…

The literature on the emotional adjustment of intellectually gifted adolescents and the literature on adjustment of students admitted at younger than normal ages into college are reviewed. The review on gifted adolescents is divided into the following sections: background (acceleration in elementary and secondary grades); personality and…

A study tested two hypotheses: (1) If physical performance relates to mental performance, then aerobically fit individuals will demonstrate higher academic achievement or predicted achievement; and (2) The integrity of the cardiovascular system (as measured by distance covered in 12 minutes) will have some degree of positive association with…

Research has found that individuals present themselves in a self-enhancing fashion when audiences lack information that could contradict their claims. To examine reactions to evaluations and the potential interplay between the valence of the evaluation, the public versus private nature of the response, and the audience to whom a public response is…