This study seeks evidence for the validity of the concept of egocentrism in children. Three standard egocentrism tests are intercorrelated to determine the degree to which they appear to be measuring a single construct (convergent validity); whether the three tasks intercorrelate more than they do with a theoretically unrelated task (discriminant…

It is often the case that intelligence tests do not measure what they purport to measure, although it is commonly assumed that every test with a different name is a test of different skills, and that tests with the same name test the same skills. Spearman attempted to study the relationship between tests that supposedly measured different mental…

This is a talk by child psychologist and therapist Lois Barclay Murphy, given at City College, New York, in 1980. The address reviews Ms. Murphy's contributions to child psychology and her study of children's coping strategies. The speech briefly outlines other developments in psychological and sociological study since the 1930s, including the use…

Commentary and advice in four legal areas are offered in this newsletter on educational law. First, the document outlines preventive legal review for public educators in four basic steps, including anticipation of legal challenges, evaluation of the challenges' legal merits, consideration of the policy issues raised by potential challenges, and…

To help public schools minimize litigation, this newsletter recommends constitutional and legal training for public school officials and examines relevant court cases involving school official liability, intelligence tests, and religion in the schools. According to the authors, the Maine v. Thiboutot and Owen v. City of Independence cases…

Pseudoscience, or the process of persuasion by establishing a pretense of scientific discovery, is examined in this book in an effort to dispel false notions about the validity of various measures of intelligence and the correlations of genetics to mental ability. The history and development of concepts related to hereditary intelligence and…

Recent legal decisions, coupled with Federal and State statutes, require the New York City Board of Education to follow definite guidelines in providing equal educational opportunities for its handicapped children. Among the problems raised are those of classification and labeling, criticized by some as a procedure that focuses more on pathology…

THE PURPOSES OF THIS PILOT PROJECT WERE (1) TO ATTEMPT TO EVALUATE THE EFFECT OF THE LOCAL PROGRAM ON BOTH INDIVIDUAL CHILDREN AND THE GROUP AND (2) TO INVESTIGATE THE SENSITIVITY OF THE TEST INSTRUMENTS EMPLOYED IN EVALUATING SUCH A PROGRAM. SIXTY-ONE CHILDREN WERE ENROLLED IN THE LOCAL HEADSTART PROGRAM AND WERE ADMINISTERED THE STANFORD-BINET,…

Stochastic difference equations of the Box-Jenkins form provide an adequate family of models on which to base the stochastic theory of human growth processes, but conventional time series identification methods do not apply to available data sets. A method to identify structure and parameters of stochastic difference equation models of human…

The Spanish Picture Vocabulary Test was designed to provide a Spanish-language translation of the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test which would be suitable for Spanish-speaking Puerto Rican school-children in New York City. The 300 stimulus words were translated according to a consensus of linguists and persons of Puerto Rican descent, and were…

Personality development and structure formation were studied in 60 preadolescent children (aged 9 to 13). Six major aspects of preadolescent individuality were assessed: cognitive controls, performance on the Holtzman Inkblot Test, intellectual abilities, general response to clinical testing, general response to laboratory testing, and defense…

A historical perspective on several issues related to the development of equal opportunity in higher education is presented in these speeches. Six authors address the following issues: (1) the black college in historical perspective (Stephen Wright); (2) the development of equal opportunity in relation to historical patterns in higher education…

The problems associated with the transition from the secondary level to the tertiary level in education have given rise to many surveys, analyses of statistics, research projects, reports and literature reviews. Much has been written on topics such as testing, selection, prediction and wastage, with findings and conclusions which appear to have…

The Public Schools of Brookline, Massachusetts are operating a pilot program to assist families during the first five years of a child's life. The multidisciplinary program, entitled the Brookline Early Education Project (BEEP), aims to help each child obtain optimal physical, social, emotional, and intellectual development. The program begins at…

The purpose of the study was to compare the performances of black and white urban high school students on a conventional measure of intelligence, the Lorge Thorndike vocabulary test and a culture specific test, the Black Intelligence Test of Cultural Homogeneity. In addition to determining whether or not there were race differences in performance…