Examined the effects of a 10-week art appreciation curriculum on 17 preschool children's levels of self-esteem, art involvement, and art appreciation. Pre- and postintervention tests demonstrated that, as a result of the curriculum, the children's self-esteem increased and that they displayed greater interest and knowledge of art. (MDM)

Sixty-four mother-infant pairs were videotaped during structured episodes in which the mother challenged the infant to use her instrumentally to get access to or to operate a toy. At age 6 months the infants could use their mothers instrumentally in 36% of the episodes, increasing to 67% at 9 months and 78% at 13 months. (MDM)

Examined the relative influence of age- and schooling-related experiences on story memory and storytelling. The age-related effects are attributed to general development in memory capacity and deployment of cognitive resources, whereas schooling-related effects are attributed to restructuring of the story representation in memory. (WP)

The Clock Drawing test was administered to 143 regular education students (grades 1-4) to determine approximate grade levels at which skill on the test may be expected and to 30 students with learning disabilities. For the regular children, scores improved most between first and second grade. The disabled children scored significantly lower than…

Examined how task design influences the effectiveness of peer collaboration in facilitating students' conceptual change in physics. Subjects were 8- to 12-year olds studying heating and cooling. Results showed the general superiority of collaborative tasks that both facilitate critical testing and require rules; task designs deploying one feature…

Tested predictions about age-related differences in the tutoring abilities and behaviors of children at three, five, and seven years of age. Found significant changes in tutoring strategies, verbal instruction, and contingency of teaching in the three age groups. (DR)

Two experiments investigated whether preschoolers attend to appearance instead of taxonomic relations in sorting sets of objects with conflicting appearances and taxonomic relations. Found that training and instructions have a significant effect on children's preference for sorting according to taxonomic relations or appearance, and that both…

Seventy-two children were presented with a series of stories involving psychological harm in a game context. Found that older children were more likely than younger ones to base their evaluations on intentions, or both intentions and consequences, and to take into account the recipient's perspective. Game context interacted differentially with…

Describes a system by which teachers can show parents their child's academic performance in relation to other students in the class. Students are rank-ordered by date of birth and tests scores, allowing comparisons with other class members based on age and performance. (MDM)

Whether relations between intelligence test performance and information processing measures depend on individual differences in speed-accuracy preferences rather than capacity limitations and whether the impact of strategic variables changes with increasing age or extraversion was studied with 83 adults ages 50 to 79 years. Results are discussed…

An epistemological questionnaire assessing students' beliefs in fixed ability to learn, simple knowledge, quick learning, and certain knowledge was administered to 288 high school students (of which 72 were gifted). Differences were found between gifted and nongifted students at the end of high school and between males and females. (Author/DB)

The relations among specific aspects of language (comprehension, production, semantics, and utterance length), relations between language and symbolic play, and maternal influences were evaluated in mother-toddler dyads when the children were 13 and 20 months of age. Found toddler language ability did not generally predict toddler play and that…

Kindergartners and second graders listened to stories about problem solving that had similar or dissimilar protagonists, themes, and goal objects to those in target problems they were asked to solve. Kindergartners, but not second graders, were likely to transfer a solution associated with the same goal object from the story problem to the target…

Perspectives on reality monitoring and sociocultural learning were integrated in four studies of children's memory of contributions to the outcomes of collaborative exchanges. Findings suggested that reality-monitoring judgments reflect at least two cognitive processes, appropriation and attention to source of information, and may provide clues to…

This study compared the self-esteem of 81 gifted and 77 nongifted adolescent female students. Nongifted students were found to be higher in both total and social self-esteem than gifted girls, and self-esteem appeared to be related to age. Gifted students attending special schools showed higher self-esteem, but at statistically insignificant…