This is a report on an experimental study of a cognitive curriculum supplement developed for the I.V.Y. (Involving the Very Young) Program of the Baltimore City School System. The study concerns the development and transmission of a curriculum for two-year-old children, and an evaluation of its effects. The present version of the curriculum is not…

The Matching Familiar Figures Test is a measure of the response style "reflection-impulsivity." The version of the test used in the longitudinal study test battery consists of two practice and 18 test items. On each item, the child is shown one standard and four comparison figures. Figures are simple line drawings done in black on a…

The Sigel Object Categorization Test (SOCT) is used for studying classification abilities in young children, the criteria for which is considered indicative of both cognitive ability and style. The test consists of two types of stijuli--one set of 12 relatively familiar three-dimensional objects and a second set of colored photographs of these…

Uses a case vignette to consider the possibility that the Rorschach FM index may be a forerunner of abstract thinking. Data support the major finding that FM may enable educational diagnosticians to more accurately estimate the intellectual capabilities of some preschool minority and other culturally disadvantaged children. (Author/JAC)

Aims to foster scrupulous use of the "at-risk" label for young children by advocating clarification of the term. Proposes caveats educators should consider before applying the label. Among these are (1) risk is not static; (2) standardized test scores are not effective predictors of risk for young children; and (3) children develop in an…

Focusing on formal testing programs involving academic achievement, the assessment of student performance in 28 large city school districts is described. In addition to presenting how districts have designed testing programs to meet the variety in the students they serve, this report also discussed test management, work with test publishers, test…

Kindergarten pupils enrolled in Elementary and Secondary Education Act Title I schools were selected for the Kindergarten Extended Day (KED) Program if they showed marked underachievement on the Cooperative Preschool Inventory (CPI). KED students attended kindergarten for an additional half day. Since previous evaluations of KED may have had…

The studies which comprise this report are as follows: (a) Document 1, Development of the Matrix Test by Herbert Zimiles and Harvery Asch (PS 001 072); (b) Document 2, Studies of the Social Organization of Head Start Centers by Donald Horton and others (PS 001 073); (c) Document 3, An Experimental Approach to Studying Non-Verbal Representation in…

In a 3-year longitudinal study, approximately 300 kindergarten children were selected for testing in the kindergarten and first and second grades to determine predictor variables of future success in reading and arithmetic. Results of the research tended to indicate that age and intelligence test scores were not good predictors of first and second…

To develop and field test new assessment procedures for the 1969-70 Head Start national evaluation, a list of existing tests measuring selected social and emotional variables was compiled. Tests were selected on these criteria: (1) conceptual soundness, (2) relevance for preschool children, (3) whether disadvantaged children might be expected to…

This study investigated the association between personality traits and the intellectual performance of Head Start children. A total of 90 economically disadvantaged Anglo and Mexican American Children from six Head Start classrooms were administered the Preschool Inventory (PSI) to obtain a measure of intellectual development. Each child was also…

This is the second of a two volume report of a Day Care Inventory. The author presents an evaluation of the Inventory and make recommendations for changes, deletions and additions so that more satisfactory measures will be available for use in the study of the impact of day care on child development. The evaluations are based upon the findings…

The ETS Matched Pictures test was used in the longitudinal study to measure children's comprehension of certain grammatical features, such as past and future tenses, negation and prepositions. The task materials for both I and II consist of a set of cards, with each card having a pair of black and white pictures. Both pictures in a pair contain…

The fixation task used in this study measures the amount of time a child fixates or looks at a given picture as it is repeated over six trials and then is followed by a novel picture on the seventh. Two series of slides were used. The first was a redundant nonsocial visual stimulus: six trials of a slide showing 20 chromatic straight lines and a…

The Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test is well known and widely used in testing the verbal ability of young children. In the longitudinal study, the standard Peabody test booklet was used in Year 1. In Year 2, a special ETS adaptation of the first 60 items was used, in which there were redrawings of a number of the human pictures to present black…