Part of the larger Informal Education Series, this publication brings together many of the materials prepared by Rosanne Kessens for teachers and parents involved in Follow Through settings. Contents first explore theme development as an integrated approach to learning and then describe strategies for planning themes. Subsequent materials offer…

Conventional scoring of the Coloured Progressive Matrices (CPM) was compared with three methods of multiple weight scoring. The methods include: (1) theoretical weighting in which the weights were based on a theory of cognitive processing; (2) judged weighting in which the weights were given by a group of nine adult expert judges; and (3)…

A study investigated the development of children's metalinguistic understanding of the meanings of two non-ostensive words beyond the usual semantic acquisition period. The words, whose meanings cannot be associated with an object by pointing, were "pain" and "pretend". Two specific questions were addressed: What types of…

The study investigated the effect of object preference on the learning of signs by 12 severely and profoundly retarded children (4-7 years old). Signs were chosen that were two-handed, symmetrical, and abstract. Training of each sign consisted of 10 individual training sessions using operant techniques. Results revealed no differences in the…

The aims of this study were (1) to assess the relative effectiveness of verbal and visual elaboration prompts and question-answering prompts on children's incidental memory, and (2) to determine whether performance improvement associated with pictorial elaboration could be augmented by either verbal elaboration or question-answering procedures.…

Although Mandarin is a discourse topic oriented language rather than a subject and sentence oriented one, Chinese children acquiring Mandarin attempt in their early speech to exactly mark the same referential grammatical relationships as subject, object, location, and instrument by using case or ergative markers. Only after marking a closed set of…

The absolutive voice is a fact of life for Guatemalan children who speak the Mayan language K'iche' and one that enters their verbal lexicon fairly early. Data suggest that by the time the children are 3-year-olds they have encountered several instances of verbs that alternate between active and absolutive forms, which may supply the evidence…

Four developmental outcomes of children's play were identified as acquaintance with the environment and the development of cognitive activity, verification of incidental learning, the development through sensory and motoric activities of relationships with objects and persons, and experience with roles and rules. A child developing atypically may…

Distinguishing two forms of inference (additive and general vicariance), this paper describes a procedure for assessing class vicariance that attempts to control potentially confounding effects of verbal comprehension. The term "class vicariance" refers to the inference that a class remains invariant under arbitrary dichotomous…

In a longitudinal study conducted in Reykjavik, Iceland, 60 male and 61 female subjects were tested at 7, 8, and 9 years of age in order to investigate their comprehension of three concrete-operational concepts (conservation, class inclusion, and logical multiplication). This report focuses on a logical reconstruction of the developmental sequence…

The first purpose of the study was to develop a methodology for observing young children at play in their classroom situations without access to sound. The second purpose was to use data collected under equivalent conditions and methodologies to compare the play behaviors of young deaf children to the play behaviors of their hearing counterparts.…

A support program was developed at the John F. Kennedy Medical Center in Edison, New Jersey for families of handicapped children (from birth to the age of 3) who are involved in an early intervention program. A cognitive-behavioral model (the Coping with Stress Model) was designed to help families assess coping effectiveness. The process, which…

Perceptions of 152 sets of parents of handicapped young children were investigated. Interviews were conducted focusing on five aspects: initial notification that they had a handicapped child; parents' need for support; views on their guidance needs in helping children develop; and preferences for school settings for their children. Parents'…

Musical improvisation behavior of 4-, 6-, and 8-year-old children who played Orff xylophones during ten 15-minute sessions is described in this paper. Each session involved three improvisatory phases. Phase I consisted of free exploration; Phase II consisted of short verbally stimulated musical tasks (two imitation and six improvisational tasks);…