In the studies, subjects from different age groups (5-6, 7-8, 9-10, 18-22 years) observed vignettes designed to reveal an actor's abilities or personality traits, and were told about one instance of an actor's behavior, respectively. The subjects were then asked to predict the actor's behavior in related situations. Results focused differences in…

Children between the ages of six and 11 were asked to recall personal experiences of pity, anger, and guilt and to rate the cause of each emotion on degree of controllability. Results were interpreted as evidence that guilt in young children may be a qualitatively different emotion because of its closer link to outcome than to perceived…

Describes a study designed to discover how children approach the mass-count distinction as it applies to the use of "much" and "many." Results indicate that children do not approach the co-occurrence conditions of "much" and "many" with various nouns from a semantic point of view, but rather from a…

Longitudinal samples of meaningful speech of 34 normally developing children were analyzed to determine the range and types of consonantal phones produced at 15, 18, 21, and 24 months. Findings are related to other longitudinal research in early phonological development and to studies of babbling and correct productions. (Author/CL)

The article argues that even extremely young children can be taught to program microcomputers from their very first contact. A teaching strategy is proposed, having more in common with the teaching of language than with the more traditional didactic-reinforcement cycle commonly employed in the text books. (Author/CL)

Examined whether a holistic magnitude relation governs children's object comparisons. Objects varying on two dimensions of magnitude, size, and saturation were classified by three-, four-, and five-year-olds. Results indicated that younger children were sensitive to global magnitude as well as to overall similarity. (Author/BE)

Three experiments tested for developmental changes in attention to auditory and visual signals. Results showed that adults and seven-year-olds tended to allocate their attention to vision rather than audition when no precue was provided. While not entirely consistent, results with four-year-olds suggested a similar biasing of attention to vision.…

Federal legislation related to young handicapped children enacted during the past 20 years is reviewed in terms of the history and current status of several of the most effective and enduring of the early childhood programs. (Author/CL)

The acquisition of "to" in infinitive complement structure was examined in the spontaneous speech data from four children who were observed longitudinally from two to three years of age. Results support the conclusion that the verb system is a determining factor in the acquisition of linguistic structure. (SED)

Capacity to react to the cost of a request in relation to interlocutor's behavior is acquired early; ability to maintain good interactions by increasing the politeness of a request occurs later. Only from 9 years on do children use linguistic politeness as a criterion in judging a request's appropriateness according to addressee's status. (RH)

Despite assertions to the contrary, preschool children are capable of understanding cinematic events conveyed through camera techniques and film editing. This ability nevertheless substantially increases with age among children from four- to seven-years-old. (Author/RH)

Acquisition of sentient-nonsentient distinction in 48 children between four- and seven-years-of-age occurred later than animate-inanimate distinction. The children's use of naturalistic or nonnaturalistic explanations depended on the logical nature of events in which objects were involved rather than familiarity with objects themselves. Ability to…

Describes a new observational study of home television viewing by young children which involved placement of time-lapse video cameras in the homes of five-year-olds from middle-class families for a 10-day period. Families maintained TV viewing diaries, and control groups of families were employed to assess the impact of observational equipment in…

Two groups of professionals, one serving specific regions and the other administering statewide programs, agreed that public sources of funds are the most available for early intervention programs, that the most effective services are performed as early as possible and that rural and poor populations are underserved. (Author/CL)

Findings of the study involving 15 families with handicapped children (three to six years old) and 15 without indicate significantly greater stress in families with handicapped children. Four factors are identified as significantly related to stress: (1) child characteristics, (2) physical incapacity, (3) parental pessimism regarding the child,…