Examines and discusses origins of parents' beliefs concerning children's developmental processes and specific abilities, and the relations between these beliefs and parental behavior on the one hand and children's cognitive development on the other. (PCB)

Discusses the findings of a recent study concerning the ability of an infant to see an object as a symbol. Reports that infants between 36 and 39 months old significantly outperformed informed infants between 30 and 32 months old on a symbolic task. (TW)

Reports on a study in which the symbolic relation between a scale model and the larger space that it represents was displayed by two groups of young children. Three-year-old children outperformed 2.5-year-olds in finding an object in a room after seeing an analogous object hidden in a model. (TW)

Summarizes recent research which attempted to discover what children of different ages know about the appearance-reality distinction and related phenomena. Findings show that what helps children grasp the distinction is an increased cognizance of the fact that people are sentient subjects who have mental representations of objects and events. (PS)

Reviews research on aspects of metacognition in children's comprehension of television, particularly how skills in meta-memory, meta-attention, and meta-social cognition-correlate with comprehension. (PD)

Evaluates some possible reasons for the occurrence and eventual correction of children's naming errors in an experiment in which two-, four-, and six-year-olds learned two artificial object names in succession. (HOD)

Compares two types of semantic development (the acquisition of disappearance words and success-failure words) to performance on two types of cognitive tasks (object-permanence and means-ends tasks) among infants. (HOD)

Examines the connection between children's own storying in play and the narrative fictions offered them in children's literature. (HOD)

Examines the development of children's ability to differentiate among informational, instructional, and persuasive television messages. Found high comprehension of narrative content even by the youngest children, but correct perception of message intent occurred primarily among older children. (PD)

Parents of preschool, first- and fourth-grade children were surveyed regarding media presentations that caused fear in their children. Results demonstrate that theories of cognitive development may provide an explanatory and predictive framework for understanding children's fears. (PD)

Three experiments involving balance scale problems were used to characterize and explain developmental differences in three domains of children's thinking: existing knowledge about the problems, ability to acquire new information about them, and process-level differences underlying developmental changes in the first two areas. (BW)

This two-volume reference presents the latest findings on the mental, emotional, and physical life of the human infant. The entries present thorough and current assessments of infancy issues as well as brief definitions and descriptions of scientific, technological, and psychological terms. Coverage includes discussion of the critical issues,…

The National Scientific Council on the Developing Child was founded to close the gap between what we know and what we do to promote the healthy development of young children. When scientific knowledge is ignored rather than used to inform early childhood policy and practices, our children pay a very high price. Council Chair Jack P. Shonkoff,…

This newsletter issue provides an overview of the book, "Critical Thinking about Critical Periods," which discusses the neural and behavioral sciences that undergird the notion of "windows of opportunity" in early brain development. The issue presents the book's table of contents; the major sections are: (1) "Critical…

Noting that the previous two decades have seen Lev Vygotsky's psychology become highly influential while the psychology of other theoretical giants has faded, this book provides a major intellectual biography about Vygotsky's theories and their relationship to twentieth-century Russian and Western intellectual culture. The book traces Vygotsky's…