Results of a longitudinal study provide several insights into the idealization of motherhood, the idealization of mothers' relationships with their children in the years from 1 to 4, and the development of children of women who idealize motherhood. In the mother, idealization is associated with low self-esteem, denial of ambivalent feelings and…

In order to determine the effect of day care center sponsorship on children's development, the authors examined the ways in which programs, objects and materials, and teacher/child interactions affected the preoperational behavior of 4-year-old black children in publicly and privately supported day care centers. A total of 120 4-year-olds (30 from…

The Mental Development Scales: Birth to Three Years are instruments designed to assess developmental levels of young children within a setting familiar to the child. They (1) provide a greater understanding of child behavior and development, (2) serve as a basis for planning an individualized curriculum for each child, and (3) furnish the means…

Once speech educators turn their attention to the "ideational" function of oral language--that portion pertaining to thinking--rather than the relational function, they will see that speech can and should be incorporated into every discipline. The psychologist Lev S. Vygotsky envisions the ways in which humans use speech to reorder their…

A dominant theme in cognitive psychology is that prior knowledge in long-term memory has a strong influence on an individual's cognitive processing. Citing numerous memory studies with children, knowledge base effects are presented as part of a broader picture of memory development. Using the sort/recall procedure (asking subjects to group sets of…

To provide a context for a discussion of parental modernity and child development, this paper explores concepts of societal and individual modernity and examines historical evidence of increasing levels of intellectual competence and an active orientation in the conduct of life. Specific attention is given to sociological theories of Bell (1973)…

This paper supports the position that Piaget's theory (including both structural and functional components), methods, and empirical data have a central role to play in the development of an effective, comprehensive pedagogy. A structural-developmental theory coordinates the teacher's knowledge of curriculum with knowledge of cognitive demands…

A longitudinal study investigated maternal social support and its relationship to mother/child stress, the amount of stimulation provided the child, and the child's cognitive development. The data presented here represent the 18 to 24 month follow-up on a subset of families studied in 1981 and 1982 concerning current maternal social support and…

Four classes of high school chemistry students (N=108) were randomly assigned to experimental and control groups to investigate the effectiveness of a computer assisted instruction (CAI) package during a unit on writing/naming of chemical formulas and balancing equations. Students in the experimental group received drill, review, and reinforcement…

With the increase in prominence of the investigative approach in Hong Kong science curricula from the primary to the senior secondary level, there is urgency for local science educators including primary school teachers to gain a better understanding of pupils' existing cognitive understanding and reasoning ability for performing science…

This is a continuation of the report on a study of skill retention (observation and comparison) in junior high school students. (See SE 511 538 for additional information.) Reported in this article is an investigation to determine if the skills retained could be transferred to a new set of scientific objects. Results appeared to show that both…

This paper reviews and comments on the ways that thought and feeling, cognition and affect, have been balanced in early childhood education at various periods in the last half century. The relationship between educators and psychologists is discussed, and a closer collaboration of the two encouraged. The cognitive-affective interaction view is…

The Conceptual Learning and Development (CLD) Model suggests four successive levels of concept learning: (1) concrete--recognizing an object which has been encountered previously; (2) identity--recognizing a known object when it appears in a different spatial, time, or sensory perspective; (3) classificatory--generalizing that two items are alike…

The learning assistance counselor at the college level should facilitate learning for students who have not developed their cognitive and literacy skills. To enrich the process of discovery in student learning, the counselor can direct students in the following textbook activities: practicing basic syllabifying skills on technical and scientific…

This study examines the cultural deprivation theory of scholastic performance among black children. The hypothesis of the study focuses upon family based determinants to explain variation in academic performance. The report also discusses arguments which indicate that the cultural deprivation theory is responsible for the lack of black children's…