Although pretend play has long been part of the early childhood curriculum, recent emphasis on accountability in education seems to have led to a decline in the general understanding of the contribution that high-quality play can make to children's cognitive development in the early years. This digest defines the cluster of concepts related to…

Distributed by the U.S. Departments of Agriculture, Education, and Health and Human Services, this pamphlet provides parents with information and advice about their infants in the eighth month of life. Following a brief description of developmental characteristics at this age, the pamphlet offers advice on a variety of topics, including: ways to…

Noting the importance of language acquisition for children's physical, social, and cognitive development, this paper discusses first- and second-language acquisition in children. After providing background on second-language acquisition, the paper discusses the controversy surrounding bilingual education programs. The paper then explores what is…

Research indicates some early life stresses can have a profound impact, resulting in changes in brain function and behavior, and even differences in the ways some genes express their particular genetic code signature. At various times during early development, different neural systems appear to have an increased sensitivity to stress and can…

The public dollars spent to stimulate economic development would be more wisely invested in child development programs, according to two different streams of research. Brain research shows the impact of experiences and environments on the developing brain architecture, with weaker architecture leading to increased vulnerability to later problems…

The field of developmental psychology offers new insights into the link between the quality and nature of early relationships with caregivers to the healthy social, emotional, and cognitive development of young children. Three dimensions of child care seem to make the most difference: the interactions between young children and their caregivers,…

The number of very young children entering center-based child care programs is growing. Now, more than ever, it is important for caregivers to understand the impact they have on the healthy development of the children in their care. "Emotional Connections" translates new research on cognitive, social, and emotional development in the early years…

If we consider the gap between mathematics at elementary and secondary levels, and the logical nature of the higher level, it is important that aspects of children's logical development in the latter grades in elementary school be clarified. We focused on 5th graders' learning "division with decimals" as it is known to be difficult to…

This book dispels many myths about dual language development and answers key questions that might arise as you work with children and their parents. Student profiles, definitions of key terms, and "clinical implications" sections for selected chapters make this a valuable reference for in-practice SLPs and educators, an accessible resource for…

This study examined whether or not students who either had higher levels of cross-racial interaction during college or had same-institution peers with higher average levels of this type of interaction tend to report significantly larger developmental gains than their counterparts. Unlike previous quantitative studies that tested cross-racial…

In an attempt to validate the findings of other researchers regarding the development of conceptual perspective taking, this study used Taylor's (1988) 2-tiered model to examine development of perspective taking among 40 3- to 5-year-olds. Participating were 22 males and 18 females from English-speaking backgrounds attending a preschool in…

Seldom are college students introduced to theories that describe how they and other students change intellectually during their college years. Two epistemological perspectives on cognitive development in college students and how they can be presented to students are examined in this paper. The first perspective is William Perry's forms of…

A comparative study of parent-child interaction and its relation to children's intellectual achievement is presented in examining the question of cultural continuities in cognitive development. Problem-solving behavior of fifth graders with their mothers from urban settings in Peru and the United States (N=64) was videotaped. In contrast to…

This study attempts to investigate development of expertise in the area of economics. Results suggest that development of expertise in economics has a stage-like development similar to the domain of medicine. Studies in medicine show that expertise development is not simply a process of extending knowledge in existing semantic networks. The study…

This paper reports on a study that represents a new approach to understanding early and middle grade children's development of historical time awareness. The study sought to embed children's time awareness in a sociocultural framework, and to move beyond linguistic symbol systems to incorporate visual data sources. The researchers began with three…