Attempted to bridge home and school literacy contexts by involving families in literacy activities with their children to enhance children's achievement and interest in reading and writing. Activities included literacy centers in classrooms, teacher modeled literature activities, and writing and reading appreciation periods (WRAP). Results…

In everyday teaching, the mathematical meaning of new knowledge is frequently devalued during ritualized formats of communication and replaced by social conventions. Specific aspects of the problem of meaning development were investigated in two second-grade teaching cases. These were used to develop decisive requirements for maintenance of an…

Reviews development of rehearsal and organizational strategies based on cross-sectional and longitudinal research, focusing on the Munich Longitudinal Study. Found that longitudinal data reveal greater individual variability in strategy acquisition, suggesting that canonical development patterns inferred from cross-sectional studies obfuscate…

Compared comprehension of novel communicative signs to assist 2.5- and 3-year-old humans, chimpanzees, and orangutans find hidden objects during a hiding-finding game. Found that children at both ages performed above chance with all signs. No ape performed above chance for any signs not known before the experiment despite three times as many…

Used Visual Expectation Paradigm to describe information processing changes and individual differences during first year of life. Found regular age changes in mean reaction time and variability but not in minimum reaction time, suggesting that growth rate of sensory-detection information is constant during first year but age changes occur in level…

Speculates on underlying processes for the reaction time variance and age differences in anticipation latency using the Visual Expectation Paradigm. Discusses the dichotomization of reactive and anticipatory behavior, limitations of longitudinal designs, drawbacks in using standard procedures and materials, and inferences that can be made…

Explores the mathematical abilities of human infants compared with various species of animals. Studies indicate that human infants enter the world capable of doing simple mathematical operations. Nonhuman animals can discriminate among sets of objects based on the number of items in each set. Further studies may pinpoint the age at which children…

Discusses the human trait of attempting to read minds in an attempt to make sense of the actions of others. The term Mindblind comes from the fact that this is difficult for people with autism to do. Mindreading appears to be encoded in the genes and adaptive. (PVD)

Focuses on marital histories of young mothers and whether the family structure into which children (N=940) of young mothers are born, and the stability of that arrangement, affects the child's academic abilities. Results suggest that young mothers marital histories do influence the educational achievements of their elementary-school-aged children.…

Panoramic scanning is the capacity to perceive, interpret, and appreciate complex problems from a big-picture vantage point. Barriers to panoramic scanning (sensory bombardment, superficial polarized thought, and tunnel vision) and facilitators (broad interests and knowledge, pattern finding, and connection-making skills) are identified. Educators…

Discusses how one teacher encouraged students to communicate mathematically when discussing the lyrics to the song "Billy Boy." Students' problem solving was assessed by means of classroom discussion. (MKR)

Examined children's ability to settle causal relations and their capacity to make conclusions based on certain experiences and representations. Found that preschool children have a solid explanatory basis for their everyday life, within which facts are not generally accepted but are interpreted through a certain "logic," and the motives…

Examined the associations among speech perception, phonological awareness, naming speed, verbal memory, and word reading. Multiple measures were administered to 136 3rd- and 4th-grade children. Results indicated that naming speed was particularly highly associated with speech perception, whereas phonological awareness was substantially correlated…

The literature on the effects of congenital blindness on infants' development of motor functions and concepts of object permanence is reviewed. The article questions the idea that infants must first develop an object concept before sound clues alone will elicit reaching. Possible interventions to redress the effects of congenital blindness on…

Investigated the development of reorientation abilities in humans in contrast to other mammals. Findings support the domain specificity of human's core cognitive abilities, the conservation of cognitive abilities across related species and over the course of human development, and the developmental processes by which core abilities are extended to…