To determine whether 1 or 2 dimensions of infant emotionality best characterized infant functioning, parental reports (10 months) and elicited emotion (12-13 months) were examined. Found that early positivity (12-13 months) predicted later positivity (18-20 months) better than later negativity, with the reverse being true of early negativity.…

The New Haven (Connecticut) Public Schools established a district-level department of social development to coordinate all prevention and health-promotion initiatives. The goals are to educate knowledgeable, responsible, and caring students who acquire a set of basic skills, values, work habits, and positive self-concepts. (MLH)

Learning to identify, label, and share feelings is an important ingredient of healthy personal, social, and family functioning. Presents the Feeling Word Game, a creative context for these tasks that can be used in a variety of therapeutic ways with individuals, couples, groups, and families. (Contains 21 references.) (GCP)

Reviews a research project of 15 years ago that investigated whether children were better or worse off when they attended preschools that emphasized adult-directed instruction and the basics of reading and math rather than preschools that focused on play and exploration. Now, the most effective early childhood classrooms nurture both children's…

Explains how many schools are abandoning the middle school model and returning to kindergarten through eighth grade schools. Notes that one of the professional organizations committed to middle schools believes academic rigor is only feasible in middle schools. Concludes that in the future, the presence and popularity of middle schools will depend…

Discusses the social development of infants in terms of a set of tasks which include identity, culturation, and reproduction. Focuses on the task of identity, the role of self-awareness in relationships, and the relationship between identity and emotional life. (RJC)

The Gestalt dream approach is a practical way to explore personal issues. This article demonstrates how dream work can be adapted by counselors to focus clients to direct forms of personal exploration. A four-step strategy is described. (Authors)

Entry-level counseling students (n=74) were surveyed to investigate the relationship between resolution of Erikson's psychosocial stage of intimacy/isolation and counselor trainee empathy. Results revealed a significant positive relationship between measures of psychosocial stage resolution and counselor empathy and a significant main effect for…

Emotional characteristics of gifted children are examined. Frameworks developed by G. Betts and M. Neihart and by A. Roeper, which classify children by features of their characteristic emotional response, are described. Gifted children's unusual levels of sensitivity and intensity are noted and illustrated with a case example. (JDD)

Assessed effects of maternal employment on socioemotional development of young children. After controlling for differences at time of child's birth, found that children whose mothers worked full-time beginning in child's first or second year scored more poorly on composite measure of adjustment than did children of mothers who were not employed…

The study compared the nonverbal emotional expressions of five young children (ages three through five) with autism and five typical children. Although frequency of emotional displays was similar in both groups, children with autism displayed happy, sad, and angry faces during incongruent contextual events. (Author/DB)

Study compares the object relations and language functions of 15 physically abused and 15 non-abused adolescents. Results reveal no significant differences between groups on overall measures. The findings do not support the view that physically abused adolescents experience developmental lags, instead suggesting that they organize and use…

Discusses Vygotsky's ideas in art psychology on the role of emotion in art, the nature of the aesthetic experience, the semiotic nature of psychological processes, and the foundation of a Marxist psychology and a Marxist aesthetics. Central to all of his ideas was his critique of Russian formalism. (MMU)

Explores the educational implications of cognitivism and Aristotelianism in the field of emotional research and discusses attempts to translate these ideas into educational practice. Uses a "post-Kohlbergian" perspective (L. Kohlberg, 1971, 1981) to consider the feasibility of moral education and emotion education in a school setting.…

Notes the heterogeneity of focus in the articles in this issue (PS 525 026-031) and their relation to emotion theory. Explores the implications of the articles' socioemotional themes for early intervention. (HTH)