This paper suggests a variety of learning experiences for parents to provide for their young children from birth to age 5. The introduction stresses the need for many kinds of verbal communication between parents and child and presents a discussion of crying behaviors and the importance of reading to children. Talking and listening activities are…

Children's emotional development from infancy through adolescence, is described through brief anedcotes and through photographs. Psychological explanations of child behavior are discussed. Children's reactions to parents, siblings, and peers, and to experiences such as pain, discovering one's body, eating, exploring, and visiting the doctor are…

Parents and teachers are the chief mediators of effective influences in child development and what happens to them happens to the child, directly or indirectly. Pressures on parents and teachers become pressures on the child. Attempting to remediate a child's deficiencies without focusing upon the societal forces that contributed to their…

The present study was designed to explore the possibility that exposure to the "Misterogers' Neighborhood" program might increase the likelihood of spontaneous imaginative play in preschool children who watched the program over a period of two weeks. The specific focus of this investigation was to determine whether a well-produced…

A Piagetian preschool emphasizes the child's active construction of mental images rather than passive association of words and pictures with real objects. The role of the teacher is neither to dictate good behavior nor to transmit ready-made predigested knowledge. Her role is to help the child to control his own behavior and to find things out as…

The relationship of reading material to delinquent behavior has been a much discussed subject. This author has taken some steps toward identifying and understanding the emotional concomitants of reading. He investigated the perceptions of emotional concomitants which exist among a sizable and geographically diversified group of subjects presumed…

The increasing abuse of drugs by youth and its impact upon the community are discussed. Some young people use drugs as a substitute for psychological or physical help or as a means to be "in". There are many other reasons for drug abuse depending on the predisposition and motives involved and these are summarized. To comprehend the present trend…

The present study was developed in order to help clarify some issues concerning the "at home" or "early entry" effect upon the child's development. The special problems that this study identified as valuable in the child's development were reading readiness and emotional "well-being". Five groups of young children matched for age, socioeconmoc…

A 6-week summer program (1972) provided educational, recreational, vocational, and cultural experiences for 502 elementary and secondary level socially maladjusted and emotionally disturbed children in 14 New York City facilities. Goals included consolidation of learning in areas of reading and mathematics; instruction in subject areas such as…

The purposes of this study were to determine (1) the long-range effectiveness on children's cognitive and affective development of 1, 2, and 3 years of the Central Cities Early Childhood Education Program; (2) how long preschool intervention must be continued to significantly alleviate special problems of disadvantaged children; and (3) the…

Intervention programs for the disadvantaged should be based on an understanding of the behavior and attitudes of people in poverty. Poor people share a sense of hopelessness and helplessness, a lack of belief that they can change their situations, and low self-esteem. Programs to train child care workers who are themselves disadvantaged (parents,…

The Mecklenburg County Department of Social Services in Charlotte, North Carolina, operates nine child development day care centers and 5 day homes which provide care for 257 Black and Anglo children, 2- to 5-years-old, primarily from low-income homes. The centers are located in churches, schools, and facilities in low income housing projects. The…

Fifty-two 44-month-old children were observed in a nursery school over a period of two weeks with peer and adult oriented behaviors recorded, and data analyzed in terms of the subjects' sex and birth order. Sex effects were as expected, but birth-order effects highlighted the second-born child as representing a distinct category. In particular,…

Results of a study of the cognitive and affective development of 1,292 students, mostly Black or Hispanic, who had been retained more than once in the elementary grades indicate that retention and intervention must take place early to increase subject mastery. Curriculum improvement and teacher retraining are critical factors in improving minority…

Used newly developed codes for parenting behavior during the Great Depression reported in the Oakland Growth Study. Results indicated that economic hardship adversely influenced the psychosocial well-being of adolescent girls, but not boys, by increasing the rejecting behavior of fathers. This effect was particularly strong for unattractive girls.…