Discusses the developmental stages of infants' and children's eating habits. Provides directions for introducing cup and spoon to babies and for making homemade infant foods. Includes information on breast feeding and how child caregivers can support breast-feeding mothers. (HTH)

Too strong an emphasis on the development of self-esteem in young children can lead to the tyranny of self-centeredness with the ultimate result being badly adjusted adults. Without an objective moral referent, children cannot acquire a stable sense of right and wrong. (JOW)

Two experiments examined young children's sensitivity to linguistic contexts in which particular function morphemes occur. Results showed that children who did not produce articles in spontaneous speech were able to distinguish between sentences, verbally presented in picture identification tasks, that contained grammatical articles and those that…

Presents actions that parents can take to help children prepare to return to school after summer vacation. Ideas highlight reading, writing, vocabulary, computers, family night, television, video games, communicating, music, study habits, encouragement, decision making, behavior, setting limits, modeling, grooming, nagging, toys, equality, school…

Acoustic analyses, along with perceptual ratings, measured the extent to which preschoolers imitated three modeled intonation contours (declarative, interrogative, and monotone). Results indicated that five-year-old children imitated modeled contours more frequently than did three-year-old children, with between-group differences largely because…

Interpretive approaches to the study of children address the fundamental question of how children come to invest cultural resources with meaning. The theoretical rationale and the key premises of these approaches are described. A discussion of interpretive methodological principles focuses on ethnographic methods. (MM)

History reveals that drug legalization accelerates new use and contributes to a larger population of chronic users. When states energetically enforce antidrug laws and policies, illegal drug use is reduced and eliminated. Drug use is incompatible with healthy child development and learning. Legalizing drugs is the shallowest response to the…

Comments on this issue's article by Ward, Vela, and Hass on children's category learning. Suggests that aspects of the authors' methodology may have led them to underestimate holistic processing. (PCB)

In the two studies reported, three year olds tended to choose mentalistic descriptions more often than behavioral ones to describe people. (PCB)

Uses the still-face paradigm as a framework for examining the range of social regulatory capacities available to infants during stressful times. (PCB)

Examined (1) the possibility that children organize general statements into meaningful and consistent psychological concepts of themselves; (2) individual differences revealed in these concepts; (3) the possibility that these differences show stability over a one-month period. (PCB)

Discusses how a child's language development is facilitated through the child's active involvement in a variety of play, talk, and reading time experiences. States that the natural processes of child development encompassing space, movement, vision, audition, and sensory integration form the backdrop for knowing the world and for the evolution of…

Studied effects of maternal employment and substitute child care on social behavior of four- and five-year-old children (n=2,209). Mothers from National Longitudinal Survey's youth cohort rated their child's social behavior using items from Behavioral Problems Index. In general, findings did not support contention that maternal employment is…

Examines the broad and subtle effects of television watching on children and their families. Discusses the role of television in family life; the effects of television on children's development, behavior, attitudes, and values; children's understanding of messages conveyed by television; the relationship of television and play; and strategies for…

Provides a rationale for providing nature education. Discusses specific goals of nature education, and what teachers can do to capitalize on children's curiosity. Discusses considerations for selecting nature activities. (HTH)