Reviews a series of studies documenting that key aspects of helpless reactions to failure are present in preschool and early elementary school children. Proposes a preliminary model in which a general conception of self and the notion of this self as an object of contingent worth are sufficient conditions for helplessness. (HTH)

Reviews the historical and current theoretical contexts that have contributed to the concept of readiness, especially reading readiness. Discusses connectionist, emergent, social constructivist, and critical theories of early literacy. Ends with a discussion of the future of research, debate, and practice in the area of early literacy. (DR)

Offers 20 tips for parents and child caregivers to help them reframe ideas about children's toilet-learning timetables and to understand this developmental step toward maturity from a toddler's point of view. (HTH)

Examines research on the importance of understanding children's biological timetables for mind and brain development, and forces that can threaten this neurodevelopmental timetable during critical periods. Discusses the brain's adaptability, and focuses on the importance of knowledge derived from the study of special populations for understanding…

The role of context in categorization was examined in four experiments with three month olds. Findings demonstrated that categorization of a novel object is influenced by the context present when the object is initially encountered and by previous encounters with that object in the category context, indicating that infants are capable of…

Three experiments used an object-examining task to explore infants' attention to function and form-function correlations. The results suggested a developmental progression from attending only to the form of objects, to attending to form and function as separate properties, and finally to attending to the relationship between form and function.…

This study examined effects of familiarity with a speech target on coarticulation magnitude in 30 young children and 10 adults. Children exhibited a greater effect of a following vowel on the preceding fricative than did adults. Nonmeaningful production items exhibited greater effects of the vowel on the preceding fricative than did meaningful…

In a study by Toshiaki Hashimoto and colleagues (EC 611 142), 10 infants with developmental delay, poor eye contact, and poor facial expression underwent magnetic resonance brain imaging and were later diagnosed with autism. This offered direct evidence of abnormality of the cerebellar vermis and the brainstem at the beginning stages of behavioral…

Studied 100 adolescents' approaches to problem-solving proofs and reasoning competence tasks. Found that a formal level of reasoning competence is associated with a deductive approach. Results support the notion of a cognitive development progression from an inductive approach to a deductive approach. (ETB)

Examines the development of nominative and oblique subject pronouns in preschool speakers of English, finding that oblique subject forms occur in the earliest language of the children and reappear in connection with wh-questions and related constructions. (57 references) (MDM)

Male freshmen (n=268) in Brazil responded to a questionnaire concerning aspects of their sexuality from the onset of adolescence, including physical changes and attitudes. The quality of the relationship established with parents and the possibilities for dialogue about sex in the family circle were also surveyed. (JPS)

Object play and communication development were studied with four infants with cerebral palsy, involving time spent with objects, types of object play, and object selection. As coordinated looking between object and adult emerged, children demonstrated increased interest in objects and sophistication in their play behaviors. (SW)

Examined the relationship between early adolescents' temperament, as assessed by parent report, and a wide range of measures relating to school functioning. Found that temperament was related to academic achievement during the transition to adolescence and was related even more to classroom behavior and to students' perceptions of relationships…

Examined the visual scanning patterns of infants ages 6, 10, and 13 weeks who viewed static geometric figures. Measures of fixation dwell-times, saccade lengths, and the choices and sequences of saccadic targets revealed that, although younger infants demonstrated salience-guided scanning behavior, older infants increasingly utilized volitional…

Examined children's notions about segments of written sentences. Subjects watched a sentence being written and listened to it being read. The interviewer then asked questions about each word--whether or not it was written and, if so, where. Found that children used word order before phonics to figure out what was written in each segment of the…