The study of four autistic children, aged six-nine, found support for the hypothesis that persistent pronominal errors by autistic children can be explained by failure to observe pronouns in speech addressed to another person, an aspect of language development in normal children. (Author/DB)

Examined communicative intents of parents interacting with their children between 14 and 32 months of age. Found that as children's age increased, the set of communicative intents used by parents grew in size and sophistication, parents' use of directive intents declined, and use of child-centered acts increased. Common parental intents were rare…

Hudson addressed two issues on second-language acquisition: the validity of the multidimensional model and the application of developmental sequence findings to assessment and pedagogy. This response suggests that his lines of argument are based on serious conceptual flaws. (Contains 37 references.) (LB)

If well planned, service learning can exhibit developmental stages that parallel and feed into patterns of academic growth. Students who learn through service pass through six developmental stages (the need to be needed, to know, to know more, to understand why, to know what can be changed, and to integrate action and knowledge for developing…

Examined nascent understanding of desire in cases where a child judges another's desire while holding a strong conflicting desire. Found that difference in ability to attribute beliefs versus desires to others is not due solely to difference in representational nature of two mental states; instead, beliefs differ from desire in their potential to…

Lesbians ages 30-45 (n=10) were asked about the experience of coming out, effect of sexual identity development on career development, effect of homophobia on careers, and effect of association with the lesbian community. Results suggest that lesbians experience a "second adolescence" in coming out, identity consolidation disrupts career…

Finds that lower-level developmental variables are related to beginning writing skills. Identifies an orthographic-linguistic dimension and an automaticity dimension in the battery of developmental skills and writing products. (RS)

Two experiments investigated 8-, 10-, and 12-month-old infants' levels of searching for mothers, strangers, and objects. Found that, overall, 10- and 12-month-old infants had higher levels of searching for mothers, whereas youngest infants showed no differences for searching. This discrepancy is likely due to social cognitive development and…

This multivariate study investigated nonverbal pragmatics in 96 students with and without mental retardation at 3 developmental levels. Data revealed an unexpected degree of commonality in the use of pragmatics, with differences related sometimes to the frequency and other times to the inappropriateness of nonverbal communicative functions.…

The locomotor skills of walking and running were compared in newly running infants at 5.5, 7.5, and 9.5 months of independent walking, and then again at 3 years of age. Collective variables showed transitional forms over the first few months of running, indicating a relatively continuous change across the two gait forms. (MDM)

The relative consistency in categorization by age-equivalent groups of preoperational and concrete-operational first graders was assessed across two categorization tasks employing color drawings of exemplars of superordinate artifact categories. Results are discussed in terms of the utilization and acquisition of knowledge about superordinate…

Six lexical principles for object label learning are evaluated. In this framework, lexical acquisition changes as a result of the particular principles a given child has at his or her disposal. These principles were developed for the class of object labels but may also apply across other early-appearing word classes. (Contains 98 references.) (JP)

Applied Snyder and Feldman's consolidation/transition model to Selman's stages of friendship reasoning in a study of stage change in young adolescents. Hypothesized that subjects exhibiting reasoning about their own modal stages would more likely experience a developmental advance in modal reasoning. This was confirmed; however, the amount of…

Examines effects of mentoring relationship on young person's self-perception or identity and decision-making skills. Contends that lasting impacts of mentoring can occur only when relationships move successfully through early trust-building stages. Provides developmental model for building effective mentoring relationships and concrete guidelines…

The methodology for obtaining immanent justice responses was evaluated by means of a replication of Piaget's immanent justice study. Kindergartners and first, third, and fifth graders were presented with four vignettes that allowed for immanent justice responses. Children's responses indicated developmental trends from immature toward mature…