Assessed Venezuelan college freshmen's (N=709) level of formal or concrete operations and its correlation with performance in various courses. Findings show 84 percent were concrete; achievement in chemistry had the highest correlation with formal operations, and decreasing correlations occurred with mathematics, biology, biology lab,…

An investigation of the order of acquisition of domains by severely retarded children and adolescents indicated that object permanence performance always equaled or exceeded means-ends, which in turn always equaled or exceeded causality for 23 of 25 subjects. (Author/CL)

A spontaneous mastery measure, sampling sophistication of infants' behavior and infants' propensity to demonstrate their most sophisticated repertoire of skills, was developed and tested for predictability. Unlike a measure of executive capacity to which it was compared, the spontaneous mastery measure was highly stable across a 6-month period.…

Finds that, between five and seven years of age, the majority of healthy children in modern urban-industrial societies achieve an understanding of the irreversibility, nonfunctionality, and universality of death. Suggests reasons for ambiguous findings concerning the relationship between the acquisition of the concept of death and developmental…

Proposed developmental steps for hopping over distance were tested to determine their comprehensiveness and accuracy. The proposed arm action component required modification, but the leg action was properly ordered. The pattern of sex differences was consistent with earlier research. The non-chosen leg was developmentally behind the chosen leg in…

Three examples of children (five to nine years old) with acting-out behaviors are cited to illustrate the author's contention that such behavior is indicative of specific developmental levels of social and emotional functioning. The need for intervention appropriate to the developmental level is asserted. (CL)

Assessed relationship development of single-parents, focusing on the communicative affect of their immediate social network (children and ex-spouse) by using Levinger's developmental scheme. Interpretations of data are presented in light of relationship development for the single parent within the communicative context of his/her immediate social…

A developmental process consisting of four phases that emerged from graduate students' reports of their experiences in a course promoting self-direction is outlined and compared with research on similar processes in other groups. (MSE)

Identifies stages children progress through in acquiring adult metaphor comprehension and develops a more complex coding scheme based on theoretical clarifications of metaphor comprehension. (PD)

Argues that the "ontogenetic" model of adult development theory is inappropriate because it treats as "natural" a subject that is social in character. Offers instead some essential elements of a "sociogenic" paradigm drawn from the accumulated body of sociological research and theory. (CMG)

Fourteen Down's Syndrome children (24-36 months) received systematic language training based upon the Environmental Language Intervention Program. Results indicated substantial gains in language functioning and several significant correlations between cognitive and sensorimotor status at the beginning of intervention and level of language…

Following a description of the stages of impulse management, the article reviews curricular implications for interventions based on the students' needs at each stage. (CL)

An approach to teaching reading to learning disabled students is described and a sample lesson presented, based on a theory of deviance centering on developmental stages that correspond to chronological age. (JW)

Presents the Relationship Events Scale, a measure of courtship progress, which consists of 19 items marking the occurrence of specific events in dating relationships, grouped in six levels to form a Guttman scale. The reliability and validity of the scale was demonstrated by concordance of scores of 55 couples. (JAC)

Tests the construct of belief-discrepancy reasoning (i.e., judgments people make about others who disagree with them). First, fourth, seventh, and tenth graders were assessed and retested one year later. Longitudinal trends supported a four-stage development toward open-mindedness which was confirmed by another study of fourth and seventh graders…