Addresses the extent to which differences in Piagetian and Vygotskyan psychologies make their theories incompatible. Differences result from a Vygotskyan belief in a material primary cause for development; Piagetians do not hold this view. Explores this difference in perspective, concluding that, despite it, the two approaches are compatible. (JW)

Examined development of young children's psychomotor behaviors on outdoor swings, devising a Guttman hierarchical scale. Found that children consolidate basic movements into proficient swinging skills, and then experiment with the physical properties of the swing and with the social context. Modeling, informal instruction, and practice contribute…

Used a microgenetic method to examine knowledge acquisition as a process by coordinating existing theories with new evidence. Subjects were 17 community college students (ages 22-47) and 15 fourth graders. Assessed knowledge acquisition in problem solving in both physical and social domains. Found multiple strategies for, and varying levels of,…

Three experiments (sorting and theory-of-mind tasks) examined whether, for preschoolers, a particular form of reasoning applied to theory-of-mind and a set of problems requires understanding of mental states. Found that advances in theory of mind, card sorting, and causality depend on ability to switch judgments across conditions; reasoning by…

Investigated developmental change and patterns of individual differences in dimensions of infant temperament. Rothbart Infant Behavior Questionnaire (IBQ) was completed for subjects 5 times between 6 weeks and 30 months of age. Interpretable age changes were found for emotional reactivity, but not for the index of regulation (IBQ soothability).…

Item analysis of a measure of knowledge of sexual abuse prevention concepts, the Children's Knowledge of Abuse Questionnaire, was utilized in an evaluation of an elementary school program which served 111 children in grades 1, 3, and 6. Findings revealed differential responses by children of different ages to certain prevention concepts. (DB)

Three experiments examined whether children, like adults, can surpress interference effects when retrieving from long-term memory to solve arithmetic problems. Found that the associations between a number pair and its sum or product are of sufficient strength during the elementary school years to produce interference effects, depending on the age…

Marshall reviews four types of social models of aging: allocation, construction of life course, personality and socialization, and negotiation, concluding that the life course perspective dominates. Haldemann comments (in French) that broader research is needed to question this dominance; Marshall responds that his goal was to describe, not to…

Fundamental frequency, duration, and amplitude measures were extracted from stressed and unstressed syllables in interword and intraword comparisons. Analysis of target stress patterns revealed no difference between acoustic marking of stress by 6 adults and 22 toddlers. Findings indicate that children generally control these variables to derive…

Reports on research that showed that preformal-operational fourth graders could indeed benefit from classroom writing instruction on the higher-order skill of persuasive writing. (SR)

Examines the parent role as perceived by a parents (n=1,109) of school-age children in New Hampshire. Results reveal that parents describe parent roles using the same characteristics that emerge from the research literature. More importantly, they consider each six parent role characteristics (bonding, discipline, education, protection,…

Studies the segmentation performance of children who had not yet learned to read and students in the early stages of reading using whole word acquisition combined with letter-sound learning. Finds that segmentation ability progressed from phonemes to initial consonants to onset/rime--the reverse order predicted by hierarchical models based on the…

Reviews the history of children's fiction series publishing, examines the childhood reading histories of adult readers who currently read for pleasure, and investigates the reading of series books as an essential stage in the reading development. Also discusses the need for public libraries to be aware of different patron reading levels. (contains…

The interactive model of synchrony in early parent-child relationships has suggested that a mutual and responsive interaction between the child and the caretaker is essential to the child's development of secure attachment, sense of autonomy, and social competence. A lifespan view of development allows the concept of synchrony to be extended to…

Outlines a theory of developmental spelling, evolved from research on children's invented spellings, that can show teachers when best to teach aspects of spelling. Provides examples and several minilessons of the alternative approach to spelling instruction called Word Study, whereby words are examined by sound, by within-word patterns, and by…