Examined students' self-descriptions of situations, individuals, and incidents that evoked feelings of guilt to determine developmental and gender differences in guilt. Content analysis revealed changes in percentage of students at three grade levels who spontaneously mentioned a situation as guilt producing. Striking and distinctive patterns in…

Examines from an existential view the development of abstract thought in adolescents and the conflicts arising from its process. Proposes an existential model that views various types of adolescent behavior as the manifestation of the adolescent's defense mechanisms developed in response to existential conflict; presents specific examples of…

Discusses the variation in developmental effects of childhood sexual abuse across individuals and within individuals over time, and the timing of the impact of the abuse on the victim's psychosocial development, with special attention given to adolescent development. Implications for treatment are considered. (JPS)

Examined the relationship of maternal interaction and private speech to task performance, using a sample of four- and five-year-old children. Findings underscore the positive, self-regulatory function of private speech, highlight the role of adult communicative support in extending the child's competencies, and call attention to the cognitive and…

The development and validation of a Learning Style Questionnaire (LSQ) for use with upper primary school children studying science in an Asian context are described. Four important learning dimensions were identified: (1) concrete-abstract; (2) passive-active; (3) low-high self-confidence/self-esteem; and (4) superficial-deep motivation. (KR)

Describes a process approach to teaching and learning in preschool settings. The approach uses child-initiated play in a prepared environment, and encourages children's formation of symbolic mental representations through social interaction and mediation. Offers guidelines for the implementation of the process approach. (MM)

Provides an abstract of the book, "Developmentally Appropriate Middle Schools," which examines young adolescents' physical, psychosocial, and cognitive characteristics, and suggests developmentally appropriate educational experiences. The book includes the idea that young adolescents' individual development should be the basis for curricular,…

Describes a treatment program which combines cognitive, behavioral, and expressive therapies targeted at reducing dysfunctional patterns of cognition, affect, and behavior of aggressive youths. Also presents interventions for unwilling and resistant clients. (HTH)

Two years after the end of a two-year intervention program set within the context of science learning intended to promote formal operational thinking, achievement of students (n=234) was tested by their results on British National examinations taken at age 16. Male experimental subjects achieved an average of 40 percent more grades of C or above…

To evaluate the part that nascent skeptical doubt plays in shaping adolescent social-cognitive development, 61 high school students clearly classified as in concrete or formal operational stages of cognitive development completed a measure of epistemic stances. A relationship was found between cognitive and epistemic development. (SLD)

Examines, through a longitudinal study, the temporal correspondences of 4 Japanese children, aged 7 to 11, in the attainment of specific milestones in play and language. All children proceeded through the same sequence of stages, but the rate of development was different depending on their environment. (34 references) (GLR)

Recall of "to-be-remembered items" benefited from schematically related, superordinate, and slot filler cues, but not coordinate cues. The relative strength of different relationships does not appear to change with age. Findings are consistent with the view that lexical memory is schematically and taxonomically organized from early…

Twenty-eight toddlers with slow expressive language development were compared to normally speaking age-mates and found to show delayed rather than deviant development in the average level of complexity of their syllable structures, the number of different consonant phonemes produced, and the percentage of consonants correctly produced in…

The article helps elementary teachers develop science programs geared to their students, emphasizing the appropriateness of hands-on activities and developmental learning. It presents three Earth Day water projects on rain and puddles, water drops and surface tension, and water purification that can be tailored for specific classes. (SM)

Two experiments investigated the relationship between family size and "theory of mind." Results from an experiment with three- and four-year olds showed that children from larger families were better able than children from smaller families to predict a story character's mistaken (false-belief based) action. (MDM)