A product evaluation of the Saginaw, Michigan School District's state-funded prekindergarten program for at-risk 4-year-olds (Michigan Early Childhood Education Preschool, or MECEP) was conducted in 1992-93. The Piaget-based program, which served approximately 279 children at 8 elementary schools, involves 7 component areas: cognitive,…

A product evaluation of the Saginaw, Michigan School District's state-funded prekindergarten program for at-risk 4-year-olds (Michigan Early Childhood Education Preschool, or MECEP) was conducted in 1993-94. The Piaget-based program, which served approximately 280 children at 9 elementary schools, involves 7 component areas: cognitive,…

A product evaluation of the Saginaw, Michigan School District's state-funded prekindergarten program for at-risk 4-year-olds (Michigan School Readiness Program, formerly Michigan Early Childhood Education Preschool, or MECEP) was conducted in 1994-95. The Piaget-based program, which served approximately 302 children at 9 elementary schools,…

Does early child care hinder or enhance infants' and toddlers' social and cognitive development? This longitudinal study investigated whether: (1) child care is related to qualities of mother-child interaction and the child's cognitive and language development in the first 3 years of life; (2) the child care environment interacts with the home…

This paper focuses on the relationship between adult-child interactions and the developing cognitive competence of young children as rated by the Mediated Learning Experience (MLE) Scale. The scale was devised to reflect 10 criteria of adult-child interaction hypothesized to comprise an MLE and therefore to enhance children's cognitive…

The purpose behind the Russian-American Seminar on Critical Thinking was to bring together librarians from both countries to provide an East-West perspective on the issue of critical thinking. This document presents 16 papers from the seminar as well as introductory remarks from a Russian and an American participant. Papers are as follows:…

Instruction should be designed to incorporate learning theories that explain how intellectual skills are developed. Through these appropriate learning theories, students learn to think conceptually, critically, and creatively when analyzing situations, developing solutions to problems, and learning from their experiences. Several critical issues…

Conclusions derived from drawing research indicate that young children can be trained to see and respond to the distinctions of their observation and that these distinctions can enrich their drawing experiences. These distinctions include spatial information obtained from observation. Three basic factors influence young children's spatial…

Based on Montessori's ideas about children's innate capabilities and potential, this book encourages restructuring the home environment to provide children, especially preschool children, with opportunities for self-directed activities and personal autonomy. In each of the chapters, a different room is examined as to how it could be redesigned to…

This bulletin reports the results of a review of research about the educational process used in detention and training schools to identify elements that would assist in adapting law-related education (LRE) materials and strategies to juvenile justice settings. Findings and recommendations are summarized according to the following categories: goals…

New conceptions of learning, analogy, and capacity have fundamentally changed scientists' view of cognitive development. New conceptions of learning help to explain how representations of the world are acquired. New models of analogical reasoning have suggested that logical inferences are often made by mapping a problem into a mental model, or…

This document presents the results of three studies about how children interpret observations of the biological phenomena of decay. The objectives of this report were to: (1) document and compare the ideas used by elementary school children in the United Kingdom, the United States, and Canada; (2) document how these ideas changed from age 5 to 16;…

A quasi-experimental study explored the effect of functional flow diagrams on technical system understanding. An individualized field training package which contained schematic diagrams that illustrated an aircraft's electrical system was complimented with functional flow diagrams. In a 4-week treatment, a control group of 10 students enrolled in…

A study investigated a model that takes into account the influence of conceptual, cultural, and linguistic variables in formation of verbal and nonverbal concepts in bilingual children. This triple-interaction model states that concepts are represented in three ways: (1) nonverbally as abstract categories; (2) symbolically by means of…

A study was undertaken to determine the effects of tobacco smoke in the home on children's cognitive development. The study focused on 280 children, representing equal numbers of boys and girls and of Whites, Blacks, and Hispanics. When the participating children were 2 years old, their mothers were surveyed, interviewed, and tested to gather…