The attitudes and demographic characteristics of a group of college freshmen were compared to those of a sample responding to a mail survey and a sample responding to a telephone follow-up. The three samples did not differ significantly in mean attitude responses. (Author/MLW)

To help educators understand similarities and differences between American and Oriental educational systems, this article outlines 22 major characteristics of Japanese and South Korean schools and compares them with U.S. practices. An important difference is Asian parents' considerable involvement and interest in their schools. (MLH)

In response to a previous article, the paper characterizes learning disabilities as the consequence of a transaction between students exhibiting certain individual differences and the social system of the schools. Basic and applied research can be related in good instructional research which includes the context of disability. (DB)

Argues that second-language reading comprehension and its assessment can be usefully divided into two aspects: (1) comprehensions (different levels of comprehension the reader adopts to suit different purposes of reading); and (2) interpretations (different readings of the same text resulting from different background knowledge or preoccupations…

Responses to a survey of 992 unionized postal workers in Canada revealed the effects of working conditions, nonwork roles, and personal characteristics on self-reports of depression, irritability, and psychophysiological symptoms. Males and females respond similarly to stressful jobs, although they report slightly higher levels of distress.…

Emphasizes need to systematically identify gifted children. Defines the term "gifted" and considers three groups in detail: children of high intelligence, children of high academic aptitude, and talented children. Offers strategy for educational diagnosis of gifted children. (DST)

Investigated predominant kinds of parent-infant play and individual differences in play style. Participants were 24 families of healthy, full-term, firstborn infants, four boys and four girls at each of three ages: 7, 10, and 13 months. (RH)

Attempts to describe links between transactional or dialectical and mechanistic models of development and provides a rationale for why both are useful. Examples of data sets deriving from early experiences are provided. Concludes that the applicability of the model for describing behavioral development is influenced by inter-/intra-individual…

Patterns of juvenile criminal activity were investigated with respect to differences in a range of demographic, family and individual variables. Discriminant function analyses were used to assess the discriminating power of the variables across crime categories, crime subcategories, number of prior referrals, and grade level. (Author/ABB)

Aimed (1) to determine whether a time sampling, frequency-count procedure for assessing mother-infant interaction could capture a set of theoretically important dimensions, and (2) to chronicle both ability and change within the mother-infant relationship. A total of 74 dyads were observed when infants were 1, 3, and 9 months of age. (Author/RH)

Compared twenty groups of Australian children (N=132) of different social class, ethnic, national, and regional backgrounds on their moral stances on "lying" and "killing" and their reasons for those stances. There was an impressive consistency in moral attitudes and reasons across children of different social backgrounds. (JAC)

Reports a preliminary study on the stability of emotional expressions of four mothers and infants during the six to eight month period of the infant's life. Two hour videotaped home observations were assessed using a rating scale. Findings suggest emotional stability for mothers and dyads but not infants. (CB)

A total of 97 children three to seven years of age were identified as high-, medium-, or low-exploratory and participated in both independent sessions and 1 of 2 types of supportive sessions with an adult. Support consisted of either close attention by the adult to the child's exploration or modeling and direction by the adult. (Author/RH)

To explore the relationship between spatial ability and both image quality and image process efficiency, 79 subjects completed spatial tests, imagery questionnaires, and laboratory tasks. Laboratory measures of process efficiency and image quality were strongly related to spatial test performance and weakly related to one another. (Author/BW)

To evaluate individual differences in children's propensity to demonstrate cognitive synthesis, six-year-olds were asked to demonstrate the meaning of various sentences constructed of logographs, which were arranged in either a meaningful or scrambled order. Overall, synthesizers had a larger attentional reserve, or M-capacity, than…