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In this paper the effects of environmental influences upon the development of reading readiness in young children were discussed. It was assumed that the effects of social, cultural, and economic factors on a preschool child are mediated in a large part through adults closely involved with the child's life. One hundred sixty Negro mothers and their 4-year-old children, representing four social status levels, were selected as subjects. Observations of the subjects and questionnaire data showed that maternal behavior and physical environment do influence the child's early cognitive and academic development. Children were affected by (1) degree of crowding in the living quarters, (2) use of home resources by the mother to aid the child's cognitive growth, (3) amount of time a mother reads to a child, (4) mother's participation in outside activities, (5) mother's feelings of effectiveness in dealing with life, (6) regulation of behavior strategies used by the mother, (7) maternal teaching style when attempting to show the child how to do something, (8) mother's affective behavior, and (9) to some extent, the mother's own language facility. To the extent that these factors affect the child's cognitive development, they appear to include the motivational and other abilities involved in learning to read. (WD)

To investigate how a child organizes new objects and how categories function for a chid, twelve 6- and twelve 8-year-olds were individually given several sorting tasks involving 21 three-dimensional nonsense objects. The child was exposed to all the objects; three objects were pointed out and withdrawn; and then the child was asked to describe them. The child grouped all 21 objects as he thought they should go together. After grouping, the items were mixed and the child was shown one of the three objects he described earlier. He stated to which group it belonged, and why. Again the object was withdrawn and the child described it and finally he regrouped the objects as they had previously been arranged. Part II of the study was divided into two conditions: (1) the child named five objects, and (2) no names were given. Eight new objects were added to the five and the child was asked to find the original five. The results indicated that (1) the sorting processes of the 8-year-olds were more homogeneous than those of the 6-year-olds, (2) the older children used more groups and recalled sorting better, (3) naming objects improved recall of the objects for 6-year-olds, but did not specifically help the 8-year-olds, and (4) categorization induced the 6-year-olds to notice new aspects of an object but to ignore previously noticed attributes of the objects, while 8-year-olds simply ignored the attributes of the objects. (WD)

Fifteen bilingual and 15 monolingual Head Start children, ranging in age from 4 to 6, were administered three types of tasks: (1) object constancy task: subject was shown a common object, a transformation was done on the object, e.g., crushing a paper cup, and then that object plus an identical pre-transformed object, were shown to the subject and he was asked to pick out the first object; (2) naming task: subject was asked to use object labels under three conditions: use of the common name, use of a nonsense name, and use of switched common names; and (3) a sentence task: subject was required to use the three label conditions (2) in simple relational sentences. It was hypothesized that (I) bilinguals would perform better than monolinguals on all three tasks, and (II), that for all subjects, task (1) would be easier than (2) which would be easier than (3). Both hypotheses were supported by the gross data. It was found that bilinguals, although better at using names in relational statements, were not better than monolinguals in the use of common names alone nor nonsense names alone. Also, bilinguals performed consistently better than monolinguals where nonverbal pointing responses were required, but not where spoken responses were required. It was suggested that having a notion of meaning as a function of use facilitates acquisition of the ability of young children to use labels in sentences. (WD)

Proposed as a chapter for a book, this document has attempted to survey the various points at which cognitive congruity theories impinge upon problems of ethnocentrism and intergroup relations. Some dozen such predictions have been presented, and have been italicized for scanning in the text. One hypothesis, that the more similar the outgroup the more it is liked, has been given extensive review including new, albeit secondary, data analysis. Other hypotheses receiving more than brief mention deal with the balance among regional sets of intergroup valences, the effects of forced compliance in the colonial and post colonial organization of territories upon group identification, and the resolution of incongruities in group esteem produced by contact with modern economic systems. (Author)

This paper is an explication of a statistical model which will permit an interpretable intraclass correlation coefficient that is negative, and a generalized extension of that model to cover a multivariate problem. The methodological problem has its practical roots in an attempt to find a statistic which could indicate the degree of similarity or dissimilarity between members of sociometric, reciprocal choice dyads. The intraclass correlation coefficient is a coefficient designed to show similarity; the problem was to extend the underlying model to allow interpretation of a coefficient indicating dissimilarity, and to consider simultaneously more than one variable. (Author)

This study is concerned with the way in which children's naturally occurring behaviors change over a period of time as they adapt to a nursery school setting. A set of seven varieties of environmental constraints and fourteen adaptations to these constraints was observed among 18 3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds in a nursery school classroom first in the fall, when the setting was newly initiated, and secondly in the spring, when the setting had been in existence for an extensive period of time. The findings showed that duration of the setting was significantly related to changes in several varieties of constraints and adaptations. The results illustrate a basic conception of ecological psychology, that the program of an environment's inputs to individuals changes if its ecological properties change--in this case, if the duration of the setting increases. ED 040 421 is an earlier version of this study. (Author)

This paper reported a pilot study on issues relevant to the social development of the 2-year-old child and discussed the results within the framework of the evolutionary-control-systems theory proposed by Bowlby (1958, 1969) and Ainsworth (1967, 1969). The issues examined were (1) attachment and (2) reciprocity, or the ability of the child-mother unit to work together under a single goal-hierarchy. Hypotheses were proposed that dealt with (a) the stability of attachment, (b) maternal variables which would serve as the optimal setting for the further expression of attachment behaviors, (c) the nature of the child's ability to carry on transactions with his mother which could be labelled reciprocal, (d) maternal variables which would serve as the optimal setting for this development, and (e) the relative nature of attachment and reciprocity. Subjects were three boys and three girls from white, middle class homes. Data were collected by means of naturalistic observations in the home, supplemented by two standardized situations. Infant and maternal rating scales were used for analysis. Study findings were discussed in terms of Bowlby's theories and suggest that parents should provide the child with stable and workable behavior models on his level of ability. (NH)

Presented is an informal speech addressed to parents of exceptional children. Discussed is the fact that terminology for slow learners and learning disabilities has changed through the past 20 years and that many labels may be more harmful to the child than the actual disability. In an attempt to be reassuring, it is stated that in many cases speech, motor, and cognitive difficulties clear up in the development process if merely left to work themselves out at the child's own pace. Several individual cases are described. (JM)

This comprehensive paper proposing the use of evolutionary theory as a basis for studies in developmental psychology includes these specific sections: (1) Developmental Theories--a brief overview, (2) Individual Differences, (3) Culture and Inbreeding, (4) Sexual Dimorphism, (5) Critical Periods in the Development of Attachments, (6) Continuity vs. Non-continuity in Personality, and (7) An Evolutionary View of Early Attachments. An extensive seven-page bibliography is included. (MS)