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This paper discusses infant attachment, which it defines as a long-lasting emotional bond revealed when a child under stress seeks out and tries to stay close to a specific figure. The paper addresses: (1) What is attachment? Who are the pioneers in attachment theory?; (2) How do we notice attachment in action?; (3) Is attachment the only behavioral-motivational system?; (4) How is attachment measured?; (5) What kinds of attachment patterns have been found?; (6) Is infant attachment the same for all caregivers?; (7) Does culture make a difference?; (8) Is attachment classification stable over time?; (9) Does abuse/neglect affect the kind of attachment that develops?; (10) Is early infant attachment related to later child competence?; (11) How is attachment measured beyond infancy?; (12) Are preschoolers' peer interactions related to early attachment?; (13) Does teacher-parent relationship affect infant attachment?; (14) Are there gender differences in attachment findings?; (15) Is there intergenerational transmission of attachment patterns?; (16) Are infant temperament and attachment related?; (17) Are infancy attachments to mother and father equally predictive later on?; (18) Does maternal return to employment affect infant attachment?; (19) How much do attachment relationships with teachers count?; and (20) What can caregivers do to help secure attachment flourish? (Contains 29 references.) (EV)

Based on the view that young children have a different intellectual culture from adults' in the way they know and understand nature, this paper explores ecological human brain development, children's intellectual culture of naturalist intelligence, and developmentally and culturally congruent curricula for young children. The paper discusses the theoretical connection between developmentally and culturally appropriate practice (DCAP) and the ecological human brain. Gardner's view of naturalist intelligence is presented as the ability to recognize and classify plants, minerals, and animals needed to survive. The paper argues that across all cultures, children have a unique affinity for the natural environment different from that of adults and that adults often respond in intellectually incongruent ways to children's knowledge constructions about nature. The paper contends that failing to support children's knowledge construction about nature during critical periods can have serious implications for how children will relate to the natural world over their lifespan. The paper describes the ecological brain as dependent on social-cultural input and as constantly changing structure and function in response to external experiences. The paper also describes the DCAP base curriculum as an exploratory curriculum that responds to, validates, and reinforces children's naturalist intelligence. The paper concludes by asserting that responses to children's naturalist intelligence should be based on their curiosity-center intellectual culture and reflected in daily exploratory curriculum. (Contains 44 references.) (KB)

The developmental origins and the longitudinal consequences of the infant-father attachment bond have been studied a number of times, but for the child-father attachment relationship, different developmental factors seem to play a role. It has been suggested that the importance of the child-father relationship may lie in the domain of coping with environmental challenges rather than in the attachment domain. This study tested this hypothesis longitudinally. Within a longitudinal study of 47 families, a number of data sets were tested for antecedent and longitudinal relations to infant-father attachment patterns as compared to father's sensitivity in challenging the toddler in an interactive play situation. Only very few significant longitudinal findings emerged for infant-father attachment qualities. But a father-child play situation at 24 months proved to be a pivotal situation. A large number of antecedent and longitudinal relations emerged between attachment variables and paternal sensitivity in challenging his toddler during play. Results showed that fathers influence their child's security by their sensitivity in challenging the toddler. Thus, there was evidence for a different central assessment situation for the father-child relationship than the mother-child relationship when later assessments of the child's security or inner working model of self are concerned. (Contains 16 references.) (Author/EV)

This descriptive study examined children's drawings and related language episodes to differentiate drawings exhibiting play from those exhibiting exploratory behavior. Drawings categorized as play were further analyzed to identify constructive and imaginary play. The play theory used as the basis of the study proposes that exploration and manipulation are prerequisites to meaningful play experiences. Because language development shares a cognitive basis with symbolic play, language episodes were used as possible indicators of children's intentional play not evident from actions alone. Four 4- and 5-year-olds participated. Data were collected through video tape, observation notes, and 120 drawings produced during 8 weekly 90-minute sessions. A child-centered, guided-discovery approach was used to introduce children to the art activities. Audiotapes were transcribed and checked against notes and videotapes to coordinate the children's language and actions. After analysis of the drawings and descriptive data, about 68 percent of the drawings were categorized as Meaningful Play (as opposed to Exploration or Manipulation), with about 43 percent categorized as Constructive Play and 25 percent as Imaginative Play. Four-year-olds had a higher percentage of their drawings categorized as Non-Play and a lower percentage categorized as Play than did 5-year-olds. Five-year-olds used Imaginative Play more often than 4-year-olds. The two older children exhibited imaginary and pretend play that included transformation of objects for constructive and pretense purposes. They also evidenced play with words, humor, and games. (Contains 27 references.) (KDFB)

While the ARCS (Attention, Relevance, Confidence, Satisfaction) model has provided educators with a heuristic approach to generally increasing the motivational appeal of instruction, it may also provide a model for stimulating and sustaining curiosity in particular. Such a model is of great use to educators who are concerned with encouraging curiosity as a prime intrinsic motivator for learning and to designers of computer-based systems who wish to incorporate specific strategies for arousing and sustaining the curiosity of users. This conceptual paper explores the construct of curiosity and examines its relationship to all of the ARCS components. A review of research on curiosity includes curiosity as a state of arousal leading to exploratory behavior; levels of arousal; specific, diversive, trait and state nature of curiosity; curiosity as it relates to elementary school children; the importance of information seeking, processing, and evaluating behaviors; sensory and cognitive curiosity; feedback; and correlation between curiosity and Intelligence Quotient. The relationship of curiosity to each of the ARCS components is examined. Discussion includes strategies for gaining and sustaining attention, external motivation, tying instruction to the learner's experiences, informative feedback and anxiety reduction, and the ARCS components in relation to the Zone of Curiosity. (Contains 46 references.) (AEF)

This paper reports on a pilot study of 34 sixth-grade students engaged in mathematical explorations that was carried out in the context of a national Logo project in Costa Rica. Students worked in pairs investigating a mathematical microworld written in Logo. The investigation had three phases: (1) open exploration of the microworld, during which the students recorded their observations and formulated hypotheses about how the program worked; (2) group discussion and sharing of hypotheses; and (3) additional guided discovery and problem solving. Through observations and collection of written worksheets, it was found that the students were successful in discovering certain functions of the microworld during the first phase, and their hypotheses were improved after discussion with their peers, guided by the instructor. The students were successful in applying their knowledge of the computer microworld in the problem-solving tasks during the third phase. Contains 12 references. (MKR)

Attachments of African-American infants should be studied with a focus on cultural practices involved with multiple caregiving. Assessments of African-American infant attachments that use standards of a culture in which care is provided by a primary caretaker should be replaced by assessment based on the cultural perspective of African-Americans. This exploratory study tested 37 African-American 1-year-olds in several separation/reunion situations involving the mother and a second caregiver. Results showed consistent reactions of infants to each attachment figure. There was no bias toward mothers as a class. Results for various behavior scales indicated: (1) infant use of attachment figures as a basis for exploration; (2) sociability with stranger independent of attachment figure presence; (3) distress when infant was left alone with stranger; and (4) no difference in seeking proximity, maintaining contact, being inattentive, or resisting after each type of separation/reunion. Hypotheses that infants would respond similarly to both attachment figures and use both attachment figures as a basis for exploration were supported. The hypothesis that infants who were stressed would use caregivers for consolation was not supported. It is inferred that culturally sanctioned patterns of caregiving do not produce pathological relationships. Rather, they produce traits consonant with African-American socialization objectives. (BC)

In four parts, this discussion describes characteristics of the thought of infants, preschool children, primary school students, and adolescents. Topics briefly addressed in part I, on the thought processes/capabilities of babies, concern sensorimotor thought without abstraction, the importance of physical exploration, the development of intentionality, learning about cause and effect and properties of objects, and the development of symbolic thought. Table 1 describes motor development in the first 3 years, and Table 2 delineates six stages in the development of object permanence. Discussion of the development of preschool children in part II focuses on combining and transferring information; reversing observations; egocentricity; animism and artificialism; intuition and sequential associations; cause and effect; classification; and applications (specifically concerning preschoolers' drawings, dreams, and concepts of death, as well as professional practice, preoperational thought in adults, and the transitional years). Table 3 illustrates conservation of liquid, number, matter, length, area, and volume. The development of the primary school student is described in part III in terms of the extension of conservation, seriation, classification, concepts of number and time, concrete thinking, verbal problems, hypothetical problems, proportions, combinatorial logic, and applications to primary school children's social concepts. Educational implications are also discussed. In part IV, adolescents are discussed with reference to the egocentric idealistic crisis; combinatorial logic; hypothetical deductive thinking; impression formation; use of symbols for symbols; and, very briefly, thought beyond formal thought. (RH)

Children's responses toward strangers, qualities of mother-child interaction, and maternal stresses were examined in 38 mother-child pairs, with children from single and two-parent families. Responses to female and male strangers were observed in a modified Strange Situation. Mother-child interaction was assessed with a modified version of Baumrind's cuisinaire rod task, and questionnaires measured maternal life stress. Results indicated that children from single-parent families were more fearful toward strangers than were children from two-parent families. Boys from both family groups were more affiliative towards strangers than were girls. Children explored more in the presence of female strangers than in the presence of male strangers. Married mothers made more maturity demands on their children than did single mothers, and all mothers placed more demands on daughters than on sons. Mothers appeared to be in greater control with daughters than with sons. Single mothers experienced more stress than did married mothers. Single mothers who were stressed communicated less optimally, were less nurturant, and tended to have children who were less compliant than were other mothers. For both single and married families, qualities of the mother-child interaction predicted children's behaviors toward female but not male strangers. Concluding discussion centers on influences affecting children's sociability and father's role in children's social development. (Author/RH)

One of the purposes of this study was to develop a coding scheme based on Wertsch's theoretical extension of Vygotsky's ideas for describing parent-child interaction during exploration. This scheme was then applied to identify the most common patterns of parent and child situation definitions, negotiations of shared definitions, and questions related to novel objects. Participants in the study were 60 children 3 to 6 years of age and their parents. The children attended a preschool or an elementary school in one of two small cities in a southeastern state. Possible differences in these patterns due to age of the child, parent present, and individual differences in the child's initial tendency to explore independently were examined. (PCB)

Characteristic patterns of infant-parent relationships were examined in a sample of Black infants presumed to be at low risk for psychopathological development. Infant responses toward parents and a stranger in a structured laboratory play session were analyzed to determine normative patterns of Black infant-parent attachments. Infant exploratory behavior revealed indications of positive infant-parent relationships. Absence of parent affiliative responses was found and interpreted as an indicator of infant self-assurance in an unfamiliar setting. Findings are (1) discussed as indications of psychologically sound normal Black infant-parent relationships; (2) seen as distinguishing Black infants' behavior from that of White infants as reported in child development literature, and (3) held to be potentially useful as behavioral standards for clinical assessments of Black infants considered at risk for psychopathological development and of their families. (Author/BG)

The present study compared the presence of sibling versus non-sibling partners in relation to the exploratory behaviors of toddlers in a novel environment. It was predicted that young children would use siblings as a secure base from which to explore the environment even in the absence of an adult attachment figure, whereas the presence of a non-sibling was expected to be less facilitative of such activity. Data from 20 children with a mean age of 2.8 years were analyzed according to physical exploration (locomotor and play activities) and social interaction with the older partner. All subjects who were eliminated from the study due to distress in the unfamiliar environment were with non-siblings at the time. When toddlers were paired with their own siblings, they explored more areas of the room, played with more toys, and ventured greater distances from their partners than when they were paired with an unrelated child. (Author)

Customarily, several parent figures rear black infants. The effects of this practice on infant-parent attachments have not been studied even though they provide the chance to test the attachment theory contention that infants form a primary attachment when several attachment figures are available. To study this issue, 21 male and 16 female black 12-month-olds from nonindigent families, their mothers, father figures and a stranger were videotaped in a 13-episode separation-reunion session. Infant behaviors rated were proximity seeking, contact maintaining, contact resisting, avoidance, distress at parents' leavings, exploration and sociability with a stranger. Infant-mother and infant-father behaviors were found indistinguishable, suggesting there was no single, primary infant-parent attachment. Moreover, infants were responsive to parents' whereabouts on only one attachment behavior measure. Girls were distressed when alone with the stranger, but boys were not. Exploration, however, was a clear indicator of parents' and the stranger's presence; it was greatest when both parents were present and least when the infant and stranger were alone. The results reveal that two parent figures have equivalent effects on the attachment, sociability, and exploratory behaviors of 12-month-old black infants in a laboratory setting, and have distinctive effects on exploratory behavior. (Author)

Describes a teacher's experience with students during their first- and second-grade years. Claims that meaningful learning in a variety of curricular areas occurs when children are interested in a topic. Suggests that teachers capitalize on these situations and create learning experiences that reflect those outside the classroom. Suggests the use of educational games to enrich mathematics classes. (MOK)

Examines six sets of data on giftedness and creativity, finding little evidence for the belief that creativity in adults is mirrored in children. Questions whether children are creative, and whether creativity can be taught. Discusses creation of transitional objects; gaps, novelty, curiosity, and exploration; puberty as a developmental marker; cognitive maturity and ego defenses; and educational impediments to creativity. (DR)

A strong majority of clinically distressed individuals are insecure with respect to attachment, and special vulnerabilities are appearing in disorganized-disoriented children. Relations to behavior genetics, family interaction patterns, psychophysiology, and treatment outcome studies are emerging or are anticipated. Discusses these and other trends in the examination of attachment. (KW)

This longitudinal study investigated development and individual differences in exploration and play during infancy and toddlerhood among 34 children. Found that measures of developmental level, such as pretend play level and meaningful sequence, showed a significant increase between age 19 months and 30 months. (MDM)

Examines the phenomenon of the"first time"--a teenager's first date, first job, first sexual experience. Since these experiences are imbued with an inordinate amount of emotional investment, they offer an alternative understanding to adolescents' emotional underpinnings and clarify why many adolescents experience stressful times during this stage of life. (RJM)

Four articles focus on children's make-believe play: (1) "Make Believe Play: Why Bother?" on the role of pretending in early learning; (2) "Fantasy and Exploration: Two Approaches to Playing" on children's imaginative styles; (3) "Infants Don't Pretend, Do They?" about developing play abilities; and (4) "Problems in Make-Believe: Real and Pretend," on judging the health of fantasy play. (TJQ)

Nine- to 16-month-old infants explored pairs of novel toys in 2 conditions: violated expectation, in which the first toy produced an interesting nonobvious property and the second toy did not; and interest control, in which neither toy produced the interesting property. Infants persistently attempted to reproduce the interesting property in the second toy in the violated expectation condition. (BC)

Examines individual variation in infants' exploratory play with objects. Distinguishes exploratory and nonexploratory manipulative play, and shows that only exploratory play relates to focused attention and learning. Discusses resistance to distraction during focused attention, relationships between exploratory play and mastery motivation, and the effect of context on duration of attention. (AC)

Compared a group viewing a slide/tape program designed to reduce the novelty of a science museum with a control group (n=64 sixth graders). The results indicate that boys in the experimental group had higher on-task exploratory learning and greater cognitive learning, but there was no effect for girls. (PR)