The knowledge system of the young child is considered script-based, where script is used (in the Schank and Abelson 1977 sense) as a frame defining an expected sequence of actions in a given context involving props, scenes, and actors. This study was concerned with how scripts may be influenced by the structure of different events and the child's…

Analysis of 24 spontaneous speech samples from children at 24 and 30 months revealed a correlated progression in the form, function, and meaning of adjective modifiers used with increased language development. (Author/DEP)

Reports results of a longitudinal study of the acquisition of first words by 18 infants. Strategies used in word acquisition and environmental variables related to language development were investigated. Results were analyzed in terms of an interaction model of the language-learning process. (DP)

Research supported in part by a grant from the Carnegie Corporation. (DS)

Hypothesis was confirmed that more familiar and more ambiguous concepts would be less readily named in their less detailed representations. (Author/MB)

Psychological and verbal abuse of referees and umpires by athletes and spectators was examined in an effort to determine the basic attitudes that contribute to the phenomenon. This research focused on three questions. First, is there a similarity in how athletes and nonathletes feel about political authority and sport officials? Second, what is…

Physical education majors have become interested in career opportunities that have developed from companies offering employee fitness programs. This study assesses the extent to which corporate fitness programs are offered in Wisconsin. Qualities necessary for employment in corporate fitness programs are identified. (DF)

This study, based on a PhD dissertation submitted to UCLA and supported by the National Institutes of Health, indicates the extent to which children vary in the type of organization they impose on stimuli and the extent to which organization can be influenced by training. (Author/AP)

During the interwar years of the early twentieth century, and through at least the 1980s, education was seen by scholars, state leaders, and international agency representatives alike as a way to modernize and secularize underdeveloped communities. Arguments about the modernizing power of education did not erase or discount the presence of…

A study re-examined the hypothesis that an identifiable register of child-directed speech (motherese) contributes to child language acquisition. The hypothesis was studied from two perspectives: (1) that it has not been documented adequately at earlier ages; and (2) that individual differences in style of language acquisition interact with…

A study of the development of children's production of two kinds of narratives, script and episodic, had as subjects 60 children aged 3, 5, and 7, with 20 children in each age group. In the experiment, 10 children in each group were asked to produce script narratives ("What happens when you do X?") for 3 events and the other 10 were asked to…

Two experiments investigating the efficiency of communication between 5th grade children from differing socioeconomic (SES) backgrounds are described. In each experiment, 40 same-sex pairs, half male and half female, were formed into dyadic groupings by combining lower- and middle-SES children into the four possible speaker-listener combinations.…

Linguistic and cognitive competencies of preschoolers were revealed by interviewing them about routine activities. It was found that freeing preschoolers' speech from constraints inherent in talking about the immediate context results in their demonstrating control over a variety of language-related skills that are generally assumed to be beyond…

Data from four recent language studies are examined to explore issues in concept-word relationships. Issues considered include: lexical development, bases of application, single-word functions, semantic domains, categorizing through naming, and concept matching as a model of word learning. (JMB)