This book consists of 31 papers focusing on aspects of child development. Mainly reports of research, papers are grouped topically into four sections dealing respectively with perceptual, language/communication, cognitive, and social development. Most of the nine papers in section 1 focus on the perceptual development of infants. Topics include visual perception of movement, object concept, Piagetian and Gibsonian theories, mismatched sensory information, looking and listening, bimodal perception, and manipulative skill. Also included are studies of contrast sensitivity among children and adolescents and investigations of touch and vision among preschool children. The eight papers in section 2 report on language and communication skills, mainly among preschool and elementary school children. Discussed are spatial/temporal relationships, reading strategies, dichotic listening, linguistic experience, word segmentation skills, racial and social class influences on verbal information seeking, visual language training, and classroom communication. Specific problems addressed include spelling difficulties, poor reading, delayed language, aphasia, and mental retardation. The seven articles in section 3 explore rationality, metacognition, memory, continuity/discontinuity in cognitive development, and eidetic imagery, as well as line and angle estimation by mentally retarded children and adolescents. The seven papers in section 4 include articles on current issues, parents' beliefs about cognitive development, children's concepts of death, prejudice in childhood, origins of the self, infant crying and maternal responsiveness, and description and explanation in studies of mother/infant interaction. (RH)