Studied reaching movements by groups of infants of 4.5, 6, and 7.5 months. At all ages, initial direction of movement was correlated with target direction. This result provided evidence that hand was aimed toward target. Changes in movement direction tended to curve hand path toward target. This result provided evidence of error correction. (RH)

Findings demonstrate a finer partitioning of auditory space near midline than in hemifields. Discusses implications for an understanding of the development of auditory processing mechanisms in sound localizations. (RH)

Concludes that some differences attributable to gestational age at birth are explained by the cumulative effect of minor but unavoidable complications associated with premature birth. Other effects may result from developmentally inappropriate sensorimotor stimulation consequent to the premature experience of an extrauterine environment. (RH)

The concepts of front, back, and side may be easily understood in relation to an intrinsically fronted item, but with a nonfronted object they depend on situational or psychological cues. A study investigated a child's awareness of the front, back, and side of his own body and of fronted and nonfronted objects. Researchers hypothesized that a…

The effect of grammatical phonological rules (those in English) and nongrammatical (those in other languages) on the learning and reproduction of morpheme-length utterances and the role of maturation on this effect were examined. Children preschool through second grade were the subjects. There were no significant differences at any grade level…

This study investigates the relationship between social-class factors and patterns of reinforcement used by preschool children when instructing younger peers. It was hypothesized that middle class Caucasian children would spontaneously use more positive reinforcements and lower class children more negative reinforcements when interacting with…

Four-, five-, and six-year-old children were used as subjects in this investigation. There were 192 experimental and 96 control children used, divided equally between the three age groups. The experimental children received a 1-minute pretest exposure procedure in which 1/4 of the children observed 4 two-dimensional stimuli (irregular pentagons),…

The Pittsburgh Adjustment Survey Scales were developed to meet the need for the objective evaluation of the social behavior of elementary school-age boys using the observations of classroom teachers. An initial item pool was reduced to 94 items by an extreme-group procedure (202 subjects). A factor analysis (209 subjects) of the inventory resulted…

Two field studies of high school students' sense of obligation to nonclass school activities are reported. "Sense of obligation" is conceived of as mediating some relations between the student and the school environment and is defined as a personal feeling of "I ought to..." or "I must...," i.e., a personal constraint, with reference to attending…

This study investigated the common practice in infant research of eliminating from reported data large numbers of subjects who prove uncooperative (sleepy, fatigued, fussy) during the experiment. It was suggested that these excluded infants constitute a special class of subjects and that the inclusion of their data would greatly alter the research…

Introduces a special journal issue on children and poverty, reviewing child poverty rates in the United States, the nature and dimensions of poverty, and the state of child poverty research. Also examines processes mediating the influences of poverty, contextual influences on children in poverty, and child outcomes, with reference to the remaining…

Maintains that research from developing countries may help in understanding effects of poverty on child development in the United States, citing three cases: (1) the link between anemia and decreased levels of mental and motor development; (2) the positive effects of supplemental nutrition programs on child development; and (3) effects of poor…

Examined the relationship between poverty and children's developmental outcomes, the effects of the timing and duration of poverty, and the effects of poverty at the family and neighborhood level, analyzing data from two longitudinal surveys. Found that poverty status was strongly related to low levels of cognitive development, even after…

Studied the social networks and daily activities of children and adolescents living or working on the streets of Belo Horizonte, Brazil. Found that youngsters who lived at home and worked on the street appeared to be experiencing orderly development despite their impoverished circumstances. Youngsters who lived on the streets, however, showed…

Examined the relative contribution of maternal, household, child, and poverty characteristics to the quality of the home environment through an analysis of data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. Improvements in family income had the strongest effect on the quality of home environment for children who had lived much of their lives in…