Investigated friendship patterns among four-year-old mildly developmentally delayed and three- and four-year-old nonhandicapped children participating in a series of mainstreamed playgroups. Most children preferred a specific peer, but only a few mildly delayed children and three-year-olds were able to establish reciprocal friendships. (SKC)

Four-year-olds were reliably accurate about movement potentials for the categories of mammals, nonmammalian animals, statues of animals, wheeled vehicles, and multipart, rigid objects. The three-year-olds' scores were significantly above chance in all categories but animals. Analyses showed that children were concerned about the cause of movement…

Results showed that, contrary to predictions based on standard models of the logical time concept, long and short conditions were easier for children to solve than the traditional four- versus seven-second condition. Children were able to solve problems that are logically impossible to solve on the basis of nontemporal information. (Author/RH)

Data were generally consistent with the view that preschoolers and elementary schoolers can respond to memory probes by applying arithmetical processing to running gist from recently solved problems. Discussed are two competing interpretations of the development of working memory: fuzzy-trace theory and the generic-resources hypothesis. (Author/RH)

First and fifth grade students who scored high or low on a mathematics test were tested for intellectual ability and reading achievement. Students and their mothers were interviewed. Results indicated that factors associated with levels of achievement in mathematics operate in a similar fashion across three cultures that differ greatly in their…

Three experiments investigated five- and 10-year-old children's understanding of the conditions under which a person becomes committed to carrying out an intended action. Findings indicated that, although children from a very early age have the concept of commmitment, the understanding of the interpersonal conditions for becoming committed…

Students in grades 1, 2, and 5 ranked moral transgressions as more wrong than conventional transgressions and rated moral rules as more important than conventional rules. The distinction between morality and convention on criterion judgments was made more comprehensively by older than younger children. Justifications differed by domains at all…

Two conflicting developmental accounts of how mental states are used in evaluating actors were tested by varying actors' intentionality, foreknowledge of outcome, and the values of motive and outcome. Findings suggested that children use intentionality before knowledge in judgments of action sequences and that actor's foreknowledge of an outcome…

A total of 20 children between seven and 11 years of age and 20 adults categorized rules of perceived high social utility in social conventional terms in both public and private contexts; but they categorized rules of perceived low social utility in social conventional terms in private contexts and in personal terms in public contexts. (RH)

Preschoolers were accurate in identifying the situational determinants of others' real emotions. Their strategies for remediating negative affect in others were consistent with the type and attributional basis of the emotion to be altered. Further, they used contextual information in significantly different and meaningful ways across and within…

To determine whether and how bidirectional influence occurs, time- and frequency-domain techniques were used to study the interactions of 54 mother-infant pairs, 18 each at infants' third, sixth, and ninth month of age. At no age was the occurrence of cycles in mothers' or infants' behavior related to the achievement of bidirectional influence.…

Offers an explanation of why Cohn and Tronick's (1988) result replicates that of Kaye and Fogel (1980) in spite of important differences in the way interactive behavior is conceptualized, coded, and treated statistically. Suggests that stochastic variability in onset times has profound implications for the understanding of interaction process and…

Responds to Fogel's (1988) concerns about the validity and preferred uses of scaled monadic phases and introduces a note of caution about prematurely concluding that stochastic organization alone is of significance to development. (RH)

Mothers in both countries responded contingently to infant behaviors but differed in type and timing of responses to infants. Concludes that findings have implications for understanding the role of the face-to-face period in human development and the way in which cultural differences in interpersonal communicative style may guide the development…

Based on data obtained on a sample of 63 mother-infant dyads, concludes that separation anxiety is multiply determined by characteristics of the mother, the infant, and the employment situation and that variation in anxiety has consequences for the development of attachment relationships. (RH)