The choices and preferences of nursery school children

After a period of equal reinforcement for choices of any job revealed which of 10 jobs each of 24 preschool children preferred and did not prefer, token payment became dependent on particular choices. Some children received tokens only for choosing previously non-preferred jobs, others for choosing previously preferred jobs. When tokens depended on choosing the nonpreferred jobs, those came to be preferred. When tokens depended on choosing the preferred jobs, the preferences were strengthened. The effects were replicated both within and between subjects, except in the case of one boy who consistently avoided token pay.     

Tactual learning and cross-modal transfer of an oddity problem in young children

The ability to solve tactual oddity problems, and transfer of oddity learning across the visual and the tactual modalities, was studied in 3- to 8-year-old children (N = 294). Oddity tasks consisting of one odd and two equal objects were made from stimuli that were easily discriminated visually and tactually. The results showed that tactual oddity learning increased gradually with age. The growth in tactual performance begins later than visual, suggesting that children are more adept at encoding visual stimulus invariances or relational properties than tactual ones. Bidirectional cross-modal transfer of oddity learning was found, supporting the suggestion that such transfer occurs when training and transfer oddity tasks share a common vehicle dimension. The cross-modal effect also shows that oddity learning is independent of a specific modality-labeled perceptual context. Our results are consistent with the view that development of oddity learning depends on a single rather than a dual process, and that the oddity relation may be treated as an amodal stimulus feature.     

Relationship between birth order and leadership style for nursery school children

36 nursery school children were given a revised form of Fiedler's (1967) least preferred co-worker scale designated as the least preferred playmate scale. The purpose was to investigate the relationship between least preferred playmate scores and the birth order of young children. A 2 X 2 contingency table was constructed between birth order (first and later born) and leadership style (high and low). The resulting chi squares were insignificant for the total population and for males. However, for females the results were significant with a higher percentage of firstborns being task-oriented (low score) and a higher percentage of later borns being relation-oriented (high score).     

Behavior problems in elementary school children

Two-year follow-up data for an ostensibly normal sample of children who had been previously characterized on a number of behavior problem dimensions by their teachers and peers were analyzed. In addition, 1-year follow-up data were presented for a group of extreme behavior children from the same school. The behavior dimensions of Distractibility and Conduct Problem were fairly stable over 2 years for girls and boys. In addition, Inadequacy—Immaturity was stable for girls and may mark more severe behavior problems for young girls. Behavior problems of young girls were more predictive of later achievement difficulties while behavior problems of boys were more prdictive of peer and teacher difficulty. Finally, teacher's clinical judgment was demonstrated to be useful for indexing behavior for hyperactive boys.Portions of this paper were presented at the New England Educational Research Organization Meeting, Provincetown, Massachusetts, May 1975. The authors wish to thank Dr. Raymond Pressman and the teachers of Hillside Elementary School, Niakayuna, New York, for providing valuable assistance in support of this study. This study was supported in part by the Research Foundation of New York, Grant number 020-7315-A.     

Mothers' subjective employment experiences and the behaviour of their nursery school children

Most research on the effects of maternal employment on children has followed the ‘maternal deprivation’ hypothesis, which focuses on differences in the behaviour of children of employed and non-employed mothers. Yet this framework may have impeded an examination of a more relevant question, namely the impact of mothers' employment-related experiences. Accordingly, this study assesses the influence of mothers' job satisfaction, job involvement and role conflict on the behaviour of their nursery school sons and daughters (n=46 and 45 respectively). The effects of maternal employment on their nursery school children were found to be mediated by (a) the nature and quality of the employment experience (i.e. positive or negative), (b) the type of child behaviour assessed, and (c) the sex of the child. Mothers' job satisfaction was positively associated with daughters' self-control and negatively with conduct problems; their role conflict was negatively related to sons' and daughters' self-control, and positively associated with sons' conduct problems and daughters' immaturity. These results support the hypothesis that the quality of the maternal employment experience influences nursery school children's behaviour.     

Catecholamine output in school children as related to performance and adjustment

Johansson, G. Frankenhaeuser, M. & Magnusson, D. Catecholamine output in school children as related to performance and adjustment. Scand. J. Psychol., 1973, 14, 20–28.-Excretion of two catecholamines, adrenaline and noradrenaline, was studied in a group of 240 children, sampled from a longitudinal study, during a "passive" period (viewing a film) and a subsequent "active" period (performing an arithmetic test). In the group of boys the mean adrenaline excretion increased significantly during the active as compared with the passive period. Among the children of both sexes, those who increased their adrenaline output during the arithmetic test as compared with the preceding passive period, performed better on the test in terms of speed and endurance, than did children who did not respond to mental work by adrenaline increase. Significant positive correlations were found between the secretion of both catecholamines and teachers' ratings indicating good social adjustment and emotional stability, as well as with measures of the pupils' subjective satisfaction with their school environment.     

Sleeping pattern of kindergartners and nursery school children: function of daytime nap

With a questionnaire answered by parents this study investigated the sleeping pattern of children attending kindergartens or nursery schools and the function of an afternoon nap. Sleeping pattern was investigated by a questionnaire with 441 young children (229 boys and 212 girls) attending kindergartens or nursery schools at the ages of 3 to 6 years old. Nighttime sleep did not show any significant change, while daytime naps decreased drastically and almost disappeared by the age of 6. Nursery school children went to bed later at night, so nighttime sleep was shorter than that of kindergartners. They also reported having more 'difficulty to fall asleep', more frequent 'staying-up at late night', less 'not getting enough sleep', worse 'mood at rising', and more 'unwillingness to go to their schools'. To investigate whether afternoon naps, which are routine at Japanese nursery schools, can compensate for sleep insufficiency on the previous night and whether they have the effect of delaying the onset of the subsequent nighttime sleep, we compared sleep duration on the previous night and the sleep onset time between the days with and without an afternoon nap. The afternoon nap appeared to cause delayed sleep onset but was not a result of sleep deficiency.     

Teaching oddity and insertion to Head Start children: An economical cognitive intervention

Two interventions were offered to Head Start preschoolers. Half of the children played numerous learning set games designed to teach the children (1) the oddity principle and (2) how to insert objects into a series. Mastery of these concepts is theoretically an important aspect of school readiness. The other half of the children engaged in the I Can Problem Solve (ICPS) exercises, a program designed to increase the children's competency in recognizing and responding to other people's feelings. The children who played the learning set games became superior at oddity and insertions with manipulable objects, and generalized these games to workbook-like formats resembling those encountered in kindergarten. They also scored higher on the numeracy and memory scales of the McCarthy Scales of Children's Abilities, indicating that mastery of oddity and insertions may have served as foundations for further cognitive growth. The children who participated in the ICPS exercises became superior at creating solutions to interpersonal problems, as measured by the Preschoolers Interpersonal Problem Solving Scale. The differences in the outcomes indicate that both interventions were successful in their own domains. The advantage the cognitive intervention produced on the McCarthy Scales suggests that oddity and insertion abilities may be a foundation in fact as well as in theory for general cognitive growth at this age.