Children's reproductions: Effects of syntactic emphasis,length, and delay interval

Children were asked to retell stories in which the focus of the semantic structure was either on nouns, on verbs, or on prepositions, or had no special emphasis. Also, in order to investigate whether the limited memory capacity of young children causes them to adjust their response strategies, the length of the stories and the recall interval were varied. Reproductions of the preposition-emphasis stories retained the least semantic content and, moreover, the preposition-emphasis delay-testing procedure resulted in the greatest number of refusals to retell the stories. Contrary to previous findings, however, prepositions were not differentially eliminated in the children's response protocols. In fact, there was a remarkably close correspondence between the reproductions and the original stories in the relative distribution of nouns, verbs, and prepositions. Memory was poorest for the middle segments, and longer word length and the delay-testing procedure both produced greater changes in the meaning, composition, and structure of the stories.This report is based on a M.A. thesis completed by the second author under the first author's direction and was partially supported by USPHS Grant No. MH-23957.     

Training in the use of double-function terms

Twenty first-, second-, and third-grade chidren were tested, trained, and retested in their use of double-function words (e.g.,hard, deep, bright). Children first understand such words as they refer to inanimate objects, then to people in a physical sense, and last to people in a psychological sense. Wide variations in initial understanding and trainability of double-function words occurred. It is easier to train children to understand a double-function words as applied to a person in a physical sense than in a psychological sense. Words with tactual referents (sweet, warm, dry, cold, hard) are understood earlier than words with visual referents (bright, crooked, sharp, deep) but words with visual referents show greater gains after training. Several possible explanations of these results are discussed.     

Looking, laughing, and smiling in dyads as a function of intimacy motivation and reciprocity

Eighty college students (40 females and 40 males) were administered the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) and interviewed in either a one-way (interviewer asks questions) or reciprocal (interviewer asks questions and discloses information about him- or herself) condition by a same-sex interviewer. The TATs were scored for intimacy motivation. In this 2 (Female vs. Male) × 2 (High vs. Low Intimacy Motive) × 2 (Reciprocal vs. One-Way Condition) experiment, intimacy motivation was positively associated with greater levels of laughter, smiling, and eye contact for the entire sample, as hypothesized. Furthermore, women showed significantly higher scores than men on laughter, smiling, and eye contact. Contrary to a second hypothesis, high intimacy motivation combined with reciprocal condition did not yield the highest levels of laughter, smiling, and eye contact. The results extend the construct validation literature for intimacy motivation into the domain of nonverbal behaviors considered to be indicative of positive interpersonal regard in cordial human interactions.     

Effects of semantic and cheremic context on acquisition of manual signs

In two experiments, sign-naive subjects acquired the meanings for manual signs of American Sign Language by learning to respond with the English word equivalents when signs were presented. The results showed that when the signs on a to-be-learned list were related to each other in handshape configuration (cheremically similar), they were more difficult to acquire than when semantically similar. Whether the similar signs were grouped together during presentation or were separated by other dissimilar signs had no effect on the number of signs correctly acquired. These results were the same for the identical signs learned in the cheremically or semantically similar contexts as for the fists as a whole. The results have implications for teaching sign language to hearing adults.     

An interpersonal relations and group process approach to affective education for young children

Early childhood education programs need to emphasize affective growth and effective interpersonal skills for young children. Teachers have a significant influence on children's affective disposition toward themselves and school. They must be provided with skills to develop children's emotional growth and their interpersonal relations skills. This article attempts to stimulate school psychologists to determine whether their teachers have the competencies necessary to produce positive pupil growth and to train those teachers who lack these skills. A brief review of research on selected aspects of teacher behavior is presented. Specific teacher behaviors related to desired affective growth in young children are discussed. The final section presents in-service training program components; a system for observation, analysis of teacher behavior, and feedback; and the steps in providing an in-service program.     

Issues in the psychological assessment of preschool children

This article discussed two issues relating to assessment of preschool children: (1) whether assessments of children of this age should be attempted, and (2) the issue of what is a “good” assessment. The general impression from a review of the literature and from personal experience is that preschool assessment is desirable and can be useful, but only under conditions which avoid labeling and attempt to circumvent and reduce the problems of reliability and validity, taking into consideration the interacting variables of the child, the task, and the setting.     

Filmed treatment as an effective fear-reduction technique

The present study attempted to determine whether age and sex of a film model would differentially affect fear reduction in the viewing children. The experiment also tested the reactions of Ss to films using real feared objects versus films of simulated objects. Twenty-five fourth- and fifth-grade males who were fearful of snakes were shown a treatment film for a total of 10 minutes. Pretreatment and posttreatment tests included asking Ss to approach and handle a live 4-ft. boa constrictor. Results indicated that models' age and sex characteristics did not influence their effectiveness as behavior-change agents. It was found that the use of the real feared object in the treatment film was a more effective fear reducer than was a replica of the object.This paper is based on research supported in part by National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Grant 03234 to Dr. James Bryan.Thanks are extended to Mr. James Fritts and the many other personnel from District 68 of Skokie, Illinois, who enabled us to perform this experiment.