Social interactions among teachers, handicapped children, and nonhandicapped children in a mainstreamed preschool

The emotional tone and social integration of two mainstreamed preschool classes were studied to determine whether or not the findings of an earlier study would be repeated. Although most variables showed no differences between handicapped and nonhandicapped children's peer-directed and teacher-directed behaviors, result did suggest that, particularly in one class, nonhandicapped children tended to selectively interact with other nonhandicapped (as opposed to handicapped) children when engaging in more complex (associative) social play. Handicapped children did not show the same tendency to interact more within their own group. At the same time, handicapped children received more help and affection from peers, and were more effectionate towards peers, than nonhandicapped children. Teachers refused handicapped children's requests and corrected their behavior more often; however they also gave them more help and more affection than nonhandicapped children. The results were generally congruent with those of an earlier study but did show more segregation on the part of nonhandicapped children.     

Adaptive regression and types of cognitive flexibility

The relationship between adaptive regression and cognitive flexibility was explored in a group of 42 college students. Adaptive regression was measured with the Holt scoring system for the Rorschach. One type of cognitive flexibility was measured by Guilford's tests of divergent production (Word Fluency, Associational Fluency, and Alternate Uses) and a second type by Mednick's Remote Associates Test. Adaptive regression was found to be significantly positively related to the Remote Associates Test in males but not in females. Adaptive regression was found to be unrelated to divergent production tests. These relationships were not found to be mediated by Rorschach productivity or verbal intelligence. A two-stage process was proposed to account for the cognitive operations underlying adaptive regression and the Remote Associates Test. The first stage is seen as a generative (primary process) stage, while the second stage is seen as an evaluative (secondary process) stage. Possible reasons for sex differences were also discussed.     

Can attention give a left-ear advantage for verbal stimuli?

Three independent groups of 8 subjects listened monaurally to a randomized list of 50 common and 50 rare words and responded ‘yes’ to rare words. Responses were analyzed for correct identifications of rare words. A 50:50 group heard an equal number of words in right and left ears and gave a small but non-significant right-ear superiority. A 66:34 group heard nearly twice as many words in the right ear as the left and gave a significant right-ear superiority. A 34:66 group heard nearly twice as many words in the left ear as the right and gave a significant left-ear superiority. Responses were also analyzed according to signal-detection theory. Implications are discussed for theories of ear advantages.     

The rights of research assistants and the rhetoric of political suppression: Morton Grodzins and the University of California Japanese-American Evacuation and Resettlement Study

This case study of an inter-university controversy over the publication of research from an interdisciplinary social science project on the forced migration and long-term internment of West Coast Japanese-Americans during World War II shows some of the difficulties of maintaining ownership of research materials. In this particular instance the junior employee was able to override his seniors' demand for control of the dissemination of research results by playing on the concerns about even appearing to suppress work for political reasons. The paper discusses conflicting norms of science and rhetorics of justification ranging from proprietary self-interest through "good science" to "the national interest" and onto "the needs of a free society."     

TRAINING CONSERVATION OF QUANTITY (LIQUIDS) IN WEST AFRICAN (BAOULE) CHILDREN

A developmental ‘lag’ is found in the Conservation of Quantity (Liquids) in a sample of 73 rural, schooled Baoulé children (Ivory Coast, West Africa) aged 7 to 14 years. This study was designed to investigate if this ‘lag’ could be reduced or bridged through training and whether it could be attributed to differences in ‘performance’ or in ‘competence’. A sub-sample of 28 children aged 7 to 9 years was divided into two matched groups, one being trained for Conservation of Liquids and the other for Class Inclusion (Lavallée and Dasen in press). Statistically significant training effects were observed, which generalized to other concrete operational concepts and remained stable over at least one month. Since no ‘actualization’ or very fast learning occurred, the ‘lag’ was attributed to differences in competence; the training was sufficient to bridge the developmental lag.     

On the young child's use of lexis and syntax in understanding locative instructions

The ability of two and three year old children to comprehend in, on and under was tested in five contexts. In the first context, where responses did not depend on the child manipulating the experimental objects, responses were invariably correct except for some difficulty with under in the youngest subjects. In the other four contexts, which did involve manipulation of the objects by the child, responses varied as a function of the noun phrases used to refer to the experimental objects which themselves remained the same across different contexts. The result suggest that the young child's comprehension of instructions involves an interaction between aspects of the instruction's lexis and syntax and the child's construal of context.     

The effects of attention-directing training on recognition memory task performance of three-year-old children

Thirty-eight 3-year-old children served as subjects in an investigation of recognition memory in which schematic faces differing only in the orientation of the eyes were employed as stimuli. A pretest was administered to all children, after which the two experimental groups received training in either attention to the distinctive feature of the training stimuli (also schematic faces) by means of a matching task, or in labeling the faces according to how they looked (sleepy, happy, sad, mad) and in using the labels to perform a matching task. After the training session all children were given a posttest on recognition memory of the faces. The verbally trained group obtained significantly higher scores on the posttest than either the feature or control groups. These results indicate that although the children were able to discriminate the faces, evidenced in their ease of performance on the training tasks, they were not able to use this knowledge unless given training in attaching labels to the stimuli, which enabled them to store the information for later use. Results are discussed in light of Gibson's (1969) theory of the developmental interrelations of cognitive processes.