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State and federal guidelines for implementing programs for the gifted have required that placement into such programs being as early as kindergarten. In order to help determine whether a child was functioning significantly above age level on certain tasks through multiple sources, a checklist for parents was developed and validated.;The parent checklist was analyzed for reliability and validity. Analysis of pre-school scores on the instrument was also conducted to determine whether or not placement into programs for the gifted could be predicted from the results. Parental responses were also investigated in an effort to determine the reliability of parents as a source of information about their children. Correlational studies were conducted on group test data which consisted of the Metropolitan Readiness Test, the second grade administration of the SRA Achievement Series, and the third grade administration of the Otis-Lennon School Ability Test. Additionally, correlational studies were conducted on a small sample of the students as first graders utilizing the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (Figural Form A) and the Scales for Rating the Behavioral Characteristics of Superior Students.;Statistical analysis included the use of multiple regression analyses and the determination of correlation coefficients (Cronbach's Alpha and Pearson Product Moment).

Deficits in joint attention, imitation, and pretense are believed to contribute to subsequent difficulty in the development of a theory of mind in children with autism (Baron-Cohen, 1991; Mundy, 1995). Joint attention and other early social skills of children with autism (34 male, 4 female; ages 4 to 18 years) were correlated with measures of nonverbal cognitive ability (Leiter International Performance Scale), receptive and expressive language skills (Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-Revised and Expressive One-Word Picture Vocabulary Test-Revised), and the severity of autism (Childhood Autism Rating Scale) to gain a better understanding of these developmental relationships. Joint attention and other early social skills were measured with the Social Interest Inventory (SII), a questionnaire developed for this study and completed by Parents and Teachers, Subjects with autism at all levels of cognitive and language ability were found to have deficits in joint attention, imitation, and pretense. Joint attention deficits were not correlated to the acquisition of language or to the cognitive ability of the Subjects. This is a deviance from the typical course of development. However, deficits in joint attention imitation, and pretense showed significant correlations with the overall severity of autism, Students with autism reportedly engage in significantly higher levels of instrumental than social communication and parents tend to rate their children somewhat higher than teachers on several SII measures, Joint attention deficits may have a more profound effect on how language and cognitive skills are used by children with autism than on how they are acquired. Interventions which focus primarily on the cognitive and language abilities of children with autism may overlook more basic social skills such as joint attention which may warrant more direct intervention.

Fetal Movement (FM) has been studied as a prenatal manifestation of activity level, a core dimension of many temperament theories. However, there has been little research exploring the significance of variability in the pattern of FM. The current study uses hierarchical linear modeling to compute the developmental function of FM in the third trimester. This study also examined how variability in the pattern of FM, in contrast to mean FM, predicted infant development. The following hypotheses were tested: 1. Mean FM will predict infant development at 3 and 6 months; 2. The developmental function of FM will display an inverted-U shape with significant variability; and 3. The pattern of FM will predict infant outcome at 3 and 6 months. Thirty-three mothers were asked to provide weekly counts of FM. Infant temperament, mental development, and motor development were assessed at 3 and 6 months. The best-fitting pattern describing FM was a piecewise linear function with FM increasing until 34 weeks gestation and thereafter decreasing, but variability was noted. The overall mean FM and pattern of FM were differentially associated with infant development. Higher mean FM was associated with increases in negative affect and decreases in orienting/regulation across 3 to 6 months. Mean FM also predicted infant size. The pattern of FM was related to different outcome variables. Increases in FM early and decreases in FM late in the third trimester were associated with less activity and greater emotional tone and attention at 3 months. This same pattern of FM was related to weighing more at 6 months, decreasing in extraversion from 3 to 6 months, and becoming more active from 3 to 6 months of age. The results indicate that the pattern of FM provides information about subsequent development that is different from mean FM. Whereas mean FM was associated with aspects of difficult temperament, the pattern of FM predicted more positive outcomes. These findings suggest that the pattern of FM may be useful as a prenatal assessment of postnatal development.

This dissertation presents the results of a study designed to explore women's experience of spirituality in the light of current thought on women's psychological development. While women's development and women's spirituality are both newly emerging fields of study with growing bodies of literature, little has been done to integrate them. The dissertation included a broad review of the literature of women's development and women's spirituality in which a dominant theme of relationship emerged. Qualitative research was done with eight participants. Data consisted of in-depth interviews which were condensed into profiles, and then analyzed for themes, sequences and patterns of spiritual development. From the comparison of the analyses with each other and with the theories of psychological development two central themes were chosen for elaboration in the dissertation: a theme of experiential spirituality manifested in everyday life, and a pattern of developing self-identity through expanding awareness of self-in-relation. Expanding awareness of self-in-relation was explicated through the use of a visual model. Four domains of self-in-relation were identified: Self-in relation to self, to other, to the transpersonal realm, and to the Universal. Movement through the domains was complex and interactive rather than linear, and indicated deepening awareness of self, experienced as self-in-relation. Self-in-relation to the Universal was proposed as the definitive awareness for a spiritual orientation toward life. This awareness had a profound effect on other relationship domains. The results also suggested that the theoretical models of the Stone Center, Belenky et al and Gilligan, could each be extended to include another level or aspect of development associated with spiritual awareness.

The purpose of this study was to learn how children between the ages of five and nine construct their understanding of conflict and how to resolve it, how their cognitive development both reflects and shapes this understanding, and how their ideas about conflict develop over time. Open-ended interviews were conducted with two children from each of four grades (K-3) in a Boston Public School in order to elicit the children's ideas about conflict, solutions to conflict, and negotiation. Two drawings of conflicts were used, one in each of two separate interviews, one depicting a conflict over an object, the other an interpersonal conflict. Five cognitive dimensions were used to analyze the interview data. Children's understanding of conflict, solutions to conflict, and negotiation, and the gradual changes in children's thinking over time were analyzed. The five dimensions were: concrete to abstract; from one idea to coordination of multiple ideas; static to dynamic thinking; transductive to logical causal reasoning; and, from one to more than one point of view. The results of this analysis show that with age there was a general progression of the eight children's understanding of conflict, solutions to conflict, and negotiation as they advanced along the five cognitive dimensions. Children's understanding of conflict progressed from more concrete to abstract, and from more discrete and momentary to increasingly embedded in a context of time and other events, ideas and feelings. Children's understanding of solutions to conflict also progressed from concrete to more abstract. In addition, there was an increasing capacity to think of greater numbers of possible solutions to conflict, especially positive solutions, as children moved along the cognitive dimensions. Children's understanding of negotiation progressed from concrete to more abstract, including increasingly complex psychological processes. Children showed a progression in their ability to understand negotiation as a complex process related to both conflicts and solutions. Gender and individual differences among children emerged from the data in addition to developmental differences.

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