Participants for this study were 56 four-year-old children and their parents. All children were enrolled or on a waiting list to be enrolled in a preschool program in the Cache Valley area. A parent questionnaire and environmental assessment were utilized to determine whether a) the physical environment, b) behaviors of parents, and c) birth order of children is related to development of print awareness as measured by a print awareness test. A variety of statistical analyses was used to explore relationships among the above variables. Major findings suggest that the behaviors that reflect parents' attitudes regarding literacy are most important in the development of their children's print awareness. Fathers' use of the library and mothers' education are significantly related to their children's performance on the print Awareness Test. The amount of time that children spend watching videos is also significantly correlated to their print Awareness Test scores. Significant differences were found in what mothers and fathers do to prepare their children for reading, with mothers taking a more active role in reading to the children and teaching them literacy skills. Other notable findings suggest that the reading pleasure of each parent is important to their children's enjoyment in being read to and to creating positive feelings about reading. Parents tend to predict that their children will learn to read at about the same ages as they themselves learned to read.

The purpose of this study was to determine if four-year-old children are able to conserve and to investigate the influence of social class and sex on the development of this capacity. Collection of data was accomplished by interviewing forty preschool children on three conservation tasks, discontinuous quantity, continuous quantity, and mass. From the findings of this study, it was concluded that the development of the capacity to conserve is so limited among four-year-old preschool children that the influence of social class and sex of the child on conservation ability remains unknown.

The purpose of this paper is to determine if girls of preschool ages find more success in learning letters of the alphabet, their sounds, and simple two and three letter words formed from these letters, than boys of similar ages; and in addition to compare the achievement of three-year -old children to that of four-year-old children. The children were introduced to six letters of the alphabet and the sound associated with these l etters. They were then introduced to sixteen two and three-letter words that could be formed from these letters. At the conclusion of the ten tasks, a post test was administered and the results were studied to compare the achievement of girls to boys and three-year-old children to four-year-old children. It was found that there is no appreciable difference between the scores of girl s and boys, nor is the difference between the scores of three-year-old children and four-year-old children meaningful.

This study investigated the development of curiosity in young children. A previous study by Kreitler, Zigler, and Kreitler had identified five specific types of curiosity, manipulatory curiosity, perceptual curiosity, conceptual curiosity, curiosity about the complex, and adjustive-reactive curiosity. The basic problem was to describe the development of these five types of curiosity in three-, four-, and five-year-old children. A secondary problem was to determine if children follow a predictable pattern in their development of the five types of curiosity. Five tasks, measuring nineteen variables of curiosity, were administered individually to thirty three-year-olds, thirty four-year-olds, and thirty five-year-olds by a trained rater. Mean scores for each variable and each type of curiosity were calculated for each group.

Objective. The research goal was to determine if behaviors indicative of sensory processing dysfunction are present in children with autism, if these behaviors can be grouped into distinctive patterns, and if there is a relationship between sensory processing dysfunction and self-care abilities. Method. Parents of 30 male children with autism ages 2–4 completed a Dunn Sensory Profile and a Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scale. A one sample t-test and Spearman rho calculation were used for data analysis. Results. Sixty percent of the 3–4 year old group scored below negative 1 standard deviation on the Sensory Profile. This group also exhibited a pattern of sensory dysfunction in auditory, tactile, and oral systems. For the total group, there was a statistically significant correlation (rs = .646, p = .01) between the scores on Dunn Sensory Profile and Vineland and a statistically significant correlation (p = .05) between system threshold scores and Vineland. Conclusion. The data endorse a difference in sensory responsivity in children with autism which has a specific pattern. A relationship between sensory processing and the occupation of self-care is present. Response threshold is related to a child's self care performance. There is a developmental trend of increased atypical sensory behaviors in children with autism that may have clinical significance for the occupational therapist.