The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship of preschoolers' perceptions of parental attributes to the behaviors exhibited in nursery school. The study was designed to test the following hypotheses:I. Preschool children who perceive their parents as controlling and accepting exhibit positive socializing and independent behaviors in nursery school.II. Preschool children who perceive their parents as punitive and/or overindulgent exhibit negative socializing and dependent behaviors in nursery school.A pilot study, using a semi-structured doll play instrument constructed by the researcher, was conducted to determine significant scenes which would evoke necessary information for the categories of the research study. Twelve scenes were selected on the basis of highest scoring averages as the most reliable scenes. Instructions to the child and order of the scenes to coincide with normal home activity were established.Forty-two preschool children, ages four and five, were administered The Doll Play Technique to determine their perceptions of parental attributes. The attributes measured were categorized as 1) control, 2) acceptance, 3) punitiveness, and 4) overindulgence. The subjects were thirty-two males and ten females of normal intelligence. They were Caucasian, from nuclear type family structure, and represented lower middle class socio-economic status.The subjects were tested and observed in two east central Indiana nursery schools during the Fall of 1969. Twelve three-minute behavioral observations on each subject were gathered and coded into the following basic categories: a) positive socializing, b) independent behavior, c) negative behavior, and d) dependent behavior.The Pearson product-moment correlation statistic was used to test the hypotheses. The level of significance was determined by use of the t test. Inter correlations of the variables were determined along with multiple regression correlations indicating greater variable significance.Findings on the hypotheses indicated a significant relationship between preschoolers' perceptions of their parents as controlling and accepting and their exhibition of positive socializing and independent behaviors in nursery school. There was a probable relationship between preschoolers' perceptions of their parents as punitive and/or overindulgent and their exhibition of negative socializing and dependent behaviors in nursery school. Other findings indicated that: control and acceptance, which were posited as positively related, had an inverse relationshipcontrol and overindulgence, which were posited diversely, had an inverse relationshipacceptance and punitiveness, which were posited diversely, had an inverse relationshipoverindulgence and independent behavior, which were posited diversely, had an inverse relationshipacceptance and independent behavior, which were posited as positively related, had a positive relationshipacceptance and dependent behavior, which were posited diversely, had an inverse relationshippunitiveness and negative socializing, which were posited as positively related, had a positive relationshippositive socializing and dependent behavior, which were posited diversely, had an inverse relationshipindependent behavior and dependent behavior, which were posited diversely, had an inverse relationshipnegative socializing and dependent behavior, which were posited as positively related, had a positive relationship.Greater predictability of the dependent variables in the hypotheses occurred when the independent variables were considered in combination rather than separately.Beyond support for the hypotheses, the study indicated that preschool children's perceptions of parental attributes appear to be antecedent to socializing and independent behaviors in nursery school. The Doll Play Technique gave indication of effectively obtaining preschoolers' perceptions of parental attributes in the rearing process.

The purposes of the study were to determine the effects of a Home-Based program on the attainment of toddlers, to determine the effects of a Home-Based program on the attitudes and feelings of mothers, and finally, to study parent-child interaction.Subjects of the study consisted of fifty-nine Black mother-child dyads, and one Mexican-American mother-child dyad. All toddlers were born between October 1, 1971 and September 30, 1972 to mothers who were identified as indigent under Title I. The sample included males and females who were randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. The experimental group participated in the tutoring sessions conducted by trained aides. Sessions, each lasting seventy minutes, were held twice a week from September 1973 through the middle of June 1974. Mothers of experimental group toddlers were present at all tutoring and testing sessions. Control group mothers did not participate in tutoring sessions. Tutoring and testing were conducted in the home of the toddlers.Three instruments were employed in the study. The Preschool Attainment Record was used to measure the effects of the Home-Based program on the physical, social, and intellectual attainment of toddlers. The Social Reaction Inventory was employed to assess the effects of the Home-Based program on parental internal locus of control. The instrument measured the extent to which parents felt a sense of self-esteem and potency of control. The Infant Education Research Inventory measured the interactive behavior between mother and child.Three null hypotheses were tested in the study:1) there will be no statistically significant difference in the attainment of toddlers who participate in a Home-Based program and toddlers who do not participate in a Home-Based program, 2) there will be no statistically significant difference in parental locus feelings of control of parents who participate in a Home-Based program and parents who do not participate in a Home-Based program, and 3) there will be no statistically significant difference in parent-child interaction between parents and toddlers who participate in a Home-Based program and between parents and toddlers who do not participate in a Home-Based program.A null hypothesis of no difference between the means of the groups was rejected if the computed statistics, the F ratio from an analysis o f variance or a t value from a t test, exceeded the appropriate tabled value for the .05 level of confidence.A statistically significant difference was found to exist between the experimental and control groups in the physical, social, and intellectual development of toddlers. No statistically significant difference was found to exist between the experimental and control groups on parental locus of control. No statistically significant difference was found to exist between the experimental and control groups on parent-child interaction.The following inferences may be drawn from this study: 1) education of young children need not be jeopardized by the ill effects of poverty, early intervention through a Home-Based program may increase the attainment of toddlers, 2) the role of parents is significant in the development of the young child. The role of parent as teacher may be strengthened through the acquisition of pedagogical skills necessary to stimulate more development in young children.

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Typescript. / Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hawaii, 1969. / Bibliography: leaves 79-84. / viii, 84 l tables

Typescript. / Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hawaii, 1970. / Bibliography: leaves 390-399. / xv, 399 l tables

Over the past 25 years, there has been tremendous interest in the development of children’s ability to reason about others’ mental states, or “theory of mind”. Much research has explored children's understanding of situational cues that lead to knowledge, but only recently has research begun to assess children's understanding of person-specific differences in knowledge. A number of studies (Birch, Vauthier & Bloom, 2008; Jaswal & Neely, 2006; Koenig, Clément & Harris, 2004) have recently demonstrated that at least by age 3 children pay attention to others' history of accuracy and use it as a cue when deciding from whom to learn. However, the nature and scope of children's interpretations of other's prior accuracy remains unclear. Experiment 1 assessed whether 4- and 5-year-olds interpret prior accuracy as indicative of knowledge, as opposed to two other accounts that do not involve epistemic attributions. This experiment revealed that preschool children can revise their tendency to prefer to learn from a previously accurate informant over an inaccurate one when presented with evidence regarding each informant's current knowledge state. Experiment 2 investigated how broadly a person's history of accuracy influences children's subsequent inferences, and showed that 5-year-olds (but not 4-year-olds) use information about an individual's past accuracy to predict her knowledge in other related domains as well as her propensity for prosocial or antisocial behaviour. Overall, children's performance in these experiments suggests that both 4- and 5-year-olds interpret others' history of accuracy as indicative of knowledge; however, 4-year-olds make a more restricted attribution of knowledge while 5-year-olds make a more stable, trait-like attribution. These findings are discussed in terms of their implications for research on theory of mind and more broadly on children's social and cognitive development.