BOOKS FOR LANGUAGE

Language and cognitive development includes word and number recognition, counting and memory, as well as advanced literacy such as reading and writing. Communication and general knowledge is the ability to clearly communicate one’s needs and to understand others, as well as an interest in the outside world.

The books listed below are related to many of these qualities of school readiness. They are meant to help you teach and inspire your children, as you show them the skills they will need to be successful at school and throughout life. Best of all: These books are kid-tested for fun!

To reserve any of these books at the library, just click the book’s title or cover. And remember: These are just a few of the great books available to you. The Milton Library has many, many more!

A wide world of fun and imagination awaits you and your kids.

COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT

Is a field of study in neuroscience and psychology focusing on a child's development in terms of information processing, conceptual resources, perceptual skill, language learning, and other aspects of brain development and cognitive psychology. A large portion of research has gone into understanding how a child conceptualizes the world. Jean Piaget was a major force in the founding of this field, forming his "theory of cognitive development". Many of his theoretical claims have since fallen out of favor. However, his description of the general tendencies of cognitive development (e.g., that it moves from being dependent on actions and perception in infancy to understanding of the more observable aspects of reality in childhood to capturing the underlying abstract rules and principles in adolescence is still generally acceptable. Moreover, many of the phenomena that he discovered, such as object permanence in infancy and the conservations in school age children, are real and still attract the interest of researchers. In the recent years alternative models have been advanced, including the neo-Piagetian theories of cognitive development, which aim to integrate Piaget's ideas which stood up well the test of time with more recent theorizing and methods in developmental and cognitive science.
A major controversy in cognitive development has been "nature vs. nurture", or nativism versus empiricism. However, it is now recognized by most experts that this is a false dichotomy: there is overwhelming evidence from biological and behavioral sciences that from the earliest points in development, gene activity interacts with events and experiences in the environment. Therefore the "vs." is false: there is no dichotomy. Another question is how culture and social experience relate to developmental changes in thinking. Another question is phylogenic convergence or homology with non-human animals. Most aspects of learning and cognition are similar in humans and non-human animals. These issues propagate to nearly every aspect of cognitive development.

INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES

Individual Differences
That people differ from each other is obvious. How and why they differ is less clear and is the subject of the study of Individual differences (IDs). Although to study individual differences seems to be to study variance, how are people different, it is also to study central tendency, how well can a person be described in terms of an overall within-person average. Indeed, perhaps the most important question of individual differences is whether people are more similar to themselves over time and across situations than they are to others, and whether the variation within a single person across time and situation is less than the variation between people. A related question is that of similarity, for people differ in their similarities to each other. Questions of whether particular groups (e.g., groupings by sex, culture, age, or ethnicity) are more similar within than between groups are also questions of individual differences.

Personality psychology addresses the questions of shared human nature, dimensions of individual differences and unique patterns of individuals. Research in IDs ranges from analyses of genetic codes to the study of sexual, social, ethnic, and cultural differences and includes research on cognitive abilities, interpersonal styles, and emotional reactivity. Methods range from laboratory experiments to longitudinal field studies and include data reduction techniques such as Factor Analysis and Principal Components Analysis, as well as Structural Modeling and Multi-Level Modeling procedures. Measurement issues of most importance are those of reliability and stability of Individual Differences.

Research in Individual Differences addresses three broad questions: 1) developing an adequate descriptive taxonomy of how people differ; 2) applying differences in one situation to predict differences in other situations; and 3) testing theoretical explanations of the structure and dynamics of individual differences.
Taxonomies of individual differences:
Taxonomic work has focused on categorizing the infinite ways in which individuals differ in terms of a limited number of latent or unobservable constructs. This is a multi-step, cyclical process of intuition, observation, deduction, induction, and verification that has gradually converged on a consensual descriptive organization of broad classes of variables as well as on methods for analyzing them. Most of the measurement and taxonomic techniques used throughout the field have been developed in response to the demand for selection for schooling, training, and business applications.
Test Theory
Consider the case of differences in vocabulary in a particular language (e.g., English). Although it is logically possible to organize people in terms of the specific words they know in English, the more than 2^(500,000) possible response patterns that could be found by quizzing people on each of the more than 500,000 words in English introduces more complexity rather than less. Classical Test Theory (CTT) ignores individual response patterns and estimates an individual's total vocabulary size by measuring performance on small samples of words. Words are seen as random replicates of each other and thus individual differences in total vocabulary size are estimated from observed differences on these smaller samples. The Pearson Product Moment Correlation Coefficient (r) compares the degree of covariance between these samples with the variance within samples. As the number of words sampled increases, the correlation of the individual differences within each sample and with those in the total domain increases accordingly.

Estimates of ability based upon Item Response Theory (IRT) take into account parameters of the words themselves (i.e., the difficulty and discriminability of each word) and estimate a single ability parameter for each individual. Although CTT and IRT estimates are highly correlated, CTT statistics are based on decomposing the sources of variance within and between individuals while IRT statistics focus on the precision of an individual estimate without requiring differences between individuals. CTT estimates of reliability of ability measures are assessed across similar items (internal consistency), across alternate forms, and across different forms of assessment as well as over time (stability). Tests are reliable to the extent that differences within individuals are small compared to those between individuals when generalizing across items, forms, or occasions. CTT reliability thus requires between subject variability. IRT estimates, on the other hand, are concerned with the precision of measurement for a particular person in terms of a metric defined by item difficulty.

The test theory developed to account for sampling differences within domains can be generalized to account for differences between domains. Just as different samples of words will yield somewhat different estimates of vocabulary, different cognitive tasks (e.g., vocabulary and arithmetic performance) will yield different estimates of performance. Using multivariate procedures such as Principal Components Analysis or Factor Analysis, it is possible to decompose the total variation into between domain covariance, within domain covariance, and within domain variance. One of the most replicable observations in the study of individual differences is that almost all tests thought to assess cognitive ability have a general factor (g) that is shared with other tests of ability. That is, although each test has specific variance associated with content (e.g., linguistic, spatial), form of administration (e.g., auditory, visual), or operations involved (e.g., perceptual speed, memory storage, memory retrieval, abstract reasoning), there is general variance that is common to all tests of cognitive ability.
Personality and Ability
Although to some the term personality refers to all aspects of a person's individuality, typical usage divides the field into studies of ability and personality. Tests of ability are viewed as maximal performance measures. Ability is construed as the best one can do on a particular measure in a limited time (speed test) or with unlimited time (power test). Personality measures are estimates of average performance and typically include reports of preferences and estimates of what one normally does and how one perceives oneself and is perceived by others.

The same procedures used to clarify the structure of cognitive abilities have been applied to the question of identifying the domains of personality. Many of the early and current personality inventories use self-descriptive questions (e.g., do you like to go to lively parties; are you sometimes nervous) that are rationally or theoretically relevant to some domain of interest for a particular investigator. Although there is substantial consistency across inventories developed this way, some of this agreement could be due to conceptually overlapping item pools. Other researchers have advocated a lexical approach to the taxonomic problem, following the basic assumption that words in the natural language describe all important individual differences. This shifts the taxonomic question from how are individuals similar and different from each other to how are the words used to describe individuals (e.g., lively, talkative, nervous, anxious) similar and different from each other.

Dimensional analyses of tests developed based on lexical, rational, or theoretical bases suggest that a limited number (between three and seven) of higher order trait domains adequately organize the thousands of words that describe individual differences and the logically infinite way that these words can be combined into self or peer report items. The broadest domains are those of introversion-extraversion and emotional stability-neuroticism, with the domains of agreeableness, conscientiousness and intellectual openness or culture close behind. These domains can be seen as asking the questions that one wants to know about a stranger or a potential mate: are they energetic and dominant (extraverted), emotionally stable (low neurotic), trustworthy (conscientious), loveable (agreeable), and interesting (intelligent and open).

Measures of ability and personality reflect observations aggregated across time and occasion and require inferences about stable latent traits thought to account for the variety of observed behaviors. However there are other individual differences that are readily apparent to outside observers and require little or no inference about latent traits. The most obvious of such variables include sex, age, height, and weight. Differences that require some knowledge and inference are differences in ethnicity and social economic status. These obvious group differences are sometimes analyzed in terms of the more subtle measures of personality and ability or of real life outcomes (e.g, sex differences in neuroticism, mathematics ability, or income).
Predictive Validity

Individual differences are important only to the extent that they make a difference. Does knowing that people differ on a trait X help in predicting the likelihood of their doing behavior Y? For many important outcome variables the answer is a resounding yes. In their review of 85 years of selection in personnel psychology, Frank Schmidt and John Hunter (Psychological Bulletin, 1998, 124, 262-274) show how differences in cognitive ability predict differences in job performance with correlations averaging about .50 for mid complexity jobs. These correlations are moderated by job complexity and are much higher for professional-managerial positions than they are for completely unskilled jobs. In terms of applications to personnel psychology, a superior manager (one standard deviation above the mean ability for managers) produces almost 50% more than an average manager. These relationships diminish as a function of years of experience and degree of training. General mental ability (g) also has substantial predictive powers in predicting non-job related outcomes, such as likelihood of completing college, risk for divorce and even risk for criminality.

The non-cognitive measures of individual differences also predict important real life criteria. Extraversion is highly correlated with total sales in dollars among salespeople. Similarly, impulsivity can be used to predict traffic violations. Conscientiousness, when added to g substantially increases the predictability of job performance. Although the size of the correlation is much lower, conscientiousness measured in adolescence predicts premature mortality over the next fifty years.
Sources of individual differences
The taxonomic and predictive studies of individual differences are descriptive organizations of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that go together and how they relate to other outcomes. But this categorization is descriptive rather than causal and is analogous to grouping rocks in terms of density and hardness rather than atomic or molecular structure. Causal theories of individual differences are being developed but are in a much earlier stage than are the descriptive taxonomies.

Descriptive taxonomies are used to organize the results of studies that examine genetic bases of individual differences. By applying structural modeling techniques to the variances and covariances associated with various family constellations it is possible to decompose phenotypic trait variance into separate sources of genetic and environmental variance. The most common family configurations that are used are comparisons of identical (monozygotic) with fraternal (dizygotic) twins. Additional designs include twins reared together or apart, and biological versus adoptive parents, children and siblings. Conclusions from behavioral genetics for most personality traits tend to be similar: Across different designs, with different samples from different countries, roughly 40-60% of the phenotypic variance seems to be under genetic control with only a very small part of the remaining environmental variance associated with shared family environmental effects. Additional results suggest that genetic sources of individual differences remain important across the lifespan. However, this should not be taken to mean that people do not change as they mature but rather that the paths one takes through life are similar to those taken by genetically similar individuals.

Genes do not code for thoughts, feelings or behavior but rather code for proteins that regulate and modulate biological systems. Although promising work has been done searching for the biological bases of individual differences it is possible to sketch out these bases only in the broadest of terms. Specific neurotransmitters and brain structures can be associated with a broad class of approach behaviors and positive affects while other neurotransmitters and structures can be associated with a similarly broad class of avoidance behaviors and negative affects. Reports relating specific alleles to specific personality traits emphasize that the broad personality traits are most likely under polygenic influence and are moderated by environmental experience.

Subtle differences in neurotransmitter availability and re-uptake vary the sensitivity of individuals to cues about their environment that predict future resource availability and external rewards and punishments. It is the way these cues are detected, atttended to, stored, and integrated with previous experiences that makes each individual unique. Current work on the bases of individual differences is concerned with understanding this delicate interplay of biological propensities with environmental opportunities and constraints as they are ultimately represented in an individual's information processing system. With time we can expect to increase our taxonomic and predictive power by using these causal bio-social theories of individual differences.

Freeze Dance Kids Activity

Every child no matter how big or small loves this activity! This is not only a great way to have fun with your kids but can also be used at parties with great success.

Physical activity keeps children moving and exercising to the benefit of their overall health. In our modern world, it is too easy for children to remain sedentary while playing video games, watching television and surfing the web. With the amount of time spent sitting each day in school, it is important that children remain as active as possible at home. There are several types of dance activities that keep children engaged in learning and moving at the same time.

1. Dance And Freeze

o    Spark laughter with a highly active game of freeze and dance. Play some music and instruct the children to dance to the song until it stops. Tell them that once the music stops, they must freeze in the position they are in. Shut off the music or pause it unexpectedly. Watch how the children are frozen in comical poses. The entire group will likely begin to laugh at the group of themselves. Continue turning the music on and off for 20 to 30 minutes to serve as a healthy workout.

Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes

o    Turn a basic anatomy lesson for preschoolers into a dance activity. Show them how to put their hands on their head, shoulders, then knees and toes while singing the song "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes." Sing the song faster each time you sing it until the kids can no longer keep up with their hands. The children will get the physical workout they need, while also participating in a bit of friendly competition to see who can keep up with the song.

Little Teapot

o    Teach children "The Teapot Song" by George Harry Sanders and Clarence Kelley while dancing the traditional teapot dance. Show children how to curl one arm under to make a handle and raise the other to make a spout, along with the words of the song. Once the song reaches the line "tip me over and pour me out" show the children how to "pour" themselves with a tilt.

Hokey Pokey

o    "Hokey Pokey" was written by Roland Lawrence LaPrise, Charles Macak and Tafit Baker in the late 1940s. The song instructs the listener to perform several movements along with the music, such as "Put your right hand in. Put your right hand out. Put your right hand in and shake it all about." Have the children listen closely to the instructions of the song and perform the motions together as a group. This teaches listening skills and rhythm while providing a healthy activity.

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GROSS MOTOR

Gross motor control refers to the movements of the large muscles of the body.

A baby starts developing gross motor control from birth, beginning with the control of her head and torso, continuing until she has mastered sitting, crawling, standing and eventually walking, running, jumping and the range of activities that an adult can do.

Children learn new gross motor skills by practicing until a particular skill is mastered.

Gross motor skills include:

    * balance – the ability to maintain equilibrium

    * body awareness – for improved posture and control

    * crossing of the mid-line

    * laterality – awareness of the left and right sides of the body

    * major muscle co-ordination

    * spatial orientation – awareness of the body position in space and in relation to other objects or people

As a child develops increasingly better control of the arms and legs, she begins to develop fine motor skills, such as grasping, touching, feeding herself etc.

Without reasonable gross motor skills, children often struggle with the fine motor skills that are required for formal school work.

This article by an occupational therapist, explains how Gross Motor Activities Improve Handwriting

There are other added benefits derived from the physical exercise that practicing gross motor skills provides:

“At this age a child needs several hours of physical activity a day. This helps to build the body, purify the blood, promote good digestion and calm the nerves.”

(Raymond Moore, Homegrown Kids, p113)

“For we are an over wrought generation, running to nerves as a cabbage runs to seed; and every hour spent in the open is clear gain, tending to the increase of brain power and bodily vigour, and to the lengthening of life itself. They who know what it is to have fevered skin and throbbing brain deliciously soothed by the cool touch of air are inclined to make a new rule in life: Never be within doors when you can rightly be without.”

(Charlotte Mason, Home Education, Volume 1)

Make sure your child has plenty of time to run around, climb, play and even do some work, such as gardening or helping with other chores out of doors.

Even if you are a city dweller, find a park, a vacant lot or other suitable place where you can go and get enjoy some physical exercise. Even in cold weather, dress up warmly, go out and develop your child's gross motor skills, while enjoying the outdoors.

“In this time of extraordinary pressure, educational and social, perhaps a mother’s first duty to her children is to secure for them a quiet and growing time, a full six years of passive receptive life, the waking part of it for the most part spent out in the fresh air.”

(Charlotte Mason, Home Education, Volume 1)

Besides the physical benefits of being outdoors, for the purpose of physical activity, other valuable learning opportunities may also arise as your children encounter objects in nature or other subjects that captivate their attention.

From about three years of age, your child will be ready to make good use ofplayground equipment that is designed to use her large muscles vigorously and develop gross motor skills. Don’t deprive her of climbing – just help her to do it safely and within limits. Climbing is particularly good for stimulating a child’s sense of laterality.

Country living usually provides small trees and fences for this activity, but city parks or playgrounds with a jungle gym or slide will also achieve the same. Encourage your child to use and many of the apparatus at a play park as possible.

The Secret To Making Fine Motor Skills Activities For Children Fun

Fine motor skills activities for children are the best way to ensure proper development and practice of fine motor skills to promote the most functional use of a child's hands.

You see, normal development DEMANDS that children are able to accurately and effectively use the small muscles (intrinsic muscles) in their hands. These intrinsic muscles will be used for the rest of their lives and for essential functional activities.

Childhood is the critical time to properly develop these muscles, and I think you might be shocked (unless you are an OT) at how many children we, as Occupational Therapists, see in the schools and clinics every single day who have significant delays in fine motor skills. I must add it is nobody's "fault"... it just is. These are skills that simply may need some extra work to develop optimally, that's all. So, please... no blaming the child or the parents. Deal? Thanks! 

The building of fine motor skills in children will enable them to perform a variety of important functional tasks. These include:

  tying shoes

  zipping and unzipping

  buckling and unbuckling

  writing legibly and without significant muscle fatigue

  playing games that require precise hand and finger control

  drawing, painting, and coloring

  manipulating buttons and snaps

  putting small objects together

  doing puzzles

  making crafts

  using scissors

  manipulating small objects such as coins

  opening and closing objects

  picking up and holding onto small objects

  developing and maintaining an effective and proper pencil grip

  pinching objects between fingers

  using locks and keys

  being able to isolate finger movements (i.e., using one finger at a time, such as in playing the piano or typing)

  turning things over or turning pages of a book

  holding and using utensils properly and effectively

  screwing and unscrewing

  doing ANYTHING that requires small precise hand and finger movements

Certainly you can now see the importance of fine motor skills and the impact it would have if not developed properly! If your child is struggling to do any of these aforementioned activities and you are concerned that they may have poor fine motor skills, then it is time to practice, enhance, and evaluate these skills.

I just want to mention, there is a very high correlation between children with sensory processing disorders and children with a delay in fine motor skills. It is often a big part of sensory integration therapy and one of the main reasons children are initially referred to an Occupational Therapist. Please understand, I am NOT saying they HAVE a sensory processing disorder if they have poor fine motor skills... fine motor delays may be an isolated issue.

Properly Developed Fine Motor Skills Are Important To Every Day Living

The ability to complete functional activities that require these skills will follow you your entire life. So, I beg of you... if you see signs of fine motor difficulties in any child, please address it with a teacher, Occupational Therapist, or through educating yourself (as you are now... yay you!) on how to improve fine motor skills.

Speaking of improving fine motor skills, here is what you have been waiting for... how do we do it? Truthfully, you will see the greatest improvement through targeted activities that are practiced, practiced, and practiced some more! True, that is the "therapy" of it... but, I always believe in making that targeted practice fun and varied! It really NEEDS to be for the development of the various muscles, and so the child doesn't get bored, frustrated, or resistant to engaging in these therapeutic, skill building activities.

 Activities To Improve Fine Motor Skills

The best way to do this with children is... Toys and Games, of course! Below, you will find some great games and toys that are both fun, challenging, and great for developing those critical fine motor skills.

But, before I show you those, I must share my all-time favorite activity for hand strengthening and fine motor skill development. It's easy to do anytime/anywhere, it's fun, it works on a variety of hand skills, and THE KIDS LOVE IT! It is... Theraputty! Ah, for those of you who don't know, Theraputty is a strong silly-putty-like material that probably every Occupational Therapist uses. It comes in a tub and has different "strengths" to it (more or less resistance when squeezed). It is one of the best inventions ever!

Okay, here is my favorite activity (if you are an OT, don't give it away, shhhh)... Stretch the Theraputty out and hide coins or any tiny objects in it. Then mush it up into a ball. It is now the child's job to pull the putty apart and find all the objects you put in there (oh, make sure you count how many you put in there, because the child WILL keep asking if they found them all). Just a hint... children can even do this whole "game" themselves; hiding the objects AND finding them. Or do it with friends that come over to play. And, if they need extra incentive... you can use all those pennies you have kicking around the house and tell them if they do a good job finding them all 3 times in a row they get to keep them! Bribery...*ahem*, I mean REWARDS, are always a great way to get a child to do his "therapy".

Or, here is another idea;  Holly, an OT from a school in New York gave me this great suggestion...

When using putty I will sometimes put "googley" eyes in it and when you shake the putty you can hear the eyes wiggle, the kids love it and enjoy the silly challenge.