Competence and incompetence are constructs that emerge in the social milieu of everyday life. Individuals are continually making and revising judgments about each other's abilities as they interact. The flexible, situated view of competence conveyed by the research of the authors in this volume is a departure from the way that competence is usually thought about in the fields of communication disabilities and education. In the social constructivist view, competence is not a fixed mass, res...

This concise, accessible book explores the connection between language acquisition and emergent literacy skills, and how this sets the stage for later literacy development. Chapters address formative early experiences such as speaking and listening, being read to, and talking about print concepts and the alphabet. Written for early childhood professionals, reading specialists, and speech–language pathologists, the book describes effective assessment and instructional approaches for fosteri...

Desire, Self, Mind, and the Psychotherapies unifies psychological science with contemporary relational psychoanalysis, arguing that the disciplines can be integrated if the concept of repression is understood as motivated forgetting, creative aspects of unconscious processes are taken into account in cognitive science, and a "new experiences" model of change is acknowledged by psychoanalysts. Such a model of change allows for integration of behavioral, cognitive, visual, and other...

This volume is devoted to the fascinating topic of social communication - fascinating because communication is ubiquitous, in that one cannot not communicate. And yet, the art of effective communication can be extremely demanding and elusive, because a tricky trade-off problem has to be solved. For communication to be successful, it must be at once informative - somehow indicating an intended direction of thought or action - as well as subtle - somehow concealing intentions and in...

Child study is a very complex field. Human beings, and children, specifically, are very complex beings. Consequently, simple answers and solutions to problems are very often just that: too simple. This text presents principles and methods for studying children in the varied contexts in which they live and function. These theories and methods can be used as a kind of "tool kit" for application in a variety of situations by the people who work with children such as researchers, parents, educ...

A multidisciplinary and varied perspective on play, Play as Engagement and Communication continues the stimulating and informative volumes in the Play and Culture Studies series. Students, play scholars, and play practitioners will gain information from groundbreaking studies, philosophical treatises, and in-depth reviews of current knowledge on child-child, child-adult, and child-animal play. Play and Culture Studies is the main publication of The Associati...

Adult education occurs whenever individuals engage in sustained, systematic learning in order to affect changes in their attitudes, knowledge, skills, or belief systems. Learning, instruction, and developmental processes are the primary foci of educational psychology research and theorizing, but educational psychologists' work in these domains has centered primarily on the childhood and adolescent school years. More recently, however, a number of educational psychologists have studied lear...

Teaching students specific literacy skills is important--but equally critical, and often overlooked, is giving them the time and opportunity to read actual texts. Bringing together leading scholars, this book focuses on how teachers can improve both the quality and quantity of reading experiences in K-12 classrooms. Essential topics include factors that make reading tasks more or less productive for different types of learners, ways to balance independent reading with whole-class and small...

This comprehensive volume describes evidence-based strategies for supporting English language learners (ELLs) by promoting meaningful communication and language use across the curriculum. Leading experts explain how and why learning is different for ELLs and pinpoint specific best practices for the classroom, illustrated with vivid examples. Particular attention is given to ways in which learning English is intertwined with learning the student's home language. The book addresses both asse...

This book captures the diversity and richness of writing as it relates to different forms of abilities, skills, competencies, and expertise. Psychologists, educators, researchers, and practitioners in neighboring areas are interested in exploring how writing develops and in what manner this development can be fostered, but they lack a handy, unified, and comprehensive source of information to satisfy their interest. The goal of this book is to fill this void by reflecting on the phenomenon...

Offering a timely snapshot of current theory and research in the field of psychology in foreign language learning, this book is accessible to both specialists and non-specialists. Each chapter focuses on a different psychological construct and provides an overview of current thinking in the area drawing on insights from educational psychology.

In this concise, thought-provoking book, prominent researchers analyze existing knowledge on adolescent literacy, examine the implications for classroom instruction, and offer specific goals for future research. The volume reviews cutting-edge approaches to understanding the unique features of teaching and learning in secondary schools. Particular attention is given to how teaching literacy across disciplines can improve students' content-area learning, and the book includes chapters dedic...