Being Alone, Playing Alone, and Acting Alone: Distinguishing among Reticence and Passive and Active Solitude in Young Children

3 forms of solitude were studied in young children—reticence (onlooker and unoccupied behavior), solitary-passive behavior (solitary-constructive and -exploratory play), and solitary-active behavior (solitary-functional and -dramatic play). 48 4-year-old children grouped in quartets of same-sex unfamiliar peers were observed in several situations. Mothers completed the Colorado Temperament Inventory. Results indicated that (1) solitary-passive, solitary-active, and reticent behaviors were nonsignificantly intercorrelated; (2) reticence was stable and associated with the demonstration of anxiety and hovering near others, whereas solitary-passive and solitary-active play were stable yet unrelated to anxiety and hovering; (3) reticence during free play was generally associated with poor performance and displays of wariness in several other social situations, while solitary-passive and -active play were not; (4) reticence was associated with maternal ratings of child shyness, while solitary-active behavior was associated with maternal ratings of impulsivity. Results are discussed in terms of the underlying mechanisms associated with reticence and passive and active withdrawal.     

Using Reader Profiles as Snapshots to Investigate Students' Reading Performance

Explanatory patterns regarding situational differences in reading comprehension performance may be best captured by multidimensional reader profiles. Data from 56 third- and fifth-grade students were collected to investigate the applicability, scope, and convergent validity of a reader profiling scheme based on Alexander's (2005) reader profile framework and then compared with results from a hierarchical cluster analysis and a Bayesian cluster analysis. The reader profiling methodology used identified examples of all six of Alexander's reader profiles at each grade level, along with an additional hypothesized profile, the interest-reliant reader. The reader profiles related as expected to reading outcomes on a researcher-designed comprehension measure and a standardized comprehension assessment, with a few exceptions, and explained variance in those outcome measures better than the use of cluster analysis, except for the third-grade standardized scores. Finally, interesting differences emerged in the proportions of elementary students assigned to each profile across the grade levels.     

Frontal Activation Asymmetry and Social Competence at Four Years of Age

The pattern of frontal activation as measured by the ongoing electroencephalogram (EEG) may be a marker for individual differences in infant and adult disposition to respond with either positive or negative affect. We studied 48 4-year-old children who were first observed in same-sex quartets during free-play sessions, while making speeches, and during a ticket-sorting task. Social and interactive behaviors were coded from these sessions. Each child was subsequently seen 2 weeks later when EEG was recorded while the child attended to a visual stimulus. The pattern of EEG activation computed from the session was significantly related to the child's behavior in the quartet session. Children who displayed social competence (high degree of social initiations and positive affect) exhibited greater relative left frontal activation, while children who displayed social withdrawal (isolated, onlooking, and unoccupied behavior) during the play session exhibited greater relative right frontal activation. Differences among children in frontal asymmetry were a function of power in the left frontal region. These EEG/behavior findings suggest that resting frontal asymmetry may be a marker for certain temperamental dispositions.     

Emotion Regulation, Parenting and Display of Social Reticence in Preschoolers

The study of social reticence in early childhood has focused primarily on those dispositional, intra-individual factors that might account for its demonstration among peers. Little is known, however, about the relations between social reticence and its association with the quality of parenting behaviors. Indeed, the independent and interactive “contributions” of dispositional and parenting factors to children's demonstration of socially reticent behavior have not received adequate attention. In this study, 188 preschool children and their mothers were observed during unstructured Free-play and a structured Lego-building teaching task. Additionally, the children were observed in quartets of same-sex, same-age unfamiliar peers. Results indicated that children's shy, socially reticent behavior was predicted by the extent to which mothers were over-solicitous during Free-play. In addition, preschooler's expressions of reticent behavior were predicted by the interactions between emotion dysregulation and the lack of maternal guidance and control during a teaching task. Emotionally dysregulated children whose mothers provided little control in this putatively stressful teaching task were more likely to be shy and reticent. This relation was non-significant for dysregulated children with mothers who provided high levels of guidance. The results suggest that early childhood educators offer reticent/shy children opportunities to explore their impersonal and social milieus and to warmly encourage such exploratory activities. Without such encouragement and opportunity building, reticent preschoolers may suffer from not having experienced sufficient exploration-to-play sequences thereby stifling the problem-solving competencies derived from such experiences.     

Psychophysiological and behavioral evidence for varying forms and functions of nonsocial behavior in preschoolers

Four-year-old children showing low levels of social behavior in a laboratory play session with unfamiliar peers were classified as reticent (unoccupied or onlooking behaviors) or solitary-passive (solitary constructive or exploratory play). Compared with a group of more social children, the children in both low-social groups were rated high on maternal reports of shyness and displayed a pattern of right frontal EEG asymmetry. However, only the reticent group was elevated on measures indicative of a fearful temperament, both concurrently and retrospectively. A subset of children in the solitary-passive group showed increasing levels of reticent behavior over the course of the visit, suggesting that for some children solitary-passive behaviors provide a means for coping with feelings of unease.     

Advancing the Boundaries of Higher Education in Arizona Using the World Wide Web

Northern Arizona University (NAU) sought to incorporate the new distance delivery system, the World Wide Web, and the Internet into its distance-learning program in order both to accomplish a mandate from its governing board and to fulfill its distance education mission. To accomplish this change and enlarge the scope of distance education delivery throughout the state, NAU proceeded through a series of strategic steps including (a) a Web course-design initiative; (b) a university-wide grant to promote departmental-level programmatic Web-course curriculum development; (c) a faculty development initiative to train, support and inspire faculty to create high-quality coursework via the World Wide Web; and (d) development of an on-line infrastructure to deliver courses and provide students with all of the services they require to be successful on-line students. Please view NAU Online at http://www.nau.edu/nauonline.     

Other Telecommunications

Bruce M. Owen and Ronald Braeutigam's The Regulation Game: Strategic Use of the Administrative Process (Cambridge, Mass.: Ballinger Publishing, 1978---$20.00)

Alfred Price's Instruments of Darkness: The History of Electronic Warfare (New York: Scribner's, 1978---$12.95)

Linda Fox's Broadcasting and Communications (New York: Arco/London: Marshall Cavendish, 1978---$9.95)