A rating scale was designed to measure dysfunctional discipline practices in parents of young children. Three stable factors of dysfunctional discipline style were identified: (a) Laxness, (b) Overreactivity, and (c) Verbosity. The Parenting Scale exhibited adequate internal consistency and test-retest reliability. Mothers of clinic children reported more dysfunctional parenting than did mothers of nonclinic children. Parenting Scale scores were related to maternal ratings of child behavior and marital discord. Most important, Parenting Scale scores correlated significantly with observational measures of dysfunctional discipline and child misbehavior.

The effects of an interactive book reading program were assessed with children from low-income families who attended subsidized day-care centers in New York. The children entered the program with language development in standard English vocabulary and expression that was about 10 months behind chronological age on standardized tests. Children were pretested and assigned randomly within classrooms to 1 of 3 conditions: (a) a school plus home condition in which the children were read to by their teachers and their parents, (b) a school condition in which children were read to only by teachers, and (c) a control condition in which children engaged in play activities under the supervision of their teachers. Training of adult readers was based on a self-instructional video. The intervention lasted for 6 weeks, at which point children were posttested on several standardized measures oflanguage ability that had been used as pretests. These assessments were repeated at a 6month follow-up. Educationally and statistically significant effects of the reading intervention were obtained at posttest and follow-up on measures of expressive vocabulary.According to the 1991 Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching report, Ready to Learn: A Mandate for the Nation, 35% of children in the United States enter kindergarten unprepared to learn, with most lacking the vocabulary and sentence structure crucial to school success. Although there are some problems with the methods of this report and inherent difficulties in dichotomizing school readiness, there is no doubt that there are very large individual differences in early educational achievement that have long-term consequences for children and society (Alexander & Entwisle, 1988;Stevenson & Newman, 1986).Why are so many children, particularly those from low-income families, deficient in the skills that are critical to school readiness? Children's preschool experience with books may play an important role. Adams (1990, p. 85) estimated that a typical middle-class child enters first grade with 1,000 to 1,700 hr of one-on-one picture book reading, whereas the correspond-

et al. (1988) taught mothers specific interactive techniques to use when reading picture books with their preschool-age children. This intervention program, called dialogic reading, produced substantial effects on preschool children's language development. However, the costs of one-on-one training limit the widespread use of dialogic reading techniques. In this study the authors aimed to replicate and extend the results of the original study of dialogic reading by developing and evaluating an inexpensive videotape training package for teaching dialogic reading techniques. Mothers were randomly assigned to receive no training, traditional direct training, or videotape training. Results supported the conclusions of Whitehurst et al.: Dialogic reading had powerful effects on children's language skills and indicated that videotape training provided a cost-effective, standardized means of implementing the program.Literacy development is a complex process that begins well before formal reading instruction (Teale & Sulzby, 1986). Preschool children acquire a wide range of knowledge and skills that correlate with later literacy development and academic success, including language, knowledge about print and its functions, phonemic awareness, and understanding about oral and written language and their distinctions (

No abstract

Expression of two Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) apyrase (nucleoside triphosphate-diphosphohydrolase) genes with high similarity, APY1 and APY2, was analyzed during seedling development and under different light treatments using b-glucuronidase fusion constructs with the promoters of both genes. As evaluated by b-glucuronidase staining and independently confirmed by other methods, the highest expression of both apyrases was in rapidly growing tissues and/or tissues that accumulate high auxin levels. Red-light treatment of etiolated seedlings suppressed the protein and message level of both apyrases at least as rapidly as it inhibited hypocotyl growth. Adult apy1 and apy2 single mutants had near-normal growth, but apy1apy2 doubleknockout plants were dwarf, due primarily to reduced cell elongation. Pollen tubes and etiolated hypocotyls overexpressing an apyrase had faster growth rates than wild-type plants. Growing pollen tubes released ATP into the growth medium and suppression of apyrase activity by antiapyrase antibodies or by inhibitors simultaneously increased medium ATP levels and inhibited pollen tube growth. These results imply that APY1 and APY2, like their homologs in animals, act to reduce the concentration of extracellular nucleotides, and that this function is important for the regulation of growth in Arabidopsis.

Low levels of enrollment and attendance in parent training programs present major problems for researchers and clinicians. The literature on enrollment and attendance in prevention programs is especially limited, and these constructs may be particularly difficult to address in this context. Further, most previous research has not made the distinction between enrollment and attendance. This study describes predictors of enrollment and attendance in a behavioral parent training program intended to prevent conduct problems in preschoolers. Information was gathered from 106 preschoolers, their parents, and their teachers. Parent socioeconomic status (SES), single parent status, ethnicity, child externalizing behavior, parent depressive symptoms, and parent social support were investigated as possible predictors of families' enrollment and attendance. Only 48% of the families that had already provided informed consent and completed demographic questionnaires actually enrolled in the parent training program; parents with lower incomes and lower levels of social support were less likely to enroll. In addition, African-American and Puerto Rican families were less likely to enroll than Caucasian families. The average attendance rate for enrolled parents was 61%; dual parents and parents with children evidencing externalizing behavior problems attended more parent training sessions. Parent depression was not associated with enrollment or attendance. Significant relationships were maintained when controlling for other predictors including SES and when accounting for center-level variance. In addition, three distinct patterns of attendance were observed, which may have practical implications related to retention strategies.

This chapter reviews selected research on the education of low-socioeconomic status (SES) children from birth through the first years of elementary school. Themes include the importance of early academic skills and interest to later achievement; the benefits of integrating knowledge from research on mental health and other areas; the need to utilize and build children's strengths as well as address their weaknesses; and a call to connect research to practice and policy. Relevant research on race and culture is reviewed because ethnic minority low-SES children are at great risk of poverty. Gender is discussed because low-SES boys have poorer general achievement than girls, while very few low-SES girls pursue careers in math- and science-related fields.

Silver, Alex Torgovitsky, and numerous seminar participants for helpful comments and suggestions. Molly Bunke, Kevin DeLuca, and Amy Wickett provided excellent research assistance. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research. NBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been peer-reviewed or been subject to the review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompanies official NBER publications.