Summary. The attentive capacities of young children were studied in terms of spans of activity and of attention. The first study examined activity spans in four types of pre‐school establishment and the second study examined attention in the infant school. In both pre‐school and infant school the influence of the adult in focusing the children's attention was demonstrated.
The intellectual and social performance of children who had attended nursery school on a part-time basis was compared with that of those attending full-time. While a beneficial effect of nursery education upon intellectual and social competence was observed, no differences between part-timers and full-timers were found on any of the measures used. Sex differences were apparent on two scales. A complementary study of the play activities however, revealed differences: part-timers spent proportionally more of their time in ‘nursery activities’ while full-timers engaged in more fantasy play. Time-of-day differences were also observed. The results are evaluated in the context of a model of play which ascribes distinctive functions to different forms of play.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.