The value of authentic knowing, autonomous behavior and altruistic motivation is presented. Authenticity, autonomy and altruism are primary human capacities and keys for individual and collective transformation. Realizing the full development of these three basic potentialities can serve as goals and standards for well-being. Authenticity,…

When Piaget ascribed the origin of knowledge to action, he distanced his theory from most other theories of the origins of mind. As a result, Piaget's conception of mental action has been quite controversial. Piaget's recent, functionalist revisions emphasize procedures and their role in the development of structures. In the new view, structures…

This study explored children's development of a "mental time line" and considered the propositions that younger children view the temporal domain as bi-polar, while older children display signs of using finer gradations on their mental time ruler that approach conventional structures of clock and calendar time. Subjects were a group of…

Piaget's studies clearly highlight two qualitative advances made during the preoperational period. The first is the breakthrough of representational intelligence, beginning around 2 years of age. The second is the emergence of coordinated representational thought, beginning around 4 years of age. This paper focuses on the second advance, which…

This study examined the influence of misleading information on children's memory of a real-life event. After participating in a play session, 10 three-year-old children and 10 six-year-old children heard a narrative that included inaccurate information about the play session. The children were then presented with items from the play session (event…

A study of the development of representations of economic life in 110 young children of 3 to 5 years of age is reviewed to identify the sources of the children's representations. In addition to noting the importance of the public availability of adult representations, the results indicate the significance of developmental processes. In particular,…

Two experiments tested Hasher and Zacks' (1984) age-invariance hypothesis of frequency memory, which proposed that frequency memory is fully developed when a minimal level of physiological maturation is reached (by two or three years of age). Participating in the first experiment were 24 subjects at each of three ages: 8 years, 11 years, and young…

This report proposes a modification of Jean Piaget's concept of "creative abstraction," the mechanism of creative thought, which develops both intelligence and creative ideas. By reflecting on one's actions and the coordinations of actions, the individual constructs new relationships, links, rules, or correspondences between and among them.…

Suggests that the formation of habits is the basis of character and morality. Supports this suggestion with citations from Henry James and other writers, and with examples of intellectual diligence from the lives of Helen Keller and Anne Frank. (HTH)

The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) and the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) collaborated to produce a summary of two roundtable discussions on the critical relevance of child and adolescent development research to teacher preparation practices. The participants in the roundtable…

A total of 48 Canadian, middle-class 3-year-olds participated in a study of their abilities to predict the actions of a story character with a false belief and a story character engaged in pretence. In the experimental situation, a red puppet with pen-markers for legs left an "inky trail" to the location of a hidden treasure in one of…

"Child as cultural apprentice" is a developmental psychologist's heuristic metaphor which is embedded in an individual-socioecological frame of reference. A basic theoretic feature of this metaphor is the explicit recognition of the interdependence of the process of child development and the socially provided resources for that…

Opportunities for the enhancement of total development must be available to children once they enter the educational system. The physical education program of the total school curriculum should provide these opportunities. Striving for the total development of children through physical activity is explained in the model for "thinking and feeling…

A series of experiments investigated 5- to 17-month-olds' comprehension of adults' direction of gaze and manual pointing behaviors. Findings indicated that a change in the adult's direction of gaze and orientation of head does not seem sufficient to enable the infant to reliably localize a referent when the infant must choose between pairs of…

This study tested the hypothesis that maternal drinking early in pregnancy affects the development of the child's central auditory processing. A follow-up study of 167 children took place 6 years after their mothers participated in a survey concerning health and drinking practices during the early stages of pregnancy. Indications of problem…