Sixty-four 3- and 4-year-olds were asked to identify another's view of a spatial array either verbally or by picture selection. Results indicate that verbalization leads to substantially more correct responses. Girls' performance was significantly better than boys' performance across both response modes. (Author/DB)

Results showed a clear shift in ways children ordered story units contained in their recall protocols. Children exhibited excellent mapping processes in nonisomorphic transfer problems, except when a salient feature of the base was mapped to a misleading cue in the target. (RH)

Proposes that conceptual change is constrained by the child's conceptual structures and the structures inherent in problem-solving tasks. Uses a microgenetic case study and group data to examine how interaction between strategies children bring to a task and the detailed task structure redirect children's attention and create the possibility of…

Two experiments explored whether children's correct answers to counter factual and future hypothetical questions were based on an understanding of possibilities. Children played a game in which a toy mouse could run down either 1 of 2 slides. Children found it difficult to mark physically both possible outcomes, compared to reporting a single…

Tested hypothesis that 4- and 5-year-old children in same-sex problem-solving groups would perform equally well when a group task required various cooperative and self-serving behaviors to enable group to obtain a resource. The hypothesis that girls and boys would employ different behaviors to obtain resource was also tested. Participants were 20…

To investigate the development of function concepts and their relation to mathematical and logical abilities typically acquired during the age period of five to seven years, children were tested on nonnumerical function tasks, numerical tasks, and aspects of logical reasoning. (PCB)

The effectance motivation of 624 sixth graders was assessed on the basis of two measures completed by teachers. Student were also observed for their choice of hard and easy problems after being informed of contingencies based on the correctness of solutions. (Author/CI)

Reflective and impulsive children were instructed to hasten or delay their responses on a test of hypothesis-seeking and constraint seeking conceptual strategies. Latency of response data on pretesting, training, and immediate posttests showed that the attempts to hasten or delay responses were successful in changing response latencies. (ST)

It was concluded that in grade school children the tendency to be reflective in problem solving also entails a disposition to take longer in making decisions. (Author)

Investigates the hypothesis that strategy development might occur within or beyond the period of formal operations, but that this development might be discernible only beyond the second order of analogical relations. Adolescent strategy development in the solution of third-order analogies resembled in pattern the preadolescent development found in…

The aims of this study were (1) to test the dyadic superiority hypothesis by comparing dyadic performance on a logical reasoning task with the performance of children working alone, and (2) to determine whether the incorrect child's compliance with the correct child was a major factor in the dyadic production of correct answers. (Author/DB)

Subjects were trained against their initial dimensional preference in a two-dimensional simultaneous discrimination learning task. (RH)

Focused on (1) the effect of mother-child interaction during a problem-solving task on subsequent, independent child performance; and (2) the variability in the division of task responsibilities and maternal regulation of the child as a function of task difficulty, child age, and task component. Participants were 60 three to five year olds and…

Investigated the relation between stressful life events and behavioral and academic adjustment in 361 third and fifth grade students. Higher levels of social support and problem solving skills moderated negative effects of stressful events on teacher-rated behavior problems. (RJC)

Sixty-four mother-infant pairs were videotaped during structured episodes in which the mother challenged the infant to use her instrumentally to get access to or to operate a toy. At age 6 months the infants could use their mothers instrumentally in 36% of the episodes, increasing to 67% at 9 months and 78% at 13 months. (MDM)