Presents a model of the development of desociocentering, decentering relative to the social group, which is based on Piagetian research and theory and Wernerian concepts. (Author/SS)

Examines first- , third- , and sixth-grade children's abilities to discriminate between the reality and fantasy of television programs. Lengthy clinical interviews were conducted with each of 36 children, including viewing and discussion of 12 videotaped program segments. (SW)

This study attempted to determine whether a shift from complementary to similarity concepts occurred in preschool children prior to the shift from concrete-similarity to abstract-similarity concepts and had been observed among elementary school children. (Author/SB)

Piaget's conceptualization of concrete and formal operations is presented. It is contended that Piaget has obfuscated logic, metaphysics and methodology. (MS)

Derives a theoretical statement about children's understanding of the mind from Wittgenstein's private-language argument that understanding the mind involves acquiring rules governing the use of linguistic expressions about the mind. Presents developmental evidence illustrating Wittgenstein's argument and its differences from the simulation and…

Three experiments investigated 14-month olds' capacity for superordinate-level inductions, using animal and vehicle domains. Found that infants did generalize properties in these domains, and that their inductions were more influenced by conceptual category than by perceptual similarity. (HTH)

Argues that causal understanding is a developmental primitive: children develop core concepts of causality at a very early age, causality plays a necessary role in subsequent development across many domains, and basic causal processes can be activated automatically or implicitly. (HTH)

Guidelines are given for teaching basic concepts (such as "above,""least," and "different") to students who are educable mentally handicapped. Stressed is direct and systematic instruction in basic concepts as an integral part of the curriculum with concrete, representative, and abstract applications. (DB)

Contrasts Fodor's theory of children's Very Simple Theory of Mind, with the view that children's concepts cross-cut the adult conceptual system: young children do not distinguish between the state of affairs a belief is about and how this state of affairs is thought of, which puts a severe limit on their understanding of belief as distinct from…

Explored early-developing predictions of object motion through 6-month-old infants' head tracking and reaching for moving objects. Found evidence for infants' extrapolation of object motion on linear paths, in accord with principle of inertia. This tendency was remarkably resistant to counter-evidence, observed even after repeated presentations of…

Sixty-three siblings (and their parents) of individuals with autism or related disorders were interviewed to determine their cognitive sophistication about autism. Although children's reasoning became more mature with age, it tended to develop at a delayed rate compared to norms for illness concepts. Parents tended to overestimate their child's…

Two experiments examined 4- to 5-year-olds' acquisition of family-resemblance categories for fictitious animals. Results showed that children who performed theory-guided learning were more successful at making feature/category associations than children who performed similarity-guided learning and categorized attributes significantly better than…

Three experiments examined 3- to 11-year-olds' understanding of entropy, asking whether undifferentiated forces, such as the wind or objects being thrown into the air, could create order or disorder in a set of objects. Found that even 4-year-olds were sensitive to asymmetrical effects of such events. Older children applied this principle more…

Arbitrarily applicable derived relational responding has been argued by relational frame theorists to be a form of operant behavior. The present study examined this idea with 4 female participants, ages 4 to 5 years old, who could not perform a series of problem-solving tasks involving arbitrary more than and less than relations. In a combined…