Discusses when one can infer children's use of a rule, the mechanisms underlying the development of rule use, and the relation between understanding and execution. Contrasts relational complexity theory with cognitive complexity and control theory. (Author/KB)

Reviews two books by L. S. Vygotsky and A. R. Luria: (1) "Studies on the History of Behavior: Ape, Primitive, and Child"; and (2) "Ape, Primitive Man and Child: Essays in the History of Behavior." Both books are based on a book published in 1930 that examined the phylogenetic, historical, and ontogenetic development of human…

Three experiments tested a model identifying object labels as discrete attributes of the object in which the relative weight of the label decreases with children's age. Results indicated that labels contribute to similarity judgment in a quantifiable manner, labels' weight decreased with age, and effects of labels were likely to stem from the…

Current models of psychological development rely heavily on connectionist models that use supervised learning. These models adapt network weights when the network output does not match the target outputs computed by some agent. The authors present a model of motor learning in which the child uses exploration to discover appropriate ways of…

Turkish mothers' self-efficacy beliefs and their interactional behaviors with their children with language delays are described and explored. Participants included 19 mother-child dyads. Mothers' interaction with their children with language delays was videotaped for 30 minutes in a free-play context. Regarding mothers' interactional behaviors,…

Behavioral problems are frequent among post-institutionalized Eastern European adoptees. However, risk factors related to outcomes have not been fully delineated. We evaluated 50 Eastern European adoptees, age 8-10 years, with their adoptive families for more than five years. Cognitive and behavioral outcomes and parenting stress were evaluated in…

Children's understanding of the cardinal significance of counting is often assessed by the "give x" task, in which they are categorized as "counters" or "grabbers". Previous research indicates a sudden stage-like shift, implying insight into a principle. Employing a microgenetic approach, the present study was…

From the first moments of life, infants begin the exciting journey to gain control of their bodies. These beginning movements are an essential way of playing and learning for infants. During their first year, infants learn more motor skills than at any other time in their lives. Brain research has revealed that the motor area of an infant's brain…

Factors that influence the incidence of utilization deficiencies and other recall/strategy-use patterns on a strategic memory task were evaluated in two hundred and fourteen 7- and 9-year-old children. Both utilization deficiencies and the incidence of children showing increases in both recall and strategy use over phases were more likely to be…

The concept of intersubjectivity may be used to illuminate the way in which we observe and describe many of the interpersonal processes that begin in infancy. The more traditional psychoanalytic ideas of holding and containment, as well as relatively recent concepts such as attunement and reflective function, can be seen as belonging within this…

The medial temporal lobe memory system matures relatively early and supports rudimentary declarative memory in young infants. There is considerable development, however, in the memory processes that underlie declarative memory performance during infancy. Here we consider age-related changes in encoding, retention, and retrieval in the context of…

Latent class analysis (LCA) has been successfully applied to tasks measuring higher cognitive functioning, suggesting the existence of distinct strategies used in such tasks. With LCA it became possible to classify post hoc. This important step forward in modeling and analyzing cognitive strategies is relevant to the overlapping waves model for…

The development of 10 preschool children who attended the Southeast Kansas Demonstration Child Development Center was compared with the development of 10 preschool children who did not attend a child care center to ascertain the value of the center's program. Both groups were tested with the Denver Developmental Screening Test at the beginning and…

The relationship between written words and their pronunciation varies considerably among different orthographic systems, and these variations have repercussions on learning to read. Children whose languages have deep orthographies must learn to pronounce larger units, such as rhymes, morphemes, or whole words, to achieve the correct pronunciation…

Joe L. Frost is Parker Centennial Professor Emeritus at the University of Texas, Austin, and one of America's leading experts on play and playgrounds. In addition to having taught child development and early childhood education at Texas and several other universities, he has written or edited fifteen university-level textbooks and more than one…