This paper describes an on-going research program focused on the development of attention in children with specific reference to the strategies and patterns of activities which children use in seeking information and in directing and controlling their own attention. Findings from three earlier studies suggest that older children are better able…

This paper is a refinement of a model of conceptual learning and development presented initially as the Presidential Address to Division 15, Educational Psychology, of the American Psychological Association in September 1971 at Washington, D.C. Thus it supersedes the initial formulation in explicitness and detail. This paper explains the nature of…

The results of this study indicated that 4- and 5-year-old children are able to engage in veridical conceptual perspective taking. Furthermore, it was concluded that the ability to make a correct inference develops somewhat earlier than the ability to justify that inference. (JMB)

Thirty-seven middle-class white children, ages 5-8, were tested on eight Piagetian tasks and the Rorschach test, and divided into preoperational, transitional, and concrete operational groups. Measures of primary process vs. secondary process thinking were found to be related to the Piagetian stages of development. (GDC)

Results of two experiments on kindergarten children in Japan indicate that young children can, and often do, apply personification as an analogy to animate objects to generate a reasonable prediction. It was also found that children try to constrain the personification by using additional knowledge. (PCB)

A developmental progression in 6-, 8-, and 10-year-old children's use of strategies for gathering information was revealed in a study involving partial recall, total recall, and similarity/difference judgments. When subjects chose stimuli for exposure from an array, older children showed more ability to match strategy to task demands. Strategy…

Criticizes the distinction between lower and higher psychological processes in Vygotsky's cultural-historical theory. Shows that Vygotsky separated these processes too sharply and that his conception of lower processes as "natural" and "passive" is false. Suggests that these shortcomings can be overcome within the…

Response latencies of 27 learning disabled (LD) and 27 normal control boys (8-11 years old) were compared on a picture-word interference task. Both LD and control Ss exhibited greater interference effects (longer response latencies) when naming pictures (versus naming words) and when categorizing words (versus categorizing pictures). (Author/CL)

Seventeen mildly retarded adolescents who participated in an Instrumental Enrichment program which stresses cognitive and metacognitive processes demonstrated significant gains in measured IQ following intervention and at a 6-month followup. Control Ss maintained or declined in intelligence level. (CL)

The article mentions six basic statements about sequential and simultaneous processes which are derived from A. Luria's clinical research. The Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children is then judged in terms of these statements. Suggestions for constructing tests which will entail planning as well as simultaneous and successive measures are…

Discusses the problem of illiteracy and offers the philosophy for children program as an antidote. This program encourages and assists children in paying attention to their own and others' ideas. It is a thinking skills program that has demonstrated its ability to improve children's basic skills. (JOW)

Suggests that categorization tasks be included in India's preschool programs. (WY)

Uses data from earlier study by Hollender to estimate mental ages for four quartiles of intelligence for a seven-year span (ages 12-18). Comparison of four groups at some mental age with groups where age or grade is held constant, regarding realistic vocational choices, suggests that mental age concept might be more meaningful than intelligence in…

Results showed that development is different. Downs syndrome (DS) infants manifested delayed achievement of all tasks studied and were less likely than normal infants to repeat an achieved success. In addition, errors committed by the DS infants did not conform to the characteristic error pattern theoretically predicted for each task. (Author/RM)