Compared the use of microcomputers, providing either substantial or minimal scaffolding, to traditional resources on preschoolers' cognitive development over eight weeks. Found that computer assisted instruction software increased verbal and language skills, but not math skills, and only as a function of substantial scaffolding. Software with…

Reviews studies comparing short- and long-term effects of language-based socially and cognitively interactive play enrichment in day care and the home during infancy. Found that both day care and home children experiencing intervention advanced to high levels of language and cognitive functioning compared to control children. Advantages of home…

Three studies investigated preschoolers' reasoning about ability. Findings suggested sensitivity to mental state information when judging another child's ability, and they perceived positive correlations between effort and academic success, and "niceness" and high academic ability. Comparisons with 9- to 10-year-olds suggest that…

Compared gestures of Chinese and American deaf children who had not been exposed to a usable conventional language model with speech of hearing children learning Mandarin or English. Found that deaf children conveyed central elements of motion events in their communications. Deaf American and Chinese children used gestures to express motion in…

Two experiments tested claim that transparency of Korean fraction names promotes fraction concepts. Findings indicated that U.S. and Korean first- and second-graders erred similarly on a fraction-identification task, by treating fractions as whole numbers. Korean children performed at chance when whole-number representation was included but…

Investigates levels and patterns of intellectual development of 131 socioeconomically disadvantaged children in university-based intervention group day care or community day care, or with little or no day care. Results suggest that high quality day care may positively change the intellectual development of socioeconomically disadvantaged children.…

A study comparing 65 deaf and hearing Australian children, aged 7-13, found that deaf subjects were delayed in number and liquid conservation, but equally mature in justice reasoning. Deaf subjects were less likely to disagree with a reward allocation proposed by an adult and to make cognitive progress when encountering conflict. (Author/JDD)

A review of studies of the self-concepts of learning disabled children (LDC) found that LDC have lower self-concepts than do non-handicapped students, with the greatest differences in academic, rather than general, self-concept. Results are discussed in terms of factors associated with self-concept development and the negative effects on…

Compared 15 lesbian couples, and the children born to them through donor insemination, with 15 heterosexual-parent families. Assessment measures evaluated the children's cognitive functioning and behavioral adjustment and the parents' relationship quality and parenting skills. Found no significant differences between the two groups of children.…

A longitudinal study of 2,165 college students at 4-year institutions suggests that students' precollege traits, quality of academic effort in college, and faculty and peer interactions were more influential on learning and student perceptions of cognitive development than institutional characteristics and environment. A resulting causal model is…

This paper discusses a cross-sectional study that assessed the moral development profiles of undergraduate pharmacy students (n=71) using Rest's Defining Issues Test. Analysis showed no significant difference in mean level of principled moral reasoning between first and fourth professional year undergraduate students. (GLR)

Examined stability of first graders' conceptions of personal prerogative at home and school and their responses to regulations. Found that children identified areas of prerogative at school and considered school to be more restrictive than home; were willing to cede authority to teachers for many personal issues, but reserved rightful decision…

Examined whether superior recall of items in event-based categorical relations, or "slot fillers," remained when association and typicality were controlled. Found that only children receiving the typical + high association slot-filler list showed significantly better recall than with the taxonomic-coordinate list, with no differences…

Compared performance of first and second graders with normal intelligence but with learning disabilities (LD) in mathematics, reading, or both and children with variable achievement test performance to that of academically normal peers on experimental and psychometric tasks. Found that LD groups showed specific cognitive deficit patterns; children…

Recent research using theory-of-mind tasks has rekindled interest in the possibility that social interaction makes a significant contribution to cognitive development. It is proposed here that this contribution may be most pronounced with phenomena that, like belief or affective states, are internal and abstract. A more modest contribution is…