Piaget's theory of developmental stages was implemented in an elementary school curriculum. Some successful learning experiences are described. (CP)

Argues that Susan Sugarman's article in this issue contains some valid criticism of assumptions in developmental psychology, but that some of her conclusions regarding other assumptions need to be questioned. Suggests that many problems raised by Sugarman would disappear if developmental psychologists concentrated on children's early achievements…

There is considerable disagreement concerning the age of onset and universality of attainment of Piaget's stage of formal operations. This study examines developmental differences in response to brief prompts in the use of a formal operational approach to the solution of two tasks. The subjects were 10 males and 10 females from each of Grades 5,…

Argues that there are significant ways in which neither Piaget nor his successors in developmental psychology have adequately described the child's mind and how it changes. Proposes alternative guidelines for research that aims more directly at identifying essential constituent features of the child's mental reality. (PCB)

This paper is a critical examination of Piaget's formulations on cognitive development based on recent social learning research. It is suggested that learning to conserve does not seem immutably dependent on the child's attaining some maturational age-related cognitive stage and that Piaget's theorizations do not sufficiently consider social…

Discusses hierarchical complexity of tasks as a way of conceptualizing information in terms of the power required to complete a task, and its implications for developmental psychology and information science. Provides an analytic solution to the definition of developmental stages and allows for the possibility within the science of scaling the…

An analysis of the quantitative processes underlying conservation of quantity is presented. Models of three quantitative operators--subitizing, counting, and estimation--are derived from adult performance in quantification tasks, and some features of the operators are described. The emergence of conservation is described in terms of the…

A major premise of Piagetian theory relative to the periods of concrete and formal operations is that competence in specific logical operations is a necessary but not sufficient prerequisite to competence in other specific logical operations. The present study tested for the existence of specific concrete operations and specific formal operations…

Kindergarten, second-grade, fifth-grade, and college subjects were tested in a serial-position recall task under each of four conditions: Visual stimuli/visual recall cue, visual stimuli/auditory recall cue, auditory stimuli/visual recall cue, auditory stimuli/auditory recall cue. Visual stimuli were pictures of common animals and objects;…

An analysis of children's narrative composition and art revealed concurrent development at both a general structural level and at a fine-grained detail level. A three-part study investigated whether this general cognitive pattern would be maintained across a different range of tasks: literary composition, scientific reasoning, and working memory.…