A systematic review was carried out to examine the use of robots in early childhood and lower level education. The paper synthesizes the findings of research studies carried out in the last ten years and looks at the influence of robots on children and education. Four major factors are examined--the type of studies conducted, the influence of…

Twenty-one mentally retarded children (8- to 16-year-olds) were asked to make various types of comparisons between sets and subsets of objects. Results showed that they succeeded when the comparison involved numerically unequal subsets of objects within the same set. (Author)

The Boehm Test of Basic Concepts (BTBC) (Boehm, 1971) was administered to 99 children (ages 7-10) who had been diagnosed as learning disabled and attended special schools in the New York area. It was hypothesized that the learning disabled children would exhibit a delay in the acquisition of the basic concepts, but would display a similar order of…

The aim of this study was to document the development of illness and health causality concepts in young hospitalized children (ages 4-10 years) whose stage of cognitive development may limit understanding of illness and treatment. It was hypothesized that distinct qualitative levels would characterize children's conceptions of illness and that…

This study examined the effects of judgment-contingent feedback and prior knowledge of 3 rules on the conservation learning of 188 kindergarten children. (Author/JMB)

The study assessed object permanence construct performance in 20 severely handicapped students (4 to 14 years old) who were differentiated by treatment (prompt) condition and motor ability level. Results revealed a trait (motor ability) x treatment interaction. (Author/SB)

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)

In this study Piaget's method of the clinical interview was used to examine children's understanding of rotation about apoint at three age levels (6, 7, and 8). In two half-hour sessions, subjects (N = 108) were given four tasks: (1) an adaptation of Piaget's locus and circular motion experiment, and tasks concerned with (2) the circle as a locus…

Thirty learning disabled (LD), mild (educable) mentally handicapped (EMH), and normally achieving children were administered a concept utilization task. Results indicated that, for certain conceptualization abilities, LD children are more like normal learners than like EMH children. It is suggested that cross-categorical placement increases the…

Japanese and Thai kindergarten children were shown the same visual displays of moving objects and asked to compare the speed of those moving objects. The results significantly indicated that Thai children's concept of speed is further advanced than that of Japanese children. (MLH)

This fun and educational kit is designed specifically for elementary students. The "Kid's PACK" (Population Awareness Campaign Kit) entertains and informs children on the environment and human population growth through stories, games, and concrete ideas for making a difference. In three booklets, the "Kid's PACK" offers…

An open-category task was administered to 180 elementary students. Three modes of response (related to the ways students acquire attributes for objects) were used to score the tasks. Qualitative changes in the three modes were analyzed, and the results supported a qualitative change in the modes of response. (Author/GDC)

This article (1) discusses the progression of children's thought from realism to objectivity, to reciprocity, and to realitivity; and (2) describes seventeen types of explanations children give to explain the causality of physical occurrences in the world. (SB)

This study attempted to account for the differential effectiveness of an instructional film in modifying children's life concepts by considering individual differences in conceptual tempo. Eighty 6- to 7-year-old boys and girls showed significant decreases in animistic reasoning following an 11 minute film on life attribution. (MS)