This developmental study was designed to examine the effects of field dependence-independence and level of operational development on the reading achievement of sixth, seventh, and eighth graders. Field dependence-independence had no significant effect on reading achievement, but high-operational students scored significantly higher than…

Mothers' use of true (non-controlling) and limiting (controlling) questions with 26 developmentally delayed and 26 nondelayed preschool children were examined. More true questions were asked with 4- than 2-year-olds, and with nondelayed than delayed children. Limiting questions decreased as nondelayed children grew older, but increased as delayed…

The question of how to integrate developmental (Piagetian) and psychometric conceptions and assessments of intelligence is considered. A solution which incorporates the contributions of each position--intelligence as forms and as traits--is offered. Premises and objectives of each tradition are reviewed and compared. Overlaps make synthesis…

Self and peer evaluations and experimental measures of conformity were given to 107 adolescent private school boys. Student discipline records also indicated the number of demerits. The self-report measures and the demerits showed maximum conformity between the self-protective and conscientious ego stages as measured by the Sentence Completion…

Compared the performance of 29 institutionalized cultural-familial mental retardates on Piagetian conservation tasks. Examined the effects of age, sex, and degree of retardation on conservation performance. (BD)

Do stage-related patterns of early cognitive development reported for normally developing children also characterize at-risk and handicapped children when mental age organization of data is used? Mental age predicted Piagetian-based cognitive levels one to three but did not predict highest-level symbolic functioning in 95 handicapped children.…

A study of 700 children (ages 5-12) investigated whether children's conceptions of and expectations of friendship are determined by chronological age or by mental age. Results found children of differing intellectual abilities pass through the five conception stages of friendship at different ages and at different rates. (Contains 4 references.)…

A study looked for age differences in the quality of responses to the Life Review Task (LRT), studied the LRT itself as a tool for exploring wisdom and intellectual functioning in adulthood, and considered personality characteristics and life experience as alternative predictors of response quality. Sixty-three West German women of different ages…

The growth model of intelligence; i.e. intelligence is the product of genetics plus environment (I.Q.=G+E), is discussed and questioned. If the growth model is discarded, formulating the problem of the development of intelligence in different ways and thinking of different possible technologies for changing intelligence can begin. The child…

Intended as a nontechnical review of current scientific knowledge in the field, this essay considers the nature of primary and secondary intellectual abilities, plus the major features of, and the development of individual differences in, the skills and capacities constituting intelligence. Part of a theme issue on intelligence. (Author/SJL)

Down Syndrome children (N=229), aged 1-83 months, from Australia, Canada, and Germany were tested using the Bayley Scales of Infant Development. Test performances on the Bayley's Mental and Motor scales were not dissimilar, leading to the conclusion that young Down Syndrome children from different countries with relatively comparable standards of…

Confirmatory Factor Analysis was used to test first- and second-order factor models on cognitive abilities and their invariance across male and female samples. Subjects were a stratified random sample of 234 male and 225 female 15-year-old students in Singapore attending Secondary 3 (the equivalent of grade 9). Four first-order factors were found…

Adolescents, ages 11-12 and 13-14, were tested for maturity of judgment about stability-change situations and about time perspective. (CP)

A case study of a pair of extremely deprived twin boys focuses on their verbal communication. Talkativeness alone was not regarded as a measure of intelligence, but attention was paid to the less talkative twin's greater use of imaginative speech. Speculations are made on the evolutionary role of creative speech. (IS)