Maintains that young children learn to think when they act on objects, thus developing what Piaget refers to as physical and logico-mathematical knowledge. Teachers can encourage thinking/mental action by creating situations that are personally meaningful to the children, by providing decision-making opportunities, and by providing opportunities…

Examines the development of intuitive theories of motion among college students and children between the ages of 4 and 12. School-aged children made more erroneous predictions on the path a ball takes upon exiting a curved tube than preschoolers, kindergarteners, and college students. Results related to the "growth error." (Author/BB)

Describes two experiments that examined the effects of quantity and depth of processing on elementary school children's time perception. (HOD)

Discusses the concept of learner strategy in relation to language learning. Proposes that these strategies can be subdivided into four categories: strategies for coping with target language rules, strategies for receiving performance, strategies for producing performance, and strategies for organizing learning. Stresses the encouragement of the…

Effects of object training and photograph training on comprehension of category labels by 10 severely mentally retarded children and adolescents were explored. Results indicated that acquisition and transfer did not differ, yet generalization was significantly more accurate with objects than with photographs. Futhermore, generalization was…

Assesses the hazards of models of cognitive development and the positivist views of language that support them. Considers how alternative views of language and learning can help develop a method of teaching that views reading and writing as interpretation and the making of meaning. (RBW)

Educators can improve children's thinking skills through the following five steps: (1) identifying and defining the desirable thinking skills, (2) identifying the components of these skills, (3) providing systematic skills instruction, (4) integrating the teaching of thinking skills with various content areas, and (5) improving skills testing.…

The renewed interest in teaching thinking skills results from concern about the failings of the current system. Some thinking skills programs emphasize cognitive processes, while others are concerned with heuristics, development of formal operations, language and symbols, or thinking as subject matter. (TE)

Herman Epstein's theory correlating children's learning capacity with periodic spurts and plateaus in brain growth is predicated on inadequate data and questionable interpretations thereof, and it is discredited by highly respected scholars, including those he cites. Applying this theory to classroom practice is therefore irresponsible and…

This study investigates the influences and relationships between self-concept elements and students' activities in a normal school environment and focuses on individual self-construct. Interest has an important effect on an individual's learning process and behavior. There are three common definitions of interest: (1) interest as a characteristic…

Argues that how a child and the television set intereact, and its success as instruction, is determined by the design of program content and the degree to which it reflects understanding of the developmental process, discussing two programs which attempt to present solid academic material to young children through television. (Author/JM)

Examines the importance of (1) dimensional characteristics of stimuli present in discrimination transfer tasks, (2) having contrasting stimuli presented simultaneously, and (3) subjects age. Subjects were rural Mexican youths, ages 4 to 10. Reversal and nonreversal type discrimination transfer problems were used in the study. (DP)

Communication is examined as a process generic to and compatible with the evolution of the neurologic substrates, the expression of emotion, and the developmental progression and acquisition of intelligence. (Author)

The present study is based on a form of task analysis that explicates in detail the hypothesized solution behavior of skilled performers of the task. (Authors)

The purpose of this paper is to review Professor Peters' notion of education as initiation' and to suggest that it involves a paradox of freedom for both teachers and pupils. (Author)