Presented is a theory of learning handicaps based on psychoeducational and developmental considerations. Identified are five of the author's biases about remediation such as the tendency for teachers to continue remediation beyond the point of usefulness. Proposed is the existence of five task requirements such as attending to the task, attaching…

This theoretical paper discusses (1) the meaning of the concept of structure, how the concept of structure is used by psychologists, and how the concept can be defined, and (2) the role of the concept "structure" in cognitive development with specific reference to Piaget's vision of intellectual development. The meanings of the term…

This paper questions evidence for the thesis that causal reasoning of older children is more logical than that of younger ones, and describes two experiments which attempted to determine (1) whether there are true developmental differences in causal reasoning, and (2) what explanations for developmental differences can be supported. In the first…

This paper presents an integrative perspective on infant development (based on a consideration of developmental data) which focuses on the function of the smile. From the earliest spontaneous smiles of the newborn period to mature smiling and laughter, a central role was revealed for an excitation (tension)-relaxation process in producing smiles.…

The purpose of this study was to isolate factors responsible for the discrepant results reported in the advanced organizer literature, and to identify processes children employ when attempting to recall connected verbal materials. The subjects were 64 middle-class children randomly selected from a local school system. An equal number of male and…

A reanalysis of B. Inhelder's (1968) data concerning cognitive development among retardates was performed by selecting from the original 159 subjects a sample of 104 educable mentally retarded Ss (7-19 years old) who were diagnosed as fixated or nonfixated at three of the cognitive stages postulated by Jean Piaget. The results indicated that among…

Eighty four-year-old and 80 seven-year-old subjects were given a standard paired-associate learning (PAL) task and a battery of ability tasks (Labeling, Recognition, Labeling Time, Digit Span, Visual Memory, Spatial Relations, Vocabulary, and the Follow the Instructions test) to investigate the development of individual differences in visual…

This fourth issue of INVESTIGATIONS IN SCIENCE EDUCATION (ISE), designed to provide a new perspective for viewing research articles and to aid in the improvement of writing research reports, includes abstracts prepared by science educators, bibliographical data, the research design and procedure used by the investigators including data, purpose,…

An experiment was conducted in which the relationships of basic television and film codes to particular literacy mental skills were examined. Different versions of the same film, each focusing on a different code, were produced and shown to fifth graders. It was found that children with initially better mastery of the relevant skills extract more…

This study recorded the pretend play behavior of a total of 22 boys and girls aged 20 and 26 months to determine the effects of age, sex, toy type, and order of toy presentation on the amount of pretending observed during two home visits. Each visit consisted of three segments: two play episodes of 10 minutes each and an intervening segment of…

Three unjustified assumptions are often made about young beginners in reading: they all are acquainted with books and reading, the children and the teacher are thinking in the same terms when each talks about reading, and children understand the technical terms of literacy. Reading authorities refer to this lack of understanding of what the…

Evaluated were the cognitive and social development of 40 orthopedially handicapped children ages 6 to 12 years. Social development was measured by the Children's Social Relations Rating Scale, the Children's Social Relations Interview Schedule, and the Children's Role Taking Task. The Concrete Operations Tasks assessed cognitive ability. Data…

The purposes of this study were: (1) to evaluate the effectiveness of audio-tutorial (A-T) instruction and (2) to identify, classify and study differences in problem solving approach using a theoretical framework derived from the ideas of D. P. Ausubel. Seventy of 420 students taking a college introductory non-calculus physics course used A-T…

This study was undertaken to determine reliability and validity estimates for a newly developed preschool inventory of cognitive functioning which provides many advantages over traditionally utilized measures. A predominantly pictorial stimulus-psychomotor response set was the format for the test. The test consisted of a series of 61 items divided…

The problem was to determine the relationship between performance on Piagetian class inclusion tasks and on missing-addend computation and verbal problem tasks for first-Grade students, and to describe the methods used by the children in solving both the missing-addend and the verbal problem tasks. From 168 first-grade students who received a…