The spatial analogical responding of preschool children, first graders, and college students was compared on two tasks in which body parts were mapped onto drawings of trees and mountains. Results showed that young children performed as well as or better than adults. (JMB)

Hispanic and French Canadian experience have shown that culturally advantaged middle-class students usually have an easier time acquiring a second language than do more socially deprived young people whose parents are not future-oriented--ethnic background is important because some groups place a higher premium on learning another language.…

This study examined the scalability and structural unity of comprehension of ideas from eight positions in the sequential model detailing changes in college students' views of knowledge and authority. (Author/JMB)

The study of 10 congenitally blind and 10 sighted children (ages 3 through 9) indicated that preoperational thought patterns of nominal realism remain longer for blind than for sighted children indicating a delay in (Piagetian) cognitive development of congenitally blind children and their need for appropriate cognitive and linguistic experiences.…

The author develops a model for adult cognitive development useful for providers of lifelong education. The model is based on a framework relating the receiving of information to gaining knowledge, leading to wisdom. (CH)

Used a combination of observational and experimental methods to assess young children's (aged 2 years, 11 months to 4 years, 9 months) comprehension of "if" and "because" expressions. Found significant increases in spontaneous "if" and "because" expressions between 3 and 4 years, and improvement on…

Investigated whether young children (ages 2-5) could use spatial categorization as a mnemonic strategy. Three experiments found the children capable of spatially organizing objects as a strategy in the service of future retrieval. There were clear developmental trends in the deployment of categorization. (SKC)

Investigated deferred imitation ability for six actions in 14-month-old infants. After a week's delay, infants were tested on their ability to imitate the actions.Those who had been exposed to modeling produced significantly higher instances of the target actions. (SKC)

An argument that Binet must be regarded as a major theoretician of functional intelligence and should be considered for what is regarded as classical intelligence theory is advanced. A discourse on Binet's theory, its intellectual context and the developments it fostered is given. (JL)

In order to demonstrate how online databases can be used to provide a picture of the state of research in a discipline, an online search was performed in PSYCHINFO to determine the frequency of publication of articles focusing on some aspect of cognitive development during 1976, 1978, and 1980 in six representative journals. (7 references)…

Data indicate that for girls, affective dispositional factors (empathy, depressive affectivity, aggression, and self-concept) are intimately linked to cognitive development and academic achievement. (PCB)

Historical views of play are summarized. Research on the role of childhood play in developmental and learning processes is reviewed. Implications from research and suggestions to promote a play environment are listed. (MT)

Studies children's inductive inferences in order to investigate the development of the expectation that members of a category share unforeseen properties. Results indicate that preschoolers drew more inferences based on category membership than on perceptual appearances. (PCB)

Although creativity courses in the academic community often are not taken seriously, they can and should be a transformational journey for the student, involving exciting but sometimes painful unlearning of old structures and development of new conceptual systems. (DB)

Kim (1985) found that both English-speaking and Korean-speaking children find true negative sentences more difficult to verify than false negative sentences. A closer examination of the findings reveals that the difficulty is greater among Korean-speaking children. (Author/RH)