Effects of the importance of plot-relevant information on 4- to 6-year-old children's memory for four televised stories was examined in two experiments. Free recall and cued recall of idea units rated for importance by college students were assessed. Recognition following failed cued recall was also assessed. (Author/BN)

Three degrees of cognitive processing were tapped by four problem types when 60 children between four and eight years were administered a set of geometry tasks differing in complexity. Analysis revealed that the tasks differed in difficulty, task success was related to age, and a hierarchical sequence existed among the skills. (SKC)

Explores the development of children's ability to plan their drawings. Presents a conceptual framework and a process-structural model of the planning of drawings in childhood. Two experiments support the model's prediction of different patterns of results as a function of the working memory capacity of the subjects. (SKC)

Used single-subject analyses to examine the developmental difficulty of the ulterior motive question (the backward inverse inference) in five- and seven-year-olds. Results suggest that children's difficulties with ulterior motive information result both from the abstract nature and the logical form of the task. (Author/SKC)

Tested the hypothesis that some attempts to reduce the performance demands of concrete Piagetian operational tasks may have allowed children to solve those tasks with preoperational functions. Administered two previously used versions of the transitivity task for length and weight to 120 children six- to nine-years-old. The second version was…

Assessed adult age differences for cognitive reality monitoring as a function of whether the terminal position in a sentence was completed with an externally presented or internally generated word. Found older women (N=20) made slightly more attributions than younger women (N=20) even though the younger women accurately recognized a higher…

Performed confirmatory factor analyses of Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children (K-ABC) using subtest correlations for standardization samples provided in manuals to test hypothesis that factors underlying K-ABC are substantially intercorrelated at all age levels for two- and three-factor models. Findings suggest K-ABC cannot distinguish between…

Reveals that story grammar research has provided educators with new insights into how children comprehend simple stories. Describes evidence for the existence of story schema, presents results of developmental story grammar research, and recommends teaching strategies based on the research. (RWB)

Two conflicting developmental accounts of how mental states are used in evaluating actors were tested by varying actors' intentionality, foreknowledge of outcome, and the values of motive and outcome. Findings suggested that children use intentionality before knowledge in judgments of action sequences and that actor's foreknowledge of an outcome…

Used four experiments to examine retrieval access and item-by-item search processes and strategies in the cued recall of children in grades 3 and 6, and of adults. Results suggested that retrieval access is a problem for young children and contributes strongly to developmental increases in recall. Adults used retrieval strategies, although search…

Four experiments examined the contribution of item-by-item retrieval search processes to developmental differences in cued recall. Results indicated that developmental cued recall differences remained even when access, constraint, search object, and knowledge base problems were controlled or minimized. (SKC)

The optimal way of imparting abilities to reason and to make decisions under uncertainty in undergraduate medical education is discussed in view of existing cognitive development theories of adults. Implications of these theories and published observations on the ways of thinking of undergraduate medical students are considered. Presented are…

Presents developmental therapy as supplement to life span theory which can provide specific suggestions for clinical-counseling interventions that may be used to assess developmental level of clients, select counseling skills and theory to match client cognitive-developmental level, and obtain feedback on intervention effectiveness. Discusses…

In two experiments, 168 subjects aged 8-22 years performed visual search and memory search tasks (experiment 1) or memory search, mental rotation, analogical reasoning, and mental addition tasks (experiment 2). Increases with age in speeds of visual and memory search were described well by exponential functions. (SKC)

Responds to Biggs' article on the case presentation approach in clinical supervision. Notes that Biggs provides one of the few discussions explicating the tasks in case conceptualizations useful for enhancing cognitive development available in the literature. Raises concerns about Biggs' assumptions about the cognitive level of trainees and the…