In order to directly relate research on children's thinking to curriculum development in the social studies, this study approximates the conditions and substances of daily classroom life and examines the levels of abstraction in children's thinking about complex social problems. The subjects include 210 boys and girls in equal numbers in grades…

Middle and upper class 3- and 4-year-old children were exposed to three consecutive 5-week treatment conditions in the naturalistic setting of a half-day laboratory nursery school program. During the first treatment condition, the teacher emphasized low level cognitive questions; during the second, high level cognitive questions; and during the…

This handbook contains 35 brief activity guides designed to be used by parents at home with their 4-year-old children in conjunction with the Saturday School Program. The aim of the Home Phase of the program is to provide learning experiences in two ways: (1) through Home Teaching Visits involving the Saturday School teacher, neighborhood children…

Human development from about ages 2 to 5 is presented in terms of the history of a child conceptualized in terms of stimulus and response functions and his interactions in current situations which consist of organismic, physical, and social conditions. The concepts describing the changes that occur during this developmental period, such as…

The present study was designed to explore the possibility that exposure to the "Misterogers' Neighborhood" program might increase the likelihood of spontaneous imaginative play in preschool children who watched the program over a period of two weeks. The specific focus of this investigation was to determine whether a well-produced…

This study attempted to ameliorate the educational deficits of infants using structured tutorial programs of language and concept training in the home. It was part of a larger project whose purpose was to determine the age at which intervention will produce maximum acceleration of cognitive development. Subjects were 20 disadvantaged 8- and…

Twenty mothers of culturally disadvantaged children took part in a program of self-help which was both child- and mother-centered. Two groups of ten mothers each met weekly with two staff members over an 8-month period and were trained to tutor their infants (1 to 2-years-old) in their homes. Fifteen of the initial 20 mothers remained in the…

Are children intellectually impaired as a result of low birth weight and does relative impairment change as children grow older? Premature infants from a range of socioeconomic groups were studied in five rounds over 13 years to provide neurological, psychological, achievement, and sociological data on 582 children in three birth weight groups. A…

The monograph presents the findings of a decade long research project on the cognitive learning of children. Several other areas of general significance involved in the work are also treated. These include: (1) the importance of the work to the development of basic learning theory; (2) certain developments in methodology and in a philosophy of…

A Piagetian preschool emphasizes the child's active construction of mental images rather than passive association of words and pictures with real objects. The role of the teacher is neither to dictate good behavior nor to transmit ready-made predigested knowledge. Her role is to help the child to control his own behavior and to find things out as…

The development of an instrument for evaluating cognitive growth in preprimary children by means of observational techniques is reported. Areas of growth in pre-mathematic skills were defined for this purpose as: Imitating, recognizing, classifying, matching, comparing, understanding, counting, computing, and measuring. Each is described, and…

Twenty-seven kindergarten children were trained on two different double classification matrix tasks in an attempt to determine whether the tasks were hierarchically related. Prior behavior analyses of the tasks suggested that the two tasks shared many components, but that the more complex task had in addition components not included in the simpler…

This paper attempts to summarize the state of the field of educational anthropology, as it relates to studies of educational institutions and processes. Major research done by anthropologists in three areas--school ethnographies, school-community contacts with ethnic minorities, and cognitive and linguistic development--is reviewed. Topics covered…

This report was compiled to serve as a partial knowledge base for the Southeastern Educational Laboratory and the Harlem Research Center in their effort to plan a research program in early education. Educational programs designed for 3-, 4-, and 5-year-old children which emphasize either cognitive-intellectual development or language development…

Educational experiences which facilitate the development of original thinking and learning are (1) the "open system" of education which stresses freedom at home and at school; (2) the emphasis on sensory awareness of the environment; (3) the development of curiosity and sense of wonder; (4) the growth of imaginative powers and original thinking…