This paper examines the category-theoretic formulation of cognitive development introduced by Piaget in the late 1960's and elaborated during the 1970's. The new theory is interpreted as the focal point of Piaget's investigations into topics such as function, correspondences, and commutability. Hypotheses arising from Piaget's new model were…

The growing move to reintegrate special education within the general education system forms the background and rationale for this paper's proposals. Discussion includes the suggestion that general education students can benefit from explicit instruction in learning strategies which have been primarily used with only learning disabled students.…

The paper reviews cognitive development during the sensorimotor period (approximately the first two years of life) and considers approaches to assessing multihandicapped, deaf-blind, or severely/profoundly retarded students functioning at this level. Evaluation and training of basic sensorimotor schemes (visual fixation and tracking, sucking, and…

The paper addresses the assessment of sensorimotor and communication skills in profoundly/multiply handicapped children. The problems inherent in assessing this population are described, including lack of validity of developmental norms established on children with intact sensory systems. Factors affecting sensory organization are reviewed,…

Preschoolers' event descriptions indicate that they are able to engage in displaced reference, use timeless verb forms, report optional and conditional relationships, appropriately sequence events, engage in temporal reversibility, and appropriately use a number of relational terms, all at a much younger age than has traditionally been believed…

Increase in sex-role knowledge represents an early stage of the development of sex role stereotypes in children, which is followed by a decrease in the extent of sex-role discrimination. This process is related to the acquisition of classificatory skills. Groups of children aged 4-10 years were tested for their sex role stereotypes and…

Metalinguistic cognition is the ability to think about language, to comment on it, to produce it, to comprehend it, and to manipulate language as an object with many identifiable and functional parts. It appears that metalinguistic skill development is related to cognitive development and is dependent on metalinguistic awareness which runs…

Some feel that a persistent shortcoming of the collective views of human action is that they often advocate a view of the individual as merely a bearer or token for the group to which he or she belongs. These theories do not account for individual choice. This project attempts to arrive at a general critique of individualism, drawing on a number…

The science learning cycle developed by Robert Karplus and others in the 1960's has been a useful model for many science teachers and researchers. This model stresses the use of structured inquiry to organize knowledge acquisition and problem solving. Recent research in the cognitive science tradition, however, has shown that learning and problem…

A survey of research findings on environmental and person variables provides clues as to what is required in a high quality infant-toddler program. One of the most important components of such a program is a loving, responsive caregiver. Research has shown that there are specific adult qualities that nurture the roots of intellectual competence,…

Research using expectancy models has shown contraceptive choice among adults to be a rational process in that intentions and behaviors reflect an individual's beliefs, values, attitudes, and perceptions of social norms. This study examined whether such an approach could accurately represent adolescents' contraceptive decision-making. It used the…

The study examined the effectiveness of enhancing perceptual differentiation in the training of four developmentally delayed preschool children who were so low-functioning that they did not demonstrate oddity responding (ability to choose one distinct stimulus from a group of identical stimuli). Instead of the Arabic numerals used in the original…

This exploratory study was designed to investigate the explanatory and predictive power of the transaction between affect and cognition in the account of transitions across developmental stages within various domains. Subjects were 21 undergraduate college students from a course on intellectual development taught at Tufts University…

To examine whether or not retarded individuals have the same structure of intelligence as normal IQ individuals, test scores from the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised (WISC-R), Reitan's Trail Making Test (TMT), and Beery's Developmental Test of Visual Motor Integration (VMI) for both a mildly retarded and normal IQ population of…

This paper reports a follow-up study of 5-, 7-, and 9-year-old subjects who had participated in an investigation of the nature of children's and adults' ability to graphically represent expressive qualities (i.e., happy, sad, angry, loud, quiet, hard). In the original study, the use of literal representation (such as a smiling face on a tree) and…