Described is an empirical and rational inquiry into the formation of a small set of special or geometrical concepts of young children. The approach taken by the author is to attempt to specify intellectual growth in one particular area, a child's acquisition of diagonality, in such a way as to be representative. That is, to give a clean portrayal…

To test role-taking development 60 middle class subjects, 10 boys and 10 girls of each age (4, 5, and 6), were administered a role-taking task designed to enable the role-taker ("S") to make and explain predictions about a peer's responses to a situation in which "S" has information not available to the peer. Results suggested…

The research contained in this report is directed at the problem of assessing structures of knowledge in science. Toward this end graduate as well as undergraduate students were asked to make judgments of the perceived similarity of expressions that mark or label concepts in the subject matter of physics. An apriori model of the structure of…

The following are sketched in outline form: (1) functional antecedents and their implications for language--assimilation, accommodation, circular reactions/ feedback processes, classification, discrimination, functional equivalence, representation, transformation, communications; (2) semantic antecedents and their implications for language--human…

The purpose was to investigate the influence of variations in conservation form and perceptual modality on the expressed level of understanding of the conservation of weight concept, and to determine if these variations result in significantly different observed rates of concept development. Sampling included 225 children, five to twelve years…

Sixteen 9-18 month normal/superior infants "played" in their home cribs with a two-channel operant "toy" which allowed free choice between alternate audio feedbacks. With more than 300,000 seconds of listening time in the response record, 12 babies successfully discriminated gross differences in auditory complexity, while 10 discriminated fine…

A theory that there is a correspondence between Piagetian conservation operations and groups of symmetry transformations, and that these symmetry transformations may be used in explaining human problem solving behaviors, is developed in this paper. Current research in artificial intelligence is briefly reviewed, then details of the symmetry…

The paper reviews a theory advanced by Satz and Sparrow (1970) which purports to explain the nature and cause of specific developmental dyslexia, and evaluates several developmental hypotheses which are generated bythe theory. The theory postulates that developmental dyslexia is not a unitary syndrome but rather reflects a lag in the maturation of…

Thirteen conference papers focus on the education of educable (EMR) and trainable (TMR) mentally retarded children. Topics include comparisons of development of reasoning, moral judgment, moral conduct, and long term memory in normals and retardates. Other papers examine use of an interactive unit in teaching arithmetic, verbal information…

CURRENT MODELS OF DECISION-MAKING AND RELATED RESEARCH IN CONNECTION WITH CERTAIN DEVELOPMENTAL TASKS OF ADOLESCENTS WERE REVIEWED. THE DECISION ELEMENTS RECEIVING THEORETICAL ATTENTION WERE (1) DECISION-PROCESS PHASES, (2) DECISION-OUTCOME PROBABILITIES AND STRUCTURAL COMPONENTS, (3) DECISION-PLAN DIMENSIONS, (4) DECISION STRATEGIES, AND (5)…

THE EFFECT OF PLANNED GUIDANCE ON THE PROBLEM-SOLVING BEHAVIOR OF ELEMENTARY STUDENTS WAS INVESTIGATED. FACTORS RELATED TO CHANGES IN PROBLEM-SOLVING BEHAVIORS WERE IDENTIFIED. APPROXIMATELY 50 PERCENT OF THE SIXTH-GRADE STUDENTS INCLUDED IN THE STUDY WERE GIVEN INQUIRY TRAINING 30 TO 60 MINUTES DAILY FOR 3 WEEKS. AN INVENTORY OF SCIENCE PROCESSES…

This paper reports a study carried out with 14 children (ranging in age from 2.8 to 3.5 years) which investigated children's concepts of difference. Pairs of small objects differing on a number of dimensions were presented to the children. As each pair of objects was presented, children were asked to select the object that was…

Two studies (1) investigated memory strategies in subjects with different levels of classification skills, and (2) examined the role of early classification skills in memory. Subjects in Study 1 were 60 (kindergarten and first-grade) children. Classification skills were assessed by a pretest. Subjects were assigned to one of two conditions, free…

This paper describes studies which investigated the nature of the relationship between number of categories and recall performance in children, and attempted to determine whether the category-recall effect increases developmentally. A series of three studies was designed so that grade level and stimulus difficulty would not be confounded.…

The relationship between the development of reversible thought and performance in arithmetic equations among children was investigated. Subjects were 86 second grade boys and girls. Two reversibility tasks and 20 addition and subtraction equations were administered. Results indicated significant correlations between the two variables only among…