Examines the development of intuitive theories of motion among college students and children between the ages of 4 and 12. School-aged children made more erroneous predictions on the path a ball takes upon exiting a curved tube than preschoolers, kindergarteners, and college students. Results related to the "growth error." (Author/BB)

Focusing on the brain's natural functions, this article discusses specific teacher characteristics, teaching methods, and peripheral stimuli helping to activate appropriate learning behavior. Also identifies particular events and teacher behaviors that block learning and frustrate the brain's efforts to harmonize conflicts and admit new…

Mathematically gifted boys (N=77) and girls (N=62) completed a mathematics reasoning test, a verbal reasoning test, a measure of spatial ability, and a personality test. Findings indicated that boys not only have higher mathematical reasoning ability than girls, but also that this ability is the single best predictor of their mathematical…

Reports on two studies during which 6-, 8-, and 10-year-old children were interviewed about three different types of regularities or rules: social conventions, physical laws, and logical necessities. Shows that older children made more distinctions between social and nonsocial items than did younger children. (HOD)

Describes four experiments conducted among adults and 3- to 7-year-olds to validate a task analysis that indicates that the equality, group enhancement, and superiority social decisions require a greater information processing load than the altruism, rivalry, and individualism social decisions. (HOD)

Describes two experiments that examined the effects of quantity and depth of processing on elementary school children's time perception. (HOD)

Through an examination of story content, determines whether the conceptions of peer and parent-child relations of black children from lower income families are altered by the experience of parental maltreatment. (HOD)

Comparison of production and comprehension methods in teaching six 3-year-old language disordered children the relationship between semantic role and word order indicated the production method (the children produced sentences contrasting word order and meaning) was more effective than the comprehension method (the children responded to contrasting…

Examines the mental development scores for two groups of at-risk infants throughout their childhood--those classified as small for gestational age (SGA) and those twins falling below 1,750g birth weight--and determines that SGA twins showed only a modest deficit in IQ scores as compared to the full twin samples. (HOD)

Since early research had shown that a total score on 27 Piagetian tasks was very highly correlated with a Wechsler and achievement composite, a study investigated the possibility of shortening the Piagetian test by means of classical analysis methodology. (HOD)

Compared 12 right-handed adolescent females with a history of idiopathic precocious puberty to 12 closely pair-matched normal controls of similar maturational status to test the association of physical maturation with cognitive abilities and the mediation of this association by hemispheric specialization. (HOD)

Presents a developmental taxonomy which promotes sequencing activities to enhance the potential of matching these activities with learner needs and readiness, suggesting that the order commonly found in the classroom needs to be inverted. The proposed taxonomy (story, skill, and algorithm) involves problem-solving emphasis in the classroom. (JN)

Using a microcomputer "dart" game, this study of 61 primary school students investigated how children of different ages used counting to make numerical estimates. Results showed developmental differences in accuracy of estimation, fluency in counting and sophistication of self-reported strategy use. (BS)

The relationship between understanding of friendship and asociality was examined in 91 girls and 104 boys, ages 9 to 17 years. Understanding friendship was significantly related to age and sex. Difficulty in understanding components of friendship appears to be one correlate of boys' delinquent tendencies. (Author/BS)

Reports three experiments which examined preschool, first-grade, and third-grade children's understanding of metaphorical language. Subjects acted out short stories which ended in metaphorical sentences by using toys. Predictability of the story endings and the complexity of the metaphorical sentences are found to affect metaphor comprehension.…