The theories of cognitive development put forth by William Perry and by Jean Piaget are helpful in understanding the writing choices students made in responding to an assignment involving writing a persuasive essay. Some students were looking for the "Right Answer" and when they found it, they assumed that everyone would agree with them.…

The relationship between children's cognitive developmental level, as assessed by Piagetian tasks, and their performance on measures of intellectual and neuropsychological functioning was studied. Eight female and 22 male children--ages 8 to 12 years (mean=10.3)--with negative electroencephalographs and neurologic screening and no history of brain…

To learn about teachers' conceptualization of memory strategy use, memory knowledge, and developmental changes in these skills, investigators administered a questionnaire to 59 teachers of children in kindergarten through sixth grades. The questionnaire included sections on strategy use, metamemory skills, and memory monitoring and control…

Three 5-year-old Japanese children with no meaningful words were the subjects of an intervention program. The subjects and therapists played the "shopping game" (in the first term) and the "riding car game" (in the second term) with rules within the subjects' cognitive ability and in a setting designed to facilitate…

Research on the nature of gifted children's learning is reviewed. Studies are cited on the following topics: cognitive style (learning style preferences, field independence/dependence, locus of control, and hemispheric specialization), cognitive development (differentiated stage development), cognitive strategy selection (components of problem…

The Future Homemakers of America (FHA) organization has historically provided an ideal climate for development of critical thinking by devoting conscious attention to thinking, teaching skills directly, and providing opportunities for interaction through cooperative learning and discussion. Strategies for expanding the knowledge base and building…

An inservice model was developed to assist teachers in asking students the kinds of questions that facilitate higher order thinking. Higher order thinking involves problem identification and definition, hypothesizing, collecting, analyzing and synthesizing data, and formulating conclusions that upon application will prove valid. Based on this…

A study examined differences in television viewing behaviors and attitudes across age groups of children in their home environment. Personal interviews were conducted with 162 children, ages 5 to 12, in a midwestern elementary school. The interview assessed home environment (1) television viewing relationships, including viewing companion and…

A cognitive training strategy was employed to investigate the nature of development in children's concepts of death. Subjects ranging in age from 3 to 11 years and attending Jewish-affiliated preschools participated in the study. Measures of verbal concept formation, abstract reasoning, general intelligence, and ability to conserve were…

This paper discusses a model of information storage and retrieval, the k-d tree (Bentley, 1975), a binary, hierarchical tree with multiple associate terms, which has been explored in computer research, and it is suggested that this model could be useful for describing human cognition. Included are two models of human long-term memory--networks and…

Explored were two issues raised by hypothesizing a direct link between number and functions: the relative contribution of distinct types of functions to numerical reasoning and the contribution of functions relative to the contribution of logic. Seventy-two children between the ages of 5 and 7 years were individually tested on measures of…

Information-processing students solving problems in the 1960s and 1970s accepted the tradition of early experimental psychology in concentrating primarily on the study of "knowledge-lean" tasks in which competence can usually be acquired over short periods of learning and experience. In recent years, experts have examined knowledge-rich…

A discussion is provided of the use of computers in writing instruction at the community and junior college level. After providing an account of the introduction of computer technology into the author's personal and professional life, the paper outlines ways in which the computer can be used to teach writing skills. Following an analysis of the…

Case's cognitive developmental theory was used in an investigation of unconstrained drawings by children 4, 6, 8, and 10 years of age. The objectives were: (1) to look for qualitative changes in drawing at these ages, (2) to relate whatever changes were found to qualitative changes in other tasks during the same period, and (3) to test whether a…

The paper describes a pilot project in which 17 hearing impaired adolescents are participating in a program to improve thinking skills via the Instrumental Enrichment (IE) approach. IE focuses on concepts by suggesting alternative strategies by which the learner can arrive at the objective, thus allowing for opportunities to reflect on one's own…