Investigated personality dimensions concomitant with learner's cognitive rigidity. Results indicated the personality dimensions of tenseness, compulsivity, group dependency, absent-mindedness, sensitivity, and emotional stability explained 36 percent of the variability in subjects' increasing levels of cognitive rigidity. Showed a pervasive use of…

Researchers from several disciplines have contributed to the realization that context or social situation varies in regard to a child's language acquisition. Children acquire both linguistic competence, the unconscious understanding of grammatical rules, and communicative competence, the understanding that language is used differently in different…

Eighty children between the ages of 6 and 13 were asked to indicate and compare the needs and earnings of doctors, bus drivers, waiters, and shopkeepers. Youngest children did not perceive that unmet needs existed. Older children recognized the needs but sharply disagreed about inequalities. (Author/DB)

This paper examines the mental processes involved in inferring perspective changes resulting from the rotation of a spatial array or from the rotation of the viewer of that array. Under certain conditions, viewer-rotation problems become easy and array-rotation problems become difficult. Apparently, an array is fixed vis-a-vis the spatial context.…

Conservation judgments are based on a combination of logical necessity and empirical belief. Results of two experiments support the view that the logical aspect of conservation is developmentally stable, while the empirical aspect varies widely across problems and individuals because of its dependence on relevant experience. (Author/RD)

The forms and functions of nonverbal gestures accompanying verbal directives in the free play of three children were examined. Results showed that gestures supplement verbal communication and increase in complexity with age, supporting the viewpoint that language develops as a social and cognitive skill. (PMJ)

Studied 72 children for whom the following data were available: IQ score on a conventional test (WISC or Stanford-Binet); Goodenough-Harris drawing test IQ score; and behavior description by the test administrator. Personality traits of children who performed better on either the graphic or conventional IQ test were assessed. (SJL)

The mental and psychomotor development of 35 severely malnourished infants in Chile were examined during nutritional and psychological treatment. There was a significant difference between younger and older infants in their response to the treatment. (Author/DLS)

Faced with a problem in which the probability of obtaining the correct answer was 70 percent, 2 of 23 kindergartners and 18 of 19 second graders generated an appropriate strategy. When the probability of a chance correct response was reduced to .45, 23 of 35 kindergartners generated an appropriate strategy. (Author/GDC)

Two opposite views of the relations between moral cognition and moral action are described, their contrasting assumptions and implications are clarified, and the available empirical literature is reviewed. Research relating moral reasoning to real-life moral behaviors is summarized, with special attention given to design, measurement, and…

Discussed is research which shows, in contrast to the dominant impression given by Piaget's work, that before the onset of schooling the young child possesses several kinds of fundamental "intuitions" concerning numbers. (Author/TG)

The confluence model of cognitive development was tested on 7,060 children. Family size, sibling order within family sizes, and hypothesized age-dependent effects were tested. Findings indicated an inverse relationship between family size and the cognitive measures; age-dependent effects and other confluence variables were found to be…

Notes the resurgence of fathering over the last decade and reviews existing literature on the direct and indirect impact of fathers on children's cognitive and psychosocial development during four growth stages: infancy, preschool, middle childhood, and adolescence. (SJL)

The author presents a rationale for kindergarten English instruction for the five-year-old Spanish-dominant child. To support his view, he cites research on cognitive development and language acquisiton during early childhood and discusses the appropriateness of the kindergarten environment for language learning. (SJL)

Defines interpersonal communication competence, describes a competency-based course offered at the University of Cincinnati, and reports the results of research testing the effects of a skills approach to interpersonal communication instruction. Tests for specific skills of empathy, descriptiveness, owning thoughts and feelings, and…