Compares 512 second and fifth graders' oral main idea responses to three paragraphs read silently and concludes that main idea responses increase in quality across grade level and that responses to paragraphs differ according to content. Bibliography. (MD)

Classifies subjects as cognitively simple" or cognitively complex" and notes that the latter are much nore successful at reconciling inconsistent information than are the former, whose impressions are formed by the information which makes the greatest impact. (RW)

Investigated the extent to which the Wechsler and Primary Scale of Intelligence (WPPSI) provides items of sufficient difficulty for gifted children (N=306) aged four to six. All subtests investigated were found to have an inadequate level of difficulty, and six were inadequate for half or more of the subjects. (JAC)

Young children's understanding of correspondences and numerical differences between disjoint sets was studied in three experiments. Findings appeared to restrict the theory that young children are limited to perceptually based forms of mathematical reasoning. (Author/MP)

Deals with (1) developmental changes in children's concepts of difficulty and ability and (2) individual differences within different developmental levels. Three levels of understanding of ability and difficulty are proposed, and cross-sectional and longitudinal evidence of progressive development through the stages is presented. (Author/RH)

Techniques of semantic feature analysis are applied to exploration and reinforcement of vocabulary. Students are presented with categories of familiar items and asked to describe their characteristics. The method can be used to elicit sentences, reinforce existing vocabulary, and begin discussion. Sample exercises for several difficulty levels are…

The role of maturational factors in reading acquisition was investigated by exposing children 5.2 to 7.0 years of age to identical learning experiences. Older children significantly outperformed younger ones, suggesting that reading instruction at a later maturational level may be more effective than that performed earlier. (MP)

Examined cross-cultural generalizability of the Stanford-Binet and the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale. Australian and Taiwanese students were asked to rate 27 items for relevance and difficulty; similar notions about what constitutes intelligence were found across cultures. (Author/GC)

Showed that in a task requiring judgments about the concept of "more" based on the relative numerosity of sets, three- to four-year-old children may base their judgments on such parameters as the extent to which the sets are homogeneous with respect to the color of their components. (Author/DB)

Nine children suffering from Landau-Kleffner (L-K) syndrome and 25 children with developmental expressive disorders were tested for comprehension of English grammatical structures in spoken, written, and signed language modalities. L-K children demonstrated comprehension problems in all three language modalities and tended to treat language as…

Examined the development of communicative competence in deaf children and its interactions with use of communicative gestures and/or words. Data indicated (1) the use of communicative gestures increased with age while speech remained constant; and (2) the number of gestures used correlated with communicative accuracy. Difficulty level influenced…

The effects of interpersonal cooperation, competition, and individualistic efforts were compared on math and reading drill-review, story problems, sequencing, triangle identification, and visual sorting according to attributes tasks, using first-grade students. The cooperative group achieved higher scores and found the tasks easier than the…

Four levels of notetaking (summary, paraphrase, verbatim, and letter search) were used to control depth of processing of a prose passage with high school students, who then either reviewed their notes or read an interpolated text. Results favored groups with deeper levels of processing on two post-tests. (Author/RD)