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…

Measured the pattern goodness effect at visual encoding stages and short term memory stages in observers aged 6 to 22 years using a speeded sequential same-different paradigm. Found goodness effects were larger in short term memory for all subjects, memory effects decreased with age, and encoding effects remained constant. (SKC)

Children (ages 9 and 14) with mild mental retardation and matched controls without mental retardation were given a test of their ability to perceive relations among different stimuli and transfer learned behavior from familiar to less familiar environments. Results showed that subjects with retardation relied only on prototype information, whereas…

Discovered that the introduction of piano keyboarding into elementary school music instruction produced a positive effect regarding children's sentiment towards school. No discernible effect was revealed concerning memory skills. Includes statistical data and description of survey questionnaires. (MJP)