The problematic results of longitudinal studies on college writing indicate the need for multidimensional studies to be able to explore perceptible changes in students' writing. Accordingly a small pilot case study, to explore the promise and the limitations of doing a longitudinal multidimensional study, investigated whether impromptu essays…

Discusses a study of writing revision in which all the writing done in two sections of a writing course was collected and draft-to-draft revisions were studied. Suggests that revision depends as much on acquisition of topical knowledge as on level of cognitive development. (SR)

Analyzes the developmental patterns in the production of analogy by second-, fourth-, and sixth-grade students to determine whether children use different types of analogy as they achieve linguistic maturity. (HOD)

Describes a study which explored developmental changes in preschoolers' knowledge of the writing system. The children were asked to write four utterances without knowing the purpose of the request and without additional explanations. The purpose was to determine how early children's graphic responses in decontextualized situations have features of…

A study examined how specific developmental levels of cognitive ability affect the relationship between beliefs and performance; how cognitive development levels affect reading and writing performance; and how developmental level affects the interactions between the reading and writing domains. Subjects, 150 undergraduates between the ages of 18…

Reports on research that showed that preformal-operational fourth graders could indeed benefit from classroom writing instruction on the higher-order skill of persuasive writing. (SR)

The major developmental challenge for children is not simply to create a unified text world but to move among multiple worlds, carrying out multiple roles and coordinating multiple space/time structures. A study observed eight primary-grade students over a 2-year period and focused on the interrelationships between children's creation of written…

Investigates 156 third, fifth, and ninth grade students to determine whether the revising/editing process is related to age or instruction and learning. Finds that the tendency to engage in revision/editing is more related to one's writing ability than it is to age or level of cognitive development. (MG)

A study examined the developmental nature of early literacy in relation to variations in task demands, general cognitive development, and socioeconomic background. Subjects (N=32) were placed in two groups of 16 suburban Chicago kindergarten students that were designated either low income group (LIG) or high income group (HIG). The subjects,…

A study analyzed and described the writing development of 24 children in a multiethnic inner city classroom in Canada to learn whether there were measurable differences among native speakers, bilinguals, and English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) beginners. Writing samples were analyzed for describing, interpreting, generalizing, and speculating…

The relationships between the understandings children develop while learning the written form of their own names and those developed while learning other words were examined in a study. Twelve children, aged three, four, and five, were selected. The study involved three tasks which examined the subjects' expertise with letters, numbers, and the…

Compared linguistic flexibility of deaf and hearing children aged 8 to 15 by examining relative frequencies of their nonliteral constructions in stories written and signed or spoken. Considered seven types of nonliteral constructions. Results suggest deaf children are more competent linguistically and cognitively than are hearing children. (SKC)

To investigate the relationship between the intellectual maturity of college students and evidence of rhetorical maturity in their writing, 70 student essays were evaluated on three independent measures: W. G. Perry's scale of intellectual development, P. G. Diederich's scale of writing competence, and a measure of audience awareness based on the…

A study was conducted to investigate the relationship between the intellectual maturity of college students and evidence of rhetorical maturity in their writing--specifically, why some students write better than others, since general language abilities cannot account for all the differences between good and poor writing. By focusing on college…

Through an original analysis of letters written by 8 students at 4 grade levels (grades 7 through 13), this paper shows the relationship between individual affective and cognitive development and social awareness. Specifically, their relationships are shown by analyzing the writer, the text, and the instructor. Results indicate that seventh grade…