Ninety-seven children aged 4-11 (49 males, 48 females, mostly White) were given the opportunity to improve their problem-solving performance by devising and implementing a novel cognitive offloading strategy. Across two phases, they searched for hidden rewards using maps that were either aligned or misaligned with the search space. In the second…

This study used a machine learning framework in conjunction with a large battery of measures from 9,718 school-age children (ages 9-11) from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development[superscript SM] (ABCD) Study to identify factors associated with fluid cognitive functioning (FCF), or the capacity to learn, solve problems, and adapt to novel…

Using a means-means-ends problem-solving task, this study examined whether 16-month-old walking infants (N = 28) took into account the width of a bridge as a means for crossing a precipice and the location of a handrail as a means for augmenting balance on a narrow bridge. Infants were encouraged to cross from one platform to another over narrow…

This study examined parent-child emotion discourse, children's independent social information processing, and social skills outcomes in 146 families of 8-year-olds with and without developmental delays. Children's emergent social-cognitive understanding (internal state understanding, perspective taking, and causal reasoning and problem solving)…

Six experiments examined children's ability to make inferences using temporal order information. Children completed versions of a task involving a toy zoo; one version required reasoning about past events (search task) and the other required reasoning about future events (planning task). Children younger than 5 years failed both the search and the…

Investigated the effects of caregiving experience on adults' thinking about a child-rearing problem. Study 1 found that, of 192 adults, parents were better than nonparents at diagnosing the cause of a baby's crying. Study 2 extended the first study's findings to 42 mothers and 42 nonmothers. (SKC)

A total of 82 fourth and fifth graders participated in a 15-week intervention program during which they confronted problems requiring formal operational thought. Subjects showed advancement toward formal operations on the pendulum and chemicals problems (Inhelder and Piaget) and on a third problem on immediate and 4-month posttests. (Author/JH)

In terms of Kagan's theory of the problem-solving process, this study explores the relationship between reflection-impulsivity, hypothesis generation and testing, and evaluation of the quality of one's own solutions among children approximately 8 to 12 years old. (JMB)

Investigates the asserted differences in reasoning between adults and second, fourth, and sixth graders in a manipulation of variables task using class inclusion and story problems with common everyday situations. Results are discussed in terms of sensible reasoning and problem-solving skills. (CM)

Cognitive organization in problem solving was investigated using a transfer paradigm. (SB)

Explores the role of premature cognitive closure in the development of inferential reasoning among 62 children aged 7, 9, and 12 years through two studies. Results indicate that despite a strong tendency to close on single alternatives, most children correctly assigned nonzero probabilities to each of the possible alternatives. (RJC)

Choice and use of problem-solving strategies were monitored during a picture comparison task for 90 kindergarten, second and fourth grade boys and girls. (SB)

The performance of children ages three through eight years on a series of class-inclusion problems was examined in two studies. Three patterns of performance were observed: three- and four-year-olds responded in an approximately haphazard pattern, five- and six-year-olds tended to be consistently wrong, and seven- and eight-year-olds showed a…

Investigated in preschoolers whether the bilingual advantage in cognitive control or selective attention could be found in a nonverbal task, the dimensional change card sort, requiring minimal demands for analysis or representation. Found that bilingual children were more advanced than monolinguals in solving problems requiring high levels of…

This study tested three hypothesized mechanisms through which explanations might facilitate problem-solving strategy generalization in kindergarteners through second graders. Results suggested that explanations facilitated generalization through the creation of novel goal structures that enabled children to persist in use of the new strategy…