Children's acquisition of tool use abilities is an important part of development but is not yet well understood. This study compares two modes of tool-use learning, observation and individual haptic experience. Two- and 3-year-olds had haptic experience with tools, observed tool use by others, had both haptic and observational experience, or no…

We compared the performance of 3- and 5-year-old children with that of chimpanzees in two tasks requiring collaboration via complementary roles. In both tasks, children and chimpanzees were able to coordinate two complementary roles with peers and solve the problem cooperatively. This is the first experimental demonstration of the coordination of…

In an accompanying study, Alibali et al. [Alibali, M. W., Ockuly, K. M., Fischer, A. D. (2009) "Learning new problem-solving strategies leads to changes in problem representation." "Cognitive Development, 24," 89-101.] present an important experimental result: introducing a new strategy can affect conceptual aspects of children's problem…

Children sometimes solve problems incorrectly because they fail to represent key features of the problems. One potential source of improvements in children's problem representations is learning new problem-solving strategies. Ninety-one 3rd- and 4th-grade students solved mathematical equivalence problems (e.g., 3+4+6=3+__) and completed a…

Investigated strategies used by preschoolers to accomplish a repeatedly requested practical task. Participants satisfied customer requests for vegetables in a play store, with the number of moves and strategy type recorded and coded. Arithmetic pre- and posttests were also administered. Found that with repeated exposure, the children became…

Distinguishes the values of quantitative increments and qualitative shifts with regard to problem solving. Subjects were 136 children ranging from 6 through 8 years and were presented with the standard 3-disc problem to resolve in 3 minutes. Results indicated that qualitative shifts in children's representation of problem space are a crucial…

Examined precursors of knowledge change in college students' developing understanding of gear movement. Found that only some participants changed their problem-solving approach after instruction. Results suggest that having multiple approaches available and using instructional information to build on not-well-developed conceptions may contribute…

Relations among patterns of conceptual and procedural knowledge and grade were examined in 90 six- to eight-year-olds in order to explore addition and subtraction development. Conceptual knowledge was assessed by examining children's responses to pairs of problems reflecting various part-whole relations. Children solved related problems as part of…

Studied semantic and cognitive development of Korean-speaking and English-speaking children. Found that categorization and a naming spurt emerged later in Korean speakers than in English speakers, while means-ends abilities and success/failure words emerged earlier in Korean speakers than in English speakers. Also, Korean-speaking mothers…