This integrative text spotlights what educators need to know about children's cognitive development across grade levels (PreK-12) and content areas. The book provides a concise introduction to developmental neuroscience and theories of learning. Chapters on general cognitive abilities probe such crucial questions as what children are capable of…

This study explored preschool age and gender differences in help-seeking within the theoretical framework of scaffolded problem-solving and self-regulation (Bruner, 1986; Rogoff, 1990; Vygotsky, 1978; 1986). Within-subject analyses tracked changes in help-seeking among 62 preschoolers (34 boys, 28 girls, mean age 4.22 years) solving a challenging…

S. Ghetti (2008) and M. L. Howe (2008) presented probative ideas for future research that will deepen scientific understanding of developmental reversals on false memory and establish boundary conditions for these counterintuitive patterns. Ghetti extended the purview of current theoretical principles by formulating hypotheses about how…

It was hypothesized that the acquisition of conservation behavior would be facilitated when stimuli were more concrete than abstract. Eighty white second graders were randomly assigned to four groups and presented with three conservation-of-weight problems. Clay balls and the conservation transformations were either shown, demonstrated, and…

Investigates Inhelder and Piaget's claim that ages six to nine or ten represent a stage in children's learning of the concepts of all and some. (HM)

According to Humean framework, relations are judged to be causal to extent that they are characterized by regularity, continuity, and covariation among college students and college-bound 11- and 14-year-olds. Presents subjects with information about one of the following indices: potential causal factor covaried with effect and potential causal…

Study tests four predictions derived from Piaget's cognitive theory. (CB)

Reports on three studies which investigated the development of the concept of horizontality in subjects from nursey school through college age. Normative data collected allowed for evaluation of Piaget's stages and for differences due to age, sex, and apparatus shape and orientation. (ED)

Evidence is presented that argues for distinguishable, sequential stages in the structuring of political attitudes among students and that partially supports a developmental interpretation of political learning. (Author/AM)

The incidental learning paradigm supports two findings concerning selective attention: (1) the difference between central and incidental task performance increases with age, and (2) the correlation between central and incidental performance decreases with age. Neither of these findings clearly supports the view that attentional selectivity…

Two studies on M-capacity found factor-analytical and correlational evidence that five M-capacity tests share a common source of variance and that, as subjects' increase in age, scores increase at a similar rate. Results suggest that, in the 6-11 age range, M-capacity can be measured with a battery of tests. (AA)

The ability of 10 9-month-old infants with Down's syndrome to acquire a simple contingency was assessed. Unlike a group of nondisabled infants, the Down's syndrome infants did not, in general, learn the contingency. Results are related to the possibility of a decline in conditionability with age and a relationship between conditionability and…

The way that children construct the representation they use to solve transitive inference problems was examined. Forty-eight children 4.5 to 5 years old and 48 children 6 to 7 years old were asked to learn either a three-item series or a four-item nonseries. They were asked to learn the relationships between different colors of faces that were all…

Describes two experiments that examined the effects of quantity and depth of processing on elementary school children's time perception. (HOD)

Major purpose of this experiment was to test a notion suggested by Gagne that operations, as described by Piaget, are more dependent on learning than on development. It was concluded that the results supported Gagne's cumulative learning model rather than the notion that operations are primarily dependent upon maturation. (Authors/CB)