Four experiments examined the development of negative priming (NP) in 3-5-year-old children using as a measure of children's executive function (EF) the dimensional change card sort (DCCS) task. In the NP version of the DCCS, the values of the sorting dimension that is relevant during the preswitch phase are removed during the postswitch phase.…

Investigates the knowledge of thematic and taxonomic relations of 15 children of 26 months and 24 children of 34 months. Both age groups were able to identify thematic matches. However, 34-month-olds were able to recognize a wider range of thematic associations than 26-month-olds. (RJC)

A MAIN PROBLEM ARISING IN THE STUDY OF CATEGORIZING BEHAVIOR IN PRESCHOOL CHILDREN BY MEANS OF SORTING PROCEDURES WAS THAT PERFORMANCE APPEARED TO BE VERY MUCH A FUNCTION OF THE CHILD'S COMPREHENSION OF THE PARTICULAR VERBAL INSTRUCTIONS EMPLOYED BY THE EXPERIMENTER IN PRESENTING THE TASK. THE SPECIFIC AIMS OF THE FIRST STUDY WERE TO INVESTIGATE…

This is the first study to investigate experimentally how children come to learn mappings between novel phrasal forms and novel meanings: a central task in learning a language. Two experiments are reported. In both studies 5- to 7-year-old children watched a short set of video clips depicting objects appearing in various ways. Each scene was…

Piaget, in describing the sequence of classificatory development, describes class inclusion as composed of two processes; hierarchical classification and post-whole comparisons. In the experiment reported here, elementary school children, trained in the concept of sets in first grade mathematics were given a task where they were required to assess…