Symbolic objects are cognitive tools children must learn to master very early in life. A crucial factor in cognitive development is the instruction or informational support children receive in social contexts. While numerous studies have investigated the relation between instruction and development in various domains, like language or symbolic…

At the beginning of preschool (M = 46 months of age), 197 (94 boys) children were administered tasks that assessed a suite of nonsymbolic and symbolic quantitative competencies as well as their executive functions, verbal and nonverbal intelligence, preliteracy skills, and their parents' education level. The children's mathematics achievement was…

This article used two studies to investigate sign and symbol mediation in children aged 8-11 years. In role play, children exist at one at the same time in objective reality and their representation of reality. We cannot observe their mental representation directly, but the issue of whether signs or symbols mediate early role play is an important…

The present research examines the ability of children as young as 4 years to use models in tasks that require scaling of distance along a single dimension. In Experiment 1, we found that tasks involving models are similar in difficulty to those involving maps that we studied earlier (Huttenlocher, J., Newcombe, N., & Vasilyeva, M. (1999). Spatial…

The language impaired Ss consistently performed better than Ss matched for mean length of utterance but more poorly than MA matched peers. Only one task, haptic recognition, uncovered a significant difference between the language impaired and MA matched groups. Results suggested that language impaired Ss had deficient nonlinguistic symbolic…

In 4 experiments 120 three-to four-year-old non readers were asked the identity of a symbolic representation as it appeared with different objects. Consistent with Bialystok (2000), many children judged the identity of written words to vary according to the object with which they appeared but few made such errors with recognizable pictures.…

In 3 studies, 2.5- and 3-year-olds transferred knowledge from an easy task that required appreciation of a symbolic relation to a more difficult task involving a symbolic relation that children their age typically do not appreciate. Results support the theory that young children use insight into one symbolic relation to understand other symbolic…

Explores the role of symbolic play in the cognitive and psychic development of the normal child and describes the autistic child. Reviews a model treatment program for autism developed at the City College of New York, discussing the therapeutic role of symbolic play in that model. (Author/MJL)

Finds that (1) playfulness is a trait related to divergent, creative thinking; (2) allowing young children to play with objects can lead to increased performance on problem solving and divergent thinking tasks involving the same or similar objects; and (3) play training leads to short term gains in young children's cognitive performance.…

An approach to cognitive development which builds upon Piagetian assumptions and methods but which takes into account specific characteristics of diverse symbol systems and media is outlined. Such an approach may account for several phenomena left unexplained by Piaget, integrate diverse strands of research, and suggest promising lines of…

Two experiments examined children's ability to understand and produce graphic symbols for social communication. Found that 2-year-olds did not effectively produce symbols or use an experimenter's symbols. Three- and 4-year-olds improved their symbols after use in social communication and performed above chance with the experimenter's symbol;…

Social and cognitive values of different play materials for 21 normal and 21 handicapped preschool children were examined. Analyses showed that handicapped preschoolers exhibited comparable amounts of symbolic play but lower quality of symbolic play than that shown by nonhandicapped preschoolers. Symbolic play by handicapped children depended much…

Toddlers were asked to find a hidden toy based on one hidden in a scale model of the room, after varying periods of delay. Subjects experiencing a longer delay on the first trial performed more poorly than those experiencing the long delay later in the trials. Results indicate the difficulty for children of keeping a symbol-referent relation in…

Two studies examined understanding of notational representation among 3- to 5-year-olds. Children solved problems when shown cards with a picture or word indicating identity or a quantity indicator. In the easier condition, children had difficulty solving the problems as a function of their familiarity with the notation, suggesting weaknesses in…