This study investigated 4- to 9-year-olds' understanding of social rules and authority by asking them about stories in which the status (adult or child) of rule inventors, transgressors, and changers varied. Findings indicated that children considered children's transgressions and alteration less permissible than adults', and adult-invented…

A total of 416 elementary school children described in writing what their grandparents meant to them. Girls were more likely than boys to mention love. Younger children reported obtaining more affective provisions (e.g., attachment and nurturance) from grandparents while older children reported more cognitive provisions (e.g., guidance and pride…

The study compared the use of language functions and language interactions in a structured setting with normal and language-disordered preschoolers. Language disordered children performed less appropriately on the average across all measures and the difference between groups was greater at younger ages. (Author/DB)

Studied the ways in which 200 children aged 2-6 years understood the concept of love. Results from interviews suggest that the youngest children think that they love different people at different times or under different conditions. Other results are discussed. (RJC)

Reports results of 14 studies on children's knowledge about thinking. Suggests that preschoolers appear to know that thinking is an internal mental activity that can refer to real or imaginary objects or events. However, preschoolers are poor at determining when a person is and is not thinking. This shortcoming is considerably less evident in…

A group of 16 infants (ages 6 to 24 months) with Down's Syndrome (DS) were exposed to two operant learning tasks varying in control of reinforcement. Comparison with chronological and developmental age matched controls found DS subjects characterized by increasing adoption of counterproductive learning behaviors with increasing age. (Author/DB)

Examined children's emotional and cognitive responses to emotionally evocative vignettes. Results indicated age-related increases in children's responses. Found limited increases with age in children's concordant emotions, or emotions identical to emotions of persons in the vignettes, and continuous increases with age in children's attributions…

Four experiments determined that kindergartners' and second graders' inductions are sensitive to the similarity between premise and conclusion categories. Second graders' inductions are sensitive to the similarity of a premise category to a higher order category that includes the premise and conclusion categories. (BC)

In four experiments, three, four, and five year olds were successful in solving perspective-taking problems when they were asked what object occupied a specified location with respect to a hypothetical observer. Results indicated developmental change in several important aspects of spatial performance. (BC)

External memory strategies were investigated in 45 children (age 11) with mild mental retardation and children (ages 7 and 11) without mental retardation. In contrast to expected deficiencies in the use of strategies, results showed areas of overlap in strategy capabilities among the groups. (Author/DB)

Examined age- and skill-related differences among adult Bingo players, aged 19 to 74, who had from less that 2 months to over 20 years of playing experience. Subjects completed psychometric, cognitive, and experimental measures. Found no age-related differences on psychometric or memory measures, suggesting that Bingo playing experience may have…

In a study of 6 to 14 year olds' knowledge of illness, younger children used concepts not related to illness when sorting illness-related stimuli. They also used concepts related to behavior, rather than symptoms, when performing tasks involving recognition of illness and causes of illness. Older children believed that symptoms signaled disease.…

Results of three experiments indicate that the developmental increase in memory span cannot be explained by differences in identification time or by the hypothesis that articulation time is the sole or major cause for the increase. It is argued that the development of memory span with age depends on a combination of factors. (BC)

This study assessed social perspective taking in 57 children classified as educable mentally retarded divided into 3 age groups from 8-16 years. Significant differences in social perspective taking were obtained between the three groups in understanding individuals and between the older and two younger groups in understanding friendship.…

Children either saw, were told about, or felt the contents of a toy tunnel. They were asked what was in the tunnel and how they knew the contents. Three year olds had difficulty identifying the sources of their knowledge. Questions that involved inference proved to be especially difficult for them. (BC)