Examines ways to model the production function for cognitive achievement to capture theoretical notions that child development is a cumulative process involving family and school inputs and ability. Develops a modeling framework that accommodates several known estimating equations, discussing how to address data limitations and highlighting the…

Developmentalists have overlooked the problem of the real impermanence of things. Though the metaphor of impermanence is central to Piagetian and neo-nativist accounts of representation, the development of the understanding of impermanence is unstudied. This article proposes that the development of the concept of impermanence is distinct from the…

Examined whether active participation in the setup of a trick significantly affected the performance of young (mean 40 months) and old (mean 45 months) 3-year olds on questions concerning individuals' ignorance of and false beliefs about a situation. Results suggest that even young 3-year olds have the ability to understand false mental states.…

The theory-of-mind abilities of twins, children with nontwin siblings, and only children were compared to investigate further the link between number and type of siblings and theory-of-mind abilities. Three- to 5-year-old children with nontwin siblings outperformed both only children and twins with no other siblings, twins who also had other…

This review begins with a brief history from Piagetian perspective-taking development, through metacognitive development, and into the past and present field of theory-of-mind development. This field has included research on what infants and children know about a variety of mental states, on possible causes and consequences of mentalistic…

This paper analyses how countries in UNICEF's East Asia and Pacific Region (EAPR) have engaged in the Early Learning and Development Standards (ELDS) process. ELDS has been developed by the governments of Cambodia, China, Fiji, Lao PDR, Mongolia, Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam over the last 3 years with technical and financial support from…

In his work as a family therapist and researcher with children and families in educational and community settings, the author encounters children who are anxious, depressed, lacking in empathy, self-esteem and motivation, and naive in their expectations about their physical and mental abilities. They haven't been properly challenged. These kids…

The developing brain has the capacity for a great deal of plasticity. A number of investigators have demonstrated that intellectual and language skills may be in the normal range in children following unilateral perinatal stroke. Questions have been raised, however, about whether these skills can be maintained at the same level as the brain…

This work aims to analyse the specific contribution of social abilities (here considered as the capacity for attributing knowledge to others) in a particular communicative context. 74 normally developing children (aged 3;4 to 5;9, M=4.6) were given two Theory of Mind (ToM) tasks, which are considered to assess increasing complexity levels of…

Although "hindsight bias" (the "I knew it all along" phenomenon) has been documented in adults, its development has not been investigated. This is despite the fact that hindsight bias errors closely resemble the errors children make on theory of mind (ToM) tasks. Two main goals of the present work were to (a) create a battery of hindsight tasks…

We describe the cognitive profile in a complete national cohort of children with cerebral palsy (CP). One hundred and twenty-seven Icelandic children (67 females, 60 males) with CP, born between 1985 and 2000 and assessed between the ages of 4 and 6 years 6 months (mean age 5y 5mo, SD 6mo), were included in the study. IQ was measured using the…

This study examines the earliest jokes produced by three children and investigates how these jokes contribute to a model of humor development. Subjects were three male infants, and data was collected through a diary record procedure kept by the children's parents. Data was collected on one child at age 13 months; data collection for the other two…

This article presents an argument, based on psychological research and inferences about human evolution, for the plausibility of an intrinsic altruistic motive. A theoretical model for the development of such a motive is outlined. (JMB)

This booklet is intended to help teachers and prospective teachers of mentally retarded students to understand the ways in which intellect affects the understanding of reality. Its recommendations are based on G. Kylen's theory of the intellect and J. Piaget's theory of intellectual development. The initial section describes the function and…