The study investigated preferences shown by 25 preschool children regarding the handier toy, the smaller toy, the more probable toy, the animate noun, and the first-mentioned noun as agent in interpreting semantically reversible sentences prior to adult performance. (Author/SBH)

A cued recall procedure was employed to assess the effectiveness of implicit and explicit word prompts for sentence memory in children. The implicit cues were much less effective than the explicit cues for 6-7 year olds while the cue types did not differ for 11-12 year olds. (Author/DEP)

The comprehension of big, little, and same number and the production of relational terminology was assessed in 168 preschool children. (Author/BD)

A study of the development of 6- to 12-year-old children's appreciation of verbal jokes was conducted within the framework of the incongruity and resolution theory of humor. Results revealed age differences indicating that older children appreciated both structural components while younger children appreciated the incongruity structure. (ST)

Two tasks were used to choose between two rival accounts--cognitive vs. pragmatic--of children's failure to comprehend metaphors. A total of 120 children, in three age groups (6, 7, and 9 years) were given either an explication or a multiple choice task to assess comprehension of 15 novel comparisons expressed in five alternative forms varying in…

Four types of semantic relation, assumed by different researchers to be implicated in the organization of semantic information, were investigated by means of false recognition and word association tasks presented to independent samples of 4- and 5-year-old children. (Author/SB)

Considering Jakobson's theory that speech disorders involve defects in paradigmatic or in syntagmatic operations, and that these two categories result in different defects, this question was examined: does the syntagmatic group suffer from defects not only in contextual generation of active speech but also in comprehension of grammatical…

The building block theory of language structure, an information processing approach, is applied to the development of a model of the reading process. Specifically, the model is concerned with the amount of time an individual will spend reading and the amount of content he will decode which is determined by a series of cognitive processes involving…

Teaching active comprehension helps students learn to ask their own questions and guide their own thinking. (MKM)

This study was designed to determine whether infants could perceive action role reversals when the direction of action is ruled out as a cue; whether infants consider inanimate, nonpotent objects to be unlikely agents; and whether both these discriminations could be reliably reflected in the heart rate response. (Author/SB)

Reports on an experiment in which performance on abstract and concrete sentences was compared in a sentence meaning classification task and in a free recall task. Results show that concrete sentences were classified significantly faster than abstract ones. (CLK)

Presents selected position papers and research papers influenced by the work of Jean Piaget, intended to help science educators understand Piaget's work and how it applies to science education. Emphasis on formal reasoning stage of development. (SA)

Experimenters analyzed a prose passage into 350 idea units, then interspersed throughout the text pictures depicting main ideas, or both main ideas and nonessential details. For fourth- and sixth-grade subjects, pictures did facilitate both immediate and delayed recall, but only of main ideas. (Author/JEG)

This booklet contains a speech on the value of discovery learning in building a sound knowledge base. The author contends that systematic concepts (such as spatial relations) should be fully explored by experimentation and discussion in the classroom. The cognitive processes involved in solving problems are examined and examples are given of…

Early childhood learning of language has led some to postulate innate knowledge of an abstract symbolic linguistic system. However, if the child's abstract understanding initially requires concrete support in the form of agreement of the message with his nonlinguistic experience, the indication would be that the development of syntactic…