In Study 1, 103 children ages 4 through 10 answered questions about their concept of and belief in luck, and completed a story task assessing their use of luck as an explanation for events. The interview captured a curvilinear trajectory of children's belief in luck from tentative belief at age 4 to full belief at age 6, weakening belief at age 8,…

Recent research suggests that acquisition of mental-state language may influence conceptual development. We examine this possibility by investigating the conceptual links between evidentiality in language and suggestibility. Young children are disproportionately suggestible and tend to change their reports or memories when questioned. The authors…

Verbal and figurative classification tasks were presented to 30 blind and 30 sighted children (ages 6 to 11). Although younger blind children were significantly less efficient on tasks, older ones reached or were close to the level of their sighted peers. Analysis illustrates how the blind children adjusted their conceptual knowledge to their…

Presents the results of three studies examining children's conception of the mind itself as an independent, active entity. Findings revealed a developing ability in children to interpret and produce statements personifying the mind and provided considerable evidence of children's movement toward a conception of the mind as an active agent…

Phenomena are examined to support the conception that cognitive structures continue to reflect the numerous ways of apprehending the world that blend to some degree into each other. (AMH)

The infant's impressions of his environment are viewed by several philosophers, including Jean Piaget. There has been some past tendency to suppose that, prior to the acquisition of language, the infant has no real impressions about his environment. More recent understandings consider that the infant is capable of conceptualization and can express…

Clarifies the teaching of academic language functions (ALFs) at the secondary level. It is recommended that teaching should emphasize concepts underlyng ALFs, the forms for realizing them, and their names. Some pedagogic implications of the microfunction-macrofunction difference are outlined, and suggestions are given for teaching each type. (25…

A review of the literature on the development of children's abilities to comprehend and produce metaphorical language shows this development to be a continuous process rather than one characterized by stages, and to be constrained primarily by limitations in children's knowledge and information processing abilities. More specifically, the…

This paper describes part of a larger study dealing with syntax and semantics of the child's early speech about motion and location. It suggests that goal, defined as the point at which a motion ends and a resulting locative state begins, is the organizing principle for the semantics of motion and location. The data presented here are from two…

Examines how one teacher's way of knowing mathematics was reflected in language used in teaching concepts of rate to one student. The teacher's conceptualizations of rate were encapsulated in the language of numbers and operations which undermined his effort to help the student understand rates conceptually. (Contains 27 references.) (Author/MKR)

Factor analysis accounts for most of the variance in adult ratings of concepts with adjectives. Affective reactions are present in young infants, but still to be explored is how the stable adult factor structure develops from these reactions. Three questions are investigated in this study: (1) is this factor structure present in 3- and…

Supported is the argument that cognitive development should not be studied alone, in isolation from wider questions about the history of thought in the scientific community. Interest in the topic resulted from dissatisfaction with British secondary school Language-for-Learning movement assertions that learners' active use of their own speech and…

The "cognitive clarity theory of reading" represents a resolution of the controversies about the relation between speech, writing, and reading. The work of M.A.K. Halliday suggests that learning to read and write is a natural extension of the "mathetic" speech functions, which consist of speech related to children's attempts to understand…

SPEAKING AN ORAL LANGUAGE AND SPEAKING A WRITTEN LANGUAGE INVOLVE DIFFERENT PATTERNS OF LANGUAGE USE WHICH ARE IN TURN RELATED TO DIFFERENT EDUCATIONAL METHODS AND DIFFERENT COURSES OF COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT. BECAUSE ORAL SPEECH RELIES ON CONTEXT FOR COMMUNICATION, A COMMON CONTEXT AND POINT OF VIEW IS ASSUMED BY THE SPEAKER TO EXIST BETWEEN THE…

The product of a study documenting the classroom writing behavior of three kindergarten and three second grade students, this research report focuses on the kindergarten data. Following an introductory chapter describing the theoretical assumptions underlying the project, the research questions posed, and the provisions made to insure reliable and…