The study investigated attentional processes of 32 preschool children with congenital visual impairment (VI). Children with profound visual impairment (PVI) and severe visual impairment (SVI) were compared to a group of typically developing sighted children in their ability to respond to adult directed attention in terms of establishing,…

The development of mental imagery in relation to the comprehension of concrete proverbs (e.g., "one rotten apple spoils the barrel") was examined in children, adolescents, and adults who were ages 11 to 29 years old (n = 210). The findings indicated that age-related changes occurred in mental imagery and in proverb comprehension during the years…

Indicates that object relative (O) clauses are learned after subject relative (S) clauses. Shows that children did not reliably comprehend O-clauses until nine years of age, two years after S-clauses. Suggests the need to attain a level of operational thought before O-clauses can be understood. (RL)

The comprehension of humor is described as a developmental ability related to children's cognitive, linguistic, and metalinguistic development. Examples illustrate the content and structure of riddles and jokes, as well as developmental changes in children's understanding. Ways to assess and develop humor comprehension are also discussed.…

Explored the relationships between the cognitive developmental level of preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational children (N=10) and their success in interpreting and explaining each of eight commonly described mechanisms of psychological defense. (JMB)

In three experiments, a multiple habituation paradigm was used to examine the ability of 7- and 9-month-old prelinguistic infants to form a natural, basic-level object category. Findings constitute independent evidence for the existence of a linguistically relevant nonlinguistic category prior to the onset of word comprehension. (SED)

Finds that, between five and seven years of age, the majority of healthy children in modern urban-industrial societies achieve an understanding of the irreversibility, nonfunctionality, and universality of death. Suggests reasons for ambiguous findings concerning the relationship between the acquisition of the concept of death and developmental…

Identifies stages children progress through in acquiring adult metaphor comprehension and develops a more complex coding scheme based on theoretical clarifications of metaphor comprehension. (PD)

A total of 100 children from divorced and separated families were compared with 100 children from intact families in this investigation of ways in which children handle the concepts of family membership and relationships. Children were given two social and two physical tasks: a family identity task; Piaget's interview for determining the…

Examines the development of infants' ability to begin recognizing novel referents of common object names. In particular, the present experiment investigated the development of 12- to 20-month-old infants' ability to infer that an unfamiliar but categorically related object can be designated by a newly learned name for the object class. (Author/RH)

A cross-sectional study of language comprehension in relation to cognitive functioning in 48 10-to 21-month-old children, four at each month of age, revealed significant correlations between comprehension and five sensorimotor subscales. (Author/PHR)

A study of 33 gifted children (ages 6-12) showed that external indicators of smartness were synthesized with internal factors of feelings and judgments about intelligence. A developmental progress in the children's understanding was found which suggests that age is a factor to consider when discussing giftedness with children. (Author/CR)

A cognitive training strategy was employed to investigate the nature of development in children's concepts of death. Subjects ranging in age from 3 to 11 years and attending Jewish-affiliated preschools participated in the study. Measures of verbal concept formation, abstract reasoning, general intelligence, and ability to conserve were…

Presents a study of the early vocabulary of young children, considering variables such as contextual flexibility, content, and composition of the lexicon in comprehension and production. Reports evidence for a relative independence between these two domains, and for an early version of the referential style observed at later stages of development.…

Two cognitive tasks of physical uncertainty were used to assign 56 subjects (aged 5 to 17 years) to one of three cognitive stages. Two tests for comprehension of speaker uncertainty were then administered to all participants. Results were interpreted as showing that development of cognitive stages is structurally related to comprehension of speech…