A schema is best understood as a statistically defined concept. Schematic concept formation consists of abstracting the common elements or properties of a defined class in a schema. Thereafter, both discrimination and retention are facilitated, since only deviations from the schema need be processed for any particular class exemplar. In the…

The rule assessment approach was used to examine five-, eight-, eleven-, and twenty-year-olds' concepts of time, speed, and distance. (CM)

Children who come to school without numerical game-playing experience have trouble with math relationships in direct-instruction situations. This article explores the varied roles of active thinking, social interaction, previous knowledge, and child-initiated choice in children's development of math concepts. Self-esteem cannot be built by doing…

Fifty children, ranging in age from 4 to 10, were individually administered a series of tasks involving different combinations of 2 items selected from a discrete set of items. Analyses of their performances revealed a series of six, increasingly sophisticated, solution strategies ranging from random number selection of items to a systematic…

An analysis of children's narrative composition and art revealed concurrent development at both a general structural level and at a fine-grained detail level. A three-part study investigated whether this general cognitive pattern would be maintained across a different range of tasks: literary composition, scientific reasoning, and working memory.…

Piaget's model of children's conceptual learning and development was compared with Klausmeier's Conceptual Learning and Development (CLD) model in a longitudinal study. The CLD model suggests four successive levels of concept learning: (1) concrete--recognizing an object which has been encountered previously; (2) identity--recognizing a known…