Presents the results of an investigation of age trends in the development of ideational fluency among 7-to-12 year-olds in which verbal, figural, and Draw-a-Man tests were administered to school children in five groups at 1-year intervals between the ages of 7 and 12. A 13-item reference list is included. (Author/JL)

Observes 75 first- and third-grade children in their classroom mathematics seatwork to test assumptions drawn from Vygotsky's theory about the development of private speech and its relationship to task performance, attention, and motor behaviors accompanying task orientation. (HOD)

This paper discusses how the role of instructors changes as young learners advance along a mastery continuum, or a process of transition from an initial novice to an eventual expert status in the learning of a skill. Four stages along this continuum are: (1) acquisition, in which the learner does not know the task; (2) early consolidation, in…

Children in grades 1-3 were asked to retell and explain a series of riddles. Ability to recall riddles was not predictive of ability to explain them. Three cognitive factors seemed to determine level of riddle competence. Implications concern the relationship of riddle competence to reading ability and metalinguistic facility. (CHK)

Examined whether indexes of verbal imprecision could be quantified and used to predict changes in fifth graders' problem-solving performance. Found that four types of verbal imprecision predicted improved performance: false starts and self-repairs, deletions, long pauses, and metacognitive comments. Results suggested that adopting a new approach…

Explains the relationship between understanding a temporal or causal event and the ability to articulate and comprehend sentences about the event. The subjects of the research were 60 children from an Italian elementary school, 20 each from the first, third, and fifth grades. (CFM)

This study of the relation of variables of home environment to differences in children's cognitive development used a sample of 25 pairs of grade five boys in the 10-12 age range matched for general intelligence but discrepant with respect to verbal ability. Home environmental measures were obtained by means of a 70 minute interview with the…