This report systematically reviews research on the outcomes of programs that teach young children in a group setting before they begin kindergarten. Study inclusion criteria included the use of randomized or matched control groups, evidence of initial equality, and study duration of at least 12 weeks. Studies included valid measures of language,…

Three experiments investigated the developmental progression of reliance on object function versus object shape to extend novel words among 3- and 5-year olds and adults. Findings indicated that children focused on shape, whereas adults focused on function when extending novel words, suggesting a developmental change in the consideration of these…

Factor analysis of correlations among the measures of recall clustering, free sorting, and recognition errors revealed significant convergent validity for consistent use of a semantic perceptual organization strategy in the three tasks. Ten-year-old, adult, and elderly adult subjects relied on a semantic strategy; four- and six-year-olds encoded…

Previous research by Maratsos found that 3-year-olds were more accurate than four and 5-year-olds in selecting 'big' rectangles or animals when choosing between pairs of stimuli. A study then investigated the nature of the previous experiments themselves, particularly the procedures the researcher followed and the possible inferences which he drew…

To discover the relationship between cognitive development and writing, a means of assessing writing is needed that reflects accurately changes in the way children write as they grow older. This may be accomplished by using Piaget's characteristics of concrete and formal operations. His framework permits general descriptions of thinking, organized…

The purpose of the present study was to compare performance of bilingual and monolingual children on certain language-related skills. Fifteen children between the ages of three years, eight months, and seven years were matched for age and sex in each of the following four groups: middle-class monolinguals, lower-class monolinguals, Spanish-English…

Research literature on childrens' causal understanding in oral and written settings is reviewed. Results show that maturation and task complexity both influence childrens' causal understanding. However, the findings are contradictory, and no generalizations could be made about which factors influence causal understanding and at which ages they are…

Investigates the linguistic and cognitive aspects of the mastery of the time conjunctions "before" and "after" by young children. (EKN)

THE LITERATURE ON INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT APPEARS TO ATTRIBUTE TO THE YOUNG CHILD A HIGH LEVEL OF LINGUISTIC DEVELOPMENT AND A RELATIVELY LOW LEVEL OF DEVELOPMENT IN OTHER COGNITIVE SPHERES. IN AN ATTEMPT TO RESOLVE THIS DISCREPANCY, THE AUTHOR ADVANCED THE HYPOTHESIS THAT THE DESCRIPTIONS OF LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT ARE BASED ON AN ANALYSIS OF THE…

The purpose of the study was to describe ways in which disadvantaged children differ from their more advantaged peers in the areas of cognitive and affective developmental patterns, and to use this description to restructure curricular experiences for disadvantaged children. Five groups of approximately 30 preschool children each were tested three…

The purpose of this research was to develop methods to study the effects of context on children's comprehension and production of temporal terms such as "before,""after,""next,""then," and "but first." A longitudinal study, using naturalistic and traditional laboratory methods, and three…