By assigning negative value to egocentric language, Jean Piaget equates depersonalized thought and logic with maturity, and gives disproportionate favor to socialized language. By focusing on the deterministic ends to be gained through the acquisition of socialized language, Piaget misses the value of egocentric language. Maurice Merleau-Ponty,…

Evidence is provided to refute the suggestion, made by Macnamara et al. (1976), that four-year-old children perform logical operations corresponding to formal logic upon the sentential components of implicative verbs to produce indirect implications. It is argued that children use past knowledge plus additional premises to derive indirect…

Presents a rebuttal to Hidi and Hildyard's (1976) criticism of Macnamara et al.'s (1976) assertion regarding the ability of four-year-old children to grasp implicatives and presuppositions. (AM)

Studies in the role of play in child development are classified in terms of their major correlates or dependent variables: (1) creativity, (2) problem solving, (3) language development, (4) logical skills, and (5) social knowledge. Study designs are critically examined, and internal and external validity problems are noted. (Author/PN)

The educational implications of Piaget's concept of intelligence provide a framework for the application of theory to educational practice. The uniqueness of individual learning is compared to stage-based teaching. Social interaction is viewed as one of the major forces in cognitive development. (JN)

Finds that various aspects of formal reasoning correlated significantly with mean t-unit lengths written by high school freshman boys, but not by freshman girls. Suggests that the reasoning tasks may have been biased against females. (RL)

This paper describes a series of experiments and research paradigms designed to investigate language development, specifically semantic, syntactic, and communicative development in children. Included are discussions of two studies of semantic development which examined developmental changes of word meanings. Also discussed are three studies of…

The aim of this report was to provide teachers of preschool and early elementary school children with a brief summary of current psychological research and theory concerned with the development of cognitive skills in young children. Psychological research often provides a basis for procedures teachers use in the classroom. Each chapter of the…