This study examined the development of flexibility and abstraction in preschool children by using a newly designed Pattern Completion Task (PCT) and the Flexible Item Selection Task (FIST). In the PCT, children were presented with an incomplete pattern consisting of different-colored shapes and were asked to select the colored shape that…

Postformal thinking concerns questions of meaning and purpose, multiple perspectives, human dignity, freedom, and social responsibility. Curriculum and instruction based on postformalism involves detecting problems, uncovering hidden assumptions, seeing relationships, deconstructing, connecting logic and emotion, and attending to context. (SK)

Results were interpreted in terms of current conceptions of age differences in information-processing speed. (Author)

Describes a group method for determining the influence of reinforcement on a child's recognition learning. Subjects were found to recognize designs and abstract paintings which they had idiographically prejudged as positive in reinforcement value more readily than those which they had prejudged as megative. (ED)

The results provide evidence of remarkable consistency in both accuracy and manner of performance from first grade through college age levels. (Authors)