This paper follows an earlier report of young children's object play activities investigated in a cross-sectional sample of 289 typically developing children. Thirty-minute videotaped observations were taken of children at 8, 12, 18, 24, 30, 36, 42, 48, 54, and 60 months of age in their homes. Forty-nine percent were boys. Children were identified…

Two experiments investigated how preschoolers judge whether learning has occurred. Experiment 1 showed that 3- and 4-year-olds used an individual's ability to demonstrate knowledge to judge whether he/she had learned something, regardless of that individual's claim about whether he/she had learned. Experiment 2 considered whether children…

The provision of reinforcement to increase desired behaviors is a crucial element of behavior analytic intervention for individuals diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Formal preference assessments, like the multiple stimulus without replacement procedure (MSWO), are often used to determine reinforcers used during intervention. While…

Today, the use of formal preference assessments, including paired-stimulus preference assessments, is widely utilized to help determine which items to use as reinforcers during intervention. A second way to determine potential reinforcers is to analyze multiple dimensions of a stimulus in the moment, a procedure known as in-the-moment reinforcer…

We investigated the effects of different amounts of distraction on preschoolers' task performance and attention. Children 3.5 and 4 years of age completed problem-solving tasks in one of three conditions: no distraction, intermittent (periodic) distraction, or continuous distraction. The results revealed differential effects of the distractors at…

Three experiments assessed the claim that preschoolers override form class cues in the interest of honoring word- meaning assumptions when acquiring new labels. Results demonstrated that children respected the form class cues when these cues and word-meaning assumptions suggested conflicting interpretations. It was suggested that past findings…

Tests children for the effects of prior knowledge on the amount of learning that occurs after a training period focusing on either number skills or logical operations. No relationship existed between the amount children learned and their pretraining knowledge or the amount learned and their developmental level. (Author/BB)

Chronically undernourished children of low socioeconomic status participated in a treatment program combining nutritional, health care, and educational features. By school age, the gap in cognitive ability between the treated children and a group of privileged children had narrowed. The effect was greater for the youngest preschoolers entering the…

The main purpose of this study was to trace the development of children's awareness that they can learn and to describe the forms of their ideas of learning. A complementary aim was to account for the extent to which such conceptions can be found at different levels of development. The investigation consisted of two observational studies and a…

In a reviewed series of spontaneous and learning-set studies of adults and children, adults solved problems even if they attended to four dimensions; young children failed when attending so broadly, but solved when attending to a single dimension. (Author/HS)

This paper describes two studies conducted to investigate young children's manipulative responses to materials in a free play situation and to examine the resultant learning. Study I: Each child played with either a simple or a complex set of materials during three play sessions. Learning was measured on a posttest of classification ability.…

One of a series of books written by physicians for their patients, this publication discusses the parents' role in helping the young child learn before formal education begins. Detailed discussions center on such subjects as teaching a child when he's ready to learn; helping a child's curiosity grow; choosing toys which encourage exploration;…

Children 2 through 6 years of age were interviewed, and their parents and teachers completed a questionnaire about their perceptions of play. Most parents defined play as something for fun or amusement, while teachers saw it both for fun and as an opportunity for cognitive and social development. (PCB)

These experiments tested the hypothesis that an instructional strategy involving guided discovery will promote meaningful learning of problem solving concepts by activating an assimilative set during learning. In order to investigate the effect of discovery training and concrete manipulation, preschool children were given training in one to one…

Discussed is research which shows, in contrast to the dominant impression given by Piaget's work, that before the onset of schooling the young child possesses several kinds of fundamental "intuitions" concerning numbers. (Author/TG)