Describes the wave of new technology-enhanced "smart toys," ranging from simple interactive toys to those simulating actions of real animals. Notes the lack of research on the effects of these toys on children's brain organization, learning, or behavior. Describes impact of various software programs on children's learning, discussing…

Examined in 2 studies the ability of 2- and 3-year-olds to learn to use tools via imitation. Found that when shown a correct solution to a tool-using task, all children managed at least a partial solution. When shown an incorrect followed by a correct solution, 2-year-olds produced a partial solution and most 3-year-olds produced a full solution.…

After a study identified inconsistencies between cognitive research findings and accounting teaching methods, accounting instructors in Scottish colleges implemented a cognitive approach with 49 students. Compared to 31 controls, these students were better able to adapt what they had learned to complete nonroutine tasks. (Contains 44 references.)…

Since the mid-1800s, experimental psychologists have been using eye movements and gaze direction to make inferences about perception and cognition in adults (Muller, 1826, cited in Boring, 1942). In the past 175 years, these oculomotor measures have been refined (see Kowler, 1990) and used to address similar questions in infants (see Aslin, 1985,…

Recent work suggests that infants rely on mechanisms of object-based attention and short-term memory to represent small numbers of objects. Such work shows that infants discriminate arrays containing 1, 2, or 3 objects, but fail with arrays greater than 3 [Feigenson, L., & Carey, S. (2003). Tracking individuals via object-files: Evidence from…

The present research investigated whether 13.5-month-old infants would attribute to an actor a disposition to perform a recurring action, and would then use this information to predict which of two new objects--one that could be used to perform the action and one that could not--the actor would grasp next. During familiarization, the infants…

Educating for personal and social responsibility, from the perspective of moral cognition, involves promoting students' cognitive development. The literature suggests several approaches as successful in promoting cognitive development. Though Kohlberg views this development as primarily facilitated by dialogue with individuals in more advanced …

Several studies have demonstrated a relation between executive functioning (EF) and theory of mind (ToM) in preschoolers, yet the developmental course of this relation remains unknown. Longitudinal stability and EF-ToM relations were examined in 81 children at 24 and 39 months. At Time 1, EF was unrelated to behavioral measures of ToM but was…

Two experiments on preschoolers' understanding of the effects of exposure on knowing-that and knowing-how were conducted with 3-, 4-, and 5-year-old children (N=388) in 2 locations: a small midwestern city in the United States and a suburban area of Hong Kong, China. By using both English- and Chinese-speaking samples, the authors examined…

Two experiments explored how infants learn to form an abstract categorical representation of support (i.e., on) when habituated to few (i.e., 2) or many (i.e., 6) examples of the relation. When habituated to 2 pairs of objects in a support relation, 14-month-olds, but not 10-month-olds, formed the abstract spatial category (i.e., generalized the…

This review essay challenges the practice of rooting educational theory in the economic assumptions that underlie the current championing of a knowledge society. It examines the approaches of three recent works: one book, Andy Hargreaves's Teaching in a Knowledge Society, and two edited collections, Barry Smith's Liberal Education in a Knowledge…

This report uses meta-analysis to derive correlations between the variables of teacher immediacy, cognitive learning, and affective learning. A model was constructed such that the perception of teacher immediacy, a behavior, generates an intermediate outcome of affect, a motivation, which in turn increases cognitive learning outcome. The data…

Research regarding children of intercountry adoption is limited, and most children of intercountry adoption have complex histories that may place them at risk for difficulty or failure in the classroom. Although the performances of some children from orphanage environments approximate those of chronological-age peers 2 to 4 years postadoption,…

This paper critically examines the English National Curriculum (NC) for History and its Schemes of Work's development of temporal cognition within the primary school. In addition, it outlines the findings of a longitudinal research study into Year 4 pupils' assimilation of historical time. The paper contends that the development of historical time…

This study investigated the relationship between narrative skills and theory of mind for low-income children. Two groups of low-income preschoolers, one African American (n = 33) and one European American (n = 36), created a narrative and participated in a false belief task. The European Americans outperformed African Americans on the false belief…