Compared coupling characteristics of clapping simultaneous with walking or galloping, consistency across trials, and phasing variability among 4-, 6-, 8-, and 10-year-olds. Found that for walk/clap tasks, children adopted adult-like coupling patterns by age 8 and with the same consistency by age 10. Across age, children became less variable in…

This study examined whether the gender stereotypes used for comparison in a popular test of gender development--the Sex Role Learning Index (SERLI)--are relevant to contemporary children in Canada. Findings indicated that the SERLI's feminine stereotypes were no longer normative, while the SERLI's masculine stereotypes were still temporally valid.…

This longitudinal study investigated the relation between mothers' descriptions of mental states portrayed in pictures and 2- to 4-year-old children's theory of mind. Mothers described pictures to children at 3 different times during the year. Findings indicated that mothers' use of mental state utterances at early time points correlated with…

Two experiments investigated kindergarten through fourth-graders' and adults' ability to evaluate the certainty of deductive inferences, inductive inferences, and guesses, and explain the origins of inferential knowledge. Findings indicated that children rated their own deductions as more certain than guesses, but when judging another person's…

This study investigated whether the process of representational change undergoes developmental change or different processes occupy different niches in the course of knowledge acquisition. Subjects--college, third-, and sixth-grade students--solved gear system problems over two sessions. Findings indicated that for all grades, discovery of the…

Three studies examined theory-of-mind concepts among children ages 6-13 years with deafness or autism, and 4-year-olds with normal development. Findings indicated that while the children with deafness or autism scored significantly lower on standard tests of false belief understanding, they scored higher on even the most challenging drawing-based…

Examined the influence of analogy instruction on nine students' spelling behavior in a second-grade reading-language program. Found that all students increased their use of an analogy spelling strategy over the course of the school year, suggesting that analogy instruction can be integrated successfully into a rich, reading-language arts…

Presents a fine-grained analysis of extensive empirical data on the automatization of explicitly learned rules of morphosyntax in a second language. Results indicate that the learning of morphosyntactic rules is highly skill-specific and that these skills develop gradually over time, adhering to the same power function learning curve as the…

Reviews current research on brain-behavior relationships in disabilities of arithmetic and mathematical reasoning from both a neurological and a neuropsychological perspective. Defines developmental dyscalculia and the developmental importance of right versus left hemisphere integrity for the mediation of arithmetic learning and explores…

A review of the literature on mixed-age settings reveals benefits in the areas of social and cognitive development. Research on the psychosocial advantages of mixed-age groupings is less consistent. Factors such as group size, age range, time together, and context-specific curriculum activities may have a relationship to the level of success and…

Used heart rate and respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) assessed at 33 to 35 weeks gestational age to predict developmental outcome at 3 years for very low birth weight infants. Found that RSA measures predicted developmental outcome beyond effects of birth weight, medical risk, and socioeconomic status. For infants < 1,000 grams, RSA maturation…

Examines two prominent positions in the epistemological foundations of psychology--Piaget's causal explanatory claims and Vygotsky's interpretive understanding; contends that they need to be placed in their wider philosophical contexts. Argues that the danger of causally explaining cultural practices through which human beings construct and…

A study of 348 Canadian students (grades 6-8) identified as gifted by domain-general criteria, investigated whether the students would score at similar levels on linguistic, logical/mathematical, and social/emotional measures or whether their scores would indicate domain-differentiated patterns of development. Results indicate the students had…

Constructive-developmental theory, with its emphasis on epistemology and cognitive complexity, explicitly links learning and developmental growth. One model, which identifies five shifts in perception throughout the life span, describes some of higher education's values and objectives. The theory offers a promising direction for student evaluation…

A study evaluated a computer-based sorting-to-matching procedure to teach matching-to-sample skills to seven children (ages 3-8) with developmental disabilities. Rather than clicking on a comparison stimulus, this procedure allowed children to move the sample stimulus under the identical comparison stimulus. Identity matching-to-sample accuracy…