Piaget's theory that distinct stages in the organization of memory correspond to successive stages in cognitive development was tested using 150 eighth graders. Cognitive levels were assessed with Inhelder and Piaget's balance beam task, initially, and again at seven months. Mnemonic levels were assessed with Piaget and Inhelder's memory of an…

Recent literature on the acquisition of "more" and "less" is reviewed with special emphasis on some key issues. The overriding goal of studies in this area has been the discovery of the developmental sequence that the child follows in acquiring "more" and "less," and, more generally, all comparative structures. The earliest empirical studies on…

Observations of the developing writing patterns of one child over a period of five years brought insight to the question of how children learn to write. The patterns, identifiable in other areas of child development, were the processes of differentiation and decentration, the sometimes nonparallel growth of form and function, and an increasing…

This study focuses on the motivational aspects of children's humor and describes the naturally occurring verbal humor of children without stimulus from adults. Kindergarten and elementary school children were observed during their lunch period at school while engaged in social interaction over 16 weeks. The study was designed to (1) record the…

The study examines the acquisition of gender constancy in children as it relates to cultural, socioenvironmental, or individual differences. Gender constancy refers to the stages from simple identification of biological sex of self and others, to the understanding that one's sex is stable over time, and to comprehension of one's sex as consistent…

Although anecdotal material suggests that parenting changes people, experimental tests in this area are lacking. Undergraduates (N=139) and their same-sex parents read one of eight summaries of parent-child interactions which varied in terms of success and in terms of the sex of the story character. Descriptions were reduced to three parent…

Three experiments examined children's ability to perceive two of the elements of textual cohesion--personal reference and conjunction. The first experiment investigated the ability of 76 eight-year-old children to process anaphora in order to distinguish those children who were becoming fluent readers from those who were not. The children were…

Three preschool children were observed intensively for three years to examine the ways they attempted to organize and classify the world of television. Of interest were children's changing abilities to differentiate six adult-perceived categories of television fare: cartoons, advertisements, news, adult shows, children's shows, and "Sesame…

A cognitive, theory-based assessment-intervention model of social-communicative development and research to validate the model are described in this document. The model is neo-Piagetian in that it assumes that social-communicative skills are structured by cognitive skills and that these skills follow a five level sequence of stages. The assessment…

The relation of visual process to Piaget's stages of cognitive development was examined. The study utilized four age groups to correspond roughly to acquisition and consolidation periods of concrete and formal operations: 6 years - acquisition of concrete operations; 9 years - consolidation of concrete operations; 11 years - acquisition of formal…

Research in developmental social cognition should detail commonalities between self and other as well as the self-other differentiation process. A method which indexed developmental changes in the understanding of both intersubjective rules of interpersonal behavior and subjective individual perspectives was devised to research questions…

The relationship between ego and intimacy statuses was identified for 88 college students, 44 men and 44 women, and subsequently related to each other and to measures of intimacy, loving and liking. Results indicated that: (1) more advanced stages of identity development were associated with higher levels of intimacy formation; and (2) for both…

This paper describes the development of the senses of speech and thought and identifies the physical organs associated with those senses. The child's word sense is born only after the development of the ability to walk. From direct experience, communicated to them by the speech sense, children know that words are different from any other sounds…

This study is part of a longitudinal research project which investigated the cognitive and social development of rural children (ages 3-5, 6-8, and 9-11 years) in eight states of the U.S.A. This paper, however, reports only the cognitive development of 3- to 5-year-old subjects in rural Nebraska from 1976-1978. The longitudinal sample plus control…

Two experiments were conducted to examine children's understanding (metacognitive awareness) of the parts to a simple story. The following parts were considered essential for comprehending a story: what precipitates the character's action (initiating event), what the character did (action), and what followed the character's action (consequence).…