Describes a study conducted by the Children's Television Workshop that tested two forms of Sesame Street character movement (i.e., discrete movement versus continuous motion) with three-year-old preschool children using a Nintendo controller. Cognitive factors governing children's game performance and implications for designing interactive…

Proposes a theoretical sequence of cognitive developments as influencing representational play and language in the second year of life. Structural and temporal links between play and language indicate influence of developing mental representation, but variation in timing of developments points to influence of variables. (ET)

Studied frequency and style of help-seeking in 18- and 24-month olds observed at free play and problem-solving. Found that younger toddlers sought less help than older toddlers; both groups sought more help during problem solving than in free play. Older toddlers increased vocal help-seeking whereas younger toddlers sought help through vocal and…

Teasing involves unexpected, novel, ambiguous, and destabilizing parental behaviors toward children. Teasing is displayed more often by fathers than mothers. Teasing may have a positive impact on cognitive and social development, because teasing introduces novelty and ambiguity, as well as negotiation of a struggle. (TM)

Proposes a theory of reasoning and outlines four general types of reasoning (case-based, law-based, coherence-based, and dialectical) based on the constraints the reasoning seeks to honor. The development of reasoning is presented as a continuing construction and reconstruction of self-constraints and justifications for those constraints,…

Ivey's Developmental Counseling and Therapy (DCT) is an innovative and comprehensive approach to helping which views client functioning in terms of cognitive-developmental functioning. DCT approximates a metamodel of helping in which treatment strategies are logically derived from and integrated with the cognitive-developmental level of the…

The hypothesis that children with specific language impairments (SLI) have a hierarchical planning deficit was evaluated with 15 boys (ages 5 to 7) with SLI and 15 controls, who built 4 hierarchical structures varying in complexity. Results did not support the idea that a central hierarchical planning mechanism underlies language and nonlanguage…

Three- and four-year olds were asked to recall their own or another person's actions and to acknowledge the false belief upon which the action was based. They showed excellent recall of inappropriate actions based on a false belief, but failed to use the recalled action as a clue to acknowledge the false belief upon which it was based. (TJQ)

Examined gender differences in cognitive outcome in children born prematurely who had incurred early cerebral lesions and in a high-risk comparison group. A significant gender difference in cognitive recovery was observed in the lesion group. Girls outperformed boys on standardized intelligence tests. No gender differences were observed in the…

Comments on the articles presented in this issue devoted to the Japanese perspectives on conceptual change. Discusses the overall conveyed message: The human cognitive system is a thematically organized knowledge base with agentive causality as the main mechanism for explain phenomena and analogy as the main mechanism for promoting conceptual…

Comments on the articles presented in this issue devoted to the Japanese perspectives on conceptual change. Suggests that different approaches to knowledge acquisition and conceptual change should be carefully examined in light of their implications for the teaching of science. Discusses critically the issues advanced from the Japanese…

Examines influences of peer relations on the development of social and cognitive competence. Discusses implications of differences in boys' and girls' play styles for cognitive skills and the development of intimacy. Notes that gender segregation is initiated and maintained within the peer group. (BAC)

Four experiments with children aged 5 through 12 tested the relationship between short-term memory (STM) and processing capacity. The results suggest that effects obtained with STM span do not provide clear indications of overall working memory development, because STM span and the processing space component of working memory entail distinct…

Examined age-related changes in visual selective attention--ability to resist interference--in children 5 to 12 years old and adults. The interference effect on stimulus evaluation did not discriminate between age groups; however, the interference effect on correct response activation showed a pronounced age-related reduction, suggesting a…

The Urban Learner Framework stresses four themes: the importance of students' cultural strengths and learning experiences, culture's influence on cognitive development, the importance of motivation and effort, and resilience as a characteristic of urban learners. Barriers to change include belief systems, district size, regulations, multiple…