This study attempted to develop, implement, and evaluate an experimental preschool education program based on Piaget's theory of cognitive development. A further goal was to examine Piaget's theoretical assumptions and postulated cognitive developmental trends for a 2-year period of the preoperational substage. A total of 48 3- to 5-year-olds…

This booklet contains eight chapters related to instructional competence in reading:"The Setting for Instructional Competence,""Reading Readiness,""Word Recognition,""Comprehension,""Instructional Materials,""Classroom Diagnosis,""Approaches to Teaching," and "Evaluation." Among the topics discussed are: keeping current in reading, professional…

This study investigated the development of story recall in elementary school children through development of a model of story comprehension which specified both the rules for informational transformations and elaborations and the nature of the organizational structure of stories. Using Rumelhart's (1974) schema for analyzing stories in terms of a…

The instructional effectiveness of learning programs derived from Gagne-type task analysis, ordering theory analysis, and random sequenced presentation of complex intellectual skills were investigated. Fifty-seven high school students completed a self-instructional program derived from one of the three sequences. No significant differences were…

The hypothesized relationship between an individual's age, educational background, and ability to understand aspects of semantic ambiguity was investigated in this study. The 90 subjects included ten students in each of grades two, four, six, eight, and ten, as well as ten college undergraduates, ten graduate students, ten high school graduates,…

The present investigation examined the ability of the Inventory of Home Stimulation (STIM) to predict changes in relative mental test performance of children between 6 months old and 36 months of age. The six STIM subscales were used in discriminant analysis to classify infants into three groups (gainers, stable, losers) in terms of their change…

The role of inference in children's comprehension and memory is the subject of this research report. An underlying proposition is that in order for a child to effectively understand and remember linguistic or nonlinguistic information, he must actively embellish the given stimulus material with his own implicit knowledge. In the experiment…

This collection of articles presents ideas about the value of children's play and suggests practical ways to implement good play experiences and select appropriate play materials. Articles examine play as an agent of social values, play and thinking, play and child development, the environmental opportunities for play factors that can destroy the…

In this paper it is shown that one's conception of intelligence and its development profoundly affects the formulation of educational objectives. A mechanistic conception of intelligence leads to the definition of objectives as a collection of fragmented "cognitive skills" that have little to do with children's development of intelligence. A…

In research conducted "over a period of 20 years" on aptitudes of high level personnel, the purpose was to analyze thinking abilities or processes into their unique components. The approach was through study of individual differences in performance on intellectual tasks varied systematically over broad ranges of psychological functioning.…

Discussed are Piaget's methods, his relation to other theories, and an overview of his theory. Described are the six stages of his sensorimotor period with a summary of imitation and play, and the concrete operations period with the subperiods of changes from sensorimotor in preoperation, differences from the adult in preoperation, and the…

Forty randomly selected school children, in four treatment groups of ten each (each comprised of children from the 5, 8, and 12 year age levels) participated in a study to determine the extent to which the capacity for information processed by a child increases in amount with development. Apprehension span (perception and transformation of aural…

This report gives an overall evaluation of the Parent/Child Program of preschool education for 3- to 4-year-olds. The program objectives are: (1) to aid parents to help their children develop a healthy self-concept, (2) to help parents to promote their children's intellectual development through educational toys, (3) to help parents stimulate…

This study obtained data to compare the progress of low income Follow Through pupils with full-year Head Start pupils attending regular kindergarten classes. Five groups of children were compared according to class characteristics, parent participation, teacher interviews, and parent interviews. All groups were administered the Metropolitan…

The present study aimed: (1) to systematically describe and classify the speech input received by children of specified ages from their mothers in the home, (2) to investigate the interdependence between the quality of the mother's speech, her socio-cultural background, and her children's level of intelligence, and (3) to determine whether some…