Relates Montessori theory of development with the concept of connection to the universe and natural world, noting Montessori education's role in nurturing reestablished connection with the natural world. Describes events leading to a fulfilled life as part of psychological normalization, noting the importance of identifying positive tendencies of…

Responds to James Catterall's article "Does Experience in the Arts Boost Academic Achievement: A Response to Eisner." Contends that Catterall does not support his claims concerning the relationship of the arts to academic achievement; instead, Eisner maintains that Catterall is actually examining the contributions of the arts to cognitive…

Questions the validity of current reductionist assumptions concerning learning differences and proposes a new science of life based on dynamic, transforming, hierarchically organized systems of energy. This view of cognition is related to Piaget's insights, which are extended to include a view of learning differences consistent with these…

Examines Simmel's principle of cultivation whereby the cultivated mind is constructed through ongoing transactions of people with their cultural environment, cultural forms currently overlooked. Cultural forms result from externalizations of former person-culture transactions. Argues that development is structured through person-culture…

Five experiments tested whether children understand pretense intentions before they understand pretense mental representations. Findings revealed that children did not understand that intention is crucial to pretense. Various methodological factors that might have compromised results such as force choice versus yes-no questions or using a…

Maintains that Lillard's and Joseph's articles provide an example of how apparently divergent empirical results may turn out to reflect interesting differences between children and adults. The researchers agreed that for young children, pretense is often, but not necessarily, intentional and neither found evidence for a representational…

This article examines the importance of encouraging children's interests and the pursuit of collections and hobbies as strategies for developing talent and abilities. Excerpts are cited from eminent people's lives as examples of early interests/collections and eventual success. Letters from children on their collections are included. (Contains…

Examined 4- and 5-year-old preschoolers' responses to hypothetical scenarios in which their mothers and preschool teachers issued opposing commands. Found that children's responses were affected by different factors depending on where the questioning took place: at home or at their child care centers. (JPB)

Investigated the motivation of Dutch adolescents to obey authorities, noting authority relations between parents and adolescents and between adolescents and professional authorities at child welfare agencies. Interview data indicated that adolescents attributed twice as much authority to parents as to child welfare supervisors. Teens and…

Baxter Magolda's model emphasizes the importance of the patterns of knowing used by students, and how important those patterns are to the creation of learning environments that empower students both in and out of the classroom. This model can help student affairs educators create these kinds of learning environments. (Author/MKA)

Examined loneliness and friendship among 22 high-functioning children with autism and 19 typically developing children equated for IQ, chronological age, gender, mother's education, and ethnic group. Found that children with autism were lonelier than typically developing children, had less complete understanding of loneliness, and had poorer…

Five adolescents with autism, 5 control participants, and 4 child controls received rewards for varying their sequences of responses while playing a computer game. In preceding and following phases, rewards were provided at approximately the same rate but were independent of variability. When reinforced, variability increased significantly in all…

Argues that the conceptual and methodological foundations of both developmental and difference approaches to mental retardation are deficient. Analysis of the relationship between cognitive functioning and cognitive level within chronological age cohorts allows for more sensitive tests and suggests the need for a paradigm shift based on regression…

The implications of three concepts from cognitive science for understanding of cognitive development are reviewed. These are (1) learning (and induction), (2) analogy, and (3) capacity. A model of analogical reasoning is discussed that specifies changes in representations over age that explain phenomena previously thought to be stage-related. (SLD)

Thirteen 4-year olds were asked to arrange dolls in order from largest to smallest. Longitudinal observations over six months revealed five approaches to ordering and four approaches to correction. The "method of extremum" was employed later in development; otherwise, the order in which approaches appeared was highly variable, with many…