An outline of Kohlberg's formulation of moral development is presented. The development of empathy is considered central to moral development since it is the basis for the motivation to help others. A value-centered curriculum is suggested, but it is argued that moral development is not merely a matter of education. (JN)

Reviews recent progress in modeling human cognition, in particular the use of computers in generating models. Topics covered include the information processing approach to cognition, problem solving, semantic memory, pattern induction, and learning and cognitive development. A 164-item reference list is attached. (JL)

Examines the issue of object sorting in early infancy. Forty-eight infants at 6, 9, and 12 months were presented with eight sets of small, manipulable objects. At six months, selective manipulation was absent; at nine months, 94 percent of the infants sequentially touched similar objects and at 12 months 100 percent did so. (Author/DB)

Children and adolescents from four social classes were asked to describe rich and poor people and to indicate how the rich and the poor are different from and similar to each other. Responses were classified into three categories of person description: peripheral (possessions, appearances, and behavior), central (traits and thoughts), and…

Discusses problems in both the "unfolding from within" and "enforcement from without" theories of children's cognitive development. Suggests that "mediation from above," which assumes that children are not independent beings, at least in the beginning, offers additional insight into children's interactions with adults. (WD)

The study investigated possible differences between 113 children identified as emotionally handicapped and 368 normal children with regard to cognitive complexity (ability to differentiate among behavioral dimensions in the social environment). (Author/SB)

The development status of the communicatory behavior of 11 autistic children (4 to 9 years old) was assessed during free play sessions under two conditions: when teachers were present to direct the children's behavior and when teachers were absent and the children played among themselves. (Author)

The authors caution that in neglecting to focus on cognitive training, special education may be denying the very ideology on which it is built. (Author)

Piagetian based curricular attempts in special education may have to begin with a system for representing the individual's current level of behavioral organization and designing environmental interactions that expand the constructions of the individual into reorganized, more complex forms. (Author)

A brief review of these tests is provided, and it is concluded that the procedures possess a number of characteristics that make the evaluation of change in intelligence a tenuous proposition. (Author)

Existing evidence on the Milwaukee Project, an early intervention effort with preschool disadvantaged children, suggests a decline of the experimental children to the level of the untreated controls in those measures, such as school reading, not under the control of the project. (DB)

The fact that the autistic children were so impaired in language even with fairly good sensorimotor skills suggests that these skills, particularly object permanence, play a minor role in their language acquisition. (Author)

Advocates the use of classification activities in the elementary school curriculum as a means of developing thinking skills in children. Critical preclassification skills, classification activities (including simple and multiple classification), and classification tasks and materials are discussed. (Author/RH)

Preoperational and concrete-operational first and second graders performed on a training task and a generalization task prior to and after serving in one of five instructional groups. The instructional groups were: no-training control, specific self-instruction, specific didactic control, general self-instruction and general didactic control.…

A new model is proposed for explaining children's performance on Pascual-Leone's test of M-space. The new model is used to generate theoretical performance curves for children at four different age levels and seven different levels of stimulus complexity, and it is a viable alternative. Differences between the models are reviewed. (Author/RD)