In this paper, we analyzed the descriptions of learning provided by 234 College of Education students from Finland and Canada and compared them with Whitehead's (1932/1962) epistemological theory of the rhythm of mental growth. The students were asked to "Give a concrete example of a situation in which you really learned something." The…

In this study of Oklahoma's universal pre-K program, the authors relied on a strict birthday eligibility criterion to compare "young" kindergarten children who just completed pre-K to "old" pre-K children just beginning pre-K. This regression-discontinuity design reduces the threat of selection bias. Their sample consisted of…

A schema based view of addition development is compared with Siegler's latest strategy-choice model, which includes an addition goal sketch (a basic understanding of "the goals and causal relations" of addition; Siegler & Crowley, 1994, p. 196). This metacognitive component in the latter model is presumed to develop as a child practices a basic…

Sifting through the myriad "idea" technologies (such as multiple intelligence theories or Piaget's Theory of Cognitive Development) and "product" technologies (such as PowerPoint or digital cameras) can be overwhelming, but Bednar persuades us that it's not about having the most recent technology, it's about using what works for "your" students in…

In three experiments, we traced the development of the adult pattern of judgments of attractiveness for faces that have been altered to have internal features in low, average, or high positions. Twelve-year-olds and adults demonstrated identical patterns of results: they rated faces with features in an average location as significantly more…

Recent imaging studies have suggested that developmental changes may parallel aspects of adult learning in cortical activation becoming less diffuse and more focal over time. However, while adult learning studies examine changes within subjects, developmental findings have been based on cross-sectional samples and even comparisons across studies.…

Students learn important concepts and ways of thinking by building on their own actions and experiences. In much of higher education, the primacy of textbooks and the lectures that accompany them are inconsistent with the nature of student learning. Some students manage to learn despite the problems from this emphasis, but educators can do much…

There are a number of characteristics of gifted children reported by teachers and researchers. Such characteristics may include curiosity, advanced mathematical skills, large vocabulary, acute sense of humour. This paper examines the demands that humour, as a creative activity, makes on cognitive and social development. It is derived from research…

How do infants identify the psychological actors in their environments? Three groups of 12-month-old infants were tested for their willingness to encode a simple approach behavior as goal-directed as a function of whether it was performed by (1) a human hand, (2) a morphologically unfamiliar green object that interacted with a confederate and…

This paper attempts to explore the nature and consequences of early trauma on the mental development of a 9-year-old boy I have called Luke. The traumatic event occurred within the context of a more chronic and ongoing trauma, which was due to the lack of receptive and containing parental figures. The combination of these two kinds of traumatic…

Recent research on cognition demonstrates how significant it is to listen to and hear what children say about their experience. When we understand what they analyse about the daily events of school, we get a very different picture of what they go through than the official policies would suggest. Children have clear insights into the formal and…

A heterogeneous sample of infants with preterm histories and infants born full term participated in a study of declarative memory and rate of encoding, as measured in an imitation task and an examining task, respectively. Here we report the comparisons of the performances of infants born very preterm (27-34 weeks gestation) and moderately preterm…

This experiment tested whether children's insight into a difficult symbolic relation could be increased by explicitly emphasizing the intentionality surrounding the artifact's creation and use. Specifically, I explicitly emphasized (a) the adult's intent to communicate information via the artifact and (b) the artifact's intentional origins and…

This experiment examined delayed self-recognition in 24 2.5-year-old and 24 3-year-old children. Children were marked covertly with a sticker on their forehead while playing a game, after which their photograph was taken. When shown this photograph, the 3- but not the 2.5-year-olds reached to remove this sticker reliably. However, the older…

The style of parenting of 100 children (mean age 11 years, 5 months) was established according to Baumrind's typology. Children were asked to indicate what they thought an adult would say to justify a moral rule in five different scenarios. Results indicated that parenting style did not relate to the number of justifications that children thought…