Examined 5- to 12-year-olds' emerging understanding of the origins of species in two studies. Demonstrated systematic developmental pattern in children's explanations for biological origins. Found age-related shifts from mixed creationist and spontaneous generationist explanations, to exclusive creationism, and finally to evolutionist or…

Examined word retrieval in 14- to 24-month-olds. Found that children with limited productive vocabularies were less likely to produce labels of hidden objects than children with larger vocabularies, even though all could name them and did well when asked to find them. Pictorial cues facilitated word retrieval. Naming errors peaked among children…

Examined degree to which analytic and holistic modes of processing play a role in children's and adults' categorization of faces. Found a developmental trend from analytic to holistic processing and an effect of face inversion with increasing age. Seven-year-olds processed faces comparably to nonfacial visual stimuli, whereas a growing proportion…

Explores relations among depth or timing of poverty, mother's marital history, and quality of the home environment for children ages 6 to 9 years. Results, based on a national longitudinal survey, indicate that the quality of the home environment is substantially lower for poor children than for children who are not poor. (RJM)

Compares drawings of English children with mild learning difficulties (M.L.D.) with those of children of the same chronological age and of the same mental age. Reports that drawings by M.L.D. children are similar to those of children at the same mental age. Suggests that M.L.D. children follow a normal rather than deviant developmental pattern.…

Investigates children's development of causal explanations of success and failure. Compares two measures of causal attribution to show that the use of unipolar scales best depicts differences in causal factors used by children. Explores two hypotheses about the impact of normative context on the development of causal differentiation. (DSK)

Explores the nature of images created by Paleolithic artists and autistic artists in regard to drawing techniques and image function. Explains the commonalities based on a discussion of the role of the early vision process and the construction of meaning. Notes the importance of this research for understanding autistic artists. (DSK)

Notes that children are "wired" to learn, and cites research indicating the importance of talking to an infant for his or her neuron and subsequent cognitive development. Suggests reading aloud, providing positive feedback, responding verbally to the child's actions, and increasing vocabulary. (HTH)

Beneath elements of cognitive development, motivation is seen as a basic concept to describe students' learning in a physics classroom. German secondary school students regard physics as difficult to learn, very abstract, and dominated by males. Knowing about the influence of motivation on learning physics may lead to new insights in the design of…

Looks at relationships between cognitive skills and cognitive style in Anglophone Canadian students. Finds that they are statistically independent, that there is a statistically significant relationship between sex and performance in some subjects, and that there is a statistically significant relationship between skill, style, and subject in…

Explores the notion that some social interactions are more conducive to the construction of knowledge than others. Describes the use of argumentation as a learning tool during play by analyzing transcripts of the interactions of four-and-a-half year olds. Derives implications for early childhood education from these examples and from a theoretical…

A study investigated the construct validity of the Visual Similes Arousal II, an instrument designed to measure arousal as it relates to affective and cognitive stimuli. Principle-axis factor analyses with oblique rotations were used for 116 younger students (ages 8-9) and 108 older students (ages 10-11). Results confirmed construct validity.…

A study involving 26 Taiwanese children (ages 6-12) with autism and 52 controls found scores on the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test were significantly higher for controls for categories completed and percent conceptual level. Scores on perseverative responses, perseverative errors, and non-perseverative errors were higher for those with autism.…

Investigates the application of a non-hierarchical leadership model at an urban public research university. Balances discussions of the values on which the program under review is based with descriptions of the practical structure of the program. Concludes with a discussion of the program's effects on students' cognitive and social development.…

A study examined mothers' perceptions of the toy play of their 57 preschoolers (ages 2-5) with intellectual disabilities. The majority reported children not only engaged in appropriate play with toys, but engaged in advanced levels of play. Mothers also reported children would play with toys for extended periods of time. (Contains references.)…