Results of this study involving 120 kindergarten and first-grade boys and girls suggest that some understanding of the invariance of number appears to emerge earlier than the ability to pass the standard verbal test. (BH)

This paper discusses research on how concepts differ in their internal organization and how these differences interact with and affect cognitive processing in children. Two types of natural concepts are focused on: classes (nouns with class-inclusion organization, such as "trees,""students,""soldiers" and collections…

Three- to 7-year-old children were trained through reinforcement to select the more or less numerous of two rows of squares. All children successfully judged relative numerosity when number covaried with length or density, but only concrete operational children were successful when numbers did not covary with other dimensions. (Author/DB)

The "magic" paradigm was devised to assess conservation of number in young children. Subjects were 32 three- to four-year-old children. (MP)

A central component in the young child's construction of a number system is an understanding of correspondence. Although current research demonstrates that preschool children use correspondence in a variety of tasks, the nature of the relationship between the use of correspondence action patterns and the use of correspondence as a quantifier is…

In a replication study, children 3 and 4 years old were given verbal rule training in order to probe the importance of identity, reversibility, and compensation explanations in training number and length concepts. Among the results, as before, identity was found to be the most significant factor in conservation acquisition. (Author/RH)

Mildly retarded preadolescents received equality-rule training, or instruction in which identical or different numbers were applied to identical or different quantities. In tasks of conservation of number, length, weight, and volume, these preadolescents scored higher than did preadolescents who received other types of training. (BC)

Discussed are the results of interviews with 63 Australian children (interviewed in English) and 62 Nigerian children (62 interviewed in English and 60 interviewed in Yoruba) to determine how they used number concepts in discussing five demonstrations manipulating physical matter. Differences between the two groups are considered. (RH)

Investigated the degree to which early conservation is predicted of later arithmetic achievement by examining the relationship between performance on a conservation task at the beginning of kindergarten and arithmetic achievement towards the end of the second grade. (Author/DB)

This study tested 148 preschoolers between the ages of 48 and 72 months on a Piagetian number conservation task. Children's judgment accuracy, estimation, and response latency were measured. Children were also questioned about the number conservation principle. A four-step developmental sequence was hypothesized: (1) nonconservation; (2) correct…

Critics assert that Piaget's tests seriously underestimate operational thinking by failing to consider experimenter and presentation variables. This experiment studied the impact of these social influences on number conservation performance. Subjects viewed videotapes in which the task was presented by an adult or by puppets. Presentation mode…

Investigates which aspects of the mother behavior in interaction would be related, and in what way, to the child's acquisition of number conservation as a criterion measure of later cognitive development. (MP)

Two studies sought to determine the developmental relationship between the child's use of counting as a notational symbol system to extract, compare, and reproduce numerical information and the development of number conservation. Subjects were four- to six-year-old children in Study 1 and seven- to nine-year-old learning disabled children in Study…

The goal of books in this series is to present work that is on the growing tip of research in cognitive development. The theme of this volume is children's logical and mathematical cognition, a field in which Piaget's influence has been extensive. In the first of the six chapters, Acredolo presents a new theory of the cognitive bases for…

Studies five-year-olds' relative number judgements of small and large number displays with and without perceptual aids. Children were found to respond to local rather than global density differences and to benefit from the provision of perceptual aids on both small and large number displays. (Author/AS)