The results of four studies involving three to seven year olds revealed that, by age three, some children (1) appreciated conservation of matter despite visual disappearance and the existence of invisible particles; and (2) made use of the particle concept to explain how a particle can continue to exist and maintain its properties despite visual…

In one experiment, most four to eight year olds overattributed knowledge to a preverbal baby who heard an informative message. In a second experiment, six and eight year olds acknowledged differences in babies' and adults' interpretations of a message that was not obviously informative. (BC)

Investigated relationship between speech and gestural proficiency at six-month intervals from 2 years to 3 years 6 months in five French-English bilingual boys. Found that from 2 years on, many aspects of gesture use were like those of adults. Iconic and beat gesture use showed differential development in French and English related to mean length…

Two studies examined young children's ability to name the first letter of spoken words, finding that although children were good at telling that "beech" and "beaver" began with "b," some stated that "wife" began with "y" and that "seem" began with "c." These errors reflect the letter names at the beginnings of the spoken words. (MDM)

Measured vagal tone and heart period at 2 months and 5 years in children and their mothers to evaluate the development of vagal regulation at rest and during an environmental task. Found that children reached adult levels of baseline vagal tone by 5 years and did not differ from mothers in baseline-to-task change in vagal tone or heart period.…

Three experiments examined 3- to 5-year-olds' use of eye gaze cues to infer truth in a deceptive situation. Children watched a video of an actor who hid a toy in 1 of 3 cups. In Experiments 1 and 2, the actor claimed ignorance about the toy's location but looked toward 1 of the cups, without (Experiment 1) and with (Experiment 2) head movement. In…

Three experiments examined developmental change in children's understanding of regret and relief, two second-order emotions whose quality depends on a comparison between reality and "what might have been." In Experiment 1, participants 7 years of age and older, but not 5-year-olds, made regret-related emotion-response judgments that took into…

Spatial matching--the ability to distribute search effort in accord with the distribution of hidden resources--was studied in 18- to 54-month-old children. The principal development was the appropriate use of win-shift response. (Author/RWB)

Tested the hypothesis that understanding of the pretend-real distinction develops earlier than understanding of the theoretically related apparent-real distinction. Found 3-year-old children consistently performed better on pretend-real tasks than on apparent-real tasks, even when the tasks were identical except for the distinction tested. (SKC)

To ascertain whether marital quality influences parental teaching strategies in different instructional contexts, mother-child and father-child interactions were observed during a book-reading and a direct instruction task. While few differences in teaching styles were detected between nondistressed husbands and wives, teaching styles of mothers…

Demonstrates young children's shift toward a taxonomic basis for organization of both named and depicted objects. Concludes that perceptual organization in young children cannot be attributed to an inability to ignore visual information but seems to be based upon the centrality of perceptual features to the representation of objects. (Author/NH)

The effects of extent and kind of external control during training on later resistance to temptation were examined in preschool children. Boys transgressed significantly more quickly than girls. (ST)

Investigated developmental changes in children's judgments of age of people in photographs with emphasis on judgments correlating age and physical size. Results were discussed in terms of previous age perception studies and Piagetian Theory. (DP)

Examined the understanding of general correspondences between print and language and specific correspondences in alphabetic and nonalphabetic languages on the part of monolingual (English) and bilingual (French-English, Chinese-English) 4- and 5-year-olds. Bilingual children understood the general symbolic representation of print better than…

Two studies investigated the maintenance of focused attention in the first five years of life. Findings revealed changes over age in the way children concentrate and sustain attention spontaneously during free play. Results point to possible developments underlying the increasing duration of focused attention. (RH)