The study examined the level of formal reasoning in mathematics of 70 learning disabled (LD) and 30 nonLD students from seventh and eighth grades. A review of previous research led to the hypothesis that mathematics interventions for LD students should involve concrete or pictorial, in addition to symbolic, representations of mathematical…

Five arguments are presented as to the inappropriateness of Piaget's "stage of formal operations" as the final stage of cognitive development. (MJB)

A comparison of the analogy-solving ability of 12 deaf and 12 hearing adolescents supported the predication that hearing Ss would demonstrate better analogical reasoning. The prediction was based on the premise that the oral-aural communication mode provides sensory experience that facilitates the perception of the contrast necessary to cognition…

The creative act arises out of a need to explore human experience, and mathematics is a locus of creative activity. Mathematics should be taught to show the value of imagination and reasoning. (MT)

Discusses how youngsters learn to think in a recognizable adult fashion about political, social, and humanistic issues. Reports on research on the development of political attitudes over the course of adolescence. Concludes that the major difference between younger and older adolescents is the ability of the latter to think abstractly when…

For related article see ej 058 934.

Examines the feasibility of including instruction in common schemes of inference in the elementary grades. (CP)

"A partial replication and extension of Bruner and Kenney's (1966) study of the concept of proportionality was run with 5- and 7-year-old children... Results demonstrated importance of avoiding verbal ambiguity in the investigation of nonverbal cognitive competence. (Author)

The relationship between a student's stated preference for solving a problem and his/her actual problem methodology, concrete or abstract, was studied. Comparisons were made between formal and nonformal students. (MP)

Relationships between word knowledge and proverb comprehension was examined in 150 typically achieving adolescents (ages 12, 15, and 18). Word knowledge was associated with proverb comprehension in all groups, particularly in the case of abstract proverbs. Results support a model of proverb comprehension in adolescents that includes bottom-up in…

Kindergarten children were administered tests of inductive reasoning and field dependence and a series of perceptual egocentrism tasks. Results confirm a positive relation between field dependence and perceptual egocentrism; they also question the validity of the field-dependence construct in early childhood. (GO)

This study assessed the influence of age and ability on linear syllogistic reasoning in early adolescence by presenting bright and average 11- and 13-year-olds with 64, 3-term series problems. Results showed a dramatic effect on performance due to ability. Age effect was only marginally significant. (JMB)

Investigated the relationship between psychometrically defined brightness and cognitive development within Piaget's stage theory. Subjects were fifth- and seventh-grade boys. (SDH)

This study examined children's development of the concept of the reciprocal relationship of question and answer by asking subjects to form questions to fit given answers and to form answers for given questions. A total of 72 children (18 per grades 1, 4, 7, and 10) participated in the study. Each child was tested individually on two tasks (the…

This study is based on an earlier investigation by Brant and Trabasso, in which it was demonstrated that 4-year-old children could perform transitive inferences when training forced information encoding by involving questions about two comparative dimensions of an object (long and short). The present study was designed to examine the sources of…