This study investigated the role of broad cognitive processes in the development of mathematics skills among children and adolescents. Four hundred and forty-seven students (age mean [M] = 10.23 years, 73% boys and 27% girls) from an elementary school district in the US southwest participated. Structural equation modelling tests indicated that…

This study reports on the types of academic talk that contribute to enhanced explanatory responses, reasoning, problem-solving and learning. The study involved 10 groups of 3-4 students who were provided with one of three linguistic tools (i.e. Cognitive Questioning, Philosophy for Children and Collaborative Strategic Reading (CSR)) to scaffold…

Investigates the asserted differences in reasoning between adults and second, fourth, and sixth graders in a manipulation of variables task using class inclusion and story problems with common everyday situations. Results are discussed in terms of sensible reasoning and problem-solving skills. (CM)

Two studies examined the relation between current developmental levels, as estimated by IQ, and proximal levels of development, as estimated by the efficiency of learning and transfer in assisted contexts. Subjects were 8- to ll-year-old children. Theoretical and clinical implications are discussed. (HOD)

Proposes a new conceptual framework, embedded in a dynamic model, that accounts for children's failure to reason transitively. Examines five different models of transitive reasoning. Develops a model of how children initially represent and then use the ordered information available in the transitive inference model and how these processes change…

Proposes causal field theory as a model of causal reasoning. Suggests that anomaly detection through comparison with natural events triggers causal reasoning. This anomaly is interpreted in terms of agency; therefore, natural phenomena can be understood through an appeal to agency. The mechanism proposed never changes with development, whereas…

Children's analogical reasoning has traditionally been measured by classical four-term analogy tasks or problem-solving tasks. Current theories of analogical development and the evidence on which they are based are reviewed. It is concluded that structural views of analogical development are wrong, and knowledge-based accounts of what develops are…

A study with 57 second graders identified some logically irrelevant transformations that children considered relevant in relation to the weight of an object. Two logically relevant transformations, movement upward and movement downward, were irrelevant to the subjects, whether texture, continuity, temperature, and darkness were generally…

Pragmatic and semantic problem solving are examined as processes that enhance acquisition of mathematical knowledge. It is suggested that development of mathematical cognition involves restructuring and that math teachers can help restructure children's knowledge systems by providing them with situations in which semantic and pragmatic problem…

Investigated how children's decisions about allocating money to story characters were affected by the relationship (friends versus strangers) among the characters. Children's rationales for their decisions showed that equality was the most salient principle for decisions at all ages and that older children provided rationales based on benevolence…

A 10-step scale for assessing development of understanding relationships between honesty and kindness was developed and administered to 113 youths. Results indicated that development moved through 3 stages, as youths age 9-12 demonstrated abstract concepts of honesty and kindness; age 13-15 demonstrated simple abstract relations; and age 16-20…

Six experiments examined the problem-solving behavior of normal and mentally retarded (MR) children with a two-choice discrimination learning situation: the effects of stimulus similarity upon types of solutions utilized by MR children; the role of redundant cues in the discrimination learning of MR subjects with differing mental ages; the…