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)

Investigated the cognitive development of children with emotional and behavioral difficulties (EBDs). Found that children with EBDs showed a similar order of acquisition of conservation as normal children, and the thinking of children with EBDs was characterized by a high degree of uncertainty. (BC)

Methodological problems associated with conservation testing, related to task validity, horizontal decalage, and inference criteria, are isolated and discussed. (Editor)

The effects of numerical and visual cues, equality or inequality of initial volumes, size of measurement unit, and order of cue presentation on conservation of liquid volumes by first- and second-graders were investigated. Some findings extend, and others contradict, those of Piaget. (SD)

Fifty-eight kindergarten children were assessed on traditional presentations involving the conservation of number and liquid. Each conservation test contained two different items and began with the stimuli quantitatively and perceptually equal. Two other conservation tasks for number and liquid with initial nonequivalence followed. Performance on…

Clarifies the difference between the Piagetian Conservation of Liquid Quantity task and the Conservation of Volume task and provides an alternative test for the presence of formal operational thought. (JR)

Hunting and gathering at sea may fast be approaching their productive limits. Aquaculture - farming at sea - linked to conservation represents the sea's promise. If the system works, it might prove to be the key to supplying large amounts of food and fresh water at no cost in nonrenewable energy resources. (BT)

An investigation of the influence of internal and external cues upon the perception of humor in the violation of a logical expectancy (using conservation of weight) in a total of 108 third and fifth graders. (ED)

Studies the effects of modeling and reversibility cues in teaching 4-year-olds to conserve length. Results are discussed in terms of a social learning viewpoint of cognitive development. (ED)

Repeated but unadvised attempts have been made by music educators to relate the Piagetian concept of concrete operational thought to children's understanding of music. The attempts have been focused on the apparent link between the child's detection of invariance in musical patterns and the concept of conservation. These attempts are unadvised…

The formal operations skills and problem solving performance of 60 gifted girls (grades 4 through 6) were investigated. Ss were given Piagetian tasks which involved conservation of mass and weight, use of proportion, oscillation of the pendulum, and projection of shadows. Among findings were the following: (1) no relationship between IQ and either…

This report analyses justifications gathered in a series of studies which led intellectually normal infants' school and nursery school children and mildly mentally retarded special day school children to acquire conservation understanding. Two hundred and five children were given a pretest of number, mass, length, liquid, and weight conservation.…

Students who behave as though an equation (function) is unchanged by a transformation of variable are said to conserve equation (function). Tasks devised to test for conservation of equation and function were administered, along with typical Piagetian tasks, to 72 students, aged 12, 14, and 17. Results suggest that conservation of equation,…

Investigated was the distinction between identity conservation and equivalence conservation in 180 preschool, kindergarten and third grade students. Ss were assigned to one of six different counterbalanced orders of presentation for the conservation task battery. The factors were age, task (identity/equivalence), criterion (judgment only/judgment…

This study reports a factor analysis of the data resulting from a 3-year longitudinal investigation into conservation of number and related mathematical type concepts. Conservation of number, which represents a subset within the concept of conservation, was measured by use of a 20-item, criterion-referenced testing device. The subjects, who were…