Suggests that Greenberg's challenge to the centrality of object permanence in developmental thinking reveals that developmentalists' theories about childhood speak about their own self-images. Notes that developmentalists have been guilty of not only the object permanence fallacy but also the genetic fallacy, or the mistaken belief that describing…

The study compared the performance of 30 blind Chinese children in Taiwan, 34 blind Indian children, and 40 sighted Chinese children on 8 conservation tasks. Although both groups of blind children performed considerably poorer than sighted children, those blind children with considerable experience handling tangible materials performed better than…

Some experiments concerning concrete-operational Piagetian skills are discussed in light of the interbehavioral approach in order to highlight the interacting role of antecedent stimuli and the setting of events in complex cognitive behaviors. Conservation, class inclusion, and classification are considered. Implications for a theory of…

Presents exercises that analyze the additive property of energy. Concludes that if a body has more than one component of energy depending on the same physical quantity, the body's total energy will be the algebraic sum of the components if a linear relationship exists between the energy components and that physical quantity. (JRH)

Presents a mechanical model that is able to duplicate the torque-free twist of a real cat. Discusses results of experiments that analyze its free fall from an inverted position. (JRH)

Describes an exploratory investigation of blind children's concepts of number, substance, length, area, weight, and volume conservation. Six children totally without sight or with only light perception were pretested, taught, and posttested twice using tasks specifically adapted for tactual presentation of materials. The children showed increased…

This study assessed estimation skills on both static and transformation (conservation) tasks on numerosities ranging from 3 to 16, and included addition and subtraction trials to control for response bias. A total of 148 four- and five-year-old children estimated the number of balls of yarn sewn on elastic straps, and participated in 1 addition, 1…

To aid undergraduate students in their initial study of Piaget's theory of intellectual development, students enrolled in a sophomore child development course administered selected tasks to individual subjects in order to verify or disprove results predicted in the theory. Prior to replicating the Piagetian experiments, students were introduced to…

The inclusion of group activities based on theories of cognitive development within day care settings is urged. Several examples of classroom-tested activities are included. (ED)

Piaget's concept of "internalization" is analyzed and related to Bruner's representational theories of cognitive development. Cognitive structures are shown to be real exclusively in an actual representation. (Author/SDH)

Results of administering Piagetian tests of concrete and formal operations to 6- to 11-year-olds whose IQ's were in excess of 160 support the reality of Piaget's stage structures but suggest that the speed with which tasks within a stage are mastered is a function of intelligence in the psychometric sense. (Author/SDH)

This paper offers a social learning explanation for age-related changes in children's cognitive functioning. Three hypotheses have been derived from the assumption of Piaget that structures play the preeminent role in cognitive development: (1) a child can not profit from or even appreciate experiences which are meaningful at a higher stage of…

Twenty children, 3-12 years old, were given a newly constructed interview on their concepts of human reproduction (social causality), in conjunction with Piaget-type tasks assessing physical conservation-identity, physical causality, and a new social identity task. The children's concepts of human reproduction appeared to proceed through a…