In this research monograph, several areas of disparity between child and adult grammar are examined to discover at what ages the child, who is on the border of adult language competence, achieves a certain mastery of complex syntactic structures. Chapters include (1) a discussion of current notions on the nature of the linguistic process and a…

Evidence for suggested basic differences in the abstract reasoning capacity of Negro and Caucasian children includes consistent findings of significantly poorer performance by Negroes on Raven's Progressive Matrices (PM). This study investigated the PM performance of Negro children taught algebra via a discovery method of instruction. It was…

This course in semantics investigates verbal and nonverbal symbols and their denotations, emotional values, and levels of abstraction in an attempt to open channels of communication between the students and those with whom they communicate. Concepts, ideas, and skills included in the course are as follows: (1) that words are tools to help with the…

Conservation performance during childhood to portions of the life span beyond adolescence is examined, with existing data replicated on subjects ranging from the preschool to middle-childhood years. Age differences in performance are studied for the typical Piagetian paired-stimulus equivalence conservation of number, substance, weight, and volume…

Synthesizes research on reasoning development and studies of teaching in order to present an approach to teaching guided thinking. (SRT)

Results of seventh-grade students taking Scholastic Aptitude Test indicate that, by age 13, a large sex difference in mathematical reasoning ability exists; among students scoring greater than 700, boys outnumbered girls 13 to 1. Hypothesized factors thought to influence the difference (such as course taking, attitudes) were not supported by data…

Students with or without disabilities often experience difficulties with abstract math concepts. This paper is intended to help solve the mystery of math concepts through origami construction, a hands-on activity. Students are involved in constructing and deconstructing concepts by folding and unfolding a piece of paper which eventually leads to a…

Examines changes in the broad cultural background which provide the context for thinking, and how such life-style changes may have influenced the decline of reasoning skills and styles fundamental to the sciences. Considers peasant/rural farming, new world, and postaffluent society life-styles and science education in the latter. (Author/SK)

A cognitive-based system of analysis of spoken discourse was designed to provide details about the way pupils think and talk about issues arising from prose material. Written and spoken responses were analyzed to examine the effects of intellectual ability, differences in the stimulus passage, and prior small group discussion. (Note: Page…

This study reports the characteristics of the 4,751 high school students (out of 374,527) who achieved perfect scores in 1 or more subtests of the 1991 PLAN academic performance test, an academic assessment of 10th graders. Comparisons by gender, ethnicity, and subtest (English, Mathematics, Reading, and Science Reasoning) and a profile of…

Describes the importance of learning to connect separate universes of knowledge into a coherent whole. It is a mistake to emphasize connecting schools to the Internet without considering the kinds of thinking processes students need in order to learn from the information they access. (LMI)

Discussed are possible reasons behind the inconsistencies in the learning of calculus. Implicated are students' beliefs, mathematical paradigms including concept image and concept definition, language use, and curriculum sequencing. (KR)

Discussed are the issues of inconsistencies and compartmentalization and the use of inconsistencies in the classroom. Included are discussions on paradoxes, the naive student, logical reasoning ability, and the development of the students' cognitive structures. (KR)

Discusses a system of classification for students' inconsistent ideas in mathematics, the sources of students' mathematical inconsistency, and instructional strategies for helping students to resolve apparent learning inconsistencies. Language, curriculum, and instruction are included in the discussion. (KR)

Compared the use of conditional logic in adult-adult and adult-child conversation. Results indicated that conversation patterns and inferences were similar except that children made fewer independent inferences and shifts in taxonomic level and responded more frequently to socially controlling statements than did adults. (AA)