Two studies indicate that Oksapmin children progress from premediational to mediational phases in their use of body parts to compare and reproduce number and that this change generally occurs prior to the development of concepts of number conservation. A third study shows that this general change is manifested in culturally specific ways.…

Indicated that early readers are more likely to be advanced in cognitive development than are nonearly-reading peers. After one year of formal reading instruction, early readers maintained their advantage in reading achievement. Measures of concrete operations were found to predict reading achievement for early and nonearly readers. (Author/DB)

Studied classroom behaviors and conservation ability of elementary school science students taught by either Student-Structured Learning in Science (SSLS) or Teacher-Structured Learning in Science (TSLS). Reports on how behavior of conservers and nonconservers differs in SSLS and TSLS with respect to observing, following directions, and inventing…

Piaget's notions on conservation and transitivity are discussed, along with interpretations and experiments by some of Piaget's critics. Several general teaching suggestions also are included. (DT)

Examined empathy and conservation abilities of nonretarded children with autism and compared their performance to that of normally developing children. Autistic children performed surprising well, but not as well as normal children. There was a closer association between cognitive abilities and affective understanding among the autistic children…

A former editor of this journal, 1967-69, selects an outstanding article from her tenure for its significance as the beginning of important studies in mathematics learning in young children. The article selected presents a modified technique for assessing a young child's acquisition of length conservation while eliminating or reducing the…

Nonretarded (NR) and educable mentally retarded (EMR) 6- to 19-year-old children in Istanbul, Turkey, completed conservation tasks. Found a similarity in the developmental progression of conservation concepts between the two groups and between these groups and groups of NR and EMR children in England as reported in previous studies. (BC)

Studied black five-year olds from a school in an impoverished urban area (n=32) and white five-year olds from a blue-collar suburban area (n=32) for their school achievement at the end of kindergarten. The same cognitive intervention was attempted with children from both school populations. Discusses research methodology and research findings. (KW)

Three experiments tested whether it is possible to teach college students who are not trained investigators to comprehend information regarding knowledge of conservation problems and mathematical equivalence conveyed through children's hand gestures. Findings suggest that instructing adults to attend to gesture enhances their assessment of…

Conservation ability, spatial motor ability, age, and gender were used as predictive variables in a study of 26 kindergarten children's computer programming ability. A preliminary pilot study with first graders had suggested that programming success was related to the ability to reverse thought processes. In both studies, children were taught to…

The goal of books in this series is to present work that is on the growing tip of research in cognitive development. The theme of this volume is children's logical and mathematical cognition, a field in which Piaget's influence has been extensive. In the first of the six chapters, Acredolo presents a new theory of the cognitive bases for…

Two studies of 7-, 8- and 9-year-olds assessed the effect on cognitive development produced by varying degrees of physical isolation of family dwellings and the consequent variation in the amount of verbal communication children had with peers and adults. (JMB)

A 3-year longitudinal study assessed cognitive changes among rural children 3 to 5 years old and validated the construct validity of the Nebraska Wisconsin Cognitive Assessment Battery (NEWCAB). Multistage area sampling techniques were used with a repeated measures, control group design. Participants in the sample were 40 3-year-olds, 57…

Examined were effects of advance organizer (AO) instruction on acquisition of conservation concepts in 3- and 4-year-olds. Participants were 28 children who were equally divided into experimental and control groups, pretested, and found to be nonconservers. A sequence of two AO lessons and related learning activities was presented to the…