Investigated was the effect of prior experiences on the acquisition of number conservation by 10 mildly and 10 moderately retarded students (7-16 years old). (CL)

In the present study, the authors collected data that would help resolve the controversey between developmental and defect theorists of mental retardation. (Authors/RY)

Conservation judgments are based on a combination of logical necessity and empirical belief. Results of two experiments support the view that the logical aspect of conservation is developmentally stable, while the empirical aspect varies widely across problems and individuals because of its dependence on relevant experience. (Author/RD)

Discussed is research which shows, in contrast to the dominant impression given by Piaget's work, that before the onset of schooling the young child possesses several kinds of fundamental "intuitions" concerning numbers. (Author/TG)

Summarizes results of studies indicating that play training led to significant increases in young children's problem-solving ability, use of language, creative thinking ability, verbal ability, and conservation. (Author/MP)

A general theory of how children learn conservation concepts is presented. The acquisition process is described at an abstract level in terms of a rule-sampling system, implying a three-state Markov model with identifiable parameters. Three experiments testing the model's quantitative predictions about conservation learning experiments are…

Three experiments explored the developmental relationship between counting and number conservation in children from three to six years old. Results indicated that there was a close relationship between the two; that only the oldest children gave evidence of conserving; and that, in general, there is evidence of protracted development in young…

Describes some inexpensive activities and demonstrations that illustrate basic concepts that are often overlooked, as a low-cost means to foster student participation in physics classes. Activities described deal with acceleration and forces, freefall, conservation of energy and momentum, conservation of angular momentum, and resonance. (JRH)

The amount of social pretend play in free-play sessions of small groups of five to seven year olds, and the symbolic features of this play, were noted. Conservation, verbal symbol substitution, and role-playing skills, were assessed as measures of cognitive symbolic skill. Results provide no evidence that these social class differences reflect…

Using the US national sample from the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) and the Rasch modeling method, this study identified the conceptual progression sequence of various matter concept aspects, and compared students' latent abilities against the sequence. We found that the four matter aspects, i.e. conservation, physical…

A study was made to examine effects of peer collaboration on children's cognitive development and to ascertain whether effects of collaboration varied across American and Russian cultures. A total of 84 girls and boys (42 from a kindergarten in Moscow and 42 from an elementary school in Ithaca, New York), 5 through 7 years of age, initially…

This document focuses on research on the relation between children's use and understanding of counting as a symbol system for number and the development of number conservation concepts. An underlying assumption is that a better match between mathematics curricula and the educational needs of children will be facilitated by learning more about the…

Children aged 2-1/2 to 3-1/2 years in three preschool programs were given a test battery consisting of classification, relations, and conservation tasks. One program (Ausubelian) was formal and two programs (Piagetian and Tradition) were informal. Posttest data for the first year of a three-year longitudinal study indicated significantly superior…

Two naturalistic studies of young (18-30 month old) children's memory for object location are reported which indicate that young children's memories are better than non-naturalistic studies suggest and that they have confidence in their memories. In the first study, 17 children were observed attempting to find objects they had watched their…