Communicative adjustments of nonhandicapped preschool children addressing developmentally delayed companions were evaluated for their effectiveness and appropriateness. Behavior-request episodes in which initial failure had occurred were analyzed, and sequences of interactions were tracked within episodes until some form of resolution was…

Investigates children's ability to distinguish the literal meaning of a message and a speaker's communicative intent. Either knowing or not knowing the speaker's intended referent, first- and second-grade children evaluated brief referential communication messages for ambiguity. In the first experiment, messages were written on cards and read to…

Investigates assumptions young listeners may make about speaker authoritativeness. First and fourth graders were asked how the protagonist in a story would respond to what could be interpreted as redundant directions. Stories varied in terms of age and certainty of speaker. (Author/RH)

Two experiments investigated the ability of 3-month-olds to acquire generalized expectancies of reward and the role of these expectancies in memory retrieval. In both experiments, infants exhibited positive transfer over invariant and variable stimulus series; however, in the second experiment, violations of either expected order produced a…

Examines developmental change in processes used to retrieve information from semantic memory. Twenty-nine 8-, 12-, and 21-year-olds were asked to name as many animals and pieces of furniture as they could in separate 7-minute intervals. Results suggested that information in semantic memory changes with age, but that retrieval processes do not.…

Reports two experiments showing a possible developmental shift from memory organization based on associative criteria to an organization based on categorical criteria. Children in first, fourth, and seventh grades were given a sort/recall task with items that could be organized into groups of categorical or associative pairs. (Author/CB)

Examines hypotheses and strategies used by children at the kindergarten, second-, fourth- and sixth-grade levels in making proportional judgements. The task involved 36 trials in which the child had to choose between two groups to obtain a target-color "chip." Results generally conformed to the developmental sequence proposed by Piaget and…

Studies 40 children ages 1 to 3 with respect to stage 6 object permanence, representational language, and symbolic play. Examines methodological problems in investigations of Piaget's model of cognitive-linguistic relationships related to the definition of these variables and associated with the use of correlations for data analysis. (Author/CB)

Reanalyzes data from a study in which 42 fifth graders received training in map-drawing skills. Explores the relationship between the mixture of reasoning levels and developmental change, and compares findings with those of an earlier study of social reasoning. (CB)

Delay/response inhibition in the presence of an attractive stimulus and compliance with maternal directives in a clean-up task were observed among subjects 18, 24, and 30 months of age. Results suggested (1) achievement of self-control is a major developmental accomplishment, and (2) individual differences in self-control emerge and are…

Study of children aged 21 to 31 months tentatively concludes: (1)behavioral tendency to be inhibited or uninhibited with unfamiliar people or during unfamiliar events is moderately stable across time and context; and (2)moderately negative relationship exists between behavioral inhibition and heart rate variability, and positive relationship…

First- and fifth-grade kibbutz and city children (320 in two studies) individually were requested to distribute rewards between themselves and a partner who had produced either more or less than the subject had. Fifth graders were also asked about the level of effort and merit displayed by themselves and their partners. (Author/RH).

Investigates whether children differentiate between the social-interactional, moral aspects of harm and the nonsocial, prudential aspects of harm. A total of 90 subjects 6, 8, and 10 years of age were administered an interview about two moral rules and one prudential rule. Three types of assessment were obtained: criterion judgments,…

Results support Kohlberg's speculation that orientational preference rather than level of stage structure may be the primary area in which sex differences in moral judgment are manifested. It is concluded that ascriptions of greater adequacy or maturity to the moral thought of one or the other sex are appropriate. (RH)

Investigates processes that might influence the degree of association between preschoolers' sex-role stereotyped toy choices and their choice of same-sex versus opposite-sex playmates. A total of 51 children in preschool classes for four-year-olds were observed during free play over nine weeks. (Author/RH)