Investigates children's understanding of combined effects of different variables influencing memory. Preschoolers, second graders, fourth graders, and adults predicted how many items a depicted character could recall in several memory situations that were produced by factorially crossing three levels of "items to-be-remembered" with three levels…

Identified some experiences that lead to preschool children's transition from less to more systematic problem-solving strategies. Receiving encouragement to adopt more analytic attitudes and encountering problems with perceptually salient differences on a relevant dimension were the two types of experiences examined. (Author/DB)

The aims of this study were (1) to test the dyadic superiority hypothesis by comparing dyadic performance on a logical reasoning task with the performance of children working alone, and (2) to determine whether the incorrect child's compliance with the correct child was a major factor in the dyadic production of correct answers. (Author/DB)

The paper's primary purpose is to outline an experimental logic that (1) considers causally prior skills such as nonverbal IQ, vocabulary, and decoding, and (2) emphasizes the relative importance of component reading skills rather than simple differences between groups of good and poor readers. (Author/DB)

Examined differences between five-, seven-, and nine-year-olds' ability to estimate their counting accuracy for large set sizes on tasks of three levels of counting difficulty. With increasing age, children's estimates of their counting accuracy increasingly corresponded to their actual counting accuracy. (Author/DB)

Examined preschool children's conceptions of moral and conventional rules. Children judged the seriousness, rule contingency, rule relativism, and amount of deserved punishment for 10 depicted moral and conventional preschool transgressions. Constant across ages and sexes, children evaluated moral transgressions as more serious offenses and more…

Investigated the usefulness of Carey's Revised Infant Temperament Questionnaire in the Chinese culture and used the questionnaire to assess the temperamental characteristics of Chinese babies. While the general pattern of results resembled data from Carey's American sample, differences were found, which could be interpreted in terms of response…

Reports further analysis of longitudinal records of mother-infant interaction at home during the infant's first year of life. Analysis was designed to clarify the role of maternal affectionate behavior in defining maternal patterns and in discriminating anxious/avoidant mothers from secure mothers and from anxious/resistant mothers. (Author/DB)

In a longitudinal study of sibling interaction, same-sex and mixed-sex pairs of siblings were observed twice in their homes. Interaction patterns remained stable over the 18 months separating the two observations. Older children initiated prosocial and combative behavior more often than younger children and submitted less often to dominant…

Specifies some problems in the Piagetian characterizations of assimilation and accommodation and offers an alternative formulation intended to resolve some conceptual anomalies. On the basis of the revision, the orthogenetic law of developmental progression is explicitly derived. Further, Piaget's notion of "equilibrium" is extended into the…

The research literature on children's production of elaborations in associative learning tasks is reviewed, especially with respect to the questions of when children can produce elaborations under instruction, when they transfer elaborative strategy usage from one situation to another, and when they produce elaborative strategies spontaneously.…

To assess the impact of parents on children's achievement, self-concept, and related beliefs, extensive questionnaires measuring attitudes and beliefs regarding mathematics achievement were administered to children in grades 5 through 11 and their parents. The potential influence of parents both as role models and as expectancy socializers was…

The relationship between classroom experiences and individual differences in expectations for future success in mathematics courses, self-concept of math abilities, and perceptions of the difficulty of math were investigated in an observational study of 17 math classrooms for grades five through nine. (Author/RH)

The hypothesis was investigated that alleviation of negative motivational factors underlies much of the 10-point IQ increase commonly found in economically disadvantaged children's performance following a preschool intervention program. Head Start and non-Head Start groups were tested on IQ and motivational measures three times before and during…

Reports a longitudinal investigation of family interaction variables and language development measured during preschool and again during the primary grades. In Black families of low income, preschool siblings (24 - 42 months of age) of second graders in two contrasting levels of reading achievement were observed in their homes. (Author/RH)