The purposes of this study are to: (1) design an Instrument that assesses children's attitudes toward the elderly (CATE) and the aging process; (2) employ this instrument; and (3) use the information obtained to develop a curriculum guide. The CATE was developed to examine the cognitive, affective, and behavioral components of children's attitudes. It was administered to 180 children in nursery school through sixth grade, with 20 children randomly selected from each age level. Chi-Square, T-tests, ANOVA and correlational techniques were utilized. Results suggest that; (1) children at all age levels have limited knowledge of older people; (2) children gave few positive responses about growing old themselves, and did not perceive being old as positive; (3) children of all age levels were able to identify the oldest man in a series of photographs depicting men of different ages; (4) attitudes of children toward the elderly show a mixture of positive feelings, and either stereo-typic or negative attitudes about the physical aspects of age; and (5) in Piagetian conservation tasks, children's concept of age were significantly correlated with conservation scores. (Author/JLL)