Mental age and cognitive stage in young handicapped and at-risk children

This research addressed the question of whether stage-related patterns of early cognitive development, reported for normally developing children in the first two and a half years of life, may also characterize the development of at-risk and handicapped children when mental age rather than chronological age is used to organize the data. Performance on a psychometric infant test and two neo-Piagetian-based stage measures was assessed for 95 at-risk and handicapped children. Mental age predicted cognitive level of performance for levels 1 to 3, representing the first year and a half of development, but did not predict the highest level, symbolic functioning. In addition, transition points between levels were observed at mental ages similar to the chronological ages when these transitions have been reported for normally developing infants, for all but the last level. The significance of the correspondence between the psychometric measure and the stage measures is discussed and several alternatives for the breakdown at the highest level are considered.     

Test of the validity of the Wilson-Patterson Conservatism Scale.

The conservatism construct has previously proved predictive of social and psychological dimensions having both practical and theoretical relavance. Its potential, however, has typically been limited by measurement imprecision due principally to the use of lengthy and potentially ambiguous verbal statements subject to either intentional or unintentional response bias. Wilson and Patterson's recently developed Conservatism Scale (C-scale) is intended to obviate the more critical sources of bias inherent in the traditional conservatism measures. In an extended test of the C-scale's validity, the present study finds 12 categories of "known groups" scoring as theoretically expected, and further shows C-scale scores consistently and significantly correlated with eight theoretically related dimensions.     

Interitem encoding and directed search in free recall

The paper proposes a cognitive structure consistent with principles of encoding and a rule for its utilization in verbal recall. The encoding and utilization rules lead to phenomena similar to known serial position effects. A detailed analysis of overt rehearsal data and other experimental results are presented in support of the claim that encoding and search mechanisms characterized by these rules could be important factors in serial position effects of verbal recall. Similar rules might be helpful in dealing with other tasks which seem to mirror the utilization of a cognitive structure.