How young children pour equal quantities: A case of pseudocompensation

Two experiments are reported on how 3- to 4.5-year-old children pour equal liquid quantities. An apparent precocity and a decline with age in the ability to judge correctly when different-sized glasses contain the same amount of liquid is demonstrated in Experiment 1. Children of different ages use different strategies to make judgments of equality and this is revealed in Experiment 2. The most primitive strategy fortuitously led the youngest children to make a correct response in Experiment 1 but led to incorrect responses in Experiment 2. Possible explanations of these results are discussed.     

Frequency judgment accuracy as a function of age and school achievement (learning disabled versus non-learning-disabled) patterns

The accuracy of children's judgments of relative situational frequency was examined in two experiments. In Experiment 1 children with normal achievement in Grades 2 and 3 were compared with such children in Grades K and 5, as well as with three groups of low-achieving children in Grades 2 and 3. These latter groups consisted of children low in reading achievement, those low in math achievement, and those identified as learning disabled. Frequency judgment accuracy increased from kindergarten to Grades 2 and 3. No other comparisons yielded significant differences. Experiment 2 confirmed both the above age difference and the absence of any frequency judgment deficiency on the part of the low-achieving groups.     

Determinants of spelling ability in deaf and hearing adults: Access to linguistic structure

The extent to which ability to access linguistic regularities of the orthography is dependent on spoken language was investigated in a two-part spelling test administered to both hearing and profoundly deaf college students. The spelling test examined ability to spell words varying in the degree to which their correct orthographic representation could be derived from the linguistic structure of English. Both groups of subjects were found to be sensitive to the underlying regularities of the orthography as indicated by greater accuracy on linguistically-derivable words than on irregular words. Comparison of accuracy on a production task and on a multiple-choice recognition task showed that the performance of both deaf and hearing subjects benefited from the recognition format, but especially so in the spelling of irregular words. Differences in the underlying spelling process for deaf and hearing spellers were revealed in an analysis of their misspellings: Deaf subjects produced fewer phonetically accurate misspellings than did the hearing subjects. Nonetheless, the deaf spellers tended to observe the formational constraints of English phonology and morphology in their misspellings. Together, these results suggest that deaf subjects are able to develop an appreciation for the structural properties of the orthography, but that their spelling may be guided by an accurate representation of the phonetic structure of words to a lesser degree than it is for hearing spellers.     

Hierarchical planning disability in the drawings and constructions of a special group of severely aphasic children

A small group of severely receptive aphasic children who appear to be suffering from a rare aphasic syndrome that has been referred to in the literature as "acquired aphasia with convulsive disorder in children" was tested on drawing and construction tasks which tap hierarchical planning abilities. Although they could draw and construct a complex figure when using a serial method, they could not do so when required to use hierarchical planning in building up the model in terms of its subunits. Their scores reflecting hierarchical ability were significantly lower than those of age-matched profoundly deaf and normal children. The nature of this disability is discussed and its effects noted on tasks in other modalities. It is argued that neither an auditory deficit theory nor a short-term memory deficit theory is adequate to account for the observed disabilities. Individual differences in the group were noted. It was also found that a smaller percentage of developmentally expressive aphasic children evidenced the hierarchical planning disability. It is concluded that a primary hierarchical planning disability in some aphasic children can account for some aspects of their linguistic disabilities and for disabilities on other nonlanguage and nonauditory tasks.     

Microcomputers in schools: Impact on the social life of elementary classrooms

Microcomputers are becoming increasingly available to schools, but little research is available concerning the impact of this technology for children. Two studies were conducted to examine some possible social effects of the use of microcomputers in elementary school classrooms where children are learning to program in LOGO. First, the task-related interaction that children engaged in with each other was observed and recorded in two classrooms (8- to 9-year-old s, and 10- to 11-year-olds) as the children worked on both computer and non-computer tasks. The children in both classrooms were significantly more likely to collaborate with each other when they worked with the computers, when compared with their interaction over other classroom tasks. The second study examined children's perceptions of their peers as resources for help with a variety of classroom tasks. When compared with other work, the computer context was the one where children more consistently identified certain of their peers as resources for help.     

Operational efficiency and the growth of short-term memory span

Four studies are reported which link developmental increases in memory span with developmental increases in operational speed or efficiency. In the first, a linear relationship is demonstrated between increases in word span and increases in speed of word repetition. In the second, adults and 6-year-olds are equated on speed of word repetition, by manipulating word familiarity. It is shown that their word spans are no longer different under these conditions. Similar findings are then reported for a test of M space called “Counting Span.” First, a linear relationship is demonstrated between increases in Counting Span and increases in speed of counting. Next, adults and 6-year-olds are equated on speed of counting, by forcing adults to count in an unfamiliar language. It is shown that their counting spans are no longer different under these conditions. The conclusion is that developmental increases in memory span do not result from increases in total processing space. Rather, with development, basic operations become faster and more efficient. This means that they require less processing space, and that more space becomes available for storage as a result.