3‐Year‐Old Children Make Relevance Inferences in Indirect Verbal Communication

Three studies investigated 3‐year‐old children's ability to determine a speaker's communicative intent when the speaker's overt utterance related to that intent only indirectly. Studies 1 and 2 examined children's comprehension of indirectly stated requests (e.g., “I find Xs good” can imply, in context, a request for X; N = 32). Study 3 investigated 3‐ and 4‐year‐old children's and adults' (N = 52) comprehension of the implications of a speaker responding to an offer by mentioning an action's fulfilled or unfulfilled precondition (e.g., responding to an offer of cereal by stating that we have no milk implies rejection of the cereal). In all studies, 3‐year‐old children were able to make the relevance inference necessary to integrate utterances meaningfully into the ongoing context.     

Mental Rotation With Tangible Three‐Dimensional Objects: A New Measure Sensitive to Developmental Differences in 4‐ to 8‐Year‐Old Children

There is an emerging consensus that spatial thinking is fundamental to later success in math and science. The goals of this study were to design and evaluate a novel test of three‐dimensional (3D) mental rotation for 4‐ to 8‐year‐old children (N = 165) that uses tangible 3D objects. Results revealed that the measure was both valid and reliable and indicated steady growth in 3D mental rotation between the ages of 4 and 8. Performance on the measure was highly related to success on a measure of two‐dimensional (2D) mental rotation, even after controlling for executive functioning. Although children as young as 5 years old performed above chance, 3D mental rotation appears to be a difficult skill for most children under the age of 7, as indicated by frequent guessing and difficulty with mirror objects. The test is a useful new tool for studying the development of 3D mental rotation in young children.     

Realizing Relevance: The Influence of Domain‐Specific Information on Generation of New Knowledge Through Integration in 4‐ to 8‐Year‐Old Children

In accumulating knowledge, direct modes of learning are complemented by productive processes, including self‐generation based on integration of separate episodes. Effects of the number of potentially relevant episodes on integration were examined in 4‐ to 8‐year‐olds (N = 121; racially/ethnically heterogeneous sample, English speakers, from large metropolitan area). Information was presented along with unrelated or related episodes; the latter challenged children to identify the relevant subset of episodes for integration. In Experiment 1, 4‐ and 6‐year‐olds integrated in the unrelated context. Six‐year‐olds also succeeded in the related context in forced‐choice testing. In Experiment 2, 8‐year‐olds succeeded in open‐ended and forced‐choice testing. Results illustrate a developmental progression in productive extension of knowledge due in part to age‐related increases in identification of relevant information.     

Effects of a Teacher‐Designed and Teacher‐Led Numerical Board Game Intervention: A Randomized Controlled Study with 4‐ to 6‐Year‐Olds

The purpose of the current pilot study was to examine the effects of a teacher‐designed and teacher‐led numerical board game intervention. Fifty‐four 4‐ to 6‐year‐olds were randomly assigned to either the number board game intervention or an active control group. Relative to the control group, children who received the number game intervention demonstrated significant improvements on a numeral identification task. This finding is significant in so far as numeral identification skills play a critical role in more advanced numerical and mathematical reasoning. There was no evidence of training‐related improvements on any of the other tasks. In addition to the intervention effects, the present study provides an example of a successful teacher‐researcher collaboration, providing new insights into the making of bidirectional relations between research and practice.     

Memory and Executive Functioning in 12‐Year‐Old Children With a History of Institutional Rearing

We examined visual recognition memory and executive functioning (spatial working memory [SWM], spatial planning, rule learning, and attention shifting) in 12‐year‐olds (n = 150) who participated in the Bucharest Early Intervention Project, a randomized controlled trial of foster care for institutionally reared children. Similar to prior reports at 8 years of age, institutionally reared children showed significant deficits in visual recognition memory and SWM. Deficits in attention shifting and rule learning were also apparent at this time point. These data suggest that early experiences continue to shape the development of memory, learning, and executive functioning processes in preadolescence, which may explain broader cognitive and learning difficulties commonly associated with severe early life neglect.     

Drawing and the Aestheticisation of the Human Figure by Four‐ to Ten‐Year‐Old Botswana Children: Implications for Pedagogy

Drawing is one of children's modes of communication which has recently excited academic inquiry in non‐Western cultures. It is the means through which children express their fears, desires, anxieties and conception of phenomena. This study investigated drawings by four‐ to ten‐year‐old Botswana children in response to the human figure as an aesthetic object. The methodology involved observing a sample of forty purposively selected children engaged in the drawing process and analysing their visual productions in addition to conversational talk about their art. The study found that the human figure was the dominant aesthetic subject across ages represented in both conventionalised form and personalised imagery. Older children showed interest in culture specific imagery and demonstrated mastery of occlusion and depth cues, while four‐year‐old children had limited spatial awareness. The study also found that children demonstrated gradual improvement of drawing skills with age. There was no significant difference in drawing competence between sexes. Pedagogical implications are suggested to scaffold children through the stages of art development.     

Mothers' Cognitive References to 2‐Year‐Olds Predict Theory of Mind at Ages 6 and 10

Mothers' mental‐state references predict individual differences in preschoolers' false‐belief (FB) understanding; less is known about the origins of corresponding variation in school‐age children. To address this gap, 105 children completed observations with their mothers at child ages 2 and 6, three FB tasks and a verbal comprehension test at age 3, and five FB tasks at age 6. Seventy‐seven of these children completed five Strange Stories at age 10. Individual differences in mothers' cognitive references at child age 2 predicted variation in children's FB understanding at age 6 and Strange Stories scores at age 10 (controlling for number of mothers' turns and children's mental‐state references, verbal comprehension and FB understanding at age 3, and mothers' cognitive references at child age 6).     

Visual Short‐Term Memory for Complex Objects in 6‐ and 8‐Month‐Old Infants

Infants' visual short‐term memory (VSTM) for simple objects undergoes dramatic development: Six‐month‐old infants can store in VSTM information about only a simple object presented in isolation, whereas 8‐month‐old infants can store information about simple objects presented in multiple‐item arrays. This study extended this work to examine the development of infants' VSTM for complex objects during this same period (N = 105). Using the simultaneous streams change detection paradigm, Experiment 1 confirmed the previous developmental trajectory between 6 and 8 months. Experiment 2 showed that doubling the exposure time did not enhance 6‐month‐old infants' change detection, demonstrating that the developmental change is not due to encoding speed. Thus, VSTM for simple and complex objects appears to follow the same developmental trajectory.     

Development of Phonological Constancy: 19‐Month‐Olds,but Not 15‐Month‐Olds,Identify Words in a Non‐Native Regional Accent

By 12 months, children grasp that a phonetic change to a word can change its identity (phonological distinctiveness). However, they must also grasp that some phonetic changes do not (phonological constancy). To test development of phonological constancy, sixteen 15‐month‐olds and sixteen 19‐month‐olds completed an eye‐tracking task that tracked their gaze to named versus unnamed images for familiar words spoken in their native (Australian) and an unfamiliar non‐native (Jamaican) regional accent of English. Both groups looked longer at named than unnamed images for Australian pronunciations, but only 19‐month‐olds did so for Jamaican pronunciations, indicating that phonological constancy emerges by 19 months. Vocabulary size predicted 15‐month‐olds' identifications for the Jamaican pronunciations, suggesting vocabulary growth is a viable predictor for phonological constancy development.     

Visual Attention to Global and Local Stimulus Properties in 6‐Month‐Old Infants: Individual Differences and Event‐Related Potentials

Event‐related potentials (ERPs) were utilized in an investigation of 21 six‐month‐olds’ attention to and processing of global and local properties of hierarchical patterns. Overall, infants demonstrated an advantage for processing the overall configuration (i.e., global properties) of local features of hierarchical patterns; however, processing advantages were found to vary based on individual differences in look duration. Short‐looking infants showed differences in the negative central ERP component and the late slow wave (LSW) indicating greater attention to and discrimination of changes in global properties. Analysis of the LSW revealed that long‐looking infants discriminated changes in local features, but did not discriminate changes in global properties of visual stimuli. These findings indicate that short‐ and long‐looking infants utilize different approaches when processing hierarchical patterns.     

Deconstructing the Divergence: Unravelling the 2013‐2015 reforms in GCSE English Language and Literature

Since 2013, GCSE English Language and Literature courses in England have experienced changes to assessment and curriculum that have ushered them in a supposedly new direction, both under the umbrella of wider GCSE reforms. This divergence has included the abolition of controlled assessment and the concurrent resurgence of academic courses being assessed only by examination. Alongside these changes have been wider reforms to the GCSE system in its totality, with a switch from the typical A* to G grading system to a new 9 to 1 structure. This article is a consideration of these changes and some other caveats of the reform documents released between 2013 and 2015. I am posing this inquiry from my perspective as an English teacher and a poststructuralist, using deconstruction to scrutinise the language in some of the reform documents. Governmental agenda of the reform is explored, demonstrating an archaism to the ‘new’ direction of the GCSE and the hierarchizing of the academic elite in the oppositions presented.     

Schoolmaster's Empire: Race,Conquest, and the Centralization of Common Schooling in California, 1848–1879

This article explores how education reformers in California pioneered forms of centralized educational governance between 1850 and 1879. Challenging previous scholarship that has attributed the success of this early educational state to reformer John Swett and New England migrants, this article situates the creation of common schools in California within the larger context of American state‐building in the nineteenth‐century West. While increased state authority over education was a goal for reformers across the nation, this article contends that California's early innovations in centralization reflected a regionally specific response to the dilemmas of governing a recently acquired territory distant from eastern centers of power. The precarious nature of elite attempts to convert California into an American place, reflected in perceived lawlessness, weak governmental authority, and racial anxiety, inspired forms of educational organization commonly associated with Progressive Era responses to industrialization, urbanization, and immigration. The desire to promote nineteenth‐century American racial and governmental order in California, this article concludes, powerfully shaped the growth of public education in the state, influencing the organization of schooling in ways that suggest the importance of looking beyond the Northeast to understand the development of public education in the United States.     

Touching Up Mental Rotation: Effects of Manual Experience on 6‐Month‐Old Infants’ Mental Object Rotation

In this study, 6‐month‐olds' ability to mentally rotate objects was investigated using the violation‐of‐expectation paradigm. Forty infants watched an asymmetric object being moved straight down behind an occluder. When the occluder was lowered, it revealed the original object (possible) or its mirror image (impossible) in one of five orientations. Whereas half of the infants were allowed to manually explore the object prior to testing, the other half was only allowed to observe the object. Results showed that infants with prior hands‐on experience looked significantly longer at the mirror image, while infants with observational experience did not discriminate between test events. These findings demonstrate that 6‐month‐olds' mental rotations benefit from manual exploration, highlighting the importance of motor experience for cognitive performance.     

Limited Fine Motor and Grasping Skills in 6‐Month‐Old Infants at High Risk for Autism

Atypical motor behaviors are common among children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). However, little is known about onset and functional implications of differences in early motor development among infants later diagnosed with ASD. Two prospective experiments were conducted to investigate motor skills among 6‐month‐olds at increased risk (high risk) for ASD (N₁ = 129; N₂ = 46). Infants were assessed using the Mullen Scales of Early Learning (MSEL) and during toy play. Across both experiments, high‐risk infants exhibited less mature object manipulation in a highly structured (MSEL) context and reduced grasping activity in an unstructured (free‐play) context than infants with no family history of ASD. Longitudinal assessments suggest that between 6 and 10 months, grasping activity increases in high‐risk infants.