Advances in Child Development and Behavior

ADVANCES
IN CHILD DEVELOPMENT
AND BEHAVIOR
Volume 17
Contributors to This Volume
Jeffrey Bisanz
Pamela Blewitt
Robert Kail
Stan A. Kuczaj I1
Deanna Kuhn
Howard V . Meredith
Erin Phelps
Alexander W. Siege1
Sheldon H. White
ADVANCES
IN
CHILD DEVELOPMENT
AND
BEHAVIOR
edited by
Hayne W. Reese
Department of Psychology
West Virginia University
Morgantown, West Virginia
Volume 17
@ 1982
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Contents
Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .......... vii
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .......... ix
The Development of Problem-Solving Strategies

DEANNA KUHN AND ERIN PHELPS
I . Introduction and Rationale Underlying the Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
I1. Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
111. Strategy Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
................... .............................. 18
V . Replication and Variations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
VI . Discussion and Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Information Processing and Cognitive Development

ROBERT KAIL AND JEFFREY BISANZ
I . Introduction ................................................... 45
I1. A Generic 1 n-Processing System: Defining the Metaphor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
111. An Information-Processing Look at Research on Cognitive Development . . . . . . . . . 52
IV . The Issue of Transition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ........ 62
V . Additional Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
V1. Concluding Remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . .................................. 75
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
Research between 1950 and 1980 on Urban-Rural Differences in Body

Size and Growth Rate of Children and Youths
HOWARD V . MEREDITH
I. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... ..... 83
I1 .Retrospect: 1870-1915 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..... 85
111. Differences in Standing Height . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..... 86
IV . Differences in Body Weight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..... 105
V . Differences in Chest Girth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..... 117
V1. Differences in Other Somatic Variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ........ 123
VII . Summary . . . . . . . . . . .................... ..... 130
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..... 134
vi Contents
Word Meaning Acquisition in Young Children:

A Review of Theory and Research
PAMELA BLEWI'M
I. Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .............. i40
I1 . Approaches to the Study of Early Word Meanings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
111 . Nominal Words ................................... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... 143
IV . Relational and Dimensional Words . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . 153
V. Discussion: Theoretical Directions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
VI . Conclusion: Research Directions ..................... . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . 184
References ....................................... ...... ... . . . 187
Language Play and Language Acquisition

STAN A . KUCZAJ I1
I . Introduction ...................................... . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . 197
11. Language Play and Language Practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... 198
I11 . Typesof Play ................................................... 199
IV . What Determines the Content of Children's Language Play? . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202
V . Developmental Trends in Language Play ................................... 209
VI . Is Language Play Developmentally Progressive? ............................. 210
Conclusions ........................................................... 225
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228
The Child Study Movement: Early Growth and Development of the

Symbolized Child
ALEXANDER W . SIEGEL AND SHELDON H . WHITE
I . Introduction: The Child in Texts and Symbols............................... 234
I1 . The Larger Social Context of the Child Study Movement ...................... 238
111. The Enterprises of the Child Study Movement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248
IV . Motives and Needs for Child Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276
References ............................................................ 280
Author Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287
Subject Index ............................................................... 297
Contents of Previous Volumes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 1

Contributors
Numbers in parentheses indicate the pages on which the authors' contributions begin.
JEFFREY BISANZ
Psychology Department, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta T6G 2E9
Canada (45)
PAMELA BLEWITT
Department of Psychology, Villanova University, Villanova, Pennsylvania
19085 (139)
ROBERT KAIL
Department of Psychology Sciences, Purdur University, West Lafayette, Indiana
47907 (45)
STAN A. KUCZAJ I1
Department of Psychology, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas 75275
(197)
DEANNA KUHN
Laboratory of Human Development, Graduate School of Education, Harvard
University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02 138' ( I )
HOWARD V. MEREDITH
Blatt Physical Education Center, University of South Carolina, Columbia, South
Carolina 29208 (83)
ERIN PHELPS
Laborutory of Human Development, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mas-
sachusetts 021382 ( I )
ALEXANDER W. SIEGEL
Department of Psychology, University of Houston, Houston, Texas 77004 (233)
SHELDON H. WHITE
Department of Psychology and Social Relations, Harvard University,
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138 (233)
'Present address: Program in Developmental Psychology, Teachers College, Columbia Univer-

sity, New York, New York 10027
2Present address: Murray Research Center, Radcliffe College. Cambridge, Massachusetts 021 38
vii
This Page Intentionally Left Blank
Preface
The amount of research and theoretical discussion in the field of child develop-
ment and behavior is so vast that researchers, instructors, and students are
confronted with a formidable task: They must not only keep abreast of new
developments within their areas of specialization through the use of primary
sources, but they must also be knowledgeable in areas peripheral to their primary
focus of interest. Moreover, journal space is often simply too limited to permit
publication of more speculative kinds of analyses that may spark expanded
interest in a problem area or stimulate new modes of attack on a problem.
The serial publication, Advances in Child Development and Behavior, is
intended to ease the burden by providing scholarly technical articles that serve as
reference material and by being a forum for scholarly speculation. In these
documented critical reviews, recent advances in the field are summarized and
integrated; complexities are exposed; and fresh viewpoints are offered. They
should be useful not only to the expert in the area but also to the general reader.
No attempt is made to organize each volume around a particular theme or
topic, nor is the series intended to reflect the development of new fads. Man-
uscripts are solicited from investigators conducting programmatic work on prob-
lems of current and significant interest. The editor often encourages the prepara-
tion of critical syntheses dealing intensively with topics of relatively narrow
scope but of considerable potential interest to the scientific community. Contrib-
utors are encouraged to criticize, to integrate, and to stimulate, but always within
a framework of high scholarship. Although publication in the volumes is or-
dinarily by invitation, unsolicited manuscripts will be accepted for review if
submitted first in outline form to the editor. All papers-whether invited or
submitted-receive careful editorial scrutiny. Invited papers are automatically
accepted for publication in principle, but they may require revision before final
acceptance. Submitted papers receive the same treatment except that they are not
automatically accepted for publication even in principle and may be rejected.
The use of sexist language, such as “he” or “she” as the general singular
pronoun, in contributions to the Advances series is strongly discouraged. The use
of “he or she” (or the like) is acceptable; it is widespread and no longer seems
cumbersome or self-conscious.
The Advances series is usually not suitable for reports of a single study or a
short series of studies, even if the report is necessarily long because of the nature
of the research. However, an exception has been made in the present volume by
inclusion of the paper by Kuhn and Phelps. Although a single study (with
ix
X Preface
replication and variation) is reported, the method used is sufficiently novel and
promising to qualify as a real advance.
I wish to acknowledge with gratitude the aid of my home institution, West
Virginia University, which generously provided time and facilities for the prepa-
ration of this volume. I also wish to thank Drs. Lewis P. Lipsitt and John Money
for their editorial assistance.
Hayne W. Reese
ADVANCES
IN CHILD DEVELOPMENT
AND BEHAVIOR
Volume 17
THEDEVELOPMENTOF
PROBLEM-SOLVING STRATEGIES
Deanna Kuhn
LABORATORY OF HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
GRADUATE SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
Erin Phelps
LABORATORY OF HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
GRADUATE SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
I . INTRODUCTION AND RATIONALE UNDERLYING THE METHOD 2
11. METHOD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
A. PROBLEM SELECTION., . . . . . , . . . . , , . , . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
B. INITIAL SUBJECTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
C. PROCEDURE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
111. STRATEGY ANALYSIS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

A. INTRODUCTION .........................-........................ 9
B. HYPOTHESIS STRATEGIES. . . . . , . , . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
C. EXPERIMENTATION STRATEGIES . . . . . . , . . . . . , . . , . , . . . , . . . . . . . . . . . 14
D. INFERENCE STRATEGIES . . . . . . , , . , . . . . , . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
IV . RESULTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
A. THE POWER AND PERSISTENCE OF INVALID STRATEGIES.. . . . . . . . . 18
B. PATTERNS OF CHANGE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
C. PREDICTION OF CHANGE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
D. RECURRENCE OF INVALID STRATEGIES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
V REPLlCATlON AND VARIATIONS. 32
VI DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

A. THE METHODOLOGY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
B. THE FINDINGS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
REFERENCES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
ADVANCES IN CHILD DEVELOPMENT Copyright 0 1982 by Academic Press. Inc.

AND BEHAVIOR, VOL. 17 All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.
ISBN 0-12-009717-6
2 Deanna Kuhn and Erin Phelps
I. Introduction and Rationale Underlying the

Method
The object of the research described in this article is to study the process of
development, While research having this objective would seemingly be a central
focus of developmental psychology, the study of developmental process is prob-
lematic and such studies are in fact few in number. In this article, we describe a
method designed to permit the study of developmental process and present an
initial and a replication study that illustrate the kinds of data and insights this
method yields.
The study of development poses a paradox not unlike the paradox posed by the
measurement of intelligence by IQ tests. If one accepts one of the customary
definitions of intelligence as “ability to learn” or “ability to profit from experi-
ence,” or some such variant, one must acknowledge the fact that no one on an IQ
test is ever asked to learn anything-“ability to learn” is inferred in an indirect
fashion from performance on the test.
Similarly, those who would study development come up against the fact that
they are unlikely ever to observe development taking place. At best, researchers
employ a longitudinal method in which they observe the subject’s state at t , ,
observe the subject’s state at t,, and then undertake to make inferences about an
underlying process of development that may have occurred between t , and t,.
Researchers attempting to understand the process or mechanisms of develop-
ment characteristically turn to some form of experimental method. Even this
method, however, fails to involve observation of the process itself. The design of
the experimental intervention study (or “training” study) in developmental psy-
chology is by now well established: Subjects’ pretest behavior is assessed, a
treatment is administered to a portion of subjects, and subjects’ behavior is
reassessed at one or more posttests. The only legitimate data allowed by the
research design come from the performance of subjects on these pre- and post-
tests. Moreover, even when the intervention study is “successful,” that is, the
treatment proves sufficient to produce a change in behavior, this demonstration
of sufficiency falls far short of a confirmation that the emergence of the behavior
in question during the natural course of development is always, or ever, con-
tingent on events like those that compose the researcher’s treatment. McCall
(1977) has characterized the problem as the distinction between “can” versus
“does. Even under the best of circumstances, then, the investigators remain
”
unsure of the extent to which their treatment plays a role in the natural develop-
ment of the behavior they are studying.
The aim of our work has been to try to get around this “intervention study
impasse” by developing an approach that would allow us to come as close as
possible to studying the process of development directly, as opposed to making
inferences about it based on indirect evidence. Such direct empirical data about
The Development qf Problem-Solving Strategies 3
developmental process, we would contend, have been largely absent and are
sorely needed.
How, then, might one go about observing developmental process? Ideally,
perhaps, one would go out into the real world and observe the process taking
place within those natural contexts in which it actually occurs. The limitations of
this research strategy are also familiar: The phenomena of interest take place over
a protracted period of time in an extremely complex, multivariable environment,
making it virtually impossible to identify causal relationships or critical se-
quences of events. These limitations suggest the need for a compromise in the
classic choice between external validity and experimental control.
In our case, this compromise has meant the following. On the side of external
validity, the approach, we have felt, must remain essentially observational and
descriptive. This observation, moreover, must be extended over a period of time,
in order to capture the process that is the object of interest. Two important
constraints, however, are placed on the observation. First, a limitation is placed
on the range of situations in which the subject is to be observed, so that categori-
zation of types of behavior that are to be the object of observation becomes a
manageable task. Second, the process to be observed must to some extent be
condensed in time, without altering its essential characteristics, so as to facilitate
observation of it.
The subjects chosen for observation in the studies to be described in this article
are those who are approaching the age when the particular cognitive strategies we
focus on have been observed to emerge. Subjects are observed over a period of
several months, during which time they are given frequent opportunities to
engage in problem-solving activities that lead them to exercise existing cognitive
strategies. The only feedback subjects receive during their activities is the feed-
back that comes from their own actions on the physical materials. The approach
rests on the premise that exercise of existing strategies in at least some cases will
be sufficient to lead a subject to modify those strategies.
Put in the simplest terms, the approach we have employed involves the obser-
vation of a subject engaged in repeated encounters with a problem. Conceivably,
our interest might have been in gauging the reliability of subjects’ performance,
that is, the extent to which a subject displayed consistent behavior on successive
occasions, and hence, perhaps, the value of the problem as an assessment instru-
ment. To the contrary, however, we anticipated that at least some subjects would
modify their problem-solving strategies during the course of repeated encounters
with the problem, and it was this process of change that we wished to observe.
Aside from some very early research pertaining to ski11 acquisition (e.g.,
Book, 1908), and two recent studies (Anzai & Simon, 1979; Lawler, 1981) to
which we shall make reference later, psychologists of learning or development
have not commonly utilized this seemingly straightforward method of observing
an individual acquiring new strategies or modifying old ones in the course of
repeated encounters with a task or activity. Yet it would appear to be just such a
process of repeated encounters through which such acquisition normally occurs.
Clearly, numerous further issues might be raised regarding the method. To
what extent can a natural change process be condensed in time by increasing
density of exercise (of existing cognitive strategies brought to bear on the prob-
lem) beyond its ordinary level? Is the process of change that is observed one of
learning or of development? Does presentation of the problem itself constitute an
“intervention,” in the sense in which that term is customarily used? The most
fruitful approach, we propose, will be to consider issues such as these following
more detailed presentation of how we have employed this method and the sorts of
results it yields. For the time being, we therefore limit our presentation to the
preceding straightforward, though arguably oversimplified, rationale underlying
our approach.
11. Method
A. PROBLEM SELECTION
If observation is to be limited to a single problem-solving situation, consider-

able care ought to go into selection of that situation. Our desire in the present
work was to study the development of problem-solving strategies. For the most
part, problem-solving strategies fall into the category of the sorts of cognitive
strategies that are not normally the object of direct instruction. Presumably, such
strategies develop as the result of some sort of indirect or broad, general experi-
ence, and this is a process that developmentalists are particularly interested to
understand.
Within the broad category of problem-solving strategies, we devoted consider-
able thought to selection of a particular problem-solving situation. Two major
(and a number of lesser) criteria governed this selection. First, we desired a
situation that would involve those activities generally associated with problem
solving, in particular hypothesis generation and hypothesis testing. Second, we
believed that the problem should bear a significant resemblance to problems
persons encounter in their everyday experience. In addition to whatever intrinsic
merit this latter criterion might be regarded as having, we regarded it as critical
from the standpoint of the methodological considerations addressed in the pre-
ceding section: The cognitive strategies subjects employ in this situation should
be those they would have occasion to employ in the course of their own experi-
ence, though perhaps in a less frequent, or dense, as well as less explicit manner.
The research situation, in other words, should not lead them to do anything
radically different, cognitively, from what they might do ordinarily.
The Development of Problem-Solving Strategies 5
The problem we chose is one of causal attribution, more specifically the

identification of cause-and-effect relationships that are embedded in multivaria-
ble contexts. A number of antecedent events occur in conjunction with an out-
come, and the subject’s task is to determine what causes the outcome. The
problem involves a form of causal inference that we would contend is common in
everyday reasoning. The form of problem we employed has not been the object
of previous study, but two current lines of research in the field of cognitive
development provide contexts in which it might be viewed. One is the research
on casual reasoning by Shultz, Siegler, and others (Bindra, Clarke, & Shultz,
1980; Shaklee & Mims, 1981; Shaklee & Tucker, 1980; Shultz & Butkowsky,
1977; Shultz, Butkowsky, Pearce, & Shanfield, 1975; Shultz & Mendelson,
1975; Siegler, 1975, 1976; Siegler & Liebert, 1974). This work has dealt with
the pattern of associations between antecedent and outcome that subjects of
various ages accept as evidence of a necessary or sufficient causal relation. Only
in a peripheral way has it dealt with the subject’s disembedding of a causal
relation embedded in a multivariable context. Nor has this research dealt with
subjects’ ability to conduct their own investigations to determine whether a
causal relationship is present.
The other line of research is Piagetian. Rather than Piaget’s work on causality
(Piaget & Garcia, 1974), which deals with causal mechanism rather than causal
attribution, however, it is the research on what has been labeled “isolation of
variables” by Inhelder and Piaget (1958) that is related to the present work. In
contrast to the work on causal reasoning referred to in the preceding paragraph,
the isolation-of-variables research has been focused on the strategies subjects use
in investigating whether one variable is causally related to another. In particular
it has been focused on whether they employ an “all other things equal” strategy
in their investigations. Less attention has been devoted, however, to the causal
inferences that follow application of the investigative strategy. Nor, with a few
exceptions (Kuhn & Brannock, 1977; Tschirgi, 1980), have subjects been pre-
sented sets of events in which causal relationships are embedded in multivariable
contexts. We believed this latter characteristic to be the most important in terms
of the problem’s external validity, that is, its resemblance to the sort of problem-
solving situations individuals encounter in their everyday lives. This multivaria-
ble context, we would argue, is the one in which people typically encounter and
make inferences about causal relations.
Having settled on the form of the problem, that is, the identification of cause-
and-effect relationships embedded in multivariable contexts, we proceeded to
choose its content. This choice was preceded by a good deal of pilot work and
deliberation. It was a difficult choice in large part because of some conflicting
objectives. Given the concerns with external validity just raised, we preferred
that the content, as well as the form, of the problem come from subjects’
everyday lives. As we experimented with different kinds of problems, however,

a second objective became evident. Subjects were to be asked to experiment with
the problem materials to determine for themselves what causal relations were
present. It is highly desirable that these relations be easily producible by the
subjects themselves while working with the material, as opposed to having them
externally supplied via the authority of the experimenter. Most everyday problem
contexts, for example, the baking of cakes studied by Tschirgi (1980) or the care
of plants in our own earlier work (Kuhn & Brannock, 1977), cannot be repre-
sented in an experimental situation unless the experimenter artificially supplies
the outcome, for example, tells subjects the cake came out good or bad, or, at
best, shows subjects the sick or healthy plants. Subjects do not have the oppor-
tunity to confirm for themselves that the antecedent variables indeed produce the
outcomes the experimenter alleges. This characteristic was missing in our initial
attempts to employ the methodology described in this article (Kuhn & Angelev,
1976).
We ultimately decided that this latter characteristic is the most critical one and
therefore settled on a problem content in which effects could be produced di-
rectly by the subject. The content involves the production of chemical reactions.
Though this particular content is not ordinarily a part of subjects’ everyday lives,
our pilot work indicated that it had sufficient interest value that subjects quickly
became comfortable with the task and remained absorbed in carrying it out over
several successive sessions. We therefore predicted that the problem would
sustain subjects’ interest during the several-month period that the study was to
entail. This prediction turned out to be warranted, at least for the preadolescent
samples who were the focus of the studies to be described in this article.
Problems involving chemical reactions were originally studied by Inhelder and
Piaget (1958), who used one such problem to study subjects’ ability to generate
systematic combinations. More recently, Pitt ( 1976) has used chemical reaction
problems to investigate both combinatorial construction and subjects’ ability to
engage in a more sophisticated form of problem solving akin to the qualitative
analysis actually performed in chemistry. Chemical reaction problems are uti-
lized in the present work in a somewhat different manner. With the exception of
some advanced problems presented to only a minority of subjects, in all of the
problems only a single chemical, of the three identified as present in a demon-
strated mixture, was responsible for producing a chemical reaction (when the
special “mixing liquid” was added to the mixture). The task objective, there-
fore, was not one of producing systematic combinations of elements so as to
discover how to produce the reaction. Rather, the subject’s problem was to
isolate which of the elements that were present were in fact causally related to the
outcome. The problem is thus a very simple one of disembedding a causal
relation from its context: To solve it, one need do no more than try each of the
The Development of Problem-Solving Strategies I
elements in the outcome-producing combination in isolation, to assess its indi-

vidual effect. As we shall see, however, for the preadolescent subjects in our
samples the problem was in fact not at all a simple one, and mastery typically
was achieved only slowly and with difficulty.
B . INITIAL SUBJECTS
Subjects in our first sample were fourth- and fifth-graders. Our pilot work
indicated that this is the age level at which subjects first begin to show some use
of isolation as a solution strategy. Our objective, therefore, was to select subjects
in this chronological age range who did not yet exhibit an isolation strategy, so as
to be able to observe the manner in which it might develop with repeated exercise
of the existing, less advanced strategies these subjects did use.
Kuhn and Brannock’s (1977) plant problem was used as a screening device to
identify subjects who would be likely to fulfill the criterion just indicated. Those
subjects who scored at level 0 in the Kuhn and Brannock (1977) scoring system
(approximately half of the subjects tested) were presented the initial chemicals
problem. None of them used an isolation strategy. Fifteen such subjects were
randomly selected for inclusion in the present sample. Chronological age ranged
from 9:9 to 11:2. None of the subjects had any recognized learning disabilities or
other exceptional characteristics. All were reported by their classroom teachers
to be within an average range academically. The school was a public one in a
middle-class suburban neighborhood.
C . PROCEDURE
The problem-solving sessions took place once each week for a total of I I
weeks. A 1-week school vacation extended the total period of observation to 12
weeks.
At each session the subject came to the workroom, which contained a large
table with a supply of glassware and chemicals. The materials consisted of(a) a
large supply of colorless, odorless liquids in 2- to 3-dram snap-top vials, each
labeled with a letter (B, C, D, E, or F); ( b )a large reagent bottle (labeled A)
referred to by the interviewer as “mixing 1iquid”;and (c) an assortment of 50- to
100-ml glass beakers, for mixing.
In the initial problem, one of the liquids was sufficient with the addition of the
mixing liquid to produce a chemical reaction, either a color change or a precipi-
tate. To demonstrate the reaction, the interviewer selected a vial each of B, C,
and D and emptied them into a beaker. She placed the empty labeled vials
adjacent to the beaker, so as to identify the components of the mixture. She then
selected vials of D, E, and F and likewise emptied them into a beaker, leaving
the empty labeled vials adjacent. She then added mixing liquid to both beakers,
and the subject observed that the first mixture turned red (or cloudy) while the
second mixture remained colorless.
The subject was asked the following questions: ( I ) What do you think makes a
difference in whether or not it turns red (cloudy)? (2) How do you know? (3) Can
you be sure what makes a difference? Why/why not? (4) (If subject indicates
only certain elements as effective) Do the others have anything to do with it?
Which ones? How do you know?
The subject was then asked, “Are there any other ways of doing it you’d like
to try to find out for sure what makes a difference?” Subjects were encouraged to
plan as many experiments as they wished, by setting up the appropriate vials next
to a beaker. After subjects indicated they had set up as many “ways of doing it”
as desired, the following questions were asked, before the actual mixing began:
(5) What do you think you will find out by trying it these ways? (6) How do you
think it’s going to turn out? Why?
The interviewer then assisted the subject in carrying out the mixing if neces-
sary, following which she asked: (7) What do you think about how it’s turned
out? (8) What have you found out? Questions 1-4 were then repeated.
Thus, while the interviewer asked questions that encouraged the subject to
analyze and interpret what was taking place, no solutions to the problem or
strategies for obtaining a solution were suggested. Nor were subjects given any
reinforcement for the strategies they did employ or for any subsequent modifica-
tions in these strategies. The only feedback subjects received came from their
own actions on the physical materials.
At the second session the interviewer explained that the liquids in the vials
were not necessarily the same ones that had been there the previous week, and
therefore the subject could not be sure the results would be the same. The
procedure for each of the 11 sessions was identical to that described above. Only
the effective element and the form of the reaction (color change or precipitate)
were varied.
Subjects were regarded as having mastered this initial problem when they
specified the single effective element as causally related to the outcome and
excluded all other elements as “having nothing to do with” the outcome. When
this mastery occurred, a more advanced problem, in which either of two ele-
ments produced the outcome, was presented at the next session. If mastery of this
problem was achieved, a third problem was presented in which any of three
single elements produced the outcome. Those subjects who mastered the third
problem (4 of the 15) went on to a set of more advanced problems in which
combinations of two and then three elements were necessary to produce the
outcome. The subject’s own performance thus determined the rate of progress
through the sequence of problems.
111. Strategy Analysis
A. INTRODUCTION
As a prerequisite to examining patterns of change over the series of problem-

solving sessions, problem-solving strategies that subjects apply to this problem
were identified. The scheme summarized in Table I was based on intensive
analysis of roughly half of the 165 individual session protocols. The completed
analytic scheme was then applied to the remaining protocols and proved to be
exhaustive, that is, no new strategies were observed in the second set of pro-
tocols. A second rater was familiarized with the coding scheme and independent-
ly coded the entire set of protocols.
As shown in Table I, the strategies observed fell into three major categories,
hypothesis strategies (HO-H4), experimentation strategies (EO-E5), and in-
ference strategies (10-18), reflecting the three major phases or components of the
problem-solving processes. (For ease in interpretation, the examples in Table I
have been altered as necessary to reflect the identical problem situation in which
BCD is observed to produce the reaction, DEF is observed not to produce it, and
B is the effective element.) Within a single session, a subject’s hypothesis
strategies were typically of only a single type. The same was true of experimen-
tation strategies, although in both cases there were occasional instances of ses-
sions containing multiple types. In contrast, a subject typically applied more than
one type of inference strategy within a single session; the average was between
two and three. Percentage agreement between raters was 90% for hypothesis
strategies, 77% for experimentation strategies, and 87% for inference strategies.
Disagreements were resolved through discussion. The major single source of
unreliability was the differentiation between strategy E2 and strategies EO or E l .
In this case, unlike all the others, a number of intermediate cases clearly existed,
and the coding was based on which strategy type appeared dominant.
The scheme in Table I covers only the initial three problems, those in which
single elements are sufficient to produce the effect. The strategy sequence
H4-E5-18 represents the optimal solution to these problems. The more ad-
vanced problems involve additional strategies, for example, hypotheses of in-
teraction effects and experimentation strategies involving systematic combina-
tion of elements. Only four subjects in the present sample reached these more
advanced problems. (Fourteen of the 165 sessions involved the advanced prob-
lems.) Accordingly, performance on these problems will be covered only briefly
in an anecdotal manner.
As one might anticipate, characteristic “paths” existed across the three strat-
egy categories, that is, frequent patterns of a particular hypothesis strategy,
experimentation strategy, and inference strategy occurring in conjunction with
TABLE I
Strategy Analysis
Hypothesis Experimentation Inference
Pseudohypothesis Pseudoexperimentation Invalid inference

HO. Absence of anticipatory reason- EO. Testing of specific mixtures with no a p 10. Inference based on extraneous
ing. In response to questioning parent systematization in the mixtures ple: “It’s B and C because they’re
(e.g., “What do you think you will chosen and no single-element mixtures alphabet.’’
fmd out?”), subject replies either E l . Testing of specific mixtures with no ap- 11. Inference based on alleged actions of chemicals but with
“I don’t know” or gives a response parent systematization in the mixtures logical inconsistency, i.e., an individual element or a partic-
such as “Different things,” with chosen but including some single elements ular mixture of elements is not assumed to have a consistent
inability to elaborate. E2. Replication of the demonstrated successful effect. Example: “D helped this one [mixture] stay clear and
HI. An anticipatory statement focused (i.e., effect-producing) and/or unsuccessful D made this one cloudy.”
on obtaining the outcome rather mixtures with minor variations 12. Inference of consistent effects, but at the level of mixtures
than explaining what caused it. Ex- rather than individual elements. It is asserted that the
ample: “I’m hying to make them effective mixtures are all those in which an effect occurred.
turn pink.” Example: “BC or BF are the right ones to use because when
H2. An anticipatory statement focused I tried those I got red.”
on obtaining information, with in- 13. Inference of false inclusion. Inference is at the level of
ability to elaborate. Example: “I individual elements; an element’s presence in an effect-
want to see which ones [mixtures] producing mixture, however, is suficient for the inference
turn pink.” that it played a role in the outcome. Examples: “It’s B
H3. Anticipation regarding one or because it was in the one that tumed red”; “It’s C and D
more specific mixtures. Examples: because the one that had them got cloudy.” (Strategy is
“BC will turn cloudy”; ‘‘I want to labeled 13a if data are present that contradict the inference,
see if CD turns pink.” otherwise I3b.)
Valid but insufficient inference
14. Exclusion of aq element that appears in an unsuccessful
mixture. Example: “D has nothing to do with it because
DEF stayed clear.”
15. Exclusion of an element that cooccurs with both outcomes.
Example: “It can’t be D because D was in both of them”
i.e., in both mixtures, one which turned cloudy and the
other which didn’t.
Genuine experimentation-sufficient but
Genuine hypothesis inefficient Valid, sufficient, but inefficient inference
H4.An anticipatory statement regard- E3. Experiment conducted for the purpose of 16. Inclusion (I6a) of a single element as cause of the effect,
ing the effects of individual ele- assessing the effects of one or more indi- based on a consistent correspondence between its presence
ments. Examples: “It could be vidual elements but with superfluous ele- or absence and presence or absence of the outcome, where
either B or C that’s making it red”; ments included in one or more mixtures. all alternatives can be logically excluded, i.e., no other
“I want to see if D has anything to Example: The mixtures BDE and CDE are consistent element-outcome correspondences exist. (Exclu-
do with it.” generated to assess “whether it’s B or C.” sion of an element based on the lack of such correspondence
E4. Experiment consisting of systematic inclu- is labeled 16b.) Example: “It must be B because every time
sion or exclusion of a single element from a we had B in it, it turned pink.”
mixture, for the purpose of assessing its 17. Inclusion (I7a) or exclusion (17b) of an element by means
effect. Example: The mixtures BCD and CD of a specific comparison between two mixtures that are
are generated and compared. to assess the identical except that one includes the element and the other
effect of B. does not. Examples: “It must be B because I got red with
BCD but not with CD”; “It’s not C because BD still turns
when you leave out the C . ”
Genuine experimentation-sufficient and
efficient Valid, sufficient. and efficient inference
E5. Experiment to assess the effects of one or 18. Inclusion or exclusion of an element based on its effect in
more individual elements by means of ex- isolation from other elements. Examples: “It’s B because it
perimental isolation, i.e., each element to turned cloudy when we tried it by itself”; *‘It’s not C
be assessed is examined individually for its because C alone didn’t do anything.”
effect.
one another. An obvious question, then, is whether it is warranted to define

strategies separately within each of the three categories, as opposed to identify-
ing ‘‘macrostrategies” that encompass all three categories. Our justification for
retaining the three distinct categories is simply that with a few specific excep-
tions, all possible combinations of strategies across the three categories occurred.
For example, strategy E4 and strategy I7 bear an obvious logical relation to one
another and tended to occur together (see Table I); yet, as will be illustrated later,
each occurred on some occasions in the absence of the other.
The rest of this section is devoted to some explanatory comments regarding the
strategies themselves.
8 . HYPOTHESIS STRATEGIES
Hypothesis strategies are summarized in the first column of Table I. Hypoth-

esis strategies were often expressed spontaneously, but some hypothesis strategy
was always coded on the basis of the subject’s response to the interviewer’s
queries at the time the experimental investigation was planned (Q5 + Q6), which
were asked unless the subject spontaneously expressed what would have been
responses to these questions. As shown in the final column of Table 11, which
summarizes usage frequencies of hypothesis and experimentation strategies over
the 151 sessions (between- and within-subject data combined), subjects most
often employed a single type of hypothesis strategy, even though that strategy
may have been employed repeatedly at different points in the session.
Subjects using strategies HO through H3 gave no indication of recognizing the
possibility that it might be a single element that was responsible for the effect.
HO reflects a total absence of anticipatory reasoning. Subjects using H1 were
engaged in anticipatory thought regarding the outcome of their experiments in
the sense that they saw their objective as getting as many mixtures as possible to
show the reaction. This conception was consistent with their behavior following
the mixing. The experiment was a success, that is, “came out good,” to the
extent that a majority of the mixtures showed the reaction. No attention was
focused on identifying the causes responsible for the reaction. H2 reflects a shift
in focus toward obtaining information from the outcome of the experiments,
rather than merely achieving the desired outcome. This anticipation was very
diffuse, however; the subject was unable to predict any specific outcomes or
anticipate what information was likely to be gained. H3, in contrast, tended to be
very specific and conceivably might be regarded as genuine hypothesis. Subjects
using it, however, tended to make isolated predictions, rather than using the
strategy to predict the outcomes of the entire set of experiments they had con-
structed (as subjects usually did who utilized H4).Anticipations were always
regarding mixtures, rather than single elements, and the subject showed no
evidence of recognizing that a single element might be responsible for the effect.
TABLE I1
Hypothesis and Experimentation Strategy Frequencies
Experimentation strategies
Hypothesis E3 + E2 i Other 6 of all

strategies EO El E2 E3 E4 E5 E5 higher" mixed Total sessions
-
w
HO
HI
3
1
0
1
2
7
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
1
0
6
9
4%
6%
H2 5 0 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 10 7%
H3 9 2 25 0 0 0 0 0 0 36 24%
H4 6 1 7 10 9 28 6 5 4 76 50%
H4+ lower* 8 1 2 0 0 2 0 1 0 14 9%
Total 32 5 48 10 9 30 6 6 5 151 100%
% of all sessions 21% 3% 32% 7% 6% 208 4% 4% 3%
~~~ ~
OE2 in combination with E3, E4, or E5.

bH4 in combination with H3, H2, H1, or HO
H3 was readily differentiated from H5 (not shown in Table I) used by some

subjects in the advanced problems; in H5 the subject hypothesized that an in-
teraction between two individual elements, rather than any single element, might
be responsible for the effect. Subjects using H3, in contrast, lacked a conception
of main effects, much less interaction effects.
As seen from Table 11, HO, HI, and H2 were infrequently used strategies (6,
9, and 10 instances, respectively). These instances were attributable to 4, 5, and
5 different subjects, respectively, suggesting that although certain subjects
showed some disposition toward use of each of these strategies, none of the
strategies was the idiosyncratic production of a single subject.
A subject using H4 recognized that a single element might be responsible for
the effect. As we shall see, however, this recognition by no means implied
successful solution of the problem. In 9% of the sessions (see Table II), H4
occurred in conjunction with one of the preceding strategies. Multiple coding of
hypothesis strategies occurred only when the different strategies occurred in
distinctly different contexts within the session. In contrast, a subject often began
with one of the lower level strategies and then elaborated the reasoning into what
became a higher level strategy. In these cases, only the higher strategy was
coded.
C. EXPERIMENTATION STRATEGIES
Experimentation strategies are summarized in the middle column of Table I.

“Genuine experimentation” is defined as experimentation that is hypothesis-
directed, that is, conducted for the purpose of testing one or more hypotheses and
in fact capable of providing such a test. Strategies not meeting this criterion fall
into the category labeled “pseudoexperimentation.” They are of two types. The
first consists of the generation of mixtures to be tested with no discernible
rationale dictating the selection of those particular mixtures. These included
cases in which some of the mixtures generated were single elements ( E l , shown
by four subjects on a total of five occasions), as well as the majority of cases
which did not include single-element mixtures (EO).
The other, quite striking strategy consists of the replication of the demon-
strated mixtures with minor variations (E2). Predictably, subjects using H1 em-
ployed E2 as the dominant experimentation strategy, but E2 occurred as well in
conjunction with more advanced hypothesis strategies, notably H3, and was in
fact the most frequent experimentation strategy overall (Table 11). E2 occasion-
ally included a single-element mixture (7 of 48 instances), as, for example, when
the subject broke the demonstrated mixture, BCD, into two parts (e.g., BC and
D), but most often it did not.
Under the “genuine experimentation” heading are three strategies. All three
are sufficient, when utilized appropriately, to assess the role of individual ele-
ments in producing the outcome. One (E5) is also labeled as efficient, based on
the criterion of requiring the least possible amount of experimentation (defined
by number of vials of chemicals required). Some subjects followed the success-
ful application of E5 with additional experimentation consisting of random,
partially systematic, or systematic combinations of two or more elements, al-
though this additional experimentation tended to drop out of a subject’s experi-
mentation procedure soon after the subject realized that a single element pro-
duced the outcome. Because these strategies are superfluous in the initial
problems and did not interfere with effective problem solution, they were not
coded for the 151 protocols based on the initial problems.
The infrequently used strategies, E l , E3, and E4, were each shown by at least
four different subjects, suggesting (as in the case of the infrequent hypothesis
strategies discussed previously) that although certain subjects showed a disposi-
tion toward use of these strategies, none was the idiosyncratic production of a
single subject.
Given the way “genuine experimentation” has been defined, it can occur only
in the presence of “genuine hypothesis.” Thus, as reflected in Table 11, E3, E4,
and E5 never occurred in the absence of H4. This fact should not be misin-
terpreted, however, as an empirical outcome; rather, it is a consequence of the
way in which the strategies have been defined. H4, in contrast, did occur fre-
quently in the absence of the “genuine experimentation” strategies E3, E4, or
E5 (Table 11).
In a small number of cases, multiple coding of experimentation strategies
occurred. The multiple coding E3 and E5 was used if the effects of some
elements were assessed by isolation while others were assessed with the inclu-
sion of superfluous elements. E2 also occurred occasionally in conjunction with
a more advanced strategy: Typically, the subject began with the E2 variation of
the demonstration and then either saw the possibility of applying an E3 or E4
strategy to these variations or went on to construct additional mixtures in a way
that reflected one of the more advanced strategies. Occasionally (four instances
overall), a subject who relied on one of the lower level strategies stated an
intention, or recognition of the need, to use a higher level strategy (e.g., “I
should have tried E and F by themselves”). These instances were coded based
only on the lower level strategy the subject actually employed. Intended experi-
mentation strategies, however, are included in Table IV, summarizing individual
subjects’ progress over the sessions.
D. INFERENCE STRATEGIES
Inference strategies are summarized in the right-hand column of Table I . A

strategy type was coded only once for a given session, even if the subject used
that strategy more than once during the session. Mean number of different
inference strategy types within a session was 2.60. Table 111shows the number of
inference strategies of different types that occurred, overall and as a function of
experimentationstrategy type. Because Table 111 combines within- and between-
subject data, it does not reveal what combinations of inference strategies tended
to be used within a single session. This information will be presented in Table
IV, which summarizes each subject’s strategy use at each session. All inference
strategies were displayed by at least six different subjects with the exception of
16b which was used by four subjects and 17a which was used by three subjects.
The first four inference strategies in Table I reflect invalid inference. Although
10, 11, and I2 were relatively infrequent, I3 was a very frequent inference
strategy, in fact the most frequent overall. In roughly one-fourth of the instances
of its usage, it appeared as variant 13a (some of the data present contradict the
inference), that is, mixtures had been generated which ( a ) included the ele-
ment(s) the subject alleged to be effective but had not produced the outcome, or
( b ) did not include the alleged effective elements but produced the outcome.
While 10, I1 , and I2 occurred primarily in conjunction with a lower level experi-
mentation strategy, I3 occurred as well in conjunction with the advanced experi-
mentation strategies. We shall turn shortly to illustrations of such instances.
I4 and I5 are labeled valid but insufficient strategies in that, although valid,
they are not sufficient in themselves to yield the solution to the problem. I6 and
I7 are closely linked to the experimentation strategies E3 and E4, but as men-
tioned earlier and reflected in Table 111, the experimentation and inference strat-
egies did not always occur in conjunction with one another. I6 and 17 are labeled
as “valid, sufficient, but inefficient” according to the criterion of being suffi-
cient to yield the solution to the problem but requiring a larger, more redundant
data base on which to base the inference than does the efficient inference strat-
egy, 18.
In particular, 16a frequently occurred following lower level experimentation
strategies, in fact more frequently than it occurred as the result of a planned
experiment. In other words, after generating a series of mixtures based on strat-
egies EO, E l , or E2, the subject observed post hoc that presence of a particular
element consistently covaried with the outcome, that is, that 16a could be ap-
plied. 17, in contrast, most often, though not always, occurred following a
planned experiment (E4). Whenever I7 was present, previous usage of I4 and I5
during that session was not coded, as I4 and I5 are degenerate forms of 17.
The most advanced inference strategy, 18, occurred only in conjunction with
E5. (More advanced inference strategies dealing with interaction effects do not
appear in Table I, as they did not occur in the initial problems.) It should be
noted that the E5-I8 sequence did not always lead to full problem solution
because it was sometimes incompletely applied, that is, the effects of only some
of the individual elements were tested.
TABLE 111
Experimentation and Inference Strategy Frequencies
Inference strategies
Expenmentation Totalnumber
Total number
strategies I0 11 I2 13a 13b 14 I5 16a 16b 17a 17b I8 ofofinferences”
inferencesD
EO 6 4 12 11 23 6 4 20 5 1 0 0 92(32)
El 1 1 0 2 2 1 1 2 0 0 0 0 10(5)
E2 4 2 5 I1 45 26 25 12 1 0 3 0 134(48)
E3 1 0 0 3 8 3 4 6 1 0 0 0 26(10)
-
4
E4 0 1 1 3 6 4 6 1 0 4 4 0 30(9)
E5 2 0 0 1 9 6 6 1 0 0 0 30 55(30)
E3 + E5 0 0 0 1 4 1 0 5 0 0 0 6 17(6)
E2 +
higherb 0 0 0 1 5 2 2 1 0 0 3 3 17(6)
Other mixed 0 0 2 1 2 1 0 2 0 0 2 2 12(5)
Total 14 8 20 34 104 50 48 50 7 5 12 41 393(151)
% of all
inferences 4% 2% 5% 9% 27% 13% 12% 13% 2% 1% 3% 10% 100%
100%
“Number of sessions is shown in parentheses

bE2 in combination with E3, €3,or E5.
IV. Results
A summary of each subject’s strategy usage at each session is displayed in
Table IV. This summary includes performance only on the initial three problems
(in which a single element is sufficient to produce the outcome), covered by the
analysis in Table I.
How might one analyze data like those in Table IV? Our approach, in effect,
was to treat each subject’s record as a “case study” of the change process,
hoping that each case would contribute some insight into features of the process.
In this section, we would like to take the reader through something like the
investigative process we ourselves went through in studying these cases.
A . THE POWER AND PERSISTENCE OF INVALID STRATEGIES
The two most striking, and we think significant, strategies we observed were
E2 and 13. I3 occurred most frequently in conjunction with E2, although it also
occurred commonly in conjunction with EO (or occasionally El). More surpris-
ingly, as we shall illustrate, I3 also occurred in conjunction with the more
advanced experimentation strategies.
S2 represents a subject who relied almost exclusively on a very common
H3-E2-13 pattern, and his protocols illustrate nicely the power of this sequence
of strategies. S2 is a particularly striking case because he actually showed some
advanced strategy usage in the first two sessions, before settling into the
H3-E2-13 pattern, which he then relied on throughout the remaining sessions.
Session 2, in fact, consisted of the most advanced H4-E5-18 sequence, with the
addition of some I3 usage. (All excerpts are quoted verbatim. Deletions made for
the sake of brevity are indicated by suspension points.)
S2-2 (subject observed BCD and DEF, with F effective): Maybe E. . . . (Sure?) No, maybe F
(Why?) ‘Cause F was with E.
He set up the following experiments, in the order indicated (those producing the
reaction are followed by a plus sign): D, E, FS.
(What will you find out?) One of them will turn pink. . . . (S adds mixing liquid) . . . It’s
F . . . (Others have anything to do with it?) E and D didn’t do it. B and C . . . maybe, ‘cause
I didn’t try them.
S2-2 thus engaged in successful use of an isolation strategy, despite the minor
hints of false inclusion (13) in his invoking F as a cause on the basis of its
occurring “with E” and his unwillingness to exclude B and C despite his
observation that BCD did not yield the effect. (Such characteristics were never
TABLE IV
Summary of Performance by Subject
Session
Subjecta 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
2 (M) Mb M*c.d Ie I I 1 I I I I I
10(F) I* M M I I I I M I I I
14 (M) I M* I I M M I I M M VIf
15 (F) I I M M M M M M M M M*
1 (M) M* M* M* I I I I M I M M
8 (F) I M VI* M* I VI M* M M M VI*
12 (F) I M M I* VE*g M* M* M I I M*
13 (M) I M M VI* M* M VI* M M M VI*
5 (F) I I I I M l h VE* VE* VE* A' A A
6 (M) I 1 I* M* 1 M* I VE* VE* A A A
11 (F) M* M* M M M* I VE* VE* A A A A
7 (M) I I I* I* I* I* I M* I* / VE* VE*
9 (M) 1 M* M* M* M* M* M* M* I VE* VE* VE*
3 (F) M* M* M* M* M* / VE* VE* VE* VE* VE* VE*
4 (F) M* M* M* M* IVE* VE* VE* A A A A
"Subject's sex is shown in parentheses.

bM, Mixed invalid and valid sufficient (inefficient or efficient) inference.
CItalics, Genuine hypothesis present.
d * , Genuine experimentation present (or articulation of the intent or need to use it).
eI, Invalid inference predominant; valid insufficient (but no higher) inference may be present.
NI, Valid inefficient inference; no invalid inference.
gVE, Valid efficient inference; no invalid inference.
Point of stabilization at valid efficient strategy.
' 4 , Advanced problems.
present among more advanced subjects, who showed consistent usage of the
H4-E5-I8 sequence.) In the next session, however, S2’s strategy usage was
radically different:
S2-3 (BCD and DEF, B effective): It’s BC, ‘cause D was in both and it didn’t do anything
(Sure?) Yes.
The following mixtures were constructed: BC+ and D.
I’m doing BC to see if it will turn cloudy. D will turn clear. (S adds mixing liquid) . . . (Think
about how it’s turned out?) It came out like I said it would. B and C made it cloudy. (So. what
makes a difference . . . ?) B and C. (How do you know?) ‘Cause I tried them alone and they
turned cloudy.
Despite their striking difference with respect to logical validity, the ap-
proaches used by S 2 in sessions 2 and 3 bear some similarity. In session 2 , S 2
hypothesized that the effect was caused by a single element and proceeded to test
this hypothesis by testing the single elements he believed might be responsible.
In session 3, he hypothesized that BC caused the reaction (although in this case
we term it a pseudohypothesis, as it derives not from the speculation that these
individual elements in unique combination with one another produce the reaction
but rather derives from the failure to conceive of B and C apart from one
another). He proceeded to test this pseudohypothesis in a comparable way, that
is, by trying out the mixture he believed responsible for the effect. In this case,
however, his strategy led him to an invalid conclusion. Thus, as we will illustrate
later with additional examples, the first appearance of an advanced strategy did
not necessarily signify that the subject was in full command of that strategy, that
is, fully understood the logic of what he or she was doing. The latter proved to be
a much more gradual and difficult achievement.
In the case of S2, however, this achievement in fact never occurred. S2 was
the only subject who evidenced a clear suggestion of regression, and it is the
H3-E2-13 pattern to which he gravitated and in which he then became rigidly
locked. (S2 used this strategy sequence, virtually unchanged, in sessions 3
through 11.) What is most noteworthy about this pattern, of course, is that the
subject chooses the E2 variations in such a way that confirmation of the initial
inference is assured. The prevalence of this strategy sequence in the present data
accords with previous suggestions from the literature on reasoning that people
seek information that will confirm rather than disconfirm their hypotheses
(Moshman, 1979; Snyder & Swann, 1978; Wason & Johnson-Laird, 1972).
Occasionally, a subject included some variations that did provide data that
stood in contradiction to the initial inference. Was this sufficient to disrupt the
subject’s approach? Usually not. In these cases, the subject typically simply
ignored the contradiction. For example, following the initial observation that
The Development of Problem-Solving Strutegies 21
DEF turned red and BCD did not, S6-5 inferred that EF caused the reaction. She
constructed the following mixtures: E F + , BC, D, and E. On observing the
outcome, she affirmed her original inference: ‘cause I tried it and it turned
“
pink.” She herself had produced data indicating that D or E in isolation showed
no effect, but she ignored these data and they never led her to speculate that F
alone in the original DEF or in EF may have been responsible for the effect.
In contrast, from the fourth session on, S2 tended to construct only the single
mixture he predicted would yield the outcome. When he did venture further
experiments, they were constructed in such a way as to preclude the possibility of
obtaining conflicting data. In session 7, for example, he inferred that BC was
responsible for the effect and proceeded to construct the following mixtures:
BC+, BCF+, D, and EF. The expected predictions were made and S2 in-
terpreted the outcome as affirming his original inference.
Clearly, then, a subject using S2’s strategies meets with consistent success.
Confirmation of the initial inference is ensured, and in this sense the whole
experimentation process is superfluous, serving from the subject’s perspective
more as a demonstration of the correctness of the initial inference than as a test of
it. The system, then, is closed, and one can see why the approach might rigidify,
as it did in the case of S2.
The E2-I3 combination just illustrated was very prevalent. Nine of the 15
subjects used it at some point, and many did so consistently. 13 itself was even
more conimon. All but two subjects showed in at least one session primary
reliance on the 13 strategy (in conjunction with either EO or E2), failing to show
any valid sufficient inference. Subjects in these sessions were clearly capable of
a reasonably sophisticated form of logical inference, however: All of them in at
least some sessions employed the valid insufficient strategies, I4 and 15.
An obvious question, then, is what sorts of occurrences might be sufficient to
lead a subject out of reliance on the EO-I3 or E2-I3 approaches. One possibility
might be that if subjects simply generated enough data, they would begin to
observe a consistent pattern, leading ultimately to adoption of the 16a strategy
and rejection of 13 as fallacious. S 6 (who used the E l variant of EO, in which
single elements are included) provides a striking example of the fact that this was
not the case.
Sh-1 (BCD and DEF, E effective): You need F. (Why?) Because BCD doesn’t turn red
The following mixtures were constructed: DF, CB, DC, BFC, F, CD, EF+,
BEDF+, ECBF+, FD, B, C, D, E + , FBD. BCDEF+, BDF, BCD, DF, E F + ,
CD, D E + , and FC.
(What will you find out. . . ? ) What different colors will turn out. (How will it turn out’?) I
don’t know. (S adds mixing liquid) . . . (What did you find out‘?) Which ones turn red. (So,
what makes a difference. , , ’?) I don’t know . . . (pause) . . . I don’t know. (Any way to
tell?) 1 don’t know.
Thus, the mere presence of adequate data to allow for a valid inference does
not ensure that the subject will be able to make use of those data by applying an
appropriate inference strategy. Once a subject does become able to see a pattern
in the data, however, and achieves the insight that a single element is responsible
for the outcome, we might expect that this insight would be sufficient to lead the
subject both to a radically different experimentation strategy and to abandonment
of the invalid 13 strategy. The fact that it was not is illustrated strikingly by the
performance of S10 over the 11 sessions. The case of S10 also illustrates the
surprising pattern of mixed valid and invalid inference that turned out to be
extremely common.
In session 1 , S10 established the characteristic E2-I3 pattern. Her initial
inference strategy was I3 and the mixtures she constructed clearly reflected the
E2 strategy (DEF produced the outcome and BCD did not produce it): DEF+ and
CEF+.
( . . . find out . . . ?) I don’t know. ( . . . turn out‘?) I hope it turns pink. (S adds mixing
liquid) . . . ( . . . found out?) Both make the same thing. (So, what makes a difference. . . ?)
F and E. (How do you know?) Just guesses. (Sure?) I can’t be sure. . . . You would need to try
each one alone.
Despite the occurrence of this surprising insight at the end (coded as intended
E5), it had no influence on her approach at the next session:
S10-2 (BCD and DEF, F effective): Use DEF. (?) ‘Cause of the color. I t turned pink.
The following mixtures were constructed: CDF+ and BEF+ .
( , . . find out . . . ?) BEF is the same as DEF ‘cause both use E and F. ( . . . turn out’?)CDF
will turn out pink. (S adds mixing liquid) . . . It came out the same as yours. . . . ( . . . find
out‘?) F makes it turn out. F is used in those that turn pink. , . . (So, what makes a difference?)
F. (Others have to do with it?) They help it. D in CDF and E in BEF helped it.
SlO’s insight in session 1 regarding the limitations of her experimentation

strategy did not lead her to change that strategy in session 2 . Probably by chance,
however, she did not consistently pair two critical elements in session 2 , as she
had in the first session, thus making possible the recognition that only a single
element covaries with the outcome (I6a). Immediately following use of this valid
strategy, however, she again applied the false inclusion strategy, I3b, in assert-
ing that other elements present in the mixtures “helped.”
Nor did the insight reflected in 16a carry over to the next session, as we might
have anticipated. Session 3, in fact, was a carbon copy of session 2 , including
the initial I3 strategy, E2, the subsequent I6a, and the final recurrence of 13
reflected in the assertion that other elements “helped,” although this time S10
remarked, “They just help a little.”
In session 4 (BCD and DEF, C effective) S10 consistently paired two critical
elements so that, as in session 1, I6 was not possible. The following mixtures
were constructed: BCD+ and BCF+.
( . . . find out . . . ? )If they will turn cloudy. ( . . . turn out’?)Cloudy, I hope. (S adds mixing
liquid) , , . ( . . . turned out?) Both turn cloudy. ( . . . found out’?) BCD makes the same
thing as BCF. (So, what makes a difference , , . ?) Use B and C (?) ‘Cause I used it there
(indicates) and you did too.
In session 5 (BCD and DEF, F effective), S 10 did not consistently pair critical
elements, so that an inference regarding the effective element was possible. The
following mixtures were constructed: DEC and DEF+ .
( ... find out . . . ?) Both will turn pink. I just hope. . . . ( S adds mixing liquid ) . . .
( .. .turned out?) Not too good. ( . . . found out?) These (original DEF and DEF constructed
by subject) both make the same . . . (So, what makes a difference . . . ?) D, E, and F. (?)
‘Cause I used them in mine and you used them in yours.
Even if this subject had never shown any higher level reasoning than this, her
failure to make the obvious inference she might have at this session would still be
surprising. Her failure to do so, however, is indeed remarkable in view of the
fact that on two previous occasions she had recognized that only a single element
was responsible for the outcome. Yet, clearly, her insight on those two occasions
was not sufficient to effect a lasting change in the way she conceptualized the
problem.
Sessions 10-6 and 10-7 were similar in that no valid sufficient strategies
appeared. Session 10-6 was similar to 10-4 in that the critical elements were
consistently paired and 10-7 was similar to 10-5 in that they were not, allowing
the possibility of a valid inference. In session 10-8, I6 reappeared:
SIO-8 (BCD and DEF, E effective): D, E, and F (?) ‘Cause we used it and there was no D, E,
or F in BCD and it didn’t turn out good , . ,
The following mixtures were constructed: BEF+, BDF, and ECD+ .
BDF will turn out cloudy. (?) Because I want it to. ( S adds mixing liquid) . . . ( . . . found
out?) BEF and ECD turn out cloudy. . . . (So, what makes a difference . . . ?) E. All with E
turn cloudy and there’s no E in BDF and it didn’t turn out.
This is the last time, however, we see I6 in S 10’s reasoning. She repeated the E2-
I3 pattern in the rest of the sessions and by session 1 1 she exhibited a remarkable
inability to “see” what the data clearly indicated:
S10-11 (BCD and DEF, F effective): D, E, and F. (?) ‘Cause it turned pink
The following mixtures were constructed: F+ , DE, and FDC+.

( . . . find out . . . ?) I don’t know. ( . . . turn out?) FDC will turn pink because it has F and
D in it. ( S adds mixing liquid) . . . ( . . . turned out?) Good. ( . . . found out?) F makes the
same as FDC. (So, what makes a difference . . . ?) D and F. (?) ‘Cause the experiments with
them turned pink.
Most subjects met with more success overall than did S2 and S10. Neverthe-
less, the mixed (valid and invalid) inference pattern, illustrated by SlO, was
extremely common, both within and across sessions. Indeed, every subject
showed a mixed inference strategy pattern in at least one session, and most often
over repeated sessions. The I3 and I6 strategies were the ones most frequently
combined, as was illustrated in the case of S 10. S 14 and S 15 were similar to S 10
in showing repeated usage of I6 in combination with 13, although they both
showed more consistent usage of I6 than did SIO. Unlike SlO, S14 and S15
occasionally anticipated the fact that a single element might be responsible (H4),
but this recognition did not deter them from the subsequent use of 13. Other less
common mixed inference patterns consisted of I3 in conjunction with I7 and
occasionally even 18, as will be illustrated in some later examples.
Thus, recognition that a single element was responsible for the outcome (16,
17, or 18) did not necessarily lead to a radical change in a subject’s experimenta-
tion strategy. Nor did it lead subjects to discard false inclusion inference strat-
egies. More generally, competence in executing advanced strategies was not a
sufficient condition for problem mastery, and the co-occurrence of valid and
invalid strategies within a single session proved to be the rule rather than the
exception (Table IV).
B. PATTERNS OF CHANGE
As Table IV further indicates, however, some subjects did eventually master

the problem. We refer to the last seven subjects in Table IV, who began to show
consistent usage of the H4-E5-18 pattern.’ With the exception of a single
’The criterion for advancement to the next problem in the series, as indicated in Section IIC, was
specification of the correct element as effective and the exclusion of all others as ineffective. Thus, a
subject could advance to the next problem without having utilized the H4-E5-18 sequence. Ad-
vancement to the next problem without utilization of the H4-E5-18 sequence occurred occasionally
in the case of advancement to problems 2 and 3 (any of two or three elements effective) but, as can be
inferred from Table IV, never in the case of advancement to the more advanced problems. Converse-
ly, use of H4-ES-I8 ordinarily implied advancement to the next problem. Occasionally it did not
(e.g., in the case of S3) because the H4-E5-18 sequence was incompletely applied and did not lead
to full problem solution.
instance (S12-5), once the H4-E5-18 pattern appeared, it began to be used

consistently, and lower level strategies were soon abandoned. In contrast, neither
the inefficient experimentation nor inference strategies (E3, E4, 16, and 17)
constituted stable approaches by themselves (even though, as their label implies,
these strategies are sufficient by themselves, though inefficient, for problem
mastery). Subjects never showed prolonged usage of either the E3-I6 or the
E4-I7 sequence (or of either of the experimentation or inference strategies alone,
without the other) without the additional use of the invalid inference strategy, 13.
To state it another way, subjects did not fully abandon the less adequate (false
inclusion) strategies until they achieved stable usage of the valid, maximally
efficient strategies.
What led to this achievement? S5 is an appropriate case to consider first in
investigating this question, for the manner in which S5’s attainment occurred
accords quite closely with what we might have predicted: Sudden insight (that a
single element is responsible for the outcome) produces a radically different
representation of the problem (the problem is “cracked”) and accordingly a
dramatic shift in the mode of solution. In this regard, S5 stands in striking
contrast to SIO.
S5’s first four sessions were very similar. Session 4 provides an example:
S5-4 (BCD and DEF. C effective): C and B. (’?) ‘Cause they’re close together in the alpha-
bet. . . . (Others have anything to do with it?) No. ‘cause we didn’t try others. BD might make
i t turn cloudy.
The following mixtures were constructed: CB+ and DB.
( . . . find out . . . ? ) Just a guess. I don’t know. ( . . . turn out?) Good. ( S adds mixing
liquid) . . . ( . . . turned out‘?)Good. ( . . . found out?) New ways to do it. (So, what makes
a difference . . . ’?) The different chemicals. (?) ‘Cause we did it.
Session 5 was as follows:
S5-5 (BCD and DEF, F effective): E and F (?) Just a guess
The following mixtures were constructed: F E + , FD+, DF+ and BE.
( , ,, find out , . , ?) I’m just trying to make it pink. ( . . . turn out . . . ? ) Pretty good. (S
adds mixing liquid) . , , ( , , . turned out , , , ? ) Good. ( . . . found out . . . ?) 1 think it’s F.
All those with F turn red.
Following four sessions with no such insight, S5’s unexpected recognition that
a single element covaried with the outcome (16) dramatically changed her subse-
quent performance. In the next session, she proceeded to assess systematically
the effect of each element in isolation (H4-E5-18), and she continued to employ
this approach through the rest of the sessions, with no recurrence of invalid
strategies.
Of the seven subjects who achieved stabilization at the valid efficient strategy
level, however, S5 was the striking exception. The more characteristic pattern
was a much more gradual acquisition, with a sustained period during which more
advanced strategies were used in conjunction with less advanced ones. In this
sense, subjects during this period appeared similar to the subjects who never
achieved stabilization at the efficient strategy level. A critical question that
arises, then, is this: Did the two groups of subjects differ in any discernible way
prior to the achievement of stabilization in the one group?
Before attempting to answer this question, let us take a closer look at the
patterns of change among subjects who did achieve mastery. We were able to
identify two sources of difficulty these subjects experienced, which help to
explain why (with the striking exception of S5) they took as long to achieve
mastery as they did.
First, when they initially appeared, the advanced experimentation strategies
did not always function in a complete, or completely correct, manner, and it was
only after repeated application that they became fully functional. Second, when
the experimentation strategy was utilized in a completely correct manner, the
false inclusion inference strategy was often superimposed on what would other-
wise be a valid solution, and sometimes even precluded the valid inference
strategy from being used.
S3 provides a good example of a subject who experienced both sources of
difficulty:
S3-1 (BCD and DEF, E effective): Couldn’t have been D. F sort of had an effect. (?) Both had
D and BCD didn’t turn red. DEF did turn red, so it had to be F.
The following mixtures were constructed: BEF+, EF+, and DEF+
( . . . find out . . . ?) If D had anything to do with it . . . . ( S adds mixing liq-

uid) . . , ( , , . turned out?) D didn’t have anything to do with it . . . . . (So, what makes a
difference . . , ?) E and F. D didn’t do anything. EF turned out the same as DEF.
In this session, S 3 used the sophisticated E4 strategy to test the effect of the
element D, despite the fact she had already explicitly eliminated D before under-
taking her experimentation. Thus, an appropriate strategy is used in an inap-
propriate way. When it became evident that the strategy had not yielded an
adequate solution, she reverted to a more primitive strategy (13) to solve the
problem.
In sessions 2 and 3, the same E4 strategy was attempted, although in these
instances S3 constructed an experiment that was not redundant with her previous
inference:
The Devrloprnenr of Problem-Solving Strategies 27
53-3 (BCD and DEF. B effective): B, C. and D. . . . It might be B or C that does i t
The following mixture was constructed: BD+
( . . . find out . . . ?) If B or C has anything to do with it. . , . (Sadds mixing liquid) , . . So

it nust be the B and D. Just take out C from the BCD and you would still get the effect.
In this instance, the E4 strategy was applied properly. It appears, however, that
the “success” of the outcome was enough to divert S3 from a more careful
interpretation of it, and though C was appropriately eliminated via the E4-I7
strategies, D was again falsely included, after its implicit elimination prior to the
experimentation.
In session 4, S3 turned to a completely new experimentation strategy, E5. Just
as was the case with E4, however, E5 initially was employed in a partial,
redundant, and therefore inadequate manner:
S3-4 (BCD and DEF, C effective): Either B or C or D. Don’t know which one.
The following mixture was constructed: D
( . . . find out. . . ?) We’ll find out if it’s just the D alone. If not, it’s probably B or C. . . . (S
adds mixing liquid) . . . ( . . . turned out?) Not so good. ( . . . found out’?) D didn’t do
anything. (So, what makes a difference. . . Y ) B and C. (?) ’Cause B and C was in BCD and it
turned out.
As in session 1 , the failure of an advanced experimentation strategy to yield an

adequate solution appears to have led S3 to revert to the invalid strategy. In
session 5, the E5 strategy was again used in an incomplete manner, and S3
remarked at the end of the session, “I should try D, E, and F separately.” In
session 6, however, the ES strategy was still not completely functional. After the
initial hypothesis that “It could be B alone or something else” (BCD and DEF,
C effective), she constructed the following mixtures: D and E.
( . . . find out. . . ?) Whether it’s D, E, or C. . . . (S adds mixing liquid) . . . ( . . . turned
out?) Not good. ( . . . found out?) I didn’t find out anything. (So, what makes a differ-
ence. . . ?) B , C, or D. D didn’t do anything, so 11‘s B or C.
In session 6, for the first time S3 did not resort to the false inclusion inference
and remained aware that her E5 strategy had not yielded a definitive solution. In
session 7, she finally applied the E5 strategy in a comprehensive manner and
achieved full problem solution. The H4-E5-18 strategies were the only ones
used in the remaining sessions. In sessions 8 and 9, however, E5 was again
applied incompletely and full problem solution was attained only in sessions 10
and 11.
28 Deanria Kuhn and Erin Phelps
Like S3, S9 on one occasion showed the same inappropriate use of E4 to

assess the effect of the element D which had already been eliminated (via 15). S9
similarly showed incomplete usage of E5 in a number of instances, leading to
failure to fully solve the problem and reversion to false inclusion inference. S6
and S l 1 also showed incomplete or incorrect usage of the advanced experimenta-
tion strategies when they first appeared. S9 on occasion also showed a com-
pletely adequate usage of H4-E5-18, on which I3 was then superimposed. In
session 2 (BCD and DEF, F effective), S9 constructed the following experi-
ments: EF+, BC, E, and F + .
( . . . find out. . . ?) Could be just E that will make it pink. . . . (S adds mixing liquid) . . . I
thought F alone would turn pink, and I knew EF would. . . . (So, what makes a difference. . ,
?) F. (?) F alone turns pink. E and F together makes pink; it’s F. (Sure?) No. (?) F might help E
turn pink.
Occasionally, the I3 strategy was so overpowering that it completely elimi-

nated the valid inference strategy that might otherwise have followed from ap-
plication of one of the advanced experimentation strategies. S7 was a striking
case in this regard. He quite consistently employed an advanced experimentation
strategy but was rarely successful in following it with an appropriate inference
strategy:
S7-3 (BCD and DEF, B effective): B and C, I think.
The following mixtures were constructed: BC+, FBC+, BF+, and CE.
( . . . find out. . . ?) If C by itself or something else will turn out. . . . (S adds mixing
liquid) . . . ( . . . found out?) Some turn cloudy. B and C turn out cloudy. (So, what makes a
difference. . . ?) B and C. B and C makes it cloudy.
Thus, S7-3 has conceived of the possibility that a single element might be
effective (“C by itself”) and constructed an experiment (coded E3) capable of
providing an adequate test. Yet it appeared that the initial inference exercised
such a hold over the subject that it prevented his making an appropriate inference
following his experimentation, even though his reversion to the I3 strategy
required him to ignore data he had generated that were discrepant with it. S7’s
use of E3 without a subsequent valid inference strategy recurred in sessions 4 and
5. In sessions 6 and 9, E4 was utilized in the same unsuccessful manner, without
a subsequent valid inference.
The protocols of an ultimately successful subject like S7 can be compared with
those of a much less successful subject, S1. In session 3 (BCD and DEF, B
effective) S1 applied an initial I3 strategy and then constructed the following
mixture: CD.
The Development of' Problem-Solving Srraregies 29
( . . find out. , . ?) We don't know that B has an effect. . . . (S adds mixing liquid) . . .
( . . turned out'?) CD has no effect: it didn't turn cloudy. But B has an effect. ( . , . found
.
out?) B does it. . . . (Others have anything to do with i t . . . '?) C. because it was in BCD.
Session 1-3 reflects the combination of an advanced experimentation and in-

ference strategy used in conjunction with an invalid inference strategy. Session
1-4 (BCD and DEF, C effective) appears similar to 1-3 on the surface, but the
intent underlying the experimentation was clearly very different. Following an
initial 13 strategy, the following mixture was constructed: BC+.
( . . . find out. . . '?) What makes it cloudy'? ( , , . turn out'?) I have no idea. ( S adds mixing
liquid) . . . ( . . . turned out?) Good. ( . . . found out?) B and C did it . . . (Others. . . ? ) I
guess so. D might have helped it.
Comparison of SI-3 and SI-4 suggests that the power, or compellingness, of

the false inclusion inference may swamp the subject's ability to use the more
advanced experimentation and inference strategies. S 1-4 shows no evidence of a
sophisticated intent, but the "success" of the experiment seems to preclude the
subject's taking a more critical look at the outcome, although we know from thc
preceding session that S 1 had the competence to do so. Indeed, the power of this
approach is such that S1 duplicated it, virtually exactly, in the next three ses-
sions, and the genuine experimentation strategies evident at the early sessions
never reappeared.
Some important similarities appear, then, in the protocols of the ultimately
successful and unsuccessful subjects. In both, the advanced, valid strategies
seem to compete with the less advanced, invalid strategies for dominance. Both
groups of subjects had within their competence more advanced strategies with
which to replace the invalid ones, but discarding the invalid strategies appeared
to pose a formidable challenge for both groups, a challenge one group never
successfully met. The particular power and persistence of I3 is perhaps best
reflected in these remarks by S 15-5:
Need F. Whenever I had F, it turned red. . . . (Others have to do with it?) No, except E might
help it turn red in BEF. But you don't really need E to make red.
C. PREDICTION OF CHANGE
We come. then, to the question of what, if anything, differentiated the perfor-

mance of those subjects who were ultimately successful from those who were
not. A number of factors that might have differentiated the groups in fact did not.
The mere ability to generate sufficient data to make isolation of the critical
element possible did not in and of itself lead to success, as was illustrated by
S6-1. Nor did the recognition that a single element might be responsible for the
outcome (H4). Nor, as we have already noted, was competence in advanced
experimentation or inference strategies a differentiating factor.
Examination of Table IV, however, does reveal one clear difference between
the two groups. With the striking exception of S 5 , all subjects who did eventual-
ly stabilize at the valid efficient strategy level showed frequent usage of genuine
experimentation strategies, that is, a relatively high percentage of sessions at
which genuine experimentation was displayed, prior to this stabilization. The
lowest percentage is 5096, shown by S6, and the remaining percentages vary
from 60 (S1 1 ) to 100% (S3 and S4). In contrast, among the eight subjects who
did not achieve stabilization at the valid efficient strategy level, the highest
percentage is 45% (S12) and four subjects showed only 9% (one session of the
11).
How should this difference be interpreted? The use of genuine experimenta-
tion strategies, as we have defined these strategies, implies a planfulness or
purposefulness in designing experimentation. Recall, however, that subjects
using strategy E2 also often showed a decided purposefulness in conducting their
experiments (i.e., to confirm their initial inference), as well as a very specific
anticipation regarding the results (i.e., that the results would confirm their pre-
dictions and hence their initial inference). Recall, also, however, that in these
cases the “experiment” that was selected was such that it could not disconfirm
the subject’s anticipation. Thus, as we noted, in some sense the whole experi-
mentation process was superfluous, serving more as a demonstration of the
correctness of the initial inference than as a test of it.
What appears significant, then, is the frequency with which subjects’ experi-
mentation involves a plan, or “anticipatory scheme,” which includes possible
alternative outcomes that will inform the inferences that are to follow from the
experimentation. We can speculate that the application of this type of “anticipa-
tory scheme” to the data generated by the experiments is what is important in
overcoming the power of the invalid false inclusion inference strategy. Subjects
who did not show frequent use of such a plan, we observed, rarely mastered the
problem, even though their performance frequently reflected both the insight that
a single element may be responsible for the effect (H4) and an inference as to
which element is effective (16). Subjects who frequently employed such a plan,
in contrast, eventually met with success. This was the case even though (a) the
experimentation strategies they used may have been inefficient for solving the
problem, (b) the strategies may have operated initially in a less than fully func-
tional manner, and (c) invalid inference strategies may have been superimposed
on the valid inference strategies logically following from them or even may have
precluded use of these valid inference strategies.
Worth noting in concluding this section is the fact that less successful subjects
who rarely used genuine experimentation strategies occasionally exhibited some
awareness of the limitations of the less adequate experimentation and inference
strategies they employed. It tended to take the form of an awareness that the
strategies being used were not fruitful in yielding a solution to the problem,
rather than an awareness that the strategies used yielded invalid solutions. The
most articulate expression of this awareness came from S 15. In session 7, S I5
showed H4 (“See if B does it”) but then proceeded to test this hypothesis by
generating six unsystematic three-element mixtures (EO), all of which turned red.
After studying the outcome, she exclaimed, with evident frustration:
I don’t really know. I’ve got chemicals all over the place. There’s so many ways I’ve done it, I
can’t tell. They all turn pink. You need one that stays clear before you can tell anything.
D. RECURRENCE OF INVALID STRATEGIES
Before concluding the presentation of our findings, we should mention how

the four subjects who proceeded to the advanced problems fared. Their perfor-
mance on the advanced problems is noteworthy, as three of the four showed
some recurrence of the false inclusion strategy, even though all had clearly
mastered the use of the valid efficient strategy approach, without false inclusion,
with respect to the simple problems. ( S 5 was the one subject who did not revert
to false inclusion.)
S4 provides an example. The H4-ES-I8 strategy sequence was well consoli-
dated by the time S4 encountered the advanced problems (session 8). S4 was
clearly competent from session 8 with regard to a two-way combinatorial strat-
egy, and she had no problem in mastering a two-way interaction problem. In
session 8, she constructed the following mixtures: EF, DF, CF, BF, DE, CE,
BE, CD, BD, BC+, B, C, D, E, F, and BCE+. “It’s B and C,” she exclaimed
spontaneously, on completing the mixing. “B and C together turned out and the
others have no effect.”
The next problem, however, presented in session 9, involved a three-way
interaction, and S4’s combinatorial strategy was not sufficiently developed to
generate systematic three-way combinations. She constructed the 10 two-ele-
ment mixtures and five single-element mixtures, none of which showed the
reaction. She then reverted to a much lower level strategy: “Use BCDE” (the
demonstrated mixture). (?) “Because it worked. None of our experiments with
two or one turned out.” S4 did acknowledge, however, “It could be just three
chemicals, and one might have no effect.”
In session 10, a three-way interaction problem was again presented. S4 in-
cluded three three-element mixtures in her experimentation, one of which hap-
pened to produce the outcome, and she made the appropriate inference. In
session 1 1, the problem presented was the most advanced type, involving inhibi-
tive effects: BE was demonstrated as producing the outcome and BCDF as failing
to produce it; the outcome was in fact caused by B or C, without D. S4 con-
32 LIeanna Kuhn and Erin Phelps
structed the following mixtures: E, EF, ED, EC+, DFE, BCE+ , DE, BD, BF+,
BC+ ,D, and CF+ . After studying the outcome and noting several of its features
without making any inferences, S4 concluded: “It’s B and E” (the demonstrated
mixture). Thus, in the absence of having available any higher level strategies to
apply to the outcome, S4 again reverted to a very low-level invalid strategy. On
this occasion, however, no less than four discrepant outcomes were present, all
of which she had to ignore in order to apply the inference strategy she used.
V. Replication and Variations

We decided to replicate the original study for a number of reasons. A replica-
tion is desirable whenever the number of subjects in the original study is small.
The patterns of change observed in the present initial study made a replication
particularly important. Seven subjects zchieved performance mastery, that is,
stabilization at the level of valid efficient strategy usage. Of these seven, one
( S 5 ) showed a very different pattern of attainment from the others. Further
evidence would be very desirable, therefore, as to whether in fact two charac-
teristic patterns of attainment exist, one less common than the other. Alter-
natively, the pattern shown by S5 may be so atypical that it cannot be described
as “characteristic,” and would not recur in another sample.
Subjects in the replication sample were 15 fourth-graders. Chronological age
ranged from 9:9 to 11:3.* All subjects were reported by their classroom teachers
to be within an average range academically. The school was a public one in a
middle- to upper-middle-class neighborhood.
The procedure was identical to that of the initial study, except that only the
initial problem was used.3 Subjects continued the weekly sessions until they
reached a criterion of four consecutive sessions of valid efficient strategy usage,
except that all subjects continued until eight sessions had been completed. The
sessions were discontinued after the thirteenth session, which was near the end of
the school year. A school vacation of 1 week extended the total period of
observation to 14 weeks.
Protocols were coded by two raters, as in the initial study, and differences
were resolved by discussion. Reliability improved for hypothesis and inference
strategies, from 90 and 87%, respectively, to 98% for each, and remained
2Although the original sample included fourth-and fifth-graders, the age range was comparable in
the two samples.
‘The primary reason for this modification was that so few subjects in the initial sample reached the
advanced problems This modification also served a secondary purpose, however. Even though
problems 1-3 in the initial study required identical strategies for solution, the second and third
problems (in which any one of two or three single elements produced the outcome) conceivably
yielded more complex data that in some way impeded the subject’s progress. The replication study
enabled us to ensure that the performance variability that was observed was genuinely attributable to
the subject, rather than to a change in the problem.
The Development of Probli,m-Solving Strategies 33
roughly equivalent for experimentation strategies-77 and 83% in the initial and
replication studies, respectively.
A summary of subjects’ performance is presented in Table V (comparable to
Table IV for the initial sample). The data presented in Tables I1 and 111 for the
initial sample were essentially replicated in the new sample, and therefore analo-
gous tables have been omitted.
The data in Table V are generally similar to those in Table IV. All subjects
showed at least some competence in the use of advanced strategies, but only a
portion of the subjects attained stabilization at the level of valid efficient strategy
usage-in this case 9 of the 15, or 60%. (The number of subjects attaining this
stabilization in the initial sample, by comparison, was 7, or 45%, as reflected in
Table I V . ) None of the six subjects in the replication sample who did not achieve
stabilization showed frequent usage of genuine experimentation strategies
(E3-E5). Of the nine subjects who did achieve stabilization, the same two
patterns of attainment seen in the initial sample appeared, with one again much
more frequent than the other. One subject (S26) achieved stabilization too quick-
ly to be unambiguously classified as adhering to one pattern or the other. Six of
the nine subjects showed the pattern of gradual attainment that was shown by the
majority of the subjects attaining mastery in the initial sample. As in the initial
sample, stabilization in this pattern was preceded by a high percentage usage of
genuine experimentation strategies. Two subjects (S19 and S20) showed a pat-
tern of attainment similar to that shown by S5 in the initial sample, suggesting
that this pattern of change is a secondary, or alternative, one that occurs with
some frequency.
One other noteworthy thing that appeared in the replication study was the
occurrence of the valid inefficient inference pattern over a number of consecutive
sessions, after invalid inference strategies had been discarded but prior to stabil-
ization of the valid efficient strategy patterns (S17, sessions 4 through 7). In the
original sample, and in all other cases except S17 in the replication sample, this
order was reversed: Invalid inference strategies were not discarded until stabil-
ization of the valid efficient strategy pattern had occurred.
Space limitations permit only brief mention of a series of further studies in
which we utilized variations of the basic method described in this article. Two
studies in particular warrant mention because they were designed to address
specific questions with respect to the method and findings presented here.
In a dissertation by Lewis (1981), two conditions were compared. In one, the
standard interview format described in this article was employed. In the other,
only the initial question was retained (“What do you think makes a differ-
ence . . .”). The procedure was otherwise identical. The purpose was to assess
the effect of the interview questions themselves. In order for change to occur,
must the subject’s exercise of cognitive strategies be encouraged by the inter-
viewer (“How do you think it’s going to turn out?”; “What have you found
out?”; etc.), or is presentation of the problem itself sufficient? The answer was
TABLE V
Summary of Performance by Subject (Replication Sample)
Session
SubjectQ 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
27 (F) Ib I I I I I I C I I I 1 I I
18 (M) I I I I I I I I M* I I I I
28 (FI I I I I I*e I I M M M M* M M*
25 (D I I 1 I I I 1 M M I M I* M
30 (M) I I I I I I M M* M I I I M*
24 (F) M M M M M M M* M* VIf VI M* VI* M*
19 (M) I I /g VE*h VE* VE* VE* VE* VE*
20 (F) I I I I I I M* VE* VE* VE* VE*
P
W
29 (M) I M* I M* M* M I* VI* I VE* VE* VE* VE*
23 (F) M I M* M* VI* M* I VE* VE* VE* VE*
21 (F) I I I* I M* M* VI* M* I VE* VE* VE* VE*
16 ( M ) M M* M* M* M* M* M* VI* M* VE* VE* VE* VE*
17 (F) M M* M* VI* VI* VI* VI* / VE* VE* VE* VE*
22 (M) M M* M* M* I VE* VE* VE* VE*
26 (M) M / VE* VE* VE* VE* VE* VE* VE*
“Subject’s sex is shown in parentheses.

b I , Invalid inference predominant; valid insufficient (but no higher) inference may be present.
cItalics, Genuine hypothesis present.
dM, Mixed invalid and valid sufficient (inefficient or efficient) inference.
e * , Genuine experimentation present (or articulation of the intent or need to use it).
M, Valid inefficient inference; no invalid inference.
81, Point of stabilization at valid efficient strategy.
hVE, Valid efficient inference; no invalid inference.
clear-cut. Although absence of the interviewer’s questions made impossible the
sort of detailed strategy analysis that has been presented in this article, when the
full interview was presented to subjects in both conditions in the final (eleventh)
session, differences between the two groups in the level of strategies used were
insignificant.
Another study, by Kuhn and Ho (1980), was undertaken to assess the role of
the experimentation component of the problem-solving process. In order for
change to occur, must subjects design and carry out their own experimentation,
or do they also make progress exercising cognitive strategies with respect only to
the inference component of the process, that is, in making inferences about data
that already have been compiled? This question was a significant one, we be-
lieved, for it is the latter condition that more often characterizes problem-solving
in natural contexts. In the study that was addressed to this question, Kuhn and Ho
employed a yoked-control design in which each yoked-control subject was pre-
sented exactly those experiments that had been designed and conducted by the
experimental subject to whom the control subject was yoked. (“Here are some
other ways of doing it,” the interviewer said; the procedure was otherwise
identical.) Thus, the information each member of the pair had access to was
identical; the only difference was that in one case subjects designed the experi-
ments that would yield this information and in the other they did not.
Subjects in the yoked-control condition made significant progress. Thus, the
designing of experiments is not critical for the occurrence of change. Experimen-
tal subjects, however, overall progressed further and faster than their yoked-
control partners. This finding, too, we think is significant, especially in relation
to our finding that subjects who make frequent use of genuine experimentation
strategies are more successful than those who do not. We suggested in Section
IVC that subjects in the former group employed “anticipatory schemes” in
terms of which the experimental results could be interpreted and that use of such
schemes facilitated their progress. Subjects in the Kuhn and Ho yoked-control
condition were less likely to form the anticipatory schemes that might have come
from designing their own experiments. Hence, we can speculate that they were
less able “to make use of” (in the cognitive sense) data deriving from such
experiments and therefore were less likely to progress than subjects who had thi:
opportunity.
In each of the studies described in this article, an attempt was made to assess
the durability and/or generality of the changes that were observed. Space does
not pemiit presentation of these findings in detail, but they are similar to what
might be anticipated and can easily be summarized. Subjects in the replication
study were presented the chemicals problem on a final occasion 6 months follow-
ing the end of the observation period and were found to show no significant
change in performance. In the Lewis study, two parallel forms of the problem,
differing only with respect to content, were designed. One involved an electric
light controlled by one of several possible switches; the other was the chemicals
problem already described in the present article. The electric switch problem was
employed during the main portion of the study, and the chemicals problem was
presented at the end of the observation period as a measure of transfer. The
majority of subjects used the same strategies in the chemicals problem as in the
final session with the electric switch problem. The incidence of decrease in level
of strategy applied to the new problem was only slightly greater than the inci-
dence of increase. In the Lewis study, as well as some of the other studies,
however, when subjects were presented other problems less similar to the prob-
lem encountered during the observation period, a decrease in level of strategy
usage tended to occur as the similarity between the two problems decreased. We
will say something more about the significance of this finding in discussing our
results (Section VI).
Each of the studies we have described replicated the main study reported in
this article with respect to what we believe is the main study’s major finding: The
predominant pattern of change involves an extended period of highly variable
performance in which higher level and lower level strategies are used in conjunc-
tion with one another. Several other studies suggest that both the method and this
particular fitlding are fairly robust even with more radical variations of the basic
method described in this article. In her doctoral dissertation, Forman (1981)
employed the same basic method and problem except that subjects worked on the
problem in pairs rather than individually. Commons and Davidson (in prepara-
tion) used a form of causal attribution problem similar to the present one but
increased the density of problem presentation and reduced the total period of
observation. In both cases, subjects showed change; moreover, it tended to
involve the same extended period of mixed strategy usage, or variable perfor-
mance, we found. A dissertation by Tivnan (1980) represents an even more
radical variation of the present method. Tivnan studied slightly younger children
learning to play a two-person game of strategy (“FOXand Geese”) in which
Tivnan himself played the role of the second player. He did not undertake any
explicit, didactic teaching of strategies, yet he made no attempt to avoid the
influence of his own strategy usage as a model for the subject’s performance.
Even under these quite different conditions, the period of variable strategy usage
that was observed was similar to what we have reported here.
VI. Discussion and Conclusions

The present results substantiate our earliest work (Kuhn & Angelev, 1976) in
demonstrating that exercise of existing cognitive strategies is sufficient to effect
their modification. We believe this finding has both theoretical and methodologi-
cal implications. Let us begin with the methodological implications.
The Developmen/ of Problem-Solving Strategies 31
A. THE METHODOLOGY
We believe that the method illustrated in this article has significant advantages
over the conventional intervention or “training study” method in yielding in-
sight into the process of cognitive change. Clearly, the problems we posed to
subjects constitute an intervention in the sense that subjects undergo a particular
experience they otherwise would not have undergone. We would maintain nev-
ertheless that a significant difference exists between interventions that consist of
the presentation of problems, as ours did, and interventions that consist of the
presentation of solutions (or strategies for solution) to problems, as does the
conventional training study. The distinction is one of providing subjects oppor-
tunities to do what they already know how to do, versus trying to get them to do
something different. Perhaps the strongest argument against the conventional
method is that it has failed to provide decisive information regarding the way in
which cognitive concepts or strategies change (Kuhn, 1974, 1978). To take the
prototype of conservation attainment, despite the vast number of studies and the
now widely accepted conclusion that training can induce conservation, a remark-
able variety of divergent theories continues to exist regarding the process by
which conservation develops (Acredolo, 1981; Anderson & Cuneo, 1978; Brain-
erd, 1979; Pinard, 1981; Shultz, Dover, & Amsel, 1979; Siegler, 1981).
With regard to the issue of whether we have studied learning or development
in the present work, we would like to take the position that this is in fact a
pseudo-issue. In the past, developmentalists have held considerable investment
in maintaining a conceptual distinction between learning and development. To
erase it was presumably to accept the operant conditioning position that all
development (and learning) is under the external “stimulus control” of the
environment (Baer, 1973). But, as Flavell (in press) has put it, “Unlike the
stereotype S-R learning theorist of yesteryear, today’s cognitive scientists at-
tribute a great deal of complexity to the system that does the learning, to what it
learns, and to the structure and processes that accomplish the learning.” Learn-
ing, in other words, like cognitive development, is now widely regarded as
involving an organism-environment interchange characterized by a high degree
of complexity and organization. Clearly, questions of generality, reversibility,
and universality of change continue to be important ones. The similarities be-
tween processes labeled “development” and processes labeled “learning,”
however, may turn out to be as important as the differences.
Attributable in large part to the influence of Piagetian theory, emphasis in the
field of cognitive development has been on the universality of developmental
attainments, regarded in polarized contrast to the specificity of learned attain-
ments. (Piagetian theory also has been the source of an assumption of univer-
sality with respect to the mechanisms or process of development, an assumption
which the results in this article likewise suggest may not be warranted.) All of the
pertinent evidence, however, suggests that attainment of a cognitive strategy
(such as, for instance, “isolation of variables”) is rarely if ever a completely
general, that is, context-free, attainment. Rather, any cognitive attainment is
wedded to a context in which it occurs, or as Fischer (1980, p. 478) put it in
incorporating this point of view into his theory of cognitive development, cogni-
tive attainments are “always defined jointly by organism and environment. ”
In the case of our observations, we clearly were not observing the “once-and-
for-all’’ acquisition of completely generalizable reasoning strategies. It would be
a digression to argue the case here, but a rudimentary form of hypothesis testing
is almost certainly present in children younger than our subjects. Conversely, the
invalid strategies we observed, notably E2 and 13, most likely linger through
adulthood, more prevalently probably in some adult thinkers than others. The
achievements we observed, then, would appear to be ones that occur not once but
many times over as the occasions for use of the relevant strategies arise in new
and varied contexts. Indeed, all we had to do was complicate the problem
slightly or modify its format and the invalid strategies typically reappeared.
Whether we were observing a process of development or learning, then, is not
resolvable by resorting to a criterion of generalizability (Kuhn, 1974); more
important, this issue does not seem to us to be critical with respect to an attempt
to study some of the major features of the process.
If one subscribed to the view that cognitive achievements were completely
general, one could undertake to induce an individual’s mastery of powerful
strategies like isolation of variables or goal-recursion (Simon, 1975) in a single
problem context, with the expectation that the individual then automatically
would have these strategies available to apply in any appropriate context that
arose. If one subscribes instead to the view we have taken here of “context-
linked cognitive development,” then a central aspect of any analysis of cognitive
development or learning becomes one of analyzing how the (context-linked)
capabilities the subject brings to the task interact with the demands posed by this
specific task. Such a perspective may provide the most productive approach to
Piaget’s problem of “dkcalage.” In the two observational studies of change
mentioned in Section I, the analytic task is conceptualized in essentially this
way. In describing their study of a subject learning to solve the Tower of Hanoi
problem during a single 1% hour session, Anzai and Simon (1979) claim:
Her ability to [form new and more effective strategies] depended on her having already
available . . . some sophisticated learning capabilities and some prior knowledge of possible
types of strategies (e.g., means-ends analysis). From her protocol, we can infer . . . ways in
which prior knowledge was combined with new information gathered while solving the prob-
lem to contribute to the learning process [Anzai & Simon, 1979, p. 1301.
Lawler’s (198 1) study of one child’s development of mathematical concepts over

The Development of Problrrn-Solving Strutegies 39
a period of months similarly is devoted to the analysis of how concepts initially

tied to specific contexts and experiences become applicable to new and broader
task domains.
B. THE FINDINGS
The findings described in this article have implications with respect to the
understanding of causal reasoning. We shall defer discussion of these implica-
tions to elsewhere (Kuhn & Amsel, in preparation), however, so as not to detract
from the central purpose of the present work, a study of the process of change.
The data we have presented might be regarded within the framework of any of
several different theoretical accounts of the process of cognitive development,
for example, Case (1978), Fischer (1980), Pascual-Leone (1980), Piaget (1977),
Vygotsky (1978), or, especially in light of the role of anticipatory representations
suggested by the data, the “distancing” theory proposed by Sigel (Sigel &
Cocking, 1977). Our purpose in this article, however, is not to discuss any of
these theories in detail, but rather to provide data about developmental process
that any of these theories would need to account for. What constraints, then, do
the present data impose on a theoretical account of the process of cognitive
development?
Let us first review our findings. We have presented data on the performance of
preadolescent subjects engaged in repeated encounters with what appears on the
surface a very simple problem. The single most striking feature of these data is
the variability in the strategies a subject applied to the problem, both within a
session and across sessions. A most remarkable aspect of this variability is that a
subject’s expertise or “insight” into the problem did not carry over from one
session to the next. Repeatedly, we observed cases in which the subject
“solved” the problem in a given session, in the sense of recognizing that a single
element had been responsible for the outcome, and yet in the next session began
again with the least advanced hypothesis, experimentation, and/or inference
strategies, without any evidence of benefit from the insight that had been
achieved in the previous session.
Two quite different patterns of change were observed. The rarer pattern was
characterized by an abrupt and dramatic change from invalid to valid strategy
usage. In contrast, the predominant pattern of change involved an extended
period of highly variable performance in which valid and invalid strategies were
used in conjunction with one another and appeared to compete with one another
for dominance. For these subjects, the post hoc recognition (following experi-
mentation) that a single element had produced the effect (16) was not sufficient to
effect a major change in their approach. Only if these subjects frequently applied
“anticipatory schemes” to the data generated by the experiments (i.e., E3-E5)
were they eventually successful in mastering the problem. Invalid strategies
rarely disappeared until this mastery was consolidated, that is, until the subject
showed consistent usage of the valid efficient strategies.
The first implication of these findings has to do with a supposedly meth-
odological issue that has been the subject of much attention within the cognitive
development literature: We refer to what has come to be called “method vari-
ance.” Abundant data are now available showing that seemingly superficial
variations in a task often produce profound variations in performance. The vari-
ability we found in the performance of a subject encountering repeated presenta-
tions of the same task (as opposed to slightly different versions of a task) suggest
the possibility that some of the variability in performance evident in the previous
literature may in fact be attributable to the subject, rather than to task variation as
has customarily been assumed. This possibility is clearly an important one to
pursue. To the extent it is true, such variability becomes an important subject of
substantive investigation, rather than a methodological source of error that the
researcher seeks to eliminate.
The remaining implications pertain to developmental theory. The present find-
ings, we believe, underscore the need for a theory of development that encom-
passes both the development of competence and the development of perfor-
mance, rather than a theory limited to the development of competence. For the
most part, subjects in the present study possessed considerable competence in the
advanced strategies necessary for successful problem solution. This competence,
however, did not necessarily or automatically yield performance mastery, that is,
stabilization at the level of valid efficient strategy usage, as was illustrated
strikingly in numerous cases. What, then, does the development of performance
mastery entail, if it is more than the development of competence?
Our results suggested two sources of difficulty in achieving performance mas-
tery. One was the need to perfect, or consolidate, the utilization of advanced
strategies (as illustrated in the cases of S3, S6, and S9 in Section IV). The other
was the discarding of less adequate strategies. Virtually all of the attention in
developmental psychology has been devoted to the development of new strat-
egies or behaviors, rather than the abandonment of old ones. The present find-
ings, however, suggest that the second of these two achievements may pose the
more formidable challenge, which is a reversal of the way we usually think about
development.
Thus, one might think of the process leading to performance mastery as
composed essentially of consolidation or perfection of strategies through prac-
tice, and clearly such consolidation is at least in part what was achieved through
a subject’s repeated engagement with the problem in the present study. Our
findings imply that something more is involved, however. The problem we
posed to subjects is one in which lower level strategies requiring relatively
superficial processing of the presented data compete with higher level strategies
requiring more extensive, complex processing, the kind of problem Pascual-
Leone (1980) characterized as invoking his “F” f a ~ t o r Our . ~ study of indi-

viduals’ repeated performance on such a problem we believe points to the impor-
tance of “metastrategic” knowledge of what strategies are effective for a given
problem, in contrast to strategic knowledge of how to execute effective (or
ineffective) strategies (Kuhn, 1983). If, in the course of an encounter with the
problem, subjects were doing no more than gaining practice in the application of
a set of strategies to the problem, strategy use would remain relatively constant
rather than change. They are also gaining knowledge about the problem and, in
particular, knowledge about their own strategies as they apply to this problem. In
short, to put it in the terms we did earlier, they are gaining understanding of how
the capabilities they bring to the task bear on the demands posed by the task.
In a problem such as the one used in the present research, the metastrategic
knowledge to which we are referring includes knowing that the most advanced
strategy is the preferred strategy to apply to the problem, that is, knowing that
this strategy works, exactly how and why it works, and why it is the best strategy
to use. In addition, it includes comparable knowledge with regard to each of the
less efficient and/or invalid strategies-that they do not work (or do not work
efficiently), why they do not work, and what errors they lead to.
We would suggest, then, that during that period preceding performance mas-
tery, a subject was achieving not only perfection of advanced strategies through
practice but in addition was acquiring the kind of metastrategic knowledge re-
ferred to above. Furthermore, it was this latter knowledge, we would speculate,
that played a strong contributory role in the subject’s eventual stabilization at the
level of valid efficient strategy usage and, particularly, in the subject’s abandon-
ment of the less adequate, invalid strategies.
If we are correct, one finds it less surprising that so long a time usually elapsed
between first appearance of an advanced strategy and stabilization at the valid
efficient strategy level, for the metastrategic knowledge we have indicated is
considerable in both amount and complexity. Our interpretation also makes
understandable the fact that the invalid strategies were rarely discarded until this
stabilization was achieved-until from the subject’s perspective the subject “had
conviction about” what he or she was doing. Most important, if we are correct,
then any theoretical account of developmental process must incorporate both
components-strategic and metastrategic-in its account. The simple fact that
individuals do modify their strategies during the course of repeated encounters
with a problem, in the absence of instruction or other external influence, points
to the important role the latter may play.
In the case of the present problem, it would have been relatively easy to teach
the strategic, as opposed to metastrategic, knowledge necessary for mastery.
4Pascual-Leone (1980) defines F as “an organismic factor . . . somewhat analogous to the Ge-
staltist Field factor, or Prugnanz.
”
Subjects easily could have been instructed to try each element in isolation, and to
some it may seem pointless to observe subjects grappling with the problem over
so long a period while withholding this simple bit of instruction. It is unlikely
any subject would have had difficulty following such an instruction. Yet, follow-
ing it, and thereby employing the advanced solution strategy, is very different
from understanding its significance. Just this gap is what would appear to be in
large part responsible for the widely observed “generalization gradient”: The
less similar the transfer situation is to the original one, the less likely is the
subject to apply the newly-learned strategy, even though it is equally applicable
and necessary in the new situation (Glaser, 1981). In the present research we
deliberately chose a problem in which the noninstructed context is the typical
one: Individuals do not routinely receive formal instruction in the bases for
inferring causality. In such noninstructed contexts, the second, metastrategic
kind of knowledge referred to above is what will determine whether or not an
adequate strategy is applied.
We conclude with this final point: The difficulty experienced by many of our
subjects in mastering the problem we posed to them serves as a humble reminder
of a fact occasionally forgotten by social scientists-“evidence” does not exist
in a body of data itself, it exists in the eye of the beholder. Recall these data
generated by S10 in her final session: F+ and FDC+. Most of us, were we to
encounter these data, would not hesitate in infemng that in the second mixture F
was responsible for producing the outcome. S10, as we saw, simply did not see
things that way, which suggests the importance of our seeking to see them her
way.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors wish to acknowledge the contributions of Victoria Ho to the present work. Thanks are
also extended to Noel Capon, whose expertise in chemistry provided an essential contribution. The
studies described in this article were financed by private support, which we wish to acknowledge with
gratitude.
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INFORMATION PROCESSING AND COGNITIVE
DEVELOPMENT
Robert Kail
DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHOLOGlCAL SCIENCES
PURDUE UNIVERSITY
WEST LAFAYETTE, INDIANA
Jejfrey Bisanz
PSYCHOLOGY DEPARTMENT
UNIVERSITY OF ALBERTA
EDMONTON, ALBERTA, CANADA
1. INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
11. A GENERIC INFORMATION-PROCESSING SYSTEM:

DEFINING THE METAPHOR. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
A. PRETHEORETICAL ASSUMPTIONS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4x
B . CORE CONSTRUCTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
111. AN INFORMATION-PROCESSING LOOK AT RESEARCH ON COGNITIVE

DEVELOPMENT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
A. DEVELOPMENT OF THE KNOWLEDGE B A S E . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
B. ATTENTIONAL RESOURCES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
IV. THE ISSUE OFTRANSITION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62

A . INCREASES IN ATTENTIONAL RESOURCES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
B. KNOWLEDGE-MODIFICATION PROCESSES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
C. A TRANSITIONAL SYSTEM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
V. ADDITIONAL ISSUES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
A. COMPARISON OF CRITICAL PRESUPPOSITIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
B. TASK SPECIFICITY.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
VI. CONCLUDING REMARKS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

REFERENCES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
I. Introduction
Our goal in this article is to characterize information processing as a general
framework for understanding human cognitive growth. The information-process-
ing perspective has had enormous impact on the study of cognition, and over the
4.5
ADVANCES IN CHI1.D DEVtLOPMtNT Copyright 0 1982 by Academic Press. Inc
AND BI,HAVIOR. VOL 17 All rights of reproducuan in any form reserved.
ISBN 0-12-009717-6
46 Robert Kail and Jeflrey Bisanz
past decade it has been adopted by a growing number of developmental psychol-

ogists. Journals and books now contain numerous articles about the development
of information-processing skills in children, in sharp contrast to the recent past
when such topics were only rarely mentioned in such an authoritative source as
Carmichael’s Manual of Child Psychology (Mussen, 1970). Our view is that
information processing, as a general perspective, has considerable potential for
developmental work, and our intent is to describe some relevant characteristics
and implications of information processing.
Not all developmental psychologists share our enthusiasm for information
processing and some categorically reject information processing as a develop-
mental framework. A brief history of the information-processing tradition within
developmental psychology may help to explain this state of affairs. When com-
puters first became widely available to the scientific community in the early
1950s, they were viewed primarily as high-speed number manipulators. By the
mid- 1950s, development of programming languages like FORTRAN led to the
realization that computers were general symbol manipulators and not limited to
just numbers. Newell, Shaw, and Simon (1958) were among the first to argue
that humans, like computers, could be seen as general systems for processing
symbolic information, and that knowledge of computer processes could be used
to explore potentially similar mental processes. Over the next decade these
notions were gradually assimilated into experimental psychology, such that dur-
ing the 1960s numerous psychological theories and programs of research were
based on the new computer metaphor. Familiar examples would include the work
of Atkinson and Shiffrin (1968) on memory, Deutsch and Deutsch (1963) and
Norman (1968) on attention, Neisser (1967) on perception, and Clark (1969) on
psycholinguistics.
Information processing was not influential in developmental psychology until
the late 1960s and early 1970s, although Simon had outlined some information-
processing ideas about cognitive development as early as 1960 (Simon, 1962).
During this period two essentially independent events brought information pro-
cessing to the forefront of developmental research. First, psychologists studying
the development of attention and memory based their work, in part, on informa-
tion-processing models derived from experimental psychology. Hagen’s (e.g.,
Hagen & Hale, 1973) well-known work on the development of selective atten-
tion, for example, drew upon Broadbent’s (1958) filter theory. Similarly, much
of the work done in the early 1970s on the development of memory strategies
(e.g., Hagen, Jongeward, & Kail, 1975; Ornstein, 1978; Reese, 1973) showed
the influence of Atkinson and Shiffrin’s (1968) model of memory. Second,
several psychologists from the information-processing tradition-notably Klahr
and Wallace (1970) and Trabasso (Bryant & Trabasso, 1971)-became in-
terested in Piaget’s description of children’s understanding of concepts like tran-
sitivity and class inclusion. These psychologists proposed radically different
Infornnution Processing and Cognitive Development 47
interpretations of the phenomena, and their research sometimes produced find-

ings that were hard to reconcile with Piaget’s account of development.
As the influence of information processing in developmental psychology grew
in the 1970s, so did criticisms of the framework. Two general criticisms are often
cited. First, information-processing models of cognition are often viewed as
static entities that cannot adequately represent dynamic aspects of development.
As Brown (1982) noted, “A system that cannot grow, or show adaptive modifi-
cation to a changing environment, is a strange metaphor for human thought
processes which are constantly changing over the life span of an individual.”
Second, information-processing constructs are often viewed as inadequate for
characterizing general structures of thought that transcend task-specific perfor-
mance. Breslow (1981), for example, argued that “it is not clear . . . that infor-
mation-processing theory, with its current focus on the real-time processing
involved in particular tasks, can adequately describe the nature or development
of cognitive structures that are abstract and pervasive” (p. 349).
These criticisms are not so much wrong as they are misdirected. Certain
information-processing models do indeed appear static and task-specific. But we
would argue that these are shortcomings of particular theories and, more gener-
ally, of the current state of information-processing research. Information pro-
cessing is a framework, not a theory, and criticisms such as those noted above do
not necessarily apply to all theories that fall within the realm of information
processing. The approach indeed differs in fundamental ways from the struc-
turalist metatheory that encompasses the work of Baldwin, Werner, and Piaget.
However, both Piagetian and information-processing theorists share the goal of
formally characterizing human cognitive skills in a way that will illuminate their
development. Piaget chose formal logic and verbal description to represent
thought; information-processing psychologists have chosen to use the modern
digital computer as a metaphor for representing human thought.
Misconceptions about information processing exist, at least in part, because it
has not been described as a general framework for developmental research. Case
(1974), Klahr and Wallace (1976). Pascual-Leone (1970), and Reese (1973)
have provided the most detailed analyses of information processing in a develop-
mental context, but they described specific information-processing theories
rather than a general approach. Siegler (in press) and Sternberg and Powell (in
press) briefly discussed information processing as a developmental framework,
but their primary purpose was to review research. Lachman, Lachman, and
Butterfield (1979) provided an excellent and comprehensive account of the infor-
mation-processing approach but did not consider developmental issues.
It would be impossible to review, in a single article, the range of information-
processing concepts and methods that are potentially relevant to developmental
phenomena. Instead, we focus on the broad characteristics of the approach, and
examine the insights it provides into issues of development. We begin, in Section
48 Robert Kail and Jeffrey Bisanz
11, by outlining the basic assumptions of an information-processing approach to

cognition and describing a generic system that encompasses most current theo-
ries. In Section 111, we use the generic system as a framework for selectively
reviewing research on cognitive change. Next, in Section IV, we suggest a
general transitional system that might account for the changes described in Sec-
tion 111. In Section V , we consider additional characteristics of information
processing as a developmental framework.
11. A Generic Information-Processing System:

Defining the Metaphor
A. PRETHEORETICAL ASSUMPTIONS
The theories about human information processing that have proliferated over
the past 20 years are quite diverse, but most information-processing psychol-
ogists share a small set of beliefs about human thought that are best characterized
as pretheoretical. As such, these beliefs are not strictly testable in an empirical
sense. Instead, they may be evaluated as being more or less useful in advancing
our knowledge of human thought. Specific theories and their implications for
development often appear inconsistent unless these pretheoretical assumptions
are specified, and so we describe below some of the fundamental beliefs associ-
ated with the information-processing perspective. (Additional assumptions re-
garding development arc described in Section v.)
First, information processing is a cognitive psychology. Psychological acts of
“knowing,” broadly defined, constitute the subject matter of information-pro-
cessing psychology. As a cognitive psychology, information processing is not
concerned primarily with mapping relationships between stimuli and responses.
Instead, the focus is on specifying mental activities and properties that intervene
between stimulus and response.
Second, adherents to information-processing argue that the similarities be-
tween human cognition and computer operations are substantial enough to allow
researchers to use the computer productively as a metaphor to study human
thought. In particular, human cognition, like the operation of a computer, is
viewed as the manipulation of symbolic information (Newell et al.. 1958).
Hence, computer-based concepts and formalisms can be used to represent impor-
tant characteristics of human thought, and our knowledge of computer operations
can then serve as a source of hypotheses about human cognition. The strategy of
using a well-understood system to analyze another, less understood system has
been advocated in other contexts (Lorenz, 1974; Miller, 1956; Reese & Overton,
1970; Teitelbaum, 1977) and is certainly not unique to information processing.
Computer operations serve not only as a source of hypotheses but also as a
Illformation Processing and Cognifive Developmenr 49
representational medium. Because they are extremely flexible, computer-based

representations can be modified to incorporate useful concepts about cognition
that do not originate in computer-based work, such as the ideas of “spreading
activation” and “working memory.”
Third, cognition involves distinct activities operating in concert. In principle,
cognitive activities can be decomposed into a number of different components,
which in turn can be decomposed further. A relatively small number of distin-
guishable components are assumed to underlie all mental activities. “It is one of
the foundation stones of computer science that a relatively small set of elemen-
tary processes suffices to produce the full generality of information processing”
(Newell & Simon, 1972, p. 29), and the same is believed to be true for informa-
tion processing in humans. This belief does nor imply that cognition is to be
understood only in terms of reduction into ever more microscopic components.
Rather, information-processing psychologists believe that understanding human
cognition will involve both ( a ) identifying elementary cognitive processes and
(b)determining how such processes are structured to perform a selected cogni-
tive task. Thus, information-processing psychologists believe that elementary
processes can be distinguished but that these elementary processes, in isolation,
are insufficient to account for human cognition.
Fourth, cognitive activities require some amount of time, even if the activities
are simple and effortless and if the interval of time is so small as to be impercep-
tible to an individual. Duration is assumed to be a salient and direct reflection of
underlying cognitive processes, and identifying the temporal structure of such
processes is an important aspect of information-processing research (Schweick-
ert, 1980; Sternberg, 1969).
Finally, many aspects of human cognition are viewed as active and construc-
tive. This is not a statement about the ultimate source of motivation for thought;
rather, the point is that human cognition is not stimulus-bound in any simple and
pervasive sense. Mental processes and goals are structured internally and may
well generate novel constructions and initiate stimulus-seeking interactions with
the environment. In no way does the computer metaphor imply that thought is
fundamentally passive and reactive. (In Section V,A we discuss this issue in
greater detail.)
B. CORE CONSTRUCTS
Pretheoretical assumptions about the nature of thought have been translated

into many specific information-processing theories, yet most theories embody a
relatively small number of concepts that we might call the core constructs of the
information-processing approach. In particular, theories of information process-
ing nearly always include statements about representation, process and limited
attentional resources.
50 Robert Kail and Je#rey Bisanz
Consider representation first. Information must be represented internally for

processing to occur. This information may originate externally, such as an object
in the environment, or may already exist internally in another form. Objects or
events are not represented directly; instead, symbols are used to designate an
object or event. The nature of these symbolic representations may vary widely.
For example, DOG may be represented by its orthographic characteristics (e.g.,
the features of D, 0, and G), or by its acoustic characteristics (rhymes with
FOG). Representations can vary in level of abstraction as well: A particular dog
might be represented as “Otto,” a “dachshund,” a “dog,” or an “animal.”
The precise nature of symbolic representation has important implications for
cognitive theories and considerable effort is spent on specifying varieties of
representational formats.
Processes are mental activities that generate, transform, or manipulate repre-
+
sentations. For example, the stimulus “35 27” will be interpreted or encoded
as numerical symbols related by an arithmetic operator. Subsequent processing
of these symbols-such as adding the values in the ones column, carrying a unit
to the tens column, adding values in the tens column-will result in another
internal representation, “62,” and still other processing may lead to a written or
spoken response. In each case processing is, essentially, manipulating symbols.
Processes may operate in sequence, as in the present example, or simul-
taneously.
Representations and processes together form a system of knowledge, or
“knowledge base.” This system of knowledge is sometimes referred to as long-
term memory or store, terms that we will avoid because they tend to connote a
specific structure or location in the mind where knowledge resides. The impor-
tant structural dimensions of knowledge vary considerably among theorists. For
example, Paivio (1971) proposed a dual code theory in which knowledge in-
cluded both visual images and verbal memories. Tulving (1972) distinguished
episodic memory (knowledge of temporally tagged events that is organized auto-
biographically) from semantic memory (knowledge of words, symbols, rela-
tions, and procedures for manipulating this knowledge). Anderson (1976) dis-
tinguished knowledge of particular facts or events from the dynamic strategies
and procedures that underlie various intellectual activities.
Despite discrepancies among various theories, most theorists generally agree
on the general properties of the human knowledge system. (a)There are, the-
oretically, no limits on the quantity of knowledge that can be stored. (b)Knowl-
edge is not lost; “forgetting” reflects an inability to access knowledge. (c) Most
knowledge can be accessed by multiple routes and multiple cues, reflecting the
fact that knowledge is rich in interconnecting links. (6)Knowledge is charac-
terized by a weak form of cognitive economy. Not all of one’s knowledge about
concept X need be associated directly with X (Collins & Loftus, 1975). Instead,
some of this knowledge is available only indirectly, via inference. (e) A process
can operate on itself as well as on other representations and processes.
The number and complexity of representations that can be stored in the knowl-
edge base are virtually limitless, but only a very limited subset of knowledge is
“active” (i.e., involved in processing) at once. Active memory, primury memo-
?, and short-term memo? all refer to the small portion of the knowledge base
that is involved in processing at any given moment. The term uttentiond re-
sources refers to a limited reserve of resources used to activate knowledge, that
is, to initiate and maintain knowledge in an active state. Some contents of the
knowledge base do not require attentional resources; their activation is triitomutic
and may be initiated by external stimuli or by other currently active contents.
Other contents require the allocation of attentional resources to become active; in
these cases, processing is referred to as voluntary or controlled.
The major advantage of automatic processing is that it places minimal drain on
available attentional resources, thus leaving more for the operation of controlled
processing. Automatic processing tends to be fast and resource-efficient because
multiple processes can operate more or less simultaneously. Its major drawback
is that it is “involuntary” in that its initiation and execution are not easily
modified. In contrast, controlled processing is slower and less efficient: because
it requires attentional resources, only a limited amount of controlled processing
is possible at any given time. The main advantage is that such processing can be
inhibited or its sequence can be modified. Thus flexibility is characteristic of
controlled processing, but at the expense of reducing available attentional
resources.
To illustrate these concepts, consider the act of solving number series prob-
lems. The task is to identify the “rule” that determines the order of the numbers
and to use that rule to generate the next number in the series.
A:24682
B: 1 2 4 7 ’
According to an information-processing analysis, solution begins by creating a

program or control structure that may lead to solution. The first process is to
represent the numbers of a series internally. Subsequent processes will be per-
formed on these number-representations to induce the correct rule. In the case of
Problem A, solution will usually be rapid and virtually automatic, presumably
because numerous exposures to the series “ 2 , 4, 6, 8” in other contexts has
made it an easily recognized pattern that is represented internally as a particular
series rather than as a set of discrete numbers. Indeed, most aduIts would find it
hard not to think of 10 when presented such a familiar series. In contrast,
solution of Problem B usually will require more controlled processing in the form
of sequential generation and testing of hypotheses. A variety of hypotheses may
be attempted and, depending on available information and on processing biases,
the solver may flexibly alter or terminate this hypothesis testing. The induced
rule would be represented internally (e.g., “increment the last number by the
RECEPTOR
PROCESSES KNOWLEDGE
Fig. I . A representation of a portion of the knowledge base for a generic mn/~~rmation-process in^
system. Open circles correspond 10 active nodes and closed circles to inactive nodes.
sum of one plus the difference between the last two numbers”) and used to
determine the number in question.
Many of these core constructs are illustrated in Fig. 1. Interactions between
the knowledge base and the environment are conducted via receptor and effector
processes. Contents of the knowledge base are represented by nodes (circles) that
are connected by labeled links. Nodes denote either representations or processes,
and labels describe the relationship between two linked nodes. For example, the
node for “dachshund” might be connected to a node for “dog” by an isa link
denoting “is a member of the category.” Unfilled circles indicate active nodes,
processes that are ongoing, or representations that are being processed. Darkened
circles depict inactive nodes.
The concepts described to this point constitute the components of a generic
information-processing system that is specific enough to be easily distinguished
from other kinds of theories, yet is sufficiently general that it is fundamentally
compatible with major information-processing accounts of cognition, such as
those of Anderson (1976), Collins and Loftus (1975), Kintsch and van Dijk
( 1978), Newel1 and Simon (1972), and Norman and Bobrow (1976), among
others.
111. An Information-Processing Look at Research

on Cognitive Development
A conceptual framework provides a distinctive way for a psychologist to view
the organism and hence determines, to a great extent, the questions that must be
answered to “understand” that organism. A conceptual framework is thus “a
unique ‘window’ through which reality is experienced. . . . The adoption of any
Inforniurion Processing und Cognitive Developmenr 53
scientific window is accompanied by the conventional acceptance of certain

kinds of events as notable and recordable” (White, 1976, p. 102). The informa-
tion-processing framework described in Section I1 is one such window and our
primary purpose in this section is to provide a glimpse of research on cognitive
development through this window. For more detailed reviews, see Siegler (in
press) and Sternberg and Powell (in press).
A second important function of this review is to provide background informa-
tion needed for our discussion (in Section IV) of developmental transitions.
Information processing is not intrinsically a developmental framework: The root
of the information-processing metaphor-the computerdoes not necessarily
develop. Given this state of affairs, many information-processing psychologists
who are interested in development adhere to Klahr’s (1976) strategy that “the
more precisely one states his model of what a stage is, the more precisely can one
state a theory of the transition process itself” (p. 101). More generally, by
identifying patterns of change common to numerous cognitive domains, informa-
tion-processing psychologists hope to derive a system that accounts for cognitive
change.
A. DEVELOPMENT OF THE KNOWLEDGE BASE
Mental representations and processes that form the knowledge base have a
complementary relationship: Processes act on representations, and representa-
tions are accessed via processes. This complementarity means that representa-
tions and processes cannot, in principle, be studied independently (Anderson,
1976, 1978). In practice, to make most research problems tractable, investigators
make somewhat arbitrary decisions about what is process and what is representa-
tion. [See, for example, Anderson (1976), Norman, Rumelhart, and the LNR
Research Group (1975), and Newell and Simon (1972) for different decisions in
this regard.] We follow this convention here for expository convenience.
I . The Development of Cognitive Processes

As noted in Section II,A, a fundamental tenet of information processing is that a
reasonably small number of elementary information processes underlie perfor-
mance on diverse cognitive tasks. Hence, an important immediate goal for infor-
mation-processing research is to identify ( a ) the processes that are involved in
cognitive performance, and ( b ) the organization of those processes. One antici-
pated outcome of this research is a large catalog of complex cognitive procedures
but a relatively small set of elementary processes that underlie these procedures.
Within this broad characterization of cognitive processes, two types of cognitive
change have been of special interest to information-processing psychologists.
a . Change in procedures. As children grow they resort to different meth-

ods of solving problems. This insight is hardly unique to information-processing
psychology. Where information processing has made a unique contribution is in

identifying these various procedures with greater precision than was the case
previously. Furthermore, because procedures are specified more precisely, infor-
mation-processing psychologists can identify patterns of procedural change
across tasks.
One such pattern involves use of increasingly suficient procedures. Research
by Siegler (1976, 1978, 1981; Klahr & Siegler, 1979) on children’s understand-
ing of the balance scale problem is illustrative. Children and adolescents were
shown a balance scale in which weights were placed at various distances to either
side of a fulcrum. Individuals were to decide which side of the balance scale-if
either-would go down when supporting blocks were removed. Siegler (1976)
identified a set of developmentally ordered procedures or “rules” that were used
to make these judgments. All 5- and 6-year-olds used a rule (Rule I) in which
only the number of weights was considered. If the weights were equal on the two
sides, the child predicted that the scale would balance; if the weights were
unequal, the child predicted that the side with the greater number of weights
would go down. The 9- and 10-year-olds used two different rules. The simpler of
the two (Rule 11) was a variant of Rule I: As before, when the number of weights
on the two sides was unequal, children alway predicted that the side with more
weights would go down. When the weights were equal, however, children no
longer predicted that the scale would balance. Rather, they evaluated the distance
of the weights from the fulcrum and then made accurate predictions.
The other rule used frequently by 9- and 10-year-olds (Rule Ill) involved
consistent consideration of both weight and distance. This rule is inadequate only
in that it does not provide a means of evaluating conflicts arising when indepen-
dent evaluation of weight and distance lead to different predictions regarding
which side of the balance should go down (i.e., it does not include a rule for
computing and comparing torque). Rules I1 and I11 were both used by 13- and 14-
year-olds, but Rule I11 was used by more than twice as many individuals as Rule
11. Finally, among 16- and 17-year-olds, a few individuals used Rule 11, most
used Rule 111, and some used a modification of Rule 111that included procedures
for computing and comparing torque (Rule IV).
In short, Siegler (1976) demonstrated that between 5 and 17 years of age
individuals use ever more powerful rules for dealing with balance scale prob-
lems. Similar developmental change has been documented for several other
Piagetian tasks (Siegler, 1981; Siegler & Richards, 1979), for the rule used to
determine the distance between objects in large-scale spaces (Allen, 1981), and
for rules used to determine the difficulty of memory tasks (Hale & Kail, 1982).
In each case, the earliest procedures are partially correct, allowing young chil-
dren to solve many classes of problems accurately. Developmental change in-
volves elaborating these procedures in ways that increase the scope of proficient
problem solving.
Information Procrssing and Cognitive Development 55
Another kind of change involves use of more eflicient procedures (e.g., Day,
1975). Children abandon inefficient procedures in which component processes
are executed repeatedly in favor of routines that sometimes have more compo-
nent processes but that minimize iterative processing. Put another way, repeated
implementation of less powerful processes gives way to more powerful proces-
ses.
Such a pattern of change was reported by Naus and Ornstein (1977), who
studied children's search of active memory using the Sternberg (1 966) paradigm.
Students in grades 3 and 6 were shown sets of 2, 4, or 6 stimuli, followed
immediately by a single stimulus. The child's task was to report whether the
single stimulus was included in the immediately preceding set. Of particular
interest are trials in which half the stimuli were digits and half were consonants.
Adults typically use the categorical structure of a list to direct search of active
memory. In particular, adults use the random entry search algorithm depicted in
Fig. 2 (Naus, Glucksberg, & Omstein, 1972). Adults randomly select a category
(digits or consonants) and compare the probe stimulus with each element of that
category. If the person happens to select the category of the probe stimulus, he or
she responds after comparing the probe only with the elements of that category.
If the person selects the category that does not include the probe, then the probe
is compared with all stimuli presented. The random entry algorithm can be
contrasted with an exhaustive search algorithm in which all elements of the
TARGET
SELECT
CATEGORY
COMPARf
WITH I n M I
1 CHANOE
CATfGORV
MATCH7
"YES"
CATEGORY7
& "NO-
(b)
,.*f"
Fig. 2 . Two algorithms used to scan subspan lists of stimuli. ( a ) Random search algorithm;
Exhnustive search algorithm.
56 Robert Kail and Jeffrey Bisanr
stimulus set are always searched. The random entry algorithm is the more effi-
cient procedure of the two, requiring fewer comparisons than the exhaustive
search algorithm. Naus and Ornstein (1977) found that sixth-graders, like
adults, used the more efficient random entry algorithm and third-graders used the
exhaustive search algorithm.
b. Change in the speed with which component processes are imple-

mented. Efficient algorithms are valuable in that they reduce constraints on
processing due to limited resources. Another way to cope with limited resources
is to execute processes more rapidly so that resources can be allocated to other
activities sooner. Research we have conducted over the past few years (e.g.,
Bisanz, Danner, & Resnick, 1979; Kail, Pellegrino, & Carter, 1980) illustrates
an information-processing approach to developmental changes in processing
speed. Several studies (Carter, Pazak, & Kail, 1981; Kail et al., 1980) have
concerned children’s ability to anticipate the appearance of an object from differ-
ent spatial perspectives. One goal of this research was to determine the develop-
ment of spatial processing during late childhood, adolescence, and young adult-
hood.* A method developed by Cooper and Shepard (1973) was used in which
individuals were shown two versions of an unfamiliar, letter-like stimulus on
each trial. The “standard” stimulus was presented in an upright position, and the
second, “comparison” stimulus was rotated 0 to 150” from the standard. On
some trials the comparison stimulus was identical to the standard; on other trials
it was a mirror image. Individuals were to decide, as rapidly as possible, whether
the two stimuli would be identical or mirror images if they were presented at the
same orientation.
One algorithm for making these judgments, depicted in Fig. 3, was described
by Cooper and Shepard (1973). First an individual represents the stimuli in
working memory, encoding their forms and orientations. The person then rotates
the mental representation of the comparison stimulus to the orientation of the
standard. Next, the rotated mental representation is compared with the standard.
If they are identical an individual responds “same”; if not, a small additional
amount of time is needed to implement a response of “different.”
In fact, most individuals between 9 and 19 years of age appear to transform
stimuli according to the algorithm described in Fig. 3 (Carter e t a f . , 1981; Kail et
al., 1980). Unlike the case with many of the algorithms discussed earlier, this
aspect of spatial processing seems to be characterized by invariance in the modal
algorithm, at least through late childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood. A
‘Relative facilitation decreases as the number of categories increases because the probability of
randomly selecting the probe category drops.
ZAnother objective of this research was to determine the information-processing bases of indi-
vidual differences in spatial aptitude. This aspect of the research is described in Pellegrino and Kail
(1982).
Itformution Processing und Cognitive Development 51
STIMULI
COMPARISON
STIMULUS
( DIFFERENT )
Fig. 3. An algorithm for mentullv rotuting tuo stitnuli into congruencc.. (After Cooper und
Shepurd, 1973.)
consistent pattern of developmental change was also found in speed of process-

ing. According to the Cooper and Shepard (1973) model, the slope of the func-
tion relating response time to the orientation of the comparison stimulus provides
an estimate of the rate of mental rotation. Rate of mental rotation decreased by
approximately 4 mseddegree between 9 and 13 but less than an additional
millisecond per degree between 13 and 19 years. Speed of mental rotation
appears to asymptote during late childhood or early adolescence.
c . Summary. In this section we have illustrated some common patterns of

developmental change regarding procedures. As children develop, they may use
increasingly sufficient and increasingly efficient procedures. In some cases the
same procedures are used by individuals of different ages, but components of
these procedures are performed more rapidly with increasing age.
2 . Development of Representations
To focus on the process aspects of cognition, investigators often assume a partic-
ular type of representation. For example, Naus and Ornstein (1977) assumed that
younger and older children do not differ in the way they represent digits and
letters. When stimuli become more complex, or when processing appears to be
developmentally invariant but performance nevertheless varies with age, such
58 Roberr Kail and Jeffrey Bisanz
simplifying assumptions may not be warranted and the question of developmen-

tal change in representations arises.
In our generic system, knowledge is represented as a network in which con-
ceptually related items are linked associatively. Figure 4 represents a detailed
example of a portion of a network that concerns knowledge about animals. This
type of network conforms closely to a theory proposed by Collins and Loftus
( 1975) but does not seriously compromise other theories. Several characteristics
are noteworthy. First, nodes in the network designate concepts rather than
words. Thus the node DALMATION could be activated just as readily by seeing
a picture of a dalmation as by reading the word “dalmation.” Second, associa-
tions between nodes are labeled: An association not only connects two concepts
but also indicates the nature of that relation. Third, the length of the line repre-
sents the strength of the association, with shorter lines indicating greater
strength. Fourth, properties are associated only with the most general applicable
proposition and not with more specific propositions, indicating a strong form of
cognitive economy.
A structure such as that depicted in Fig. 4 includes elements (i.e., concepts)
and relations between concepts. Developmental change in both elements and
relations have been studied by information-processing psychologists.
h n
is.
F i g . 4. A porrion of the knowledge base concerning animals.

Inforinarron Processing and Cognrrrve Developtnenr 59
a. Change in elements. An information-processing analysis leads us to

consider two forms of development with respect to elements. First, the number
of elements increases, as evidenced by the acquisition of new vocabulary items
and concepts throughout the life span. Second, and of greater interest, the con-
tent of a representational unit or “chunk”4efined as a portion of the knowl-
edge base that is always activated and deactivated as a unit-appears to increase
with development. Older children seem to include more information per chunk
than younger children do (Simon, 1974). For example, developmental dif-
ferences in performance on memory tasks are often substantial when material is
presented in meaningful units, but not when material is presented randomly
(Mandler & Robinson, 1978). One explanation of this finding is that older
children’s representation of the material to be remembered consists of fewer
chunks than does younger children’s representation of the same material, with
the result that older individuals must retrieve fewer chunks during recall.
b. Change in relurions. Cognitive development is often characterized as a

change from more perceptually based representations to more conceptually based
representations (e.g., Bruner, 1964; Clark, 1973). Evidence for this general
conclusion has been obtained from a variety of sources, including classification
tasks (Annett, 1959; Denney & Moulton, 1976; Howard & Howard, 1977;
Kagan, Moss, & Sigel, 1963; Saltz, Soller, & Sigel, 1972) and memory tasks
(Bach & Underwood, 1970; Bisanz, Pellegrino, Kail, & Siegel, 1978; Melkman
& Deutsch, 1977). For example, when young children form groups of similar
objects, they often do so on the basis of perceptual similarity. Thus, 6-year-olds
may say that apples and peaches are alike because they are round. Older children
are more likely to invoke superordinate relations to explain similarity.
This developniental trend can be discussed in terms of the type of knowledge
structure depicted in Fig. 4. Younger children’s knowledge of the domain of
fruits may be represented by the diagram in Fig. 5a. Both apples and peaches are
lipked to fruit and to roundness, but the strength of the association to perceptual
properties is greater. Links to fruit are included because young children can place
objects in appropriate categories when asked (e.g., Nelson, 1974). Development
of the knowledge structure to this point can be characterized in three ways. First,
elements must have been acquired. Second, relations denoting perceptual proper-
ties (has, is) and categorical membership (isa) have been acquired and estab-
lished between appropriate nodes. Third, the pattern of elements and relations
has been coordinated so that both PEACH and APPLE have the same superordi-
nate, FRUIT, as opposed to FRUIT1 versus FRUIT2. Thus, development of the
representation in Fig. 5a involves changes in elements, relations, and patterns
among relations.
Figure 5a can be contrasted with the older child’s representation, shown in
Fig. 5b, in which apples and peaches are again linked to both fruit and round, but
(a)
F7 FRUIT
Fig. 5 . Portions of the knowledge base concerningfruifs. ( a ) The knowledge of a 5-year-old,for

whom peaches and apples are alike primarily because they are both round. ( b ) The knowledge of an
8-year-old,for whom peaches and apples are similar primarily because they are both fruits.
with greater strength (indicated by shorter distances) to fruit. Thus the important
developmental change is that category relations (isa in Fig. 5 ) become stronger
relative to property links ( i s , has). To complete this account, we need to provide
a set of processing mechanisms. We can speculate that when an individual forms
groups of objects he or she (a)finds the nodes in the knowledge base correspond-
ing to the two objects, ( b ) determines if they share a common node (or nodes),
and (c) if multiple common nodes are found, he or she uses the node with the
greatest associative strength as the basis for a response.
c . Summary. Developmental researchers have begun to use the informa-

tion-processing framework to clarify issues related to representation (e.g., Dun-
can & Kellas, 1978), but questions about process still dominate the literature.
Hence, in describing developmental research on representation we have illus-
trated how information-processing concepts can be applied to such traditional
topics as memory and classification. Information-processing theory and research
have been extended recently to the representation of very complex forms of
knowledge, such as stories and events (Abelson, 1981; Kintsch & Van Dijk,
1978; Nelson, 1978; Stein & Glenn, 1979; Voss, Tyler, & Bisanz, 1982), and
we expect this trend to continue.
B . A'TTENTIONAL RESOURCES
Another category of developmental change is the amount of attentional re-

sources available for activating contents of the knowledge base. Most cognitive
tasks impose some degree of load or demand in the sense that some attentional
resources must be allocated for appropriate performance. Tasks vary in the load
Informution Processing and Cognitive Developmenr 61
they impose. For example, consider the arithmetic problems “3 X 4” and “27
X 13.” When solved without the aid of external devices (such as a pencil or
calculator), the second problem requires greater attentional resources than the
first because the solver must simultaneously ( a )activate more processes (such as
multiplication, addition, and “carry” operations), ( b )retain more information in
an activated state, such as intermediate products and sums, and (c) activate an
overall strategy for coordinating these various activities and pieces of informa-
tion. In contrast, solution of “3 x 4” is virtually automatic for individuals who
are proficient in arithmetic.
Because total attentional resources are limited, an individual’s performance on
two, simultaneous and attention-demanding tasks will deteriorate if the load
imposed by one of the tasks increases (Baddeley & Hitch, 1974; Kahneman,
1973). For example, a moderately proficient musician could probably sight-read
a piece of music while solving simple arithmetic problems or remembering a new
telephone number. Given problems like “27 X 13,” however, we would expect
performance to decline on one or both of the tasks; sufficient attentional re-
sources would probably not be available to perform both tasks adequately, unless
one or both of the solution processes were sufficiently automatized, as might be
the case for an expert sight-reader (Hirst, Spelke, Reaves, Caharack, & Neisser,
1980). Load can be increased to a point where successful performance on a
single task becomes impossible. For example, solving “347 x 127” would be
impossible for most people even if they knew how to solve it, unless they were
able to discover a resource-efficient strategy or to use external devices.
Attentional resources are often studied by recording latencies for task A when
it is performed separately and when it is performed concurrently with task B. If
task B requires attentional resources, then latencies for task A should be longer in
the simultaneous condition than in the separate condition; the difference would
presumably reflect the time for additional controlled processing. In contrast, if
task B does not impose additional load, no difference would be expected. Pre-
sumably, the more efficient the information-processing system is in handling
additional load, the smaller the difference should be for task A latencies in the
two conditions.
This approach is illustrated in an experiment by Manis, Keating, and Momson
(1980), who asked 7-, 11-, and 20-year-olds to respond to an auditory probe
while solving a visual letter-matching task. Compared to a control condition in
which only the auditory probe was presented, individuals at all ages responded
more slowly when the two tasks were performed simultaneously. Moreover, the
effect varied as a function of when the probe occurred in the letter-matching task:
Interference was generally low during earlier phases of information processing
on the matching task and greater during later phases. The 7-year-olds showed
greater interference than 11- and 20-year-olds during all phases of processing,
but 1 I-year-olds were slowed more than adults only during later phases. These
results suggest that available attentional resources may increase with age.
62 Robert Kail and Jejjrey Bisanz
More generally, a person with greater available resources may be more likely
to engage successfully in the flexible and attention-demanding kinds of mental
activity that typify “complex” reasoning and problem solving (Bruner, 1970;
Case, 1978a,b; Pascual-Leone, 1970). For example, the sensorimotor period is
often characterized by the infant’s inability to fuse temporally successive move-
ments and perceptions into an integrated representation. With development the
infant becomes progressively able to integrate more actions and events, thus
permitting more complex skills to develop. Young children who attempt to solve
conservation and class inclusion problems often fail because they “center” on
one source of information and ignore others; success comes when they incorpo-
rate more information into their decisions. Similarly, solutions to formal opera-
tional tasks, such as combinatorial reasoning, often require that a number of
stimulus factors be considered simultaneously and incorporated into a general
solution strategy; failure to process all the relevant stimuli will result in an
inadequate solution. These examples are all drawn from Piaget’s (e.g., 1960)
work, and indeed much of the impetus for research on the role of attentional
resources has arisen from the need to expand and supplement Piaget’s theory
(Case, 1978b). These examples and recent research (Case, 1978a,b; Case, Kur-
land, & Goldberg, 1982; Manis et d.,1980) are all consistent with the hypoth-
esis that attentional resources increase with age. [For alternative views on the
nature of attentional resources, see Chi (1978) and Trabasso and Foellinger
(1978).]
IV. The Issue of Transition

Information processing is not intrinsically a developmental framework and
consequently does not come equipped with an explicit mechanism to account for
cognitive change. Hence, providing such a mechanism or set of mechanisms-
what we call a “transitional system”-is obviously a priority if information
processing is to be considered seriously as a developmental framework. A pre-
cise description of an adequate transitional system would necessarily be tied to a
particular theory of cognition and is therefore beyond the scope of this article.
However, given the broad theoretical framework described in Section 11 and the
changes identified in Section 111, we can speculate on the general characteristics
of an adequate transitional system for information-processing theories of cogni-
tive development.
Two general considerations guided the formulation of the transitional system
presented here. First, the system should be organized internally to account for
continued developmental change. A system that results in only a single transition
is inadequate because cognitive development does not necessarily stop after a
single increment or adjustment. Second, an adequate transitional system, in
Informution Proce.ssing and Cognitive Development 63
interaction with a normal environment, must generate a course of developmental

change that is, in its general form, highly probable (Siegel, Bisanz, & Bisanz, in
press; Waddington, 1969). A system that fails to meet this second requirement is
incapable of accounting for invariant sequences in development.
The framework formulated to meet these needs involves two general compo-
nents: ( a ) increases in attentional resources and (b) procedures to modify the
knowledge base. Similar components have been proposed separately elsewhere
(Anderson, Kline, & Beasley, 1979; Case 1978a; Klahr & Wallace, 1976; Pas-
cual-Leone, 1970), but neither alone is sufficient to address the two considera-
tions described above. We suggest that attentional resources and knowledge-
modification processes can be viewed as integral components that interact to
ensure continuous and directed cognitive development. We first describe each
component separately and then show how they are integrated in the transitional
system.
A . INCREASES IN ATTENTIONAL RESOURCES
As noted in Section 11, limited processing resources are central to information-

processing theories because these resources are needed to activate knowledge
and to maintain knowledge in an activated state. Given this crucial role in the
cognitive system, increases in the availability of attentional resources constitute a
plausible source of cognitive de~elopment.~ Such increases could occur in any of
several ways. According to growth hypotheses, the total amount of attentional
resources increases with development (Case, 1974, 1978b; Pascual-Leone,
1970). For example, Pascual-Leone (1970) devised a theory
to explain cognitive growth by means of a “hidden parameter”: the size of central computing
space M which increases in a lawful manner during normal development. The general struc-
tural characteristics of the piagetian stages would then be interpretable as qualitative manifesta-
tions of this internal computing system or M operator. (p. 304)
In Pascual-Leone’s (1970) system these increments occur in discrete steps. As

can be seen in Table I, M increases by one unit biennially between 3 and 16 years
of age.
Another possibility is that increases in attentional resources are continuous and
gradual. For example, developmental increases in digit span and in memory
scanning speed (as studied with the Sternberg, 1966, paradigm discussed in
Section II1,A) appear continuous (Kail, 1982). The growth curves are sigmoid in
nature: Both digit span and scanning speed increases rapidly during childhood
and continue to increase during adolescence, but at a much slower rate. The
)Similarly, a decrease in processing resources might be responsible for some of the cognitive
changes associated with aging, a possibility examined in detail by Salthouse and Kail (in press).
TABLE I
M Values at Different Developmental Levels
Age (years) Piagetian substage M value

~~~~~
3 4 Early preoperational a + 1*
5-6 Late preoperational a + 2
7-8 Early concrete operational a + 3
9-10 Late concrete operational a + 4
11-12 Early formal operational a + 5
13-14 Middle formal operational a + 6
15-16 Late formal operational a + 7
*The value of a is constant across ages and refers to the capacity necessary for implementing an
executive routine that satisfies task instructions. (Adapted from Case, 1972.)
similar growth curves may well reflect a common underlying mechanism, such
as continuous growth in processing resources. [See Wilkinson (198 1) and
Wilkinson, DeMarinis, & Riley (in press) for related arguments.]
Contrary to growth hypotheses, the total amount of processing resources may
remain constant. Under certain conditions and with repeated use, resource-de-
manding processes may become increasingly automatic (e.g., Shiffrin &
Schneider, 1977), thus freeing some resources. Similarly, subsets of information
in the knowledge base may be combined to form larger units or “chunks” of
information (e.g., Simon, 1974), thus permitting more total information to be
activated with a given amount of resources. According to automatization hypoth-
eses, these “local” changes in processes and representations have system-wide
implications. Processes and representations that are recurrently activated actually
require fewer attentional resources. Thus the amount of available resources may
increase even if the amount of total resources is constant. Developmental im-
provements in performance are made possible by automatization and the con-
comitant increase in availability of resources (Bruner, 1970; Case, 1978a; Case,
Kurland, & Goldberg, 1982).
As an illustration of the differences between the two types of attentional
hypotheses, consider the Manis et al. (1980) experiment (discussed in Section
II1,B) in which individuals responsed to an auditory probe while determining if
two letters matched. With development, performance on the letter-matching task
was less disrupted by the probe. According to a growth hypothesis, children’s
attentional resources increase with development, and so the residual resources
available for responding to the auditory probe (i.e., those resources remaining
after allocation of resources to the letter-matching task) are greater for older
individuals who, consequently, are better able to perform both tasks simul-
taneously. According to an automatization hypothesis, the processes involved in
the letter-matching and probe tasks are more likely to be automatized in older
Information Processing und Cognitive Development 65
individuals, thereby decreasing the joint demands on limited attentional re-

sources and again enabling older individuals to perform better.
This example illuminates an important difference between the two types of
hypotheses. According to growth hypotheses, the increase in attentional re-
sources represents a change in a fundamental parameter of the cognitive system,
such as M in Pascual-Leone's (1970) theory. As such, the increased resources
should be apparent in performance on all resource-demanding tasks. Automa-
tization hypotheses, in contrast, do not predict a uniform pattern of developmen-
tal change. Instead, age-related change is expected only when task-relevant
processes are more likely to be automatized in older individuals. When younger
and older children have adequate strategies for performance on a resource-de-
manding task but younger children have more automatic processes or larger
chunks of information (due to greater experience with the task), then older
children could be expected to perform more poorly than younger children (e.g.,
Chi, 1978). Growth and automatization hypotheses are not mutually exclusive
and both may be involved in cognitive development.
B . KNOWLEDGE-MODIFICATION PROCESSES
In Section III,A we catalogued a variety of developmental changes in the

knowledge base. Given the heterogeneity of change discussed there, we need to
identify procedures for modifying the knowledge base that are sufficient to
account for these changes. Here we describe basic procedures at a general level
in terms of (a) their functions, or effects on the knowledge base, and (b) the
circumstances that evoke these procedures.
One such function involves addition or deletion of nodes and their relational
links in the knowledge base. These additioddeletion processes are necessary to
account for new concepts and relations in the system, and for modifications in
existing concepts. For example, adding superordinate and subordinate relations
could convert several synonynous concepts (Otto, dachshund, dog) into an inte-
grated structure (Otto isa dachshund isa dog). The system must also be capable
of a second basic function, strengrhening or weakening links between nodes.
Strengthening of relations can be viewed as a structural equivalent of automatiza-
tion. Greater strength implies that activation of two related nodes (processes or
units of information) requires fewer resources. For example, repeated processing
of configurations of n stimuli may involve a process that strengthens connections
among the nodes; ultimately the configuration could form a single chunk rather
than n separate chunks.
The additioddeletion and strengthedweaken functions can be applied to pro-
cesses as well as to representations. Consider a process, A , that consists of the
components A I , A2, A 3 , and A4 that are executed serially. We can consider these
components to be nodes of the knowledge base related by links that define their
temporal order of execution. An additioddeletion process would be needed to

alter A to make it more sufficient; for example, A3 might be deleted and A5
added, and thus A might subsequently be more accurate and have a wider range
of application. In addition, links among components could be strengthened, thus
rendering A less resource-demanding and faster. Thus, additioddeletion and
strengthedweaken processes are essential to account for a variety of develop-
mental changes, including new or different representations and processes as well
as increased speed of processing.
Having provided the transitional system with these knowledge-modifying
functions, we need procedures for determining that a change is needed. We
assume that addition/deletion and strengthedweaken functions would be directed
by analyses of feedback from both the environment and from within the system.
One such analysis involves inconsistency detectors, processes that monitor the
results of other, ongoing processes and compare them with each other, with
internally specified goals, or with external events. Consider problem solving as
an example. The outcome of a particular solution process may be disconfirmed
by information from the environment (e.g., Kendler, 19791, or the results of two
different processes may be inconsistent with each other (e.g., Inhelder, Sinclair,
& Bovet, 1974). When an inconsistency is detected, the additionldeletion and
strengthedweaken functions are activated until the inconsistency is reduced or
eliminated. This notion of inconsistency detectors parallels Piaget’s ideas about
“disequilibrium” and “equilibration” and is related to the widely used concept
of “match” between cognitive structures and environmental events (e.g., Hunt,
1961). More recently, Anderson, Kline, and Beasley (1979) have provided a
more detailed, information-processing theory of how inconsistencies might be
detected and resolved.
A second analysis involves regularity detectors, processes that monitor other,
ongoing processes for recurrent, resource-demanding regularities. Such reg-
ularities include repeated use of a sequence of controlled processes or repeated
activation of a set of representations. When recurrent regularities are detected,
knowledge-modification processes are activated until a representation or process
is modified so as to reduce the demand for resources. Regularity detectors are
also useful for identifying redundant processes (e.g., Klahr & Wallace, 1976) so
that more efficient procedures can be constructed. These detectors may also
determine when two different procedures produce the same result, a characteris-
tic that would be important for constructing general processes that transcend
operations learned in, and limited to, a particular domain (e.g., Lawler, 1981).
C. A TRANSITIONAL SYSTEM
Knowledge-modification processes and increases in attentional resources are
linked in our transitional system by a simple assumption: Knowledge-modifica-
Infb,mation Processing und Cognitive Development 67
Performance Monitors :
Regularity Detectors
/
Increased Availability of
Knowledge-Modification
Anontional Resources
Processes
I Growth in Total
Attentions1 Resources I
Fig. 6 . A proposed transitional system involving chunges in altrntional resources and change in
procedures 10 mod(fi the knowledge base.
tion processes place heavy demands upon available resources. Thus detection of
inconsistencies and recurrent regularities does not necessarily result in changes to
the knowledge base; sufficient resources must be available. Sufficient resources
might become available through ( a ) automatization of appropriate contents in the
knowledge base or ( b ) growth in total capacity that occurs independently of
changes in the knowledge base. These general features are indicated in Fig. 6.
To this point we have described a “circle” of effects, such that knowledge-
modification processes and increased resources enable each other. Such a system
could result in a steady state, at least in principle. This result is unlikely,
however, if we assume that changes to the knowledge base alter the ways in
which the system investigates or interprets its environment (e.g., Neisser, 1976),
which it, turn alters the internal and external feedback monitored by inconsisten-
cy and regularity detectors. Stated differently, changes to the knowledge base
enable the system to identify inconsistencies and regularities that were previously
undetectable. Because some representations and processes change with each
cycle, this transitional system results in a succession of states, rather than main-
tenance of a single state. Thus the system is organized internally to account for
continual developmental change.
Developmental theorists have traditionally stressed the importance of identify-
ing the major regulatory principles that characterize the general course of devel-
opment (Bertalanffy, 1967; Overton, 1976; Siege1 et al., in press; Teitelbaum,
1977). Werner’s (1 957) principles of “differentiation” and “hierarchic integra-
tion” are prominent instance^.^ In the present system, constraints on the direc-
tion of developmental change are provided by the processes that monitor perfor-
mance of the system. Detection of inconsistencies propels the transitional system
to generate more suficient representations and processes. Similarly, detection of
recurrent regularities propels the system toward more eficient representations
and processes. Furthermore, the relationship between resources and modification
of knowledge guarantees that performance requiring more attentional resources
will be acquired later, generally, than performance requiring less resources. Each
of these characteristics of developmental change is highly consistent with the
data reviewed in Section 111. Thus our transitional system implies at least three
regulatory principles: Information processing becomes more sufficient, more
efficient, and more “complex” in terms of the resource demands of
performance.
Many important details have been ignored in our description of a transitional
system. For example, we need to identify heuristics that might be used to gener-
ate more efficient processes and representations. Mechanisms are also needed to
store and evaluate information about the frequency with which certain processes
and representations are activated, so that recurrent regularities can be detected.
Furthermore, the question of whether the monitoring processes themselves de-
velop, or are invariant, needs to be addressed. Although our sketch of a possible
transitional system is incomplete, we believe that it constitutes a framework for
(a) accounting for the changes described in Section 111, and (b) providing a
scheme that guarantees a general course of cognitive development.
V. Additional Issues
Given an information-processing “window” on cognition (Section II), we
have described some aspects of cognitive change (Section III), and we have
outlined a transitional system that can account for some important characteristics
of these changes (Section IV). In the present section we examine the informa-
tion-processing framework from a broader perspective. Some of the basic tenets
of information processing have specific implications when used in developmen-
tal work. To illuminate these implications we consider two critical issues. In so
doing we seek to highlight important similarities and differences between infor-
mation-processing theories and other theories of cognitive development.
“With a few exceptions (e.g., Case, L978a; Klahr, 1976; Klahr & Wallace, 1976), the notion of
regulatory principles or constraints has been ignored by developmental psychologists who use the
information-processing framework. This oversight may have resulted because (a) the intersection of
developmental psychology and information processing is relatively new and (b) information process-
ing is not an inherently developmental framework. In Section IV we showed that information-
processing concepts are sufficiently flexible to incorporate and represent developmental constraints.
Informurion Processing und Cognitive Developmeni 69
A. COMPARISON OF CRITICAL PRESUPPOSITIONS
As a way of comparing an information-processing perspective to other views

on cognitive development, we examine it on several criteria used to differentiate
world views that currently dominate developmental psychology. Reese and
Overton (1970) identified two such world views, the mechanistic and the organ-
ismic views. Our characterizations of these views are necessarily brief and selec-
tive; for more thorough analyses, see Overton (1976), Overton and Reese
(1973), and Reese and Overton (1970). Our goal is not to force a fit between the
information-processing framework and one of these world views; rather, we seek
to clarify some of the presuppositions that influence information-processing
theories.
The mechanistic world view incorporates the machine as a basic metaphor for
human activity and is best exemplified by specific theories in the S-R tradition.
The organismic world view uses a living organism as its metaphor and is best
exemplified by the theories of Werner (1948) and Piaget (1971). The relation
between these world views and information-processing theories is not entirely
clear. For example, Reese and Overton (1970) suggested that the computer, the
root metaphor for information processing, is fundamentally mechanistic, but
Reese ( 1973) claimed that certain components of an information-processing the-
ory of memory are nonmechanistic. To avoid needless confusion, the world view
that dominates information-processing theories needs to be examined more
closely.
I . Assumptions about Activity
a . Organismic and mechanistic views. A fundamental difference between

the mechanistic and organismic world views concerns assumptions about activity
in the organism. According to the mechanistic view, the organism is inherently at
rest. Like a machine, this passive organism shows activity only in response to
external forces or antecedent conditions; spontaneous activity is merely epi-
phenomenal. According to the organismic world view, the organism is assumed
to be inherently active. The organism not only responds to the environment, it
actively interprets and or modifies its environment. Whereas “a passive organ-
ism . . . receives form from its experience,” an active organism “gives form to
its experience” (White, 1976, p. IOO), so that “environmental event and organ-
ism stand in a relationship of reciprocal action in which each member affects and
changes the other” (Overton & Reese, 1973, p. 79).
Related to the active-passive distinction are assumptions about the nature of
explanation. The explanatory framework for mechanistic theories has two com-
ponents (Overton & Reese, 1973). Material cause refers to anatomical and/or
physiological substrates of psychological phenomena, and efficient cause refers
I0 Robert Kail and Jeffrey Bisanz
to antecedent events that “cause” subsequent reactions in the organism. The

former concerns the current state of the organism, but the latter concerns change
and is thus given priority in developmental work. As a consequence of accepting
the concepts of efficient cause and a passive organism, causality is unidirec-
tional: Environmental events impinge on the organism and cause changes, but
not vice versa. Thus “change in the . . . behaviors of the organism is not seen as
resulting from change in the structure of the organism itself” (Reese & Overton,
1970); indeed, the idea of internal structure is unimportant for explaining
development.
In contrast, when the organism is active and interprets the environment, effi-
cient, unidirectional causality is not a sufficient framework for explaining behav-
ior; two additional components of explanation are emphasized. The first is for-
mal cause, by which psychological activity is explained in terms of its form,
pattern, or structure. If the organism is assumed to be inherently active, then
“the flux of behavioral appearances is the given and it is necessary to establish or
construct or represent stability in the face of change”; thus “construction of an
organization (structure) is necessary to generate a conceptual stability and com-
pletely explain the phenomena under consideration” (Overton, 1976, p. 81). In
Piaget’s theory, description of developmental stages constitutes an example of
formal cause. The second major component of explanation is final cause, by
which activity is characterized in terms of its developmental course. In develop-
mental psychology, Werner’s principles of “hierarchic integration” and “differ-
entiation” are frequently invoked to characterize developmental change (Siege1
et al., in press) and serve as a final cause in explaining development. Formal and
final causes are seen as regulatory principles that are fundamental to understand-
ing organismic change and are not simply derived from material and efficient
causes.
b. Information-processing assumptions. Given that a computer is a ma-

chine and the root metaphor of information-processing theories, one possible
conclusion is that information-processing theories are fundamentally mechanis-
tic. Thus the organism or system would be assumed to be passive. Such an
inference would be misleading, however, because the computer metaphor in-
cludes characteristics of both the machine and the programs associated with the
machine. This latter component is enormously flexible and precludes any facile
classification of the metaphor. A more useful test would be to determine if
information-processing theories contain concepts more consistent with one world
view than the other. To accomplish this type of evaluation, we follow Overton’s
(1976) suggestion that differences in assumptions about the active or passive
nature of the organism are particularly salient in theories of perception and
motivation.
Informution Processing and Cognitive Development 71
Consider perception first. A fundamentally passive organism is portrayed

merely as a recipient of information from the environment, but an active organ-
ism transforms stimuli during the act of perception: “Active organisms have
purposes and they attend, reason, and selectively perceive. All of this enables the
active organism to select, modify, or reject environmental influences pressing
upon it” (White, 1976, p. 100).
Information-processing theories of perception contain components that are
active and components that might be called passive. Perception is indeed selec-
tive and is guided, in part, by goals and heuristics that result from voluntary (i.e.,
resource-demanding) processes. The knowledge base is used to interpret the
world, and perception is considered to be partly constructive. Some processes
(automatic processes) are more “reflexive” in response to environmental stimuli
and thus might be considered mechanistic in nature. However, even these pro-
cesses operate in the context of a complex, organized internal system that is more
characteristic of organismic than mechanistic theories. Thus, information-pro-
cessing theories of perception involve a complex system of both “active” and
“passive” processes. Efficient and unidirectional causality (the influence of
environmental stimuli) is balanced against, and integrated with, formal causality
(the structure of the knowledge base that contains processes of perception).
Perhaps a more informative basis of comparison would be the topic of moti-
vation. As Overton (1976) noted, “the very concept of ‘motivation’ implies the
question of what gets the organism moving and such a question has meaning only
to the extent that one believes that the lack of activity is fundamental” (p. 83).
Theories positing internal or external forces that stimulate an otherwise inactive
system presuppose a passive organism, and theories that require no such forces
presuppose an active one. In fact, information-processing theories and research
have proliferated without much consideration of “what gets the organism mov-
ing” (Simon, 1979), suggesting that an active organism is presumed.5
Motivation can be defined not only as “what gets the organism moving,” but
also as the process of selecting between competing tendencies or purposes (e.g.,
Atkinson, 1964). The former definition is clearly consistent with the assumption
of a passive organism because it underscores the critical nature of antecedent
events (efficient causes), but the latter definition is more consistent with an
active metaphor. Given the traditional importance of selectivity in information
50ne argument is that computer-based models are mechanistic because the computer itself is
basically inert and has to be “plugged in.” At least with large installations, “plugging in” is not part
of a user’s experience with a computer and thus is not a concept commonly related to computer
usage. More importantly, the information-processing framework does not require an analog to the
electrical power used by a real machine. The metaphoric and representational use of the computer
extends to its operations and organization but does not include its physical characteristics, such as
electrical requirements or composition of semiconductors.
processing research (Broadbent, 1958; Kahneman, 1973), we suspect that when

information-processing theories begin to include the idea of “motivation,” the
emphasis will be on selectivity rather than internal drives or external forces.
2. Stages and Change

As noted in Section V,A,I, the assumption of inherent activity requires that a
theorist identify the nature of development by comparing successively abstracted
stages (Siege1 et a l . , in press). Significant changes are assumed to be qualitative
(changes in form or kind) rather than quantitative (changes in degree or amount).
In mechanistic theories, all change is viewed as fundamentally quantitative, and
the appearance of qualitative change in the structure of the organism is epi-
phenomenal (Overton & Reese, 1973; Reese & Overton, 1970).
Concerning the necessity of stages, the information-processing framework is
more consistent with the organismic world view. As indicated in Section 111,
theorists must describe successive states of the information-processing system in
order to characterize development. However, two important differences must be
noted between information-processing and organismic concepts of stage (Kail &
Bisanz, 1982).
The first difference concerns the distinction between qualitative and quantita-
tive change, concepts which have a long and confusing history in developmental
psychology (Flavell, 197 1; Flavell & Wohlwill, 1969). Unlike organismic theo-
rists, information-processing theorists are generally open to the possibility that
developmental change may have both qualitative and quantitative components.
Moreover, the “qualitative” or “quantitative” nature of change may depend on
the level of analysis employed. For example, a qualitative-looking change in a
mnemonic strategy may be an outgrowth of quantitative-looking change in avail-
able attentional resources, which in turn may be due to a “qualitative” reorga-
nization of subprocesses that enables more resource-efficient performance. None
of these changes is inherently more important than the others, and all must be
included in a coherent and complete account of development.
The second difference concerns the generality of postulated stages or states. In
organismic-developmental theories, stages are viewed as relatively stable and
pervasive. They are stable in that they characterize cognition over long periods of
time; they are pervasive in that they describe cognition as it is manifested on a
wide variety of tasks. For example, in Piaget’s theory a “stage” of concrete
operational thought spans several years and represents a child’s cognitive skills
in a variety of contexts. Both stability and pervasiveness can be accommodated
in information-processing theories and they enhance the generality of such mod-
els. But stable and pervasive stages are not a necessary part of an information-
processing approach to development. Some aspects of performance may show
stability and pervasiveness while other aspects may not. Indeed, a major criti-
cism of Piaget’s theory, from the point of view of information processing, is that
lnformation Processing and Cognitive Developmen? 73
the influence of task-specific factors is often ignored (e.g., Case, 1978b; Pas-
cual-Leone, 1970). In information processing, general aspects of performance
(those that are stable and pervasive) and task-specific characteristics of perfor-
mance are both of importance.
Despite these differences, an information-processing account of cognitive de-
velopment, like organismic theories, will necessarily include specification of ( a )
successive states of the system (formal cause) and ( b )constraints on the course of
development (final cause), such as those outlined in Section IV. In full detail, it
will also describe how environmental events (efficient cause) and physiological
substrates (material cause) contribute to developmental change.
3 . Conclusions
We have used metatheoretical distinctions between the mechanistic and organ-
ismic world views to clarify presuppositions and possible ambiguities of the
information-processing framework. On the whole, information-processing con-
cepts seem more compatible with the concept of an active organism. However,
the active-passive distinction corresponds to the theoretical distinction between
controlled (resource-demanding) and automatic processes, and in this sense the
information-processing framework may be viewed as “eclectic,” in that con-
cepts related to both world views are used. The framework also includes a
commitment to states or stages, but qualitative change is not the sine qua non of
development.
Although Pepper (1942) claimed that eclecticism is confusing and should be
avoided, Reese (1973; Reese & Overton, 1970) suggested that eclecticism can be
useful if the components are theoretically distinct. White’s ( 1 965) temporal
stacking theory of learning, which contains both associative and cognitive com-
ponents, is a well-known instance of such an eclectic theory. In the information-
processing framework, similarly, the “organismic” and “mechanistic” compo-
nents are distinct but together form a coherent and powerful cognitive system.
B. TASK SPECIFICITY
Some developmental psychologists (e.g., Breslow, 1981; Youniss & Furth,

1973) argce that, in information processing, performance on specific tasks is
emphasized while aspects of cognition that transcend these tasks are ignored. If
such a bias were inherent to information processing, it would be a severe short-
coming that precludes the approach as a general developmental framework.
To concretize our discussion of the task-specificity criticism, consider how
one might seek to understand a certain cognitive ability, such as inductive rea-
soning. At the most general level we would want a theory that explains induction
in a way that is independent of the context of any particular task. At a more
specific level we would want a theory that would account for performance on a
particular kind of inductive task, such as the series completion problems de-
scribed in Section 11. At an even greater level of specificity, we would want a
theory to explain performance on a particular variant of series completion, such
as series of numbers, letters, or geometric figures.
Information-processing psychologists who try to understand inductive reason-
ing would, as the critics have noted, be more likely to begin their research by
studying one of the specific variants of the task. This decision would reflect two
related beliefs. First, information-processing psychologists believe that a precise
model of performance on a single, complex task is more likely to reveal impor-
tant features of thought than is a general but ill-specified model. That is, most
information-processing psychologists believe that cognitive psychology can pro-
gress most rapidly with “a series of experimental and theoretical studies around
a single complex task, the aim being to demonstrate that one has a sufficient
theory of a genuine slab of human behavior. All of the studies would be designed
to fit together and add up to a total picture in detail” (Newell, 1973, p. 303,
emphasis added).
The second reason for the task-specific emphasis stems from the relationship
between general knowledge structures and more specific processes or representa-
tions. To begin, critics often suggest that the task-specific emphasis within
information processing neglects the phenomena of greatest importance to devel-
opmental theory and reifies the trivial. Breslow (1981) notes that while informa-
tion processing has a strong task-specific component, “Structural developmental
theory, in contrast, has been concerned with pervasive, abstract structures that
apply to a broad range of tasks . . . and to long-term temporal phenomena in the
form of structural change. . . . A task i s only of interest insofar as it does require
a certain concept for its solution” (p. 348, emphasis added).
The information-processing response to this criticism is that the cognitive
structures of interest to structural developmental theory cannot be studied inde-
pendently of performance on specific tasks. Cognitive structures cannot be mea-
sured per se; they can only be measured by activating them and recording their
behavioral consequences. Consequently, our understanding of these structures
can only be as deep as our understanding of the procedures by which those
structures become active. That is, models of performance on specific tasks are
seen as necessary precursors for more general theories of intellectual compe-
tence. For this reason information-processing has had and will continue to have a
strong task-specific component.6
6As noted in Section V,A,2, a frequent countercriticismof structural developmental theories is that
they are too vague to generate specific predictions regarding performance on particular tasks, and
hence that the theories are untestable. Klahr and Wallace (1972) remarked that
On the one hand, we have Inhelder and Piaget’s theoretical account and, on the other, the
complex set of results obtained from the experimental studies. A gap exists between the
Finally, nothing in the information-processing commitment to task-specificity
is antagonistic to the creation of general cognitive theories. In fact, developing
such broad theories is an important part of the scientific agenda for information-
processing psychology. General information-processing theories have perhaps
been less conspicuous than task-specific models, but they exist in sufficient
numbers (Anderson, 1976; Case, 1978a; Klahr & Wallace, 1976; Newell &
Simon, 1972; Sternberg, 1977) to dispel any notion that information-processing
psychology is inherently “limited to the characterization of surface manifesta-
tions, that is, of real-time performance on particular tasks” (Breslow, 1981, p.
348).
VI. Concluding Remarks

We began by describing a generic information-processing system that incorpo-
rates characteristics of many information-processing theories. This system also
provided a basis for a selective review of research on cognitive development. We
then outlined a transitional system that would result in continued, orderly devel-
opment. Finally, the information-processing framework was considered with
respect to several key developmental issues to clarify its relation to other the-
oretical perspectives.
Now that the information-processing framework has been described in some
detail, questions and issues that are central to the perspective can be dis-
tinguished from those that are not. Speed of processing, for example, is a central
topic because it is related to automatization and may reflect the level of resources
available for activation of knowledge-modification processes. The distinction
between qualitative and quantitative change, so critical in some theories, is of
less importance in information-processing theories: Any particular developmen-
tal change may have both qualitative and quantitative components; moreover,
whether the change is characterized as qualitative or quantitative often depends
hypothetical structures and processes which form the basis of the theory and the level of
perforniance as represented by the experiniental data. This arises from the fact that the theoreti-
cal account is presented at a level of generality which makes it uncertain as to whether it is
sufficient to account for the complex and varied behavior i t purports toexplain. Indeed, there is
n o way at all of determining what would be i t 5 consequences on the level of performance. A
much inore detailed account of the functioning of specific processes is necessary before these
uncertainties can be dispelled. (p. 154)
Similarly, Brainerd (1981 1, in discussing the structural-developmental literature on concept acquisi-

tion, wrote “If we aim to discover when some concept appears and what its developmental ordering
is relative to other concepts. it is self-evident that we shall first have to know what it means ‘to have
the concept’ in the sense of what processes are responsible for performance. But as a rule, this is
precisely what we do not know” (p. 465).
on the level of analysis employed. Distinguishing central issues from peripheral

issues is an important task for optimizing the interaction between traditional
developmental approaches and information-processing theories.
Identifying the issues and characteristics of the framework also helps to estab-
lish an agenda for research on cognitive development. For example, research on
the development of procedures and representation is required that specifies prin-
ciples of processing that apply across tasks. Related to this concern, research is
needed that identifies the boundary conditions under which different develop-
mental patterns are found. In addition, a number of questions need to be an-
swered that concern operation of the proposed transitional system. In particular,
the growth and automatization hypotheses need to be distinguished, as well as
the conditions under which each may contribute to development. Similarly, the
interaction between automatization and knowledge-modification processes needs
to be clarified, as does the role of regularity and inconsistency detectors in
processing feedback. Research addressed to questions like these will transform
the general framework into more specific theories of cognitive development.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Preparation of this article was made possible, in part by grants to the first author from NIMH
(MH-34137), NlNCDS (NS-17663). and the Purdue Research Foundation, and to the second author
from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada. We wish to thank Gay
Bisanz, Fred Morrison, and Hayne Reese for helpful comments on an earlier draft of this article.
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RESEARCH BETWEEN 1950 AND 1980 ON
URBAN-RURAL DIFFERENCES IN BODY SIZE AND
GROWTH RATE OF CHILDREN AND YOUTHS
Howard V. Meredith
BLATT PHYSICAL EDUCATION CENTER
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA
COLUMBIA. SOUTH CAROLINA
I . INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
11. RETROSPECT: 1870-1915 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
111. DIFFERENCES IN STANDING HEIGHT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86

A . COMPARISONS FOR LATE CHILDHOOD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
B . COMPARlSONS FOR EARLY ADOLESCENCE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
C . COMPARISONS FOR LATE ADOLESCENCE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
D . GROWTH RATE COMPARISONS FOR AGES 8-13 YEARS (PEMALES)
AND 10-15 YEARS (MALES). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
IV . DIFFERENCES IN BODY WEIGHT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105

B . COMPARISONS FOR EARLY ADOLESCENCE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
C . COMPARISONS FOR LATE ADOLESCENCE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
D . GROWTH RATE COMPARISONS FOR AGES 8-13 YEARS (FEMALES)
AND 10-15 YEARS (MALES). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
V . DIFFERENCES IN CHEST GIRTH., . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117

B . COMPARISONS FOR ADOLESCENCE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
VI . DIFFERENCES IN OTHER SOMATIC VARIABLES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123

A . COMPARISONS FOR SIZE OF HEAD. TRUNK. AND LIMBS IN
CHILDHOOD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
B . COMPARISONS FOR SIZE OF HEAD, TRUNK, AND LIMBS IN
ADOLESCENCE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
VII . SUMMARY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130

REFERENCES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
83
ADVANCES IN CHILD DEVELOPMENT Copyright 0 1982 by Academic Press Inc.
AND BEHAVIOR . VOL . 17 All rights of rcproduclion in any form reserved.
ISBN 0- 12-009717-6
84 Howard V . Meredith
I. Introduction
Two recent reports (Meredith, 1978b, 1979) dealt with somatic differences
among groups of racially similar children and youths residing at paired urban and
rural locations in various parts of the world. The former was focused on ur-
ban-rural differences in stdnding height during early childhood, and the latter on
urban-rural differences--n?ainly in standing height and body weight-across the
age span from mid-childhood ;o mid-adolescence.
This article contains no repetition of analyses or outcomes from the foregoing
reports: the contribution is designed to provide separate treatments for late child-
hood, early adolescent, and late adolescent segments of human ontogeny . Within
each segment, drawing upon somatic data collected between 1950 and 1980,
knowledge is systematized for urban-rural differences in standing height, body
weight, and dimensions of the head, trunk, and limbs.
The objectives are as follows:
1 . To bring together a substantial array of statistics pertaining to urban-rural

differences in human body size presently scattered in biological journals, schol-
arly monographs, anthropometric-survey reports, and unpublished manuscripts.
2. To determine the direction and magnitude of urban-rural differences in
body size for a wide assortment of human groups during late childhood, early
adolescence, and late adolescence. Included are Ghanaian Black, South African
White, Transvaal Black, and Tunisian groups in Africa; Chinese, Hindu, Ja-
panese, Kirghiz, Russian, and South Korean groups in Asia; Australian and New
Zealand White groups in Australasia; Austrian, Bulgarian, Chuvash, Finnish,
French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Lithuanian, Moldavian, Polish, and
Spanish groups in Europe; and Amerindian, Costa Rican, Mexican mestizo,
Peruvian, Surinam Creole, Surinam Indonesian, and United States White groups
in North, Central, and South America.
3. To discover whether urban-rural differences in body size increase or de-
crease with age in the period between 7 and 17 years. For instance, to ascertain
whether urban-rural differences in standing height are smaller prior to adoles-
cence than during adolescence, or vice versa.
4. To reveal whether urban-rural differences in body size increase or decrease
from decade to decade. In particular, to show whether urban-rural differences in
body weight of children and youths are greater for the 1950s than the 1970s, or
vice versa.
5. To investigate rates of growth in standing height and body weight during
selected age intervals. For example: Are increments in height and weight be-
tween late childhood and mid-adolescence systematically slower (or faster) for
city residents than their village peers?
Urban-Rural Direrences in Human Body Growrh 85
All of the urban-rural differences presented in Sections 111 through VI of this

article are secured from group averages based on age to the nearest birthday. In
some of the studies drawn upon, averages were reported at 7.5 years, 8.5 years,
and so forth; from these studies averages at 8 years, and successive annual ages,
were derived for the present article by rectilinear interpolation.
At various places in this contribution the word “group” is used in one of two
ways. On occasions it denotes a racial, national, or tribal division of mankind; at
other times it denotes an urban or a rural subdivision of a race, nation, or tribe.
Usually the context in which it appears is adequate to carry the correct connota-
tion. Where necessary for clarity, urban and rural subdivisions are referred to as
‘ ‘subgroups.’ ’
11. Retrospect: 1870-1915
Had a synthesis of urban-rural findings on human body size been written near
the end of World War I , the author of the synthesis would have reviewed studies
made between 1870 and 1915, and would have concluded: On the whole, chil-
dren and youths of European ancestry residing at urban centers are shorter and
lighter than rural coevals.
In the early 1870s, Roberts (1876) measured the standing height and body
weight of English children living in towns and agricultural districts of Cheshire,
Lancashire, and Yorkshire. At ages between 9 and 1 1 years, the averages on
about 4000 urban children were lower than those on about 1700 rural children by
I . 2 cm and 0 . 9 kg for height and weight, respectively. Erismann (1888) reported
statistics obtained from “Dr. Michailoff“ at ages 8.5 to I I .5 years on European
children (2000 urban and 3800 rural) measured in 1887 at Russian city and
village schools. Compared with the urban averages, corresponding rural aver-
ages were higher for girls and lower for boys in height, similar for girls and lower
for boys in weight, and higher for both sexes in chest girth. From data amassed
during 1889 on German children and youths representing ages from 6.5 to 13.5
years, Schmidt (1892) found 4300 urban residents smaller than 5000 rural peers
by 1.8 cm in average standing height and 0.7 kg in average body weight.
Records for height and weight were collected about 1907 in New South Wales
on 25,700 residents of Sydney and 9000 rural residents between ages 6.5 and
15.5 years (Roth & Harris, 1908). Compared with the rural children and youths,
those living at Sydney averaged 0.8 cm shorter and 0.2 kg lighter. Tuxford and
Glegg (191 I ) , using measures accumulated during 1909-1910 on country-wide
samples of English children and youths between ages 6.5 and 14.5 years, ob-
tained averages lower on 21 3,000 urban inhabitants than 178,000 village inhabi-
tants by 1.2 cm and 0.6 kg for height and weight, respectively.
Standing height and body weight data were gathered in Pomerania during 1911
on 14,200 urban males and 28,300 rural males between ages 6.5 and 12.5 years
(Peiper, 1912). Compared with the rural residents, urban residents were shorter
by 0.2 cm and lighter by 0.4 kg. At semiannual ages from 7 to 15 years, Mecham
(19 18- 1919) reported averages for standing height and body weight on children
and youths of Australian-born parents living in New South Wales: measures were
taken during 1913-1915 on 33,200 persons at a metropolitan center, 27,000 at
“country towns,” and 43,200 in rural districts. On average, persons living in the
city were smaller than those living (a) at country towns by 0.2 cm and 0.3 kg,
and (b) in rural districts by 1.9 cm and 0.9 kg.
Juxtaposition of these findings and those to be presented in Sections 111 and IV
will show: The direction of urban-rural differences in standing height and body
weight usually found in the period 1870-1915 is the opposite of that typifying
the period 1950-1980.
111. Differences in Standing Height

A. COMPARISONS FOR LATE CHILDHOOD
I . Female Children
Urban-rural differences in average standing height of girls in the triennium
between ages 7 and 10 years are displayed in Table I. Each row on the table
carries an identification tag, names an ethnic group, specifies when data were
collected, records how many urban and rural girls were measured, and gives an
obtained urban-rural difference in average standing height. Additional particu-
lars for Table I are as follows:
Tag I - I . Samples drawn from cities with more than 50,000 inhabitants, and
villages with fewer than 2000 inhabitants (Aubenque, 1952)
Tag I-2. Data accumulated at Klagenfurt, and in the Kamtner rural region
(Routil, 1955)
Tag I-3. Measures taken in 1950 at Modena (Rezza & Soragni, 1953), and
during the late 1950s in rural regions of Modena province (Galli, 1960)
Tag I-4. Materials gathered in 1958 at Budapest (Dezso, 1959), and during
1951-1954 at 30 villages in eastern Hungary (Maliin, 1961)
Tag I-5.Records amassed at five major cities (Auckland, Christchurch, Dun-
edin, Hutt Valley, Wellington) and 10 rural regions (New Zealand Department of
Health, 1971)
Tag I-6. Data from the “urban districts of Napier, Hastings, Palmerston
North, Hamilton, New Plymouth, and Gisborne” and the same rural areas as in
1-5 (New Zealand Department of Health, 1971)
TABLE 1
Female Standing Height (Centimeters) in Late Childhood: Average Difference for the Age Period
from 7 to 10 Years between Urban and Rural Girls Studied during 195C-1980
Sample size
Urban minus rural
Tag Ethnic group Time Urban Rural (7-10 years)O
I- 1 French 1950 >20,000 >20,000 .5

1-2 Austrian I95C-I954 ca. 4700 ca. 12,000 2.0
1-3 Italian 1950-1958 796 >450 I .3h
1-4 Hungarian 1951-1958 225 2348 2.I C
1-5 New Zealand White 1954 3230 2218 .2
1-6 New Zealand White 1954 978 2218 - .I
1-7 French I955 >4000 >5000 .2
1-8 Australian White I955 589 I006 -1.6
1-9 Finnish 1955-I961 3065 666 3.0
1-10 Indian (India) 1957-1960 3156 1497 2.0
1-1 1 Indian (India) 1957-1960 1739 I497 I .8
1-12 Polish 19591960 446 ca. 250 5.6
1-13 Lithuanian 1958-1962 470 419 2.9
1-14 Bulgarian I96C-I96I 903 794 3.3
1-15 Bulgarian 196C-I961 910 194 1.5
1-16 Chuvash I96C-I961 487 484 3.3
1-17 Russian 1961- 1963 613 674 .8
1-18 Japanese I963 ca. 8600 ca. 13,000 I .o
1-19 United States White 196% 1965 ca. 740 ca. 250 .7
1-20 Greek 1963-1966 ca. 500 ca. 1200 5.7
1-21 Surinam Creole 1964- I965 201 I 1288 .9
1-22 Surinam Hindu 1964-I965 713 4259 I .5
1-23 Surinam Indonesian 1964-I965 230 1525 1.7
1-24 Spanish I 963-1968 400 27,394 5.9c
1-25 Costa Rican 1963-1969 790 442 2.6
1-26 Ghanaian Black 19661968 ca. 260 ca. 350 2.0
1-21 Indian (India) I 964-1970 1278 1655 4.4c
1-28 Amerindian 1965-1975 103 I43 2.6<
1-29 Polish 1968-1972 >700 345 2.9
I-3c Australian White l97C-I971 2583 191 .3
1-31 Polish 1973-I974 ca. 385 ca. 420 1.8
1-32 Chinese 1975 8394 8361 5.2
1-33 South Korean 1976 194 229 3.I
1-34 Malayan 1976 323 285 4.2
1-35 Malaysian Chinese I976 223 556 6.1
1-36 Malaysian Tamil I976 I33 313 8.0
~~~ ~~
"Each value in this column is the average of four differences, that is, urban mean minus rural mean
at successive annual ages from 7 to 10 years.
bThe obtained difference was increased by .6cm as estimated adjustment for earlier collection of
urban than rural data.
<The obtained difference was reduced by .6cm as approximate adjustment for earlier coflection of
rural than urban data (see Meredith, 1963,1976).
87
Tag 1-7.Similar survey to that in 1950 (1-1). Samples from cities with popula-
tions exceeding 50,000, and villages with populations under 2000 (Aubenque &
Desabie, 1957)
Tug 1-8.Persons living at “metropolitan” and “country” locations in West-
em Australia (Davidson, 1957)
Tag 1-9. Residents of Helsinki compared with coevals in 14 communities
‘‘representing rural Finland” (Backstrom-Jarvinen, 1964)
Tug 1-10.Records amassed in India at 16 large cities and 142 villages (Indian
Council of Medical Research, 1960)
Tug 1-11. Measures taken at 28 towns having populations between 5000 and
100,000 compared with the data in I- 10 representing Indian villages (Indian
Council of Medical Research, 1960)
Tug 1-12. Individuals “brought up under good conditions” at Warsaw
(Wolariski, 1961) compared with peers living at remote “impoverished” vil-
lages in the Ostroleka and Suwalki districts about 150 to 350 km distant from
Warsaw (Wolariski & Lasota, 1964; personal communications 1966, 1973,
1980)
Tag 1-13. Records gathered at Vilnius, and in the Moletsk rural area of the
Soviet Union (Goldfeld, Merkova, & Tseimlina, 1965)
Tug 1-14.Comparison of persons living at Sofia, and in Bulgarian villages
(Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, 1965)
Tag 1-15. Comparison of records accumulated at Bulgarian cities (excluding
Sofia) and at the villages represented in 1-14 (Bulgarian Academy of Sciences,
1965)
Tug 1-16.Predominantly Turko-Tatar individuals residing at Cheboksary , and
on collective farms in the Kanashsky region of the Soviet Union (Goldfeld et al.,
1965)
Tug 1-17.Measures taken at Barnaul, and in rural areas of the Altai Territory
(Goldfeld et al., 1965)
Tug 1-18.Records amassed in Kagawa Prefecture at municipal centers and in
agricultural regions (Kambara, 1969)
Tug 1-19. Children residing in metropolitan districts of 24 cities, and numer-
ous widely scattered farm areas (Hamill, Johnston, & Lemeshow, 1972)
Tug 1-20.Children measured at urban communities having more than 1000
inhabitants, and at villages having fewer than 1,000 inhabitants (Valaoras &
Laros, 1969)
Tugs 1-21, 1-22, and 1-23. Three ethnic groups, each sampled at urban and
rural locations in Surinam (Kuyp, 1967)
Tug 1-24.Data gathered in 1968 at Madrid on healthy, well-nourished mem-
bers of families in the middle and upper socioeconomic strata (Garcia-Almansa,
Fernhndez-Fernandez, & Palacios-Mateos, 1969) compared with data amassed
during 1963- 1964 at 136 Spanish villages where socioeconomic status, level of
Urban-Rural Differences in Human Body Growth 89
nutrition, and health care were typically below average (Palacios & Vivanco,
1965)
Tug 1-25. Urban records taken at provincial capitals, and rural records
“throughout the country” (Villarejos, Osborne, Payne, & Arguedas, 197 1).
Both the urban and rural subgroups were “predominantly of Spanish ancestry”
and “substantially middle c l a s s ” 4 e rural being “more deprived economically”
Tug 1-26. Urban data gathered at Accra, and rural data at several “Tonu
(Tongu) Lower Volta” villages (Fiawoo, 1973)
Tug 1-27. Delhi residents measured during 1969- 1970 (Banik, Nayar,
Krishna, Raj, & Taskar, 1970) compared with village residents in Palghar Taluk
measured during 1964-1965 (Shah & Udani, 1968)
Tug 1-28. Amerindian children measured during 1967- 1975 at Minneapolis-
“largely Chippewa, Sioux, and Winnebago”4ompared with Chippewa peers
measured in 1965 at Red Lake Reservation in northern Minnesota (Johnston,
McKigney, Hopwood, & Smelker, 1978)
Tug 1-29. Data collected at Lublin (Chrqstek-Spruch & Szajner-Milart, 1974)
and in nearby rural areas (Chrqstek-Spruch & Dobosz-Latalska, 1973)
Tug 1-30. “Sydney metropolitan” residents compared with rural residents
attending schools “in an inland country town” (Jones, Hemphill, & Myers,
1973)
Tug 1-31. Samples drawn at Wielkopolski, and in a nearby rural district
southwest of Warsaw (Losiak, 1978a, 1978b)
Tug 1-32. Data collected in northern, central, and southern areas of mainland
China at nine cities, and at rural locations in the vicinity of each city (Chinese
Academy of Medical Sciences, 1977; personal communication 1979)
Tug 1-33. Persons born and reared at Seoul in families of “rural to urban
migrants” compared with coevals born and reared in rural areas of Naju-Gun, a
southwestern section of South Korea in the southeastern part of Cholla-nam-do
province (Kwon, 1978). All of those in the urban sample had progenitors who
migrated to Seoul from the provinces of Cholla-nam-do or Cholla-puk-do
Tugs 1-34,1-35, and 1-36. For each ethnic group, the urban children attended
schools at Kuala Lumpur drawing “mainly from upper class” homes, and the
rural children attended schools in the Klang district drawing “mainly from lower
and middle income” homes (Rampal, 1977). The differences obtained, due to
large confounding of economic class and urban-rural habitat, are greater than
likely from random sampling at the urban and rural locations (also see 1-12 and
1-24)
Tripartition of the urban-rural differences in the right-hand column of Table I

gave 12 values for the 1950s, 15 for the 1960s, and 9 for the 1970s. Averages
from these decadal values were 1.4, 2.5, and 3.8, respectively. The average of
the entire 36 urban-rural differences was 2.5 cm (1 .O in.).
90 Howard V. Meredith
Tests of statistical significance were made at p = .01, using 6.3 cm as popula-

tion standard deviations (Aubenque & Desabie, 1957; Bulgarian Academy of
Sciences, 1965; New Zealand Department of Health, 1971). Results showed: In
29 (81%) of 36 comparisons it was tenable to infer that average standing height
of urban girls in the period 1950-1980 exceeded that of rural peers. In a single
instance (1-8) the reverse inference was statistically allowable, and in six in-
stances the null hypothesis could not be rejected. Four of the seven instances that
did not support the predominant inference accrued from data obtained during
1950- 1955.
Further scrutiny of the content in Table I led to the following notations:
1. Within the time span from 1950 to 1980, groups of urban girls at ages from
7 to 10 years were found to surpass their rural coevals in average standing height
by (a) between 1.O and 2.5 cm (0.4 to 1.O in.) from Austrian, Ghanaian Black,
Hungarian, Indian in India, Italian, Japanese, Surinam Hindu, and Surinam
Indonesian comparisons, and (b) more than 2.5 cm from Amerindian, Chinese,
Chuvash, Costa Rican, Finnish, Greek, Lithuanian, Malaysian Tamil, South
Korean, and Spanish comparisons.
2. Polish girls representative of Lublin and nearby rural communities differed
by 2.9 cm: the difference was 5.6 cm between Warsaw residents receiving
adequate health care and inhabitants of impoverished villages (1-12). Urban
sampling selectively restricted to middle and upper socioeconomic classes un-
doubtedly accounts for portions of the large differences obtained on Spanish,
Malayan, Malaysian Chinese, and Malaysian Tamil girls (1-24,1-34,1-35, 1-36).
The average urban-rural differences from Table I with these four groups and
1-12 excluded was 1.9 cm (0.8 in.).
3. Bulgarian girls measured during 1960-1961 at Sofia were taller than village
peers by 3.3 cm (I-14), and girls at other Bulgarian urban centers were taller than
the same village girls by slightly under one-half this amount (1-15). For girls in
India measured during 1957-1960 (1-10, 1-1 l), the difference in mean standing
height from large city and village samples was similar to (slightly greater than)
that from samples at smaller urban centers and the same villages.
2 . Male Children
The construction of Table I1 was like that for Table I, except it pertained to
boys at ages between 8 and 11 years. The upward shift in age followed from the
more extended childhood of boys than girls (Meredith, 1939). Sources and
sample descriptions for the rows having tags beginning with “I” were as given
in Section III,A, 1. For other rows, identifications follow:
Tug 11-1, Data collected at Berlin, and at villages with under 2000 inhabitants
(Marcusson, 1961)
Tag 11-2. Samples representative for Warsaw (Kopczynska & Brzezinski,
TABLE I1
Male Standing Height (Centimeters) in Late Childhood: Average Difference for the Age Period
from 8 to 1 1 Years between Urban and Rural Boys Studied during 195CL-1980
Sample size
Urban minus rural
Tag Ethnic group Time Urban Rural (8-11 years)"
I- I French 1950 >20,000 >20,000 .7

1-2 Austrian 195CLl954 ca. 3500 ca. 12,500 2.8
1-3 Italian 195CLl958 1425 >450 I .46
1-4 Hungarian 1951-1 958 249 2663 4.2<
1-6 New Zealand White 1954 976 2245 - .4
1-7 French 1955 >4000 >5000 .4
1-8 Australian White 1955 75 1 832 - .4
1-9 Finnish 1955-1 96 1 3030 604 3.0
11- 1 East German 1 9 5 6 1958 ,4000 >5000 1.1
11-2 Polish 1957-1 958 2753 267 3.5
1-10 Indian (India) 1957-1960 3395 1759 2.1
1-1 I Indian (India) 1957-1960 1841 1759 .7
1-12 Polish 1959-1 960 444 ca. 250 5.4
1-13 Lithuanian 1958- 1962 497 528 3.5
11-3 Polish 1956-1 966 476 689 2.8
1-14 Bulgarian 19604 961 816 733 3.6
1-15 Bulgarian 196cLl961 830 133 1.9
1-16 Chuvash 196cL196 1 497 487 2.0
11-4 Russian 196cL1961 44 I 430 2.3
11-5 Russian 1961-1 962 878 400 I .4
11-6 Moldavian 1961-1963 1018 942 .3
1-17 Russian I96 1-1963 672 748 I .o
1-18 Japanese 1963 (:a. 10,000 c. 14,000 1.1
11-7 Russian 1962- 1964 45 I 532 2.3
1-19 United States White 1963-1965 ca. 790 ca. 240 I .6
11-8 Jamaican Black I964 403 777 4.2
1-20 Greek 1963- I 966 ca. 680 ca. 1350 5.7
11-9 Russian 1964-1965 I078 ca. 3100 0.2
1-2I Surinam Creole 1964-1965 I679 1 I65 I .2
1-22 Surinam Hindu 1964- I965 787 4038 I .4
1-23 Surinam Indonesian 1964- I965 214 I557 1.1
1-24 Spanish 1963- I968 400 26,980 6.2~
1-25 Costa Rica 1963- I969 101 I 488 5.0
1-26 Ghanian Black 1966- I968 ca. 275 ca. 275 I .3
11-10 Polish 1967 31 I 1524 1 .o
11-1I Kirhiz 1967- I970 ca. 380 242 5.2
1-28 Amerindian 1965- I975 95 169 2.6<
1-29 Polish 1968-1 972 >650 345 2.6
11- I2 Tunisian 1968-1 972 330 132 5.5
11-13 Mexican mestizo 1968- I972 131 250 - .3d
(continued)
91
TABLE 11 (Continued)
Sample size
Urban minus rural
1-30 Australian White 1970-1971 2993 229 - .4

1-31 Polish 1973- 1974 ca. 380 ca. 400 2.4
1-32 Chinese 1975 8268 8379 5.1
1-33 South Korean 1976 189 24 1 3.4
1-34 Malayan 1976 325 269 4.3
1-35 Malaysian Chinese 1976 38 1 517 6.2
1-36 Malaysian Tamil 1976 177 268 7.2
11-14 Transvaal Black 1976-1 978 226 315 3.4
OEach value in this column is the average of four differences, that is, urban mean minus rural mean
at successive annual ages from 8 to 1 1 years.
4 e e Table I, footnote b.
“See Table I, footnote c .
dThe average for urban boys exceeded that for a rural subgroups of I19 “Zapotec-speaking” boys
by 1.7 cm (Malina, Himes, Stepick, Lopez, & Buschang, 1981).
1961) and the rural Makowskiego district 70 to 100 km southwest of Warsaw

(Jaworski, 1960)
Tug 11-3. Records collected at Krakow, and in “rural districts of Rzeszow and
Krakow viovodships” (Panek, 1970)
7ug 11-4. Residents at Ryazan compared with coevals living in adjacent rural
districts (Goldfeld et al., 1965)
Tag 11-5. Comparison of Kalinin and nearby rural groups (Goldfeld et al.,
1965)
Tag 11-6. Measures taken at Kishinov, and in five rural regions of the Molda-
vian Soviet Socialist Republic (Goldfeld et al., 1965)
Tug 11-7. Data obtained at Stavropol, and in the rural Stavropol Territory
(Morozova & Boldurchidi, 1965)
Tag 11-8. Records secured at Kingston, and in the Rio Minho valley (Ashcroft
& Lovell, 1966). Both the urban and rural boys “were of predominantly African
descent, and mostly came from lower income groups”
Tug 11-9. Materials amassed at Murmansk (Tarasov, 1968) and in rural areas
of the Kola peninsula (Lapitskii, Belogorskii, & Nemzer, 1967)
Tag 11-10. Offspring of Polish parents who moved to Nowa Huta during
1949-1957 from various towns (urban sample) and villages (Panek & Piasecki,
1971). Nowa Huta began transition from a rural to an urban habitat in 1949, and
became a district of Krakow in 1951
Tug 11-11. Data gathered at Frunze (Imanbaev, Kim, & Sidorova, 197 1) and at
villages in the Kirov district of the Frunze region (Miklashevskaya, Solovieva, &
Godina, 1973)
Tug 11-12. Boys at Tunis, drawn about equally from “privileged” and “un-
derprivileged” homes (H. Boutourline-Young, personal communication 1979),
compared with boys living at Tunisian villages “in the Kebili district, east of
Chott el Djerid” (Lowenstein & O’Connell, 1974)
Tag 11-13. Records obtained at a suburban community southwest of Oaxaca de
Juarez, and in two rural areas located 35 km northwest and 18 km southeast of
Oaxaca de Juarez (R. M. Malina, personal communication 1979). For both
subgroups. socioeconomic status was low and nutrition poor
Tag 11-14. Residents of Soweto (Johannesburg) and villages in eastern, north-
eastern, and western Transvaal (Richardson, 1978, personal communication
1979). Both samples were “representative of the Nguni, Shangaan, and Sotho
ethnic groups,” with the urban residents “better off socioeconomically”
Table II showed:
1. Averages for standing height in late childhood were 3.6 cm higher for
Bulgarian boys at Sofia compared with village peers (1-14), and 1.9 cm higher
for boys at urban centers other than Sofia compared with village peers (1-15).
Similarly, differences decreased from 2.1 cm for Indian boys at large cities
compared with rural coevals (I- 10) to .7 cm for Indian boys at towns and small
cities compared with rural coevals (1-1 1).
2. Eleven Polish and Russian urban-rural differences averaged near 2.5 cm;
they varied from .2 (11-9) to 5.4 cm (l-l2), and had intermediate values of 1.0
(1-17, 11-10) and 3.5 cm (1-12). The largest difference compared boys “brought
up under good conditions” at Warsaw with peers living at impoverished Polish
v i I1ages.
The text explanations for rows 1-12, 1-24, 1-34, 1-35, and 1-36 indicate that not
all listed differences resulted from random sampling in urban and rural settings.
On body size of children in relation to socioeconomic status and health nurture,
see Hamill et ul. (1972) and Meredith (1951, 1978a).
3 . Summar?,
From Tables I and II together:
I . In 68 (80%) of 85 comparisons, statistical tests at p = .01 showed urban

children significantly taller than rural coevals. In 16 comparisons (19%) the null
hypothesis could not be rejected, and in one instance urban girls (measured
during 1955 in Western Australia) were significantly shorter than rural coevals.
2. Average urban-rural differences in standing height by decade were 1.6 cm
from 26 comparisons for the 1950s, 2.5 cm from 38 comparisons for the 196Os,
and 3.6 cm from 21 comparisons for the 1970s. Generalizing overall for the
period 1950-1980, during late childhood urban girls and boys were taller than
rural coevals by about 2.0 to 2.5 cm.
3. Urban and rural groups that, on average, were practically alike (differed
less than .5 cm) in standing height included White children of each sex in New
South Wales and New Zealand, Mexican mestizo of low socioeconomic status,
Moldavian boys, and White boys in Western Australia.
4. Average standing height was greater by 1 .O to 2.5 cm for urban compared
with rural girls and boys of the Bulgarian (1-15), Ghanaian Black, Italian, Indian
(I- lo), Japanese, Surinam Hindu, and Surinam Indonesian ethnic groups. Also
within these limits were Austrian and Hungarian girls and, for boys, Chuvash,
East German, Surinam Creole, United States White, offspring of Polish immi-
grants to Nowa Huta (11-lo), and Russians living at or near Barnaul, Kalinin,
Ryazan, and Stavropol (1-17, 11-4, 11-5, 11-7).
5. Obtained differences showed urban girls and boys of the following groups
to exceed rural peers in average standing height by more than 2.5 cm: Amerin-
dian, Bulgarian (I-14), Chinese in mainland China and Malaya, Costa Rican,
Finnish, Greek, Lithuanian, Malayan, Malaysian Tamil, South Korean, and
Spanish. For boys only, differences in this category were found between Aus-
trian, Jamaican Black, Hungarian, Kirghiz, and Tunisian urban and rural
subgroups.
Mitchell (1932), using data for standing height amassed around 1930 on "ten-
year-old'' Puerto Rican children largely of Spanish ancestry, obtained a mean of
128.6 cm from measures on about 580 urban children and, from measures on
about 1160 rural peers, a mean lower by 3.2 cm.
B. COMPARISONS FOR EARLY ADOLESCENCE
Tables 111 and IV are complementary; they pertain to urban-rural differences

in standing height of early adolescent females and males, respectively. Since, on
average, adolescence is timed about 2 years earlier in females than males (Mere-
dith, 1967), the tables deal with biologically simrlar trienniums of human
ontogeny .
1. Females Age 10-13 Years

Two of the ethnic groups in Table 111 did not appear in Tables 1 or 11. Their
geographical and reference sources were as follows:
Tag 111-1. Female youths from the urban area at Port of Tampico, Tamaulipas,
and rural areas in the municipios of Tampico and Altamira, Tamaulipas (Pefia-
Gbmez, 1970)
Tag 111-2. Measures taken at Istanbul (Neyzi, Yalcindag, & Alp, 1973) and in
the Etimesgtit rural region (Nashed & Bertan, 1968)
For 36 (86%)of the 42 comparisons in Table 111, statistical tests allowed the
inference that average standing height of female youths age 10-13 years mea-
TABLE 111
Female Standing Height (Centimeters) in Early Adolescence: Average Difference in the Age
Triennium 10-13 Years between Urban and Rural Subgroups Measured 1950-1980
Sample size
Urban minus rural
Tag Ethnic group Time Urban Rural (10-13 yearsp
I- 1 French I950 >20,000 >20,000 .7

1-2 Austrian 195&1954 ca. 4600 ca. 10,700 2.5
1-4 Hungarian 1951-1958 25 1 2643 4.56
1-6 New Zealand White I954 1014 2203 .9
1-7 French 1955 >4000 >5000 .5
1-8 Australian White 1955 522 880 -1.9
11-2 Polish 1957-1 958 2373 195 3.5
1-9 Finnish 1955-196 I 2366 532 3. I
1-10 Indian (India) 1957- 1960 3263 1305 3.7
1-1 I Indian (India) 1957- I960 I768 1305 2.3
1-12 Polish 1959- I960 466 ca. 250 7.2
1-13 Lithuanian 1958-1 962 469 559 4.8
1-14 Bulgarian 1960-1 961 798 758 4.5
1-15 Bulgarian 1960- I96 I 84 1 758 2.7
11-3 Polish 1 9 5 6 I966 640 591 4.3
1-16 Chuvash 1960-1961 494 478 3.6
11-4 Russian 1960-1961 394 43 1 .8
11-5 Russian 1961-1 962 935 417 2.9
11-6 Moldavian 1961-1963 1043 1189 .4
1-17 Russian 1961-1 963 679 762 1.1
1-18 Japanese 1963 ca. 13,200 ca. 15,000 I .o
11-7 Russian 1962- I964 42 1 539 3.0
11-8 Jamaican Black 1964 403 836 3.9
11-9 Russian 19641965 1304 ca. 3250 - .I
1-21 Surinam Creole 19641965 1901 998 1.6
1-22 Surinam Hindu 1 9 6 4 I965 744 3506 3.0
1-23 Surinam Indonesian 1964- I965 162 I249 2.8
111-1 Mexican I965 345 181 2.8
1-24 Spanish 1963- I968 400 2 1,974 7.56
1-25 Costa Rican 1963-1969 819 687 3.2
1-26 Ghanaian Black 1966-1968 ca. 260 ca. 350 2.9
11-10 Polish 1967 398 1593 1.4
111-2 Turkish 1967- 1969 638 299 4.3
11-1 1 Kirghiz 1967-1 970 ca. 380 239 6.5
1-29. Polish 1968- I972 >700 346 3.2
11-13 Mexican mestizo 1968-1972 112 222 - .7
1-30 Australian White 1970-1 971 3948 238 - .6
1-31 Polish 1973-1974 ca. 385 ca. 420 I .8
1-32 Chinese 1975 8475 8083 5.8
1-33 South Korean 1976 264 270 4.2
11-14 Transvaal Black 19761978 587 758 5.1
aEach value in this column is the average of four differences, that is, urban mean minus rural mean
bThe obtained difference was lowered by .8cm as approximate adjustment for earlier collection of
rural than urhan data.
sured between 1950 and 1980 was greater for urban than rural residents. In five
instances the null hypothesis could not be rejected, and for one ethnic group (1-8)
urban females were significantly shorter than rural peers. These findings were
obtained from tests at p = .01, using 7.0 cm as population standard deviations
(Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, 1965; New Zealand Department of Health,
1971).
Table 111 showed that urban female youths surpassed rural coevals by 2.5 cm
or more in 26 (62%) of 42 comparisons: Austrian, Bulgarian (1-14, 1-15), Chi-
nese, Chuvash, Costa Rican, Finnish, Ghanaian Black, Hungarian, Indian
(I-lo), Jamaican Black, Kirghiz, Lithuanian, Mexican, Polish (1-12, 1-29, 11-2,
11-3), Russian (11-5, 11-7), South Korean, Spanish, Surinam Hindu, Surinam
Indonesian, Transvaal Black, and Turkish.
Tables I and I11 included 28 corresponding rows for late childhood and early
adolescence. Assembling the differences from these rows in two series, and
computing the mean of each series, revealed: During 1950-1980, average stand-
ing height of females at urban centers exceeded that at rural villages by 2.0 cm in
late childhood, and 2.8 cm in early adolescence. Compared with values from
Table 1, matching values in Table I11 were larger by 1.0 cm or more for Bul-
garian, Hungarian, Lithuanian, South Korean, Spanish, Surinam Hindu, and
Surinam Indonesian groups; by .5 to .9 cm for Austrian, Chinese, Costa Rican,
Ghanaian Black, New Zealand White, and Surinam Creole groups; and by .1
to .4cm for Chuvash, Finnish, French, Polish (I-29), and Russian (1-17) groups.
Differences were zero for Japanese and Polish (1-31) groups, and negative for
Australian White groups (1-8, 1-30).
Longitudinal data for standing height of 54 Polish females “with Turner’s
syndrome” were analyzed by Krawozynski (1980). Twenty-nine of the females
lived at urban centers, and 25 in rural districts. The urban inhabitants “definite-
ly” were taller than their rural peers; average differences were 2.3 cm in late
childhood (ages 8 to 10 years) and 3.4 cm in early adolescence (1 1 to 13 years).
2 . Males Age 12-15 Years

Two rows in Table IV were not documented previously:
Tag IV-J. Residents of 8 cities and 44 rural communities; described as random

samples of ‘‘healthy boys, whatever their socioeconomic background” (Grob-
belaar, 1963)
Tag ZV-2. Data amassed at Romanian urban and rural locations (Cristescu,
1969)
For 33 (92%) of the 36 comparisons in Table IV, significance tests at p = .01,

using 7.8 cm as population standard deviations (see Section III,B, 1), allowed the
inference that urban male youths age 12- 15 years measured during 1950- 1980
TABLE IV
Male Standing Height (Centimeters) in Early Adolescence: Average Difference in the Age
Triennium 12-15 years between Urban and Rural Subgroups Studied 1950-1980
Sample size
Urban minus rural
Tag Ethnic group Time Urban Rural ( 12- I5 years).
I- 1 French I950 >20,000 >20,000 .8

IV- 1 South African White 1952- 1955 567 463 3.1
1-4 Hungarian 195 I- 1958 402 1734 7.8h
1-5 New Zealand White 1954 3316 2124 1.1
1-6 New Zealand White 1954 1101 2124 1.1
1-7 French 1955 >4000 >5000 .6
11- I East German 1956-1958 >4000 >5000 2.0
11-2 Polish 1957- I958 1894 I29 6. I
1-9 Finnish 1955- 1961 2132 302 4.8
1-10 Indian (India) 1957- I960 3270 I576 I .7
1-1 I Indian (India) 1957- 1960 1937 I576 1.6
1-12 Polish I 959- I960 403 ca. 250 5.4
1-13 Lithuanian 1958-1962 440 617 5.1
1-14 Bulgarian 1960-1961 742 778 3.7
1-15 Bulgarian 1960-1961 846 778 2.4
1-16 Chuvash 1960-1961 420 483 3.9
11-4 Russian 196% 196I 405 432 1.3
11-5 Russian 1961- 1962 I I28 44 I 3.4
11-6 Moldavian 1961-1963 843 1306 .7
1-17 Russian 1961-1963 747 837 .4
1-18 Japanese I965 ca. 18,000 ca. 16,000 I .3
11-7 Russian 1962- I964 538 680 2.0
IV-2 Romanian 1963- I966 >3200 >3600 6.0
1-21 Surinam Creole 1964- 1965 1781 82 1 2.2
1-22 Surinam Hindu 1964- I965 738 2674 3.0
1-23 Surinam Indonesian 1964-1965 226 1010 3 .O
1-25 Costa Rican 1963- 1966 709 44 1 6.3
1-26 Ghanaian Black 1966-1968 ca. 350 ca. 275 2.4
11-10 Polish 1967 350 1197 2.0
11-1 I Kirghiz 1967- I970 ca. 380 243 7.9
1-29 Polish 1968-1972 >650 295 4.4
1-30 Australian White 1970-197 I 4939 354 .4
1-3I Polish 1973-1974 ca. 380 ca. 400 3.2
1-32 Chinese I975 8705 8264 5.8
1-33 South Korean 1976 330 258 3.0
11-14 Transvaal Black 1976-1978 59 I 405 4.8
"Each value in this column is the average of four differences, that is, urban mean minus rural mean
"The obtained difference (8.6 cm) was reduced by .8 cm as estimated adjustment for earlier
collection of rural than urban data.
97
exceeded their rural peers in average standing height. Rejection of the null
hypothesis statistically was untenable in three instances, that is, for Australian
White, Moldavian, and Russian urban-rural comparisons (I- 17, 1-30, 11-6).
The early adolescent differences in Table IV showed that in 16 of 36 pairings,
urban male youths studied during 1950-1980 were taller than rural coevals by
2.5 cm or more. Listed alphabetically, these pairings represented Bulgarian
(1-14), Chinese, Chuvash, Costa Rican, Finnish, Hungarian, Kirghiz, Lithua-
nian, Romanian, Russian (1-3 1, 11-5), South African White, South Korean,
Surinam Hindu, Surinam Indonesian, and Transvaal Black ethnic groups. The
difference of 4.8 cm on Transvaal Black youths was similar to that of 4.5 cm
obtained by Walker and Walker (1977) from data collected during 1975-1976 at
two ages (12 and 14 years) on 134 Black males at Soweto and 86 peers in a rural
region 22 km west of Rustenburg. On Turkic Tatar males age 15 years, Goldfeld
et al. (1965) reported averages for standing height higher by 4.1 cm on 253
TABLE V
Female Standing Height (Centimeters) in Late Adolescence: Average Difference for Ages from 15
to 17 Years between Urban and Rural Subgroups Studied 1950-1980
Sample size
Urban minus rural
Tag Ethnic group Time Urban Rural (15-17 years)
1-10 Indian (India) 1957-1960 2226 600 3.6

1-11 Indian (India) 1957- I 960 963 600 1.1
v-1 Jamaican Black 1959 55 73 .5
1-13 Lithuanian 1958-1962 253 173 3.9u
1-14 Bulgarian 1960-1 961 693 597 2.6
1-15 Bulgarian 1960- 1961 655 597 1.3
v-2 Hungarian 1961-1963 469 476 I .6
1-17 Russian 1961- 1963 333 37 1 - .6a
1-18 Japanese 1963 >6500 >3500 1.1
11-7 Russian 1962-1964 388 497 .I
IV-2 Romanian 1963- 1966 >2000 >2200 2.2u
1-2I Surinam Creole 1964- 1965 1140 260 .2
1-22 Surinam Hindu 1964- 1965 333 399 1.8
1-23 Surinam Indonesian 1964-1965 106 123 2.2
1-25 Costa Rican 1963- 1969 505 I24 5.0
11-10 Polish 1967 164 448 .8
v-3 Polish 1 9 6 61971 672 3052 2.1
11-11 Kirghiz 1967-1970 ca. 285 180 3.3
1-30 Australian White 1970- 1971 1888 127 - 1 .ou
1-32 Chinese 1975 6063 6016 2.7
1-33 South Korean I976 330 24 1 .5
11-14 Transvaal Black 1 9 7 61978 55 1 500 1.2
~ ~~
UAverage of differences for ages 15 and 16 years; age 17 years not sampled.
Urban-Rural Diferences in Human Body Growth 99
youths at Kazan than on 100 coevals at villages in northeast Tatar Autonomous

Soviet Socialist Republic.
Differences in Table IV on Polish youths varied from 6.1 cm comparing
Warsaw and the Makowskiego rural district (11-2), through 4.4 and 3.2 cm at and
near Lublin and Wielkopoiski (1-29, 1-31), to 2.0 cm at Nowa Huta on offspring
of immigrants from Polish urban and rural habitats (11-10). On Russian youths,
obtained differences were 3.4, 2.0, 1.3, and .4 cm for groups at and near
Kalinin, Ryazan, and Stavropol in Europe (11-4, 11-5, 11-7) and, in Asia, at
Barnaul and rural areas of the Altai Territory (1-17).
Tables 11 and IV had 34 corresponding rows for males in late childhood and
early adolescence. The difference values in these rows yielded averages for the
period between 1950 and 1980 showing that standing height was greater at urban
than rural locations by 2.1 cm during late childhood, and 3.1 cm during early
adolescence. Compared with Table I1 values, those of Table IV were higher by
1 .O cm or more for Chuvash, Costa Rican, Finnish, Ghanaian Black, Hungarian,
Kirghiz, Lithuanian, New Zealand White (I-6), Polish (1-29, 11-2), Surinam
Creole, Surinam Hindu, Surinam Indonesian, and Transvaal Black groups; by .5
to .9 cm for Australian White (I-30), Bulgarian (1-15), Chinese, East German,
Indian (1-1 l), New Zealand White (1-5), and Polish (1-31) groups; and by . l
to .4 cm for Bulgarian (1-14), French, Japanese, and Moldavian groups. Dif-
ferences were negative by .3 or .4 cm for Indian (I-lo), Russian (I-17,11-7), and
South Korean groups; and by 1 .O cm from a Russian comparison (11-4).
Among the 78 comparisons for early adolescence in Tables I11 and IV, there
were 24 in the 195Os, 41 in the 1960s, and 13 in the 1970s. Taking these decades
in succession, the average amounts by which urban youths were taller than rural
coevals were 2.7, 3.1, and 3.1 cm.
C . COMPARISONS FOR LATE ADOLESCENCE
Averages for standing height of urban and rural late adolescent youths were
accessible from some studies at ages 15, 16, and 17 years, and from other studies
at ages 15 and 16 years only. For males, all of the urban-rural differences
computed were based on averages extending to age 17 years.
With few exceptions, the studies drawn upon in constructing Tables V and V1
were cited earlier. Exceptions were:
Tug V-1. Data gathered at Kingston and in a rural area surrounding the village
of Lawrence Tavern on late adolescent females “of predominantly African ori-
gin” and “mostly poor” economic status (Ashcroft, Ling, Lovell, & Miall,
1966)
Tag V-2. Measures taken on “Pommeranian and Kujawy youths” residing at
metroptropolitan centers and in rural districts (Kriesel, 1977)
100 Howard V . Meredirh
TABLE V1
Male Standing Height (Centimeters) in Late Adolescence: Average Difference for the Age Period
from 15 to 17 Years between Urban and Rural Subgroups Measured 1950-1980
~~~ ~
Sample size
Urban minus rural
Tag Ethnic group Time Urban Rural (15-17 years)
IV- 1 South African White 1952-1 955 360 489 .2

Vl-1 Hungarian 1953-1954 I32 143 2.0
1-10 Indian (India) 1957- I960 2198 888 4.3
1-1 1 Indian (India) 1957-1960 1477 888 3.5
1-14 Bulgarian 1960- I961 540 562 3.9
1-15 Bulgarian 1960-196 1 610 562 1.5
v-2 Hungarian 1961- 1 963 67 1 650 3.3
11-7 Russian 1962- 1964 362 435 4.2
1-18 Japanese 1963 >7000 >4000 1.3
1-21 Surinam Creole 19641965 1015 268 1.8
1-22 Surinam Hindu I 9 6 4 1965 382 692 2.0
1-23 Surinam Indonesian 1964- 1965 I04 269 2.1
1-25 Costa Rican 1963- 1969 357 112 1.3
11-10 Polish 1967 156 386 I .8
11-1I Kirghiz 1967-1970 ca. 285 I74 5.8
1-32 Chinese 1975 606 1 6149 5.1
1-33 South Korean 1976 39 1 208 2.3
11-14 Transvaal Black 1976- 1978 457 25 1 3.3
Tug V-3. Polish females measured at Warsaw (Charzewska, 1973) and at

villages in “8 regions and 5 viovodships of Poland” (Laska-Mierzejewska,
1970)
Tug VI-1. Urban and rural records accumulated on late adolescent males living
at and near Debrecen (Eiben, 1956)
For 30 (75%) of the 40 comparisons in Tables V and V1, statistical tests

allowed the inference that average standing height of late adolescent females and
males measured during 1950-1980 was greater for urban than rural youths. In 10
instances, rejection of the null hypothesis was untenable. These findings were
obtained from tests at p = .01, using as population standard deviations 6.0 and
7.5 cm for females and males, respectively (Bulgarian Academy of Sciences,
1965; O’Brien, Girshick, & Hunt, 1941).
At late adolescent ages (Tables V and VI) urban youths were taller than rural
peers by 2.5 cm or more in comparisons for Bulgarian (1-14), Chinese, Costa
Rican, Indian (I-lo), and Kirghiz groups of each sex; for Lithuanian females; and
for Hungarian (V-2), Russian (11-7), and Transvaal Black males.
On average, taking separately the 22 differences in Table V and the I8 in

Table VI, late adolescent youths living at urban centers were taller than coevals
living at rural habitats by 1.7 cm for females and 3.1 cm for males.
Standing height differences obtained on each sex in late adolescence were
greater for Indian inhabitants of large cities compared with those of rural areas
(1-10) than for lndian inhabitants of smaller urban centers compared with those of
the same rural areas (1-1 1). Similarly, Bulgarian differences between residents of
Sofia and Bulgarian villages (1-14) were greater than those between residents of
urban communities other than Sofia and the same village peers (1-15).
For females of 14 ethnic groups, urban-rural differences were available at late
childhood, early adolescent, and late adolescent ages. These were identified in
Tables I, 111, and V as Tags “I” followed by 10, 11, 13, 14, 15, 17, 18, 21, 22,
23, 25, 30, 32, and 33. Averages from the three series of differences showed
females taller at urban than rural habitats by 2.0, 2.9, and 1.8 cm in late
childhood, early adolescence, and late adolescence, respectively. Were the so-
called “adolescent spurt” in standing height timed earlier, on average, for urban
than for rural females (see Fuchs, 1979), this pattern of rising and falling values
would be expected.
On males, Tables 11, IV, and VI had urban-rural comparisons in common for
15 groups (1-10, 1-11, 1-14, 1-15, 1-18, 1-21, 1-22, 1-23, 1-25, 1-32, 1-33, 11-7,
11-10, 11-1 1, 11-14); these gave average standing height differences of 2.6, 3.4,
and 3.3 cm. Since the “adolescent spurt” occurs, on average, later for males
than females, it is reasonable to envision a smaller urban-rural difference in
average standing height from male comparisons at ages 17 to 19 years than the
3.3 cm obtained at ages 15 to 17 years.
Joint examination of the urban-rural differences in Tables I through V1
revealed:
1 . On average, children and youths living at urban centers were taller than
rural coevals by 2.1 cm in the 1950s, 2.7 cm in the 1960s, and 3.2 cm in the
1970s. These values were derived from 57, 105, and 41 comparisons for the
three successive decades.
2 . Among 203 statistical tests at the .01 level, 167 (82%) allowed the in-
ference that urban children and youths were taller than rural coevals, two allowed
the reverse inference. and 34 (17%) did not allow rejection of the null hypoth-
esis. The two sets indicating shorter average standing height at “metropolitan”
than at “country” locations were obtained on girls and female youths measured
during 1955 in Western Australia.
3. For nine ethnic groups, corresponding urban-rural differences in all six
tables showed that average amounts by which urban children and youths sur-
passed rural coevals in standing height were 1 . 1 cm, Japanese (1-18); I .3 cm,
Surinam Creole; 2.1 cm, Surinam Hindu and Indonesian; 2.7 cm, South Korean;
2.9 cm, Indian (1-10); 3.6 cm, Bulgarian (1-14);and 4.9 cm, Chinese and Costa
Rican .
D. GROWTH RATE COMPARISONS FOR AGES 8-13 YEARS (FEMALES)

AND 10-15 YEARS (MALES)
Table VII was constructed to display, for groups of urban and rural females
measured between 1950 and 1980, standing height means at age 8 years, and
increments in mean standing height during the quinquennium from ages 8 to 13
years. In relation to average age of adolescent peak velocity for standing height
of females, this period extends from about 4 years before the peak to 1 year
beyond (Faust, 1977; Roche & Davila, 1972).
In order to deal with reasonably valid increments, Table VII was restricted to
studies in which sample size exceeded 150 for each subgroup, that is, sample
size was over 150 for urban females age 8 years, rural females age 8 years, urban
females age 13 years, and rural females age 13 years. Both centimeter and
percentage increments were obtained for table presentations. For a given urban
or rural subgroup, centimeter increase was mean standing height at age 13 years
minus mean standing height at age 8 years, and percentage gain was 100 X
centimeter increase divided by mean at age 8 years.
Table VII showed:
1. Urban means for standing height of females age 8 years were higher than
corresponding rural means by amounts varying from .4 to 5.0 cm, and averaging
near 1.7 cm. Taking urban and rural subgroups together, Indian females were
shortest, French females intermediate, and New Zealand White females tallest.
2. In three instances (Bulgarian, Indian in India, Surinam Hindu) centimeter
gain for urban females exceeded that for rural peers by more than 1 .O cm, and in
three instances (French, Japanese, Moldavian) centimeter gains of urban and
rural females showed little or no difference. Typical increments for the quin-
quennium between ages 8 and 13 years were near 27.5 and 26.5 cm for urban and
rural females, respectively.
3. Expressed in relation to means for standing height at age 8 years, typical
increases in standing height between ages 8 and 13 years were near 22.5% for
urban females and 22.0% for rural females. From French, Japanese, and Molda-
vian comparisons, urban and rural percentage gains were similar; and from
Bulgarian, New Zealand White, Surinam Creole, and Surinam Hindu compari-
sons, percentage gains were between 22.5% and 23.0% for urban females, and
near 22.0% for rural females.
TABLE VII
Means and Gains in Female Standing Height: Sample Size at Age 8 Years, Mean at Age 8 Years, Centimeter Gain from 8 to 13 Years, and Percentage
Gain from 8 to 13 Years for Urban and Rural Females Measured between 1950 and 1980
Gain (centimeters):
Sample size: age 8 years Mean: age 8 years &13 years Gain (%): &I3 years
Tag Ethnic group Urban Rural Urban Rural Urban Rural Urban Rural
-
1-1 French >2000" >2000" 122.0 121.6 26.2 25.9 21.5 21.3
-
0
W
1-5
1-10
New Zealand White
Indian (India)
809
785"
553b
369'
126.8
115.5
126.4
113.8
28.6
27.2
27.7
24.6
22.6
23.5
21.9
21.6
1-14 Bulgarian 208c 177' 125.4 122.6 28.5 26.7 22.7 21.8
11-6 Moldavian 227c 236< 121.0 119.9 26.8 27.0 22.5 22.5
1-17 Russian 168c 183~ 123.2 122.1 28.4 27.7 23.1 22.7
1-18 Japanese >2000" >3000a 119.9 118.9 27.7 27.7 23.1 23.3
1-21 Surinam Creole 508 325< 124.6 123.5 28.3 27.4 22.1 22.2
1-22 Surinam Hindu 18OC 1119b 121.3 119.4 27.9 26.1 23.0 21.9
1-32 Chinese 20930 2101" 122.0 117.0 26.7 26. I 21.9 22.3
"'Sample size at age 13 years more than 1900.

"Sample size at age 13 years between 500 and 900.
CSample size at age 13 years between 170 and 340.
TABLE VIII
Means and Gains in Male Standing Height: Sample Size at Age 10 Years, Mean at Age 10 Years, Centimeter Increase from 10 to 15 Years, and
Percentage Increase from 10 to 15 Years for Urban and Rural Males Measured between 1950 and 1980
Gain (centimeters):
Sample size: age I0 years Mean: age 10 years 10-15 years Gain (96):10-15 years
1-1 French >2000a 132.3 131.9 23.8 22.7 18.0 17.2

-
0
P
1-5
11-1
New Zealand White
East German
5636
>1200a
138.6
136.7
138.0
135.1
27.9
27.0
27.3
27.1
20.1
19.8
19.8
20.1
1-10 Indian (India) 3246 126.7 124.7 26.1 24.2 20.6 19.4
1-14 Bulgarian 188C 136.4 132.6 28.5 28.5 20.9 21.5
1-17 Russian 193c 133.8 132.6 28.6 29.4 21.4 22.2
1-18 Japanese >3500a 130.7 129.6 29.5 29.2 22.6 22.5
1-22 Surinam Hindu 1026~ 131.7 129.4 27.4 26.4 20.8 20.4
1-32 Chinese 2093a 132.5 127.5 26.8 25.9 20.2 20.3
asample size at age 15 years more than 1200.

bSample size at age 15 years between 450 and 900.
<Sample size at age 15 years between 150 and 400.
Urban-Rural Dixerences in Human Body Growth 105
Tables VII and VIII were prepared as complementary for females and males.
Table VIII spanned the period of ontogeny from about 4 years preceding to 1
year following average age of adolescent peak velocity in standing height of
males.
Examination of Table VIII revealed:
1 . Means for standing height of urban males age 10 years were higher than
comparable means on rural males by amounts varying from .4 (French) to 5.0 cm
(Chinese). In 78% of the comparisons the urban advantage exceeded 1.0 cm.
2. In three instances (French, Indian in India, Surinam Hindu) the centimeter
gain for urban males surpassed that for their rural peers by 1 .O cm or more, and
in three instances (Bulgarian, East German, Japanese) little or no difference was
found between the amounts of centimeter gain for urban and rural males. Typical
centimeter increases in standing height during the quinquennium following age
10 years were slightly above 27 cm for urban males, and slightly below 27 cm for
rural males.
3 . From Chinese, East German, Japanese, and New Zealand White compari-
sons, urban and rural percentage gains were similar. From other comparisons,
urban-rural differences were both positive (French, Indian) and negative (Bul-
garian, Russian). Overall, the average percentage increases in male standing
height from age 10 to age 15 years was near 20.5%.
In summary, from large samples studied between 1950 and 1980, rates of
growth in standing height from late childhood to middle adolescence were in
most instances slightly higher for urban than rural females and males.
IV. Differences in Body Weight

Tables IX and X were constructed to exhibit, for girls and boys, respectively,
urban-rural differences in average body weight during late childhood. The pro-
cedure in table construction matched that for Tables I and 11 on standing height,
and the sources drawn upon were the same as specified in connection with Tables
I and 11.
The values in the right-hand column of Tables IX and X gave 1.5 kg ( 3 . 3 Ib)
for each sex as the average amount by which children studied between 1950 and
1980 at late childhood ages were heavier at urban centers than in rural districts.
As noted earlier (Section Ill), urban samples in several instances were selected
from the upper part of the socioeconomic continuum (1-12, 1-24, 1-34, 1-35,
TABLE IX
Female Body Weight (Kilograms) in Late Childhood: Average Difference in the Triennium 7-10
Years between Urban and Rural Girls Studied during 1950-1980
Sample size
Urban minus rural
I- 1 French 1950 >20,000 >20,000 .7

1-2 Austrian 1950-1954 ca. 4700 ca. 12,000 1.o
1-3 Italian 1950-1958 796 >450 1.96
1-4 Hungarian 1951-1955 225 2180 1.4=
1-7 French 1955 >4000 >S o 0 0 .6
1-8 Australian White 1955 589 1006 .2
1-9 Finnish 1953- 1961 30114 666 1.4
1-10 Indian (India) 1957-1960 3156 1497 1.2
1-11 Indian (India) 1957-1960 1739 1497 I .o
1-12 Polish 1959- 1960 446 ca. 250 3.2
1-13 Lithuanian 1958-1962 470 419 .9
1-14 Bulgarian 1960-1961 895 782 1.6
1-15 Bulgarian 1960-1961 802 782 .7
1-16 Chuvash 1960-1961 487 484 .8
1-17 Russian 1961-1963 613 674 1.1
1-18 Japanese 1963 ca. 8600 ca. 13,000 .7
1-19 United States White 1963-1965 ca. 740 ca. 250 .4
1-20 Greek 1963- 1966 ca. 500 ca. 1200 2.4
1-21 Surinam Creole 1964- 1965 201 I 1288 .4
1-22 Surinam Hindu 1964- 1965 712 4258 1.1
1-23 Surinam Indonesian 1964- 1965 230 1531 1.1
1-24 Spanish 1963-1968 400 27,394 4.0c
1-25 Costa Rican 1963- 1969 790 442 1.2
1-26 Ghanaian Black 1966- 1968 ca. 260 ca. 350 1.9
1-27 Indian (India) 1964-1970 1278 1657 1.1‘
1-28 Amerindian 1965- 1975 103 143 2.7~
1-29 Polish 1968- I972 >700 345 2.1
1-30 Australian White 1970-1971 2583 191 .I
1-31 Polish 1973- 1974 ca. 385 ca. 420 .6
1-32 Chinese 1975 8394 8361 I .4
1-33 South Korean 1976 194 230 I .2
1-34 Malayan 1976 323 285 3.2
1-35 Malaysian Chinese 1976 223 556 5.6
1-36 Malaysian Tamil 1976 133 313 6.3
“Each value in this column is the average of four differences, that is, urban mean minus rural mean
bThe obtained difference was increased .4 kg as estimated adjustment for earlier collection of
urban than rural data.
cThe obtained difference was reduced .4 kg as approximate adjustment for earlier collection of
rural than urban data.
106
TABLE X
Male Body Weight (Kilograms) in Late Childhood: Average Difference in the Triennium 8-1 I
Years between Urban and Rural Boys Studied during 1950-80
Sample size
Urban minus rural
Tag Ethnic group Time Urban Rural (8- I I years)"
I-1 French I950 >20,000 >20,000 .8

1-2 Austrian 1950- 1954 ca. 3500 ca. 12,000 .9
1-3 Italian 1950- I958 1425 >450 1.9h
1-4 Hungarian 195 1- 1958 249 2663 2.1'
1-8 Australian White 1955 75 I 832 .4
1-9 Finnish 1955- 196I 3030 604 2. I
11-2 Polish 1957-1958 2753 267 2.3
1-10 Indian (India) 1957- 1960 3395 1759 1 .o
1-1 I Indian (India) 1957- I960 1841 1759 .I
1-12 Polish 195% I960 444 ca. 250 3.1
1-13 Lithuanian 1958- I962 497 528 1.1
11-3 Polish 1956- 1966 476 689 1.6
1-14 Bulgarian 1960-1961 802 725 I .8
1-15 Bulgarian 1960-1961 808 725 .7
1-16 Chuvash 1960- I96 I 497 487 .2
11-4 Russian 1960- I961 44 I 430 1.2
11-5 Russian 1961- 1962 878 400 .o
11-6 Moldavian 196 I- I963 1021 968 .2
1-17 Russian 1961-1963 672 748 .9
1-18 Japanese I963 ca. 10,000 ca. 14.000 .6
11-7 Russian 1962- 1964 45 1 532 1.1
1-19 United States White 1963- I965 ca. 790 ca. 240 .3
11-8 Jamaican Black 1964 403 777 I .6
1-20 Greek 1963- I966 ca. 680 ca. 1350 2.8
1-21 Surinam Creole 1964- I965 1679 1 I65 .s
1-22 Surinam Hindu 1964- 1965 787 4028 .7
1-23 Surinam Indonesian 1 9 6 4 I965 214 1557 .4
1-24 Spanish 1963- 1968 400 26,980 3.2~
1-25 Costa Rican 1963-1969 101 1 488 2.7
1-26 Ghanaian Black I 9 6 6 1968 ca. 275 ca. 275 2.2
11-10 Polish I967 31 1 1503 .9
1-28 Amerindian 1965- I975 95 I69 I .9(
1-29 Polish 1968- I972 >650 345 2.3
11-12 Tunisian 1968- I972 33 I I32 3.8
11- I3 Mexican mestizo 1968- I972 131 250 .3"
1-30 Australian White 1970- 197 I 2993 229 - .2
1-31 Polish 1973-1974 ca. 380 ca. 400 1.2
1-32 Chinese 1975 8268 8379 I .4
1-33 South Korean 1976 187 246 I .9
1-34 Malayan 1976 325 269 2. I
(continued)
I07
TABLE X (Continued)
Sample size
Urban minus rural
Tag Ethnic group Time Urban Rural (8-1 1 years)O
1-35 Malaysian Chinese 1976 38 I 517 5.9

1-36 Malaysian Tamil I976 177 268 4.6
11-14 Transvaal Black 1976- 1978 226 315 2.6
OEach value in this column is the average of four differences, that is, urban mean minus rural mean
at successive annual ages from 8 to I 1 years.
bSee Table IX, footnote b.
See Table IX, footnote c . .
dThe average for urban boys exceeded that for a rural subgroup of 119 “Zapotec-speaking” boys
by 1.3 kg (Malina et a l . , 1981).
1-36); with these studies eliminated urban children were found, on average, to
weigh more than rural peers by 1.1 kg (2.5 lb).
Taken together, Tables IX and X afforded 24 comparisons for the 1950s, 36
for the 1960s, and 21 for the 1970s. Decadal averages showed urban children
surpassed rural coevals in body weight by 1.1, 1.2, and 2.4 kg, respectively. On
exclusion of the studies cited in the preceding paragraph, averages were 0.9 kg
for the 1950s, 1.1 kg for the 1960s, and 1.5 kg for the 1970s.
Among the 81 comparisons in Tables IX and X, 63 (78%) allowed the in-
ference that urban children were heavier than rural coevals, and 18 (22%) fell
short of allowing rejection of the null hypothesis. In no instance were urban girls
or boys significantly lighter in body weight than rural coevals. These results were
obtained through statistical tests at p = .01, using 4.5 kg as population standard
deviations (O’Brien et al., 1941).
Body weight averages were similar (differed less than .5 kg) for urban and
rural samples of the following ethnic groups: Surinam Creole girls; Chuvash,
Indian (1-1 l), Mexican mestizo, Moldavian, Russian (11-6), and Surinam Indo-
nesian boys; and Australian White (1-8,1-30), New Zealand White (1-5, I-6), and
United States White children of both sexes.
Averages for body weight in late childhood were greater at urban than rural
locations by 1.8 kg (4.0 lb) or more for Bulgarian (I-14), Costa Rican, Finnish,
Hungarian, South Korean, Transvaal Black, and Tunisian boys; and Amerin-
dian, Greek, Italian, Ghanaian Black, Malayan, Malaysian Chinese, Malaysian
Tamil, Polish (1-12, 1-29), and Spanish children of both sexes.
On African Black children 8 and 10 years of age measured during 1975-1976
at Soweto and in a rural area 22 km west of Rustenburg, Walker and Walker
(1977) obtained body weight averages 4.5 kg higher for 172 urban girls than 92
rural peers, and 3.5 kg higher for 165 urban boys than 87 rural peers.
B . COMPARISONS FOR EARLY ADOLESCENCE
Tables XI and XI1 pertain to the same segments of human ontogeny as Tables
111 and IV. They display urban-rural differences in average body weight of
young adolescent females (Table XI) and males (Table XII) studied between
1950 and 1980. For both sexes together, the following findings were obtained:
1. On average, early adolescent youths living at urban communities weighed

more than those inhabiting rural regions by no less than 2.0 kg (4.4 lb). The 75
urban-rural differences in Tables XI and XI1 gave an average of 2.2 kg; exclu-
sion of the Polish and Spanish differences from comparison of urban youths
favorably selected socioeconomically with rural peers (I-12,1-24) gave 2.0 kg as
the average amount by which body weight was greater in early adolescence for
urban than rural youths.
2. From statistical tests at the .01 level, 61 (81%) of the 75 comparisons in
Tables XI and XI1 allowed the inference that in early adolescence urban youths
exceeded rural coevals in average body weight. In 14 instances (19%), rejection
of the null hypothesis was untenable. The population standard deviations used in
making these tests were 6.7 kg for females and 7.7 kg for males (O’Brien et al.,
1941).
3. Averages for body weight of urban and rural young adolescents were
similar (differed less than .5 kg) on Moldavian and New Zealand White (1-5)
ethnic groups of each sex, and on female youths of Australian White (1-8, 1-30),
Mexican mestizo, Polish (1-31, 11-10), and Russian (11-4, 11-9) ethnic groups.
4. Urban young adolescents, on average, were heavier than rural peers by 2.0
kg or more for Indian (I-lo), Jamaican Black, Mexican, Polish (11-3,11-7), South
Korean, Spanish, Surinam Indonesian, and Turkish females; Chuvash and Ro-
manian males; and Bulgarian (I-14), Chinese, Costa Rican, Finnish, Ghanaian
Black, Hungarian, Lithuanian, Polish (1-1 2, 1-29, 11-7), Surinam Hindu, and
Transvaal Black youths of both sexes.
5. Young adolescents of each sex living at Bulgarian urban centers other than
Sofia are intermediate in average body weight to residents at Sofia and inhabi-
tants of Bulgarian villages (1-14, 1-15).
6. Compared with urban-rural differences for Polish female and male youths
living at and near Lublin (1-29), differences were smaller for those living at and
near Wielkopolski (I-31), and larger for well-nourished youths at Warsaw in
relation to peers at impoverished Polish villages (1- 12).
Urban-rural comparisons at biennial ages for South African Black youths

were accessible from the study by Walker and Walker (1977) cited in Section
IV,A. Averages at ages 12 and 14 years showed that 134 urban males were
heavier than 86 rural peers by 4.5 kg. From the study on Turkic Tatar males age
15 years (Goldfeld et al., 1965) cited in Section IlI,B, average body weight for
TABLE XI
Female Body Weight (Kilograms) in Early Adolescence: Average Difference in the Age
Triennium 10-13 Years between Urban and Rural Subgroups Weighed between 1950 and 1980
Sample size
Urban minus rural
1-1 French 1950 >20,000 >20.000 I .o

1-2 Austrian 1950- 1954 ca. 4600 ca. 10,700 1.5
1-4 Hungarian 1951- 1958 25 1 2402 3.0b
1-7 French 1955 >4000 >SO00 1.4
1-8 Australian White 1955 522 880 .3
11-2 Polish 1957-1958 2373 195 3.0
1-9 Finnish 1955- 1961 2313 532 2.7
1-10 Indian (India) 1957- I960 3263 I305 2.7
1-1 I Indian (India) 1957- 1960 1768 1305 1.6
1-12 Polish 1959-1960 466 ca. 250 6. I
1-13 Lithuanian 1958- 1962 469 557 3.4
1-14 Bulgarian 196&196 I 784 756 3.2
1-15 Bulgarian 1960- 1961 817 756 1.2
11-3 Polish 1 9 5 61966 640 599 2.8
1-16 Chuvash 1960- 1961 494 478 1.8
11-4 Russian 1960- 1961 394 43 1 - .1
11-15 Russian 1961-1962 935 417 I .7
11-6 Moldavian 1961- 1963 1043 1189 .I
1-17 Russian 1961- 1963 679 762 I .7
1-18 Japanese 1963 ca. 13,200 ca. 15,000 .8
11-7 Russian 1962- 1964 42 1 539 2.2
11-8 Jamaican Black I964 403 836 2.5
11-9 Russian 1964-1965 1304 ca. 3250 - .2
1-21 Surinam Creole 1964-1 965 1903 997 I .o
1-22 Surinam Hindu 1964-1965 744 355 1 2.5
1-23 Surinam Indonesian 1964- 1965 162 1254 2.4
111-1 Mexican 1965 345 181 2.5
1-24 Spanish 1963-1968 400 2 1,974 6.2b
1-25 Costa Rican 1963- I969 819 687 2.7
1-26 Ghanaian Black I 966- 1968 c. 260 c. 350 3.2
11-10 Polish 1967 389 1585 .4
111-2 Turkish 1967- I 969 638 299 5.2
1-29 Polish 1968-1972 >700 346 3.4
11- I3 Mexican mestizo 1968-1972 112 222 - .4
1-30 Australian White 1970-197 1 3949 238 - .2
1-31 Polish 1973- 1974 ca. 385 ca. 420 .2
1-32 Chinese 1975 8475 8083 2.3
1-33 South Korean 1976 264 270 2.3
11-14 Transvaal Black 1976-1978 589 755 6.4
eEach value in this column is the average of four differences, that is, urban mean minus rural mean
'The obtained difference was lowered .6 kg as approximate adjustment for earlier collection of
rural than urban data.
110
TABLE XI1
Male Body Weight (Kilograms) in Early Adolescence: Average Difference in the Age Triennium
12-15 Years between Urban and Rural Subgroups Weighed during 195s-1980
Sample size
Urban minus rural
Tag Ethnic group Time Urban Rural ( 12- I5 years)a
I- 1 French I950 >20,000 >20,000 1.2

IV- I South African White 1952-1 955 567 463 2.0
1-4 Hungarian 1951- 1958 402 1583 6.86
1-5 New Zealand White 1954 3316 2124 .I
1-6 New Zealand White 1954 I101 2124 .3
1-7 French 1955 >4000 >5000 1.1
11-2 Polish 1957-1958 1894 129 4.5
1-9 Finnish 1955-1961 2132 302 3.8
1-10 Indian (India) 1957- I960 3270 I576 1.1
1-1 I Indian (India) 1957-1960 1937 1576 1.1
1-12 Polish 1959- 1960 403 ca. 250 6.7
1-13 Lithuanian 1958- 1962 440 617 3.4
1-14 Bulgarian 1960-1961 802 725 2.5
1-15. Bulgarian 1960- I96 I 83 1 725 I .4
1-16 Chuvash 1960- 1961 420 483 2.3
11-4 Russian 1961961 405 432 I .3
11-5 Russian 1961-1962 I I28 41 I .9
11-6 Moldavian I96 1-1 963 843 I306 .4
1-17 Russian 1961- I963 747 837 I .2
1-18 Japanese I963 ca. 18,000 ca. 16,000 .9
11-7 Russian 1962- I964 538 680 I .6
IV-2 Romanian 1963-1966 >3200 >3600 4.5
1-2I Surinam Creole 1964-1965 1781 82 I I .6
1-22 Surinam Hindu 1964- I965 737 2674 3.1
1-23 Surinam Indonesian 1964- 1965 226 101 I 1.8
1-25 Costa Rican 1 9 6 s I966 709 441 5.0
1-26 Ghanaian Black 1966- I968 ca. 350 ca. 275 2.6
11-10 Polish I967 354 I I99 1.8
1-29 Polish 1968-1972 >650 295 3.6
1-30 Australian White 197cL1971 4939 354 .8
1-31 Polish 1973-1 974 ca. 380 ca. 400 1.7
1-32 Chinese 1975 8705 8264 2.8
1-33 South Korean 1976 329 258 I .8
11-14 Transvaal Black 1976- I978 591 405 5.3
aEach value in this column is the average of four differences, that is, urban mean minus rural mean
obtained difference (7.5 kg) was lowered .7 kg as estimated adjustment for earlier collection
of rural than urban data.
253 Kazan residents surpassed that for 100 village residents by 4.2 kg. Graham,
MacLean, Kallman, Rabold, and Mellits (1980), from body weight data col-
lected during 1961-1979 on “poor Peruvians” at Lima and in four northern
villages, found urban inhabitants were heavier than rural peers throughout late
childhood and early adolescence. The urban sample, compared with the rural
sample, was more heterogeneous genetically.
Corresponding rows for late childhood and early adolescence sum to 28 for
females in Tables IX and XI, and 31 for males in Tables X and XII. From the
differences in these rows it was found: During 1950-1980, averages for body
weight at urban centers typically exceeded those at rural villages by 1 . 1 kg on
each sex in late childhood and, in early adolescence, by 2.1 and 2.3 kg for
females and males, respectively. Urban-rural differences were larger by 1 .O kg
or more during early adolescence than during late childhood for Chuvash, Costa
Rican, Finnish, Hungarian, Lithuanian, Polish (1-12, 1-29), Surinam Hindu, and
Surinam Indonesian ethnic groups of both sexes; Bulgarian (I-14),Ghanaian
Black, Indian (1-101, South Korean, and Spanish female groups; and Chinese,
Indian (1-1 1). Polish (11-2), Surinam Creole, and Transvaal Black male groups.
C . COMPARISONS FOR LATE ADOLESCENCE
Findings for the period 1950-1980 on urban rural differences in average body
weight at late adolescent ages were assembled in Tables XI11 and XIV. In 19
(50%) of the 38 rows, urban youths exceeded rural peers by 1.5 kg or more.
These compared Bulgarian (I-14), Indian (I-lo), Surinam Hindu, and Transvaal
Black groups of each sex; Lithuanian, Polish (11-lo), and Romanian females; and
Bulgarian (I-15), Chinese, Costa Rican, Hungarian, Indian (1-1 l ) , Russian
(11-7), South African White, and South Korean males.
Results from significance tests at p = .01 indicated 14 (37%) of the compari-
sons did not allow rejection of the null hypothesis, and 24 (63%)allowed the
inference that during late adolescence urban youths weighed more than rural
coevals. The population standard deviations used were 6.9 and 8.9 kg for
females and males, respectively (O’Brien et al., 1941).
Obtained urban-rural differences in average body weight at late adolescent
ages were twice as large from comparisons of samples drawn at Sofia and
Bulgarian villages (1-14)than from comparison of urban samples excluding Sofia
with village samples (1-15). For each sex, this relationship was similar in late
childhood (Section IV,A) and early adolescence (Section IV,B).
Body weight findings from urban-rural comparisons in common for late child-
hood, early adolescence, and late adolescence were obtained from Tables IX
through XIV to parallel those for standing height from Tables I through VI. For
females, row identifications were “1” followed by 10, 1 1 , 13, 14, 15, 17, 18,
21, 22, 23, 25, 30, 32, and 33; and, for males, “I” followed by 10, 1 1 , 14, 15,
TABLE XIII
Female Body Weight (Kilograms) in Late Adolescence: Average Difference in the Age Biennium
15-17 Years between Urban and Rural Subgroups Weighed during 1950-1980
Sample size
Urban minus rural
Tag Ethnic group Time Urban Rural ( 15- I7 years)
~~
1-10 Indian (India) 1957- 1960 2226 600 2.7

1-11 Indian (India) 1957-1960 963 600 1.1
v- I Jamaican Black 1959 55 73 .3
1-13 Lithuanian 1958-1962 253 I70 2.5"
1-14 Bulgarian 196Gl96I 693 597 3.1
1-15 Bulgarian 196% I961 655 597 1.3
v-2 Hungarian 1961-1 963 469 476 .5
1-17 Russian 1961-1963 333 37 1 - .90
1-18 Japanese 1963 >6500 >3500 .o
11-7 Russian 1962- I964 388 497 - .4
IV-2 Romanian 1963- 1966 >2000 >2200 1.6"
1-21 Surinam Creole I 9 6 6 I965 1137 264 - .5
1-22 Surinam Hindu 1 9 6 4 I965 333 399 I .9
1-23 Surinam Indonesian I 9 6 6 I965 106 I23 .7
1-25 Costa Rican 1963- I969 505 124 .9
11-10 Polish I967 154 445 1.9
v-3 Polish 1966-1971 672 2326 I .3
1-30 Australian White l 9 7 G I97 1 I 888 I27 - .n'l
1-32 Chinese I975 6063 6016 I .4

1-33 South Korean I976 321 24 1 - 9
11-14 Transvaal Black I 976- I 978 55 1 500 4.0
"Average of differences for ages 15 and 16 years; age 17 years was not sampled
TABLE XIV
Male Body Weight (Kilograms) in Late Adolescence: Average Difference in the Age Biennium
15-17 Years between Urban and Rural Subgroups Weighed during 1950-1980
Sample size
Urban minus rural
Tag Ethnic group Time Urban Rural ( 15- I7 years)
IV-l South African White 1952- I955 360 489 i .n

VI- I Hungarian 1953-1954 135 I43 1 .o
1-10 Indian (India) 1957- 1960 2198 888 3.0
(-I 1 Indian (India) 1957-1 960 1477 888 2. I
1-14 Bulgarian 1960-1 961 537 562 3. I
1-15 Bulgarian 1960-1 961 610 562 1.5
v-2 Hungarian 1961-1 963 67 1 650 1.5
11-7 Russian 1962- I964 362 428 2.4
1-18 Japanese 1963 >7000 >4000 .a
1-21 Surinam Creole 1964-1965 1015 268 .5
1-22 Surinam Hindu 1964-1965 38 1 692 2.4
1-23 Surinam Indonesian 1 9 6 4 I965 I04 269 .6
1-25 Costa Rican 1963-1 969 357 112 5.8
11-10 Polish 1967 I52 388 .4
1-32 Chinese I975 606 1 6149 3.1
1-33 South Korean I976 39 1 206 3.0
11-14 Transvaal Black 19761978 456 25 1 3.6
18, 21, 22, 23, 25, 32, and 33, also 11-7, 11-10, and 11-14. Average amounts by
which urban residents weighed more than rural peers in the successive ontogene-
tic periods were 1 .O, 2.0, and .9 kg for females, and 1.2, 2.3, and 2.3 kg for
males. Taking each sex in turn, the pattern for body weight corresponded with
that for standing height. Consequently, the explanatory suggestion made for
standing height (Section III,C> becomes plausible for both variables.
With rows 1-12, 1-24, 1-34, 1-35, and 1-36 excluded (see Section IV,A),
average amounts by which urban inhabitants surpassed rural peers in body
weight were 1.4 kg from 50 comparisons for the 1950s, 1.4 kg from 96 compari-
sons for the 1960s, and 1.9 kg from 35 comparisons for the 1970s. In the
aggregate, averages for body weight of urban residents studied during 1950 -
1980 were greater than those for rural coevals by between 1 . 1 and 1.5 kg in late
childhood, near 2.0 kg in early adolescence, and about 1.5 kg in late adoles-
cence. For the three ontogenetic segments together, from 194 tests at the .01
level of significance it was tenable for 148 (76%)to infer that urban residents
were heavier than rural coevals. In no instance was it statistically reasonable to
infer a lower average body weight for urban than rural residents.
D. GROWTH RATE COMPARISONS FOR AGES 8-13 YEARS (FEMALES)

AND 10-15 YEARS (MALES)
Tables XV and XVI were constructed to yield statistics for body weight
corresponding to those for standing height in Tables VII and VIII. Kilogram and
percentage increments were derived using body weight means from urban and
rural samples at ages 8 and 13 years for females, 10 and 15 years for males. Each
mean was computed from data on more than 150 individuals. As noted in Section
IILD, the quinquennial periods dealt with extended similar distances into female
and male adolescence.
Tables XV and XVI indicated:
1. Means for body weight at age 8 years were lowest for Indian girls, inter-
mediate for Moldavian girls, and highest for New Zealand White girls. At age 10
years, means were distributed from below 23 kg for Indian boys, through about
21 kg for Japanese boys, to near 33 kg for New Zealand White boys.
2. Means for body weight of urban girls age 8 years were higher than those of
rural age-sex peers by amounts varying from .1 to 1.4 kg, and averaging .9 kg.
Corresponding differences for boys age 10 years averaged .9 kg, and varied from
- . I to 2.0 kg.
3. Typical increases in body weight between ages 8 and 13 years were near 18
kg for urban females, and 17 kg for rural females. Between ages 10 and 15 years,
typical increases were near 20 and 19 kg for urban and rural males, respectively.
4. On Bulgarian, Chinese, Indian, and Surinam Hindu ethnic groups, kilo-
TABLE XV
Means and Gains in Female Body Weight: Sample Size at Age 8 Years, Mean at Age 8 Years, Kilogram Gain from 8 to 13 Years, and Percentage
Gain from 8 to 13 Years for Urban and Rural Females Weighed during 1950-1980
~ ~~
Gain (kilograms):
Sample size: age 8 years Mean: age 8 years 8-1 3 years Gain (%): 8-13 years
I- 1 French >20000 >2000a 23.4 22.8 17.0 16.4 72.6 71.9

1-5 New Zealand White 809 5536 26.5 26.4 20.0 20.1 75.5 76.1
I
I
1-10 Indian (India) 7856 369c 18.7 17.6 13.8 11.2 73.8 63.6
wl
1-14 Bulgarian 207" 173' 25.0 23.9 20.8 18.2 83.2 76.2
11-6 Moldavian 227" 236~ 23.1 22.2 13.9 14.7 60.2 66.2
1-17 Russian 168< 183r 23.9 22.5 18.4 17.8 77.0 79.1
1-18 Japanese >2000" >30ma 22. I 21.4 18.4 18.1 83.3 84.6
1-21 Surinam Creole 5106 325< 23.4 22.8 19.5 18.7 83.3 82.0
1-22 Surinam Hindu 179r 11 196 20.9 19.8 17.5 15.0 83.7 75.8
1-32 Chinese 2093 21010 21.4 20.1 15.2 13.7 71 .O 68.2
asample size at age 13 years more than 2000.

bSample size at age 13 years between 500 and 900.
CSamplesize at age 13 years between 170 and 340.
TABLE XVI
Means and Gains in Male Body Weight: Sample Size at Age 10 Years, Mean at Age 10 Years, Kilogram Gain from 10 to 15 Years, and Percentage
Gain from 10 to 15 Years for Urban and Rural Males Weighed during 195G1980
Gain (kilograms):
Sample size: age 10 years Mean: age 10 years 10-15 years Gain (%): 1G15 years
-
Q\
1-1
1-5
French
New Zealand White
2Q00'7
8186
2000~
5636
28.6
32.7
27.8
32.8
17.1
22.8
16.7
23.0
61.9
69.7
60.1
70.1
1-10 Indian (India) 7596 3246 22.7 21.7 14.6 13.3 64.3 61.3
1-14 Bulgarian 210'- 186c 31.0 29.0 22.2 20.8 71.6 71.7
1-17 Russian l5gC 193c 29.2 28.5 22.5 22.1 77.1 77.5
1-18 Japanese 2500a 35000 27.3 26.6 22.3 22.1 81.7 83.1
1-22 Surinam Hindu 206c 1026c 25.3 24.2 18.4 15.6 12.7 64.5
1-32 Chinese 2026* 2093a 26.2 24.9 18.2 16.2 69.5 65.1
~
4arnple size at age 15 years more than 1200.

%irnple size at age 15 years between 450 and 900.
'-Sample size at age 15 years between 150 and 400.
Urban-Rural Differences in Human Body Growth I17
gram gains for urban females and males exceeded those for rural peers of like sex
by more than 1 .O kg. Japanese, New Zealand White, and Russian ethnic groups
of each sex showed little or no difference between the kilogram gains for urban
and rural subgroups. In each of the quinquennia studied, the average amount by
which urban residents gained more than rural peers was 1. I kg.
5. Expressed in relation to means for body weight at age 8 years, increments in
body weight between ages 8 and 13 years varied from about 60 (Moldavian urban
females) to 85% (Japanese rural females). Average increments between ages 10
and 15 years were spread from 60 (French rural males) to 83% (Japanese rural
males).
6. Average percentage increases were greater for urban than rural residents of
the following ethnic groups: Chinese, Indian, and Surinam Hindu females and
males; Bulgarian females; and French males. Similar percentage increases were
obtained for New Zealand White residents of both sexes; and percentage in-
creases were less for urban than rural Japanese females and males, and Molda-
vian and Russian females.
Overall, large samples studied between 1950 and 1980 showed that in many
ethnic groups, but with some exceptions, kilogram and percentage growth rates
from late childhood to middle adolescence were higher among urban than rural
females and males.
From data for body weight and standing height accumulated on Japanese
children at ages from 6 to 14 years, Yoshimura (1979) found that 757 urban
residents “slightly surpassed” 321 rural peers in “average growth rate.”
V. Differences in Chest Girth

Tables XVII and XVIII were constructed to show average amounts by which,
in late childhood, urban girls and boys measured between 1950 and 1980 were
larger or smaller than rural coevals in chest girth (thoracic circumference). Sam-
ple descriptions and sources were provided in Section III,A.
These tables revealed no predominant direction of urban-rural differences in
chest size during late childhood. Average chest girth of urban children, com-
pared with that of rural peers, was larger by 1 .O cm or more in five instances, and
smaller by 1 .O cm or more in four instances. Differences fell within the limits of
- 0.7 and 0.7 cm for 67% of the female comparisons, and 75% of the male
comparisons. The 35 sex-specific differences gave a composite average near
zero.
Inferences allowable from significance tests at p = .01, using 3.8 cm as

population standard deviations (Goldfeld et al., 1965), were as follows:
1. Average chest girth for each sex was larger at Budapest than in Hungarian
rural areas (I-4), at Sofia than in Bulgarian villages (1-14), and at Wielkopolski
than in a nearby Polish rural district (1-31).
2. At Lublin, compared with Polish villages, average chest girth was larger for
girls, but not for boys (1-29).
3. At major Indian cities, compared with Indian rural districts, average chest
girth was larger for girls and smaller for boys (1-10).
4. For each sex, average chest girth was smaller at Modena than in an Italian
rural region (1-3).
5 . In Chinese, Russian (I-17), and South Korean comparisons, for neither sex
was rejection of the null hypothesis warranted. Overall, 16 differences were not
statistically significant, 10 were in the urban-larger-than-rural direction, and 9
were in the urban-smaller-than-rural direction,
Although tenable on statistical grounds, several of the foregoing inferences

(e.g., inferences 2 and 3, or 1 and 4) appear unlikely biologically. Discussion on
TABLE XVII
Female Chest Girth (Centimeters) in Late CHildhood: Average Difference in the Age Triennium
from 7 to 10 Years between Urban and Rural Girls Measured during 1950-1980
Sample size
Urban minus rural
1-3 Italian 1950-1958 796 >450 -2.0

1-4 Hungarian 195 1- 1958 225 2257 .I
1-10 Indian (India) 1957-1960 1309 188 1.5
1-11 Indian (India) 1957- 1960 999 188 .8
1-12 Polish 1959-1960 446 ca. 250 .7
1-13 Lithuanian 1958- 1962 470 419 - .6
I- 14 Bulgarian 1960-196 1 807 717 I .3
1-15 Bulgarian 1960-1961 81 1 717 .2
1-16 Chuvash 1960-1961 487 484 - .6
1-17 Russian 196 1- 1963 613 674 .2
1-27 Indian (India) 1964-1970 1278 1654 - .6
1-29 Polish 1968- I972 >700 345 1.1
1-31 Polish 1973-1974 ca. 385 ca. 420 .7
1-32 Chinese I975 8394 8361 .o
1-33 South Korean I976 I94 230 .6
"Each value in this column is the average of four differences (see Table 1, footnote a ) .
TABLE XVIII
Male Chest Girth (Centimeters) in Late Childhood: Average Difference in the Age Triennium
from 8 to I 1 Years between Urban and Rural Boys Measured during 195&1980
Sample size
Urban minus rural
Tag Ethnic group Time Urban Rural (8-1 1 yearsp
1-3 Italian 195Q- 1958 1425 >450 -2.0

1-4 Hungarian 1951-1958 249 2592 1.5
1-10 Indian (India) 1957-1 960 1469 840 -1.0
1-1 1 Indian (India) 1957- 1960 1432 840 - .5
1-12 Polish 1959- I960 443 ca. 250 .o
1-13 Lithuanian 1958- 1962 497 528 - .7
1-14 Bulgarian 196&1961 819 735 .6
1-15 Bulgarian I 9 6 C I96 I 833 735 .2
1-16 Chuvash 1960-196 1 497 487 - .7
11-4 Russian 196Q-I961 44 I 430 - .5
11-5 Russian 1961- 1962 878 400 -2.8
11-6 Moldavian I 96 1- 1963 1021 968 - .4
1-17 Russian 1961- 1963 672 748 - .2
11-7 Russian 1962- 1964 45 1 532 .4
11-9 Russian 1 9 6 4 1965 1078 (:a. 3100 - .4
11-1 I Kirghiz 1967-1970 ca. 380 242 1.3
1-29 Polish 1968- I 972 >650 345 .5
1-31 Polish 1973-1974 ca. 380 ca. 400 .6
1-32 Chinese 1975 8268 8379 - .1
1-33 South Korean 1976 I87 246 .I
~~
OEach value in this column is the average of four differences (see Table 11, footnote a)
shortcomings of chest girth comparisons will be postponed pending presentation

of findings on urban-rural differences in chest girth during adolescence.
B. COMPARISONS FOR ADOLESCENCE
Statistics were brought together in Tables XIX and XX on urban-rural dif-

ferences in average chest girth during early adolescence. From significance tests
at p = .01, using population standard deviations of 4.6 cm for females and 5.0
cm for males (Goldfeld et al., 1965), consistencies and discrepancies were as
follows:
1. Chest girth was larger for each sex at Budapest than in Hungarian villages
(I-4), at Frunze than in the Kirov rural district (11-1 l), at Lublin than in nearby
rural areas (I-29), at Chinese cities than in adjacent rural regions (I-32), and at
Seoul than in rural areas of Naju-Gun (1-33). Chest girth was smaller for each sex
at Kalinin than in nearby rural locations (11-5).
TABLE XIX
Female Chest Girth (Centimeters) in Early Adolescence: Average Difference in the Age Period
10-13 Years between Urban and Rural Subgroups Measured during 1950-1980
Sample size
Urban minus rural
Tag Ethnic group Time Urban Rural (1C-13 years)O
1-4 Hungarian 1951-1958 25 1 2568 2.5

1-10 Indian (India) 1957-1960 1092 183 3.4
1-11 Indian (India) 1957-1960 920 183 2.7
1-12 Polish 1959-1 960 466 ca. 250 1.4
I- 13 Lithuanian 1958- 1962 469 555 .5
1-14 Bulgarian 1960- 1961 794 764 1.3
1- 15 Bulgarian 196C-1961 819 764 .4
1-16 Chuvash 1960-1961 494 478 .1
11-4 Russian 1960-1 96 1 393 43 1 - .5
11-5 Russian 1961-1 962 935 417 -3.4
11-6 Moldavian 1961- 1963 1043 1083 1.1
1-17 Russian 1961- 1963 679 762 .3
11-7 Russian 1962- 1964 42 1 539 .8
11-9 Russian 1964- 1965 1304 (:a. 3250 - .2
11-11 Kirghiz 1967- 1970 ca. 380 239 3.7
1-29 Polish 1968- 1972 >700 346 1 .o
1-31 Polish 1973- 1974 ca. 385 ca. 420 - .5
1-32 Chinese 1975 8475 8083 .7
1-33 South Korean 1976 265 270 1 .o
"Same method as in Table 111, footnote a.
2. For Polish (1-12), Bulgarian (1-14, 1-15), and Moldavian (11-6) ethnic
groups, chest girth was larger on urban than rural residents of one sex, but not the
other.
3. Urban-rural differences were not statistically significant for either sex in
Lithuanian (I- 13), Chuvash (I- 16), and Polish (1-3 I) comparisons.
4. In one Indian comparison (I-lo), chest girth was larger for urban than rural
females, but smaller for urban than rural males; in another (1-1 I), chest girth was
larger for urban than rural females, but not different for urban and rural males.
Varying outcomes from Polish comparisons were obtained in 1-12, 1-29, and
1-31.
The average of the 39 differences in Tables XIX and XX was .7 cm. Sixteen
differences were not significant statistically, 18 were in the direction of urban
chest girth larger than rural, and 5 in the direction of urban chest girth smaller
than rural.
The number of urban-rural comparisons in common for late childhood and
early adolescence was 13 for females, and 18 for males. Row identifications in
Urban-Rural Dixerences in Human Body Growth 121
Tables XVII and XIX were “I” followed by 4 , 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17,
29, 31, 32, and 33; and in Tables XVIII and XX, the same “I” tags plus 11-4,
11-5, 11-6, 11-7, and 11-1 1. Pooling for sex, and averaging the two series of 31
differences gave .2 and .8 cm as amounts by which chest girth of urban residents
exceeded that of rural peers late childhood and early adolescence, respectively.
After insertion of Table XXI, joint examination of Tables XIX, XX, and XXI
showed:
I . During early and late adolescence, Bulgarian, Kirghiz, and Polish females
surpassed rural coevals in average chest girth by 1.0 cm or more (1-12, 1-14,
11-1 1). Similarly, throughout adolescence urban males in China and South Korea
were larger than rural coevals in average chest girth by 1 .O cm or more.
2 . Urban-rural differences in early and late adolescence were near zero for
Indian, Russian, and South African White males (1-1 1, 1-17, 11-7, IV-I). Lithua-
nian urban and rural females had similar average chest girths in early adoles-
cence, but in late adolescence average chest girth was smaller for urban than
TABLE XX
Male Chest Girth (Centimeters) in Early Adolescence: Average Difference in the Age Period
12-15 Years between Urban and Rural Subgroups Measured during 1950-1980
Sample size
Urban minus rural
1-4 Hungarian I95 1- 1958 402 I583 5.0

IV- I South African White 1952- 1955 305 400 - .I
1-10 Indian (India) 1957- 1960 I I59 736 - 1.6
1-1 I Indian (India) 1957- I960 1450 736 .o
1-12 Polish 195% 1960 403 ca. 250 .8
1-13 Lithuanian 1958- 1962 440 617 .o
1-14 Bulgarian 1960- 1961 748 77 I .6
1-15 Bulgarian 1960- I961 848 77 1 .8
1-16 Chuvash 1960-1961 420 483 - .6
11-4 Russian 196C-1961 405 432 -1.0
11-5 Russian 1961- I962 1128 41 I -1.7
11-6 Moldavian 1961-1 963 849 1395 .4
1-17 Russian 1961-1963 747 837 - .9
11-7 Russian 1962- I964 538 681 - .3
IV-2 Romanian 1963- 1966 >3200 >3600 2.2
11-1 I Kirghiz 1967- I970 ca. 380 243 2.4
1-29 Polish 1968-1972 >650 295 1.4
1-31 Polish 1973-1974 ca. 380 ca. 400 .5
1-32 Chinese 1975 8705 8264 I .o
1-33 South Korean 1976 329 258 I .9
<”Same method as in Table IV. footnote a .

TABLE XXI
Chest Girth of Both Sexes (Centimeters) in Late Adolescence: Average Difference in the
Biennium from 15 to 17 Years between Urban and Rural Youths Measured during 1950-1980
Sample size
Urban minus rural
Sex Tag Ethnic group Time Urban Rural (15-17 years)
Female
1-12 Polish 1959-1960 297 ca. 50 I .8"
1-13 Lithuanian 1958- 1962 253 171 -2.Od
1-14 Bulgarian 1960-1961 694 596 2.7
1-15 Bulgarian 1960-196 I 857 596 1.1
1-17 Russian 1961- 1963 333 37 1 - .I"
11-7 Russian 1962- 1964 388 497 - .4
IV-2 Romanian 1963- 1966 ca. 2000 ca. 2300 .7a
11-1I Kirghiz 1967- 1970 ca. 285 I 80 2.0
1-32 Chinese 1975 6063 6016 - .2
1-33 South Korean 1976 32 1 24 I -2.4
Male
IV- 1 South African White 1952-1955 234 449 - .2
v1- 1 Hungarian 1953- 1954 I32 143 1.1
1-10 Indian (India) 1957-1960 762 34 1 - .3
1-1 1 Indian (India) 1957- 1960 I060 34 I .5
1-12 Polish 1959- 1960 303 ca. 100 1.8
1-14 Bulgarian 1960-1961 539 564 1.1
1-15 Bulgarian 1960-196 I 612 564 I .o
11-7 Russian 1962-1964 362 428 .4
11-1 1 Kirghiz 1967- 1970 ca. 285 174 .5
1-32 Chinese 1975 6061 6149 1.3
1-33 South Korean 1976 387 206 3.1
"Average of differences at ages 15 and 16 years; age 17 years not sampled.
rural females (1-13). For South Korean females, differences were in opposite
directions at early and late adolescent ages.
For seven groups of females (I-12,1-13, I-14,1-15,1-17,1-32,1-33) and nine

groups of males (same tags except with deletion of 1-13 and 1-17, and addition of
1-10, 1-11, 11-7, and 11-1 1) differences were available for late childhood, early
adolescence, and late adolescence. On average, urban inhabitants had larger
chest girths than rural peers by .2, .7, and .7 cm for the three successive peri-
ods. Differences were consistently above 1.0 cm for Bulgarian females (1-14);
consistently near zero for Russian females at and near Barnaul(1-17) and Russian
males at and near Stavropol(I1-7); and varied from near zero to more than 1.O cm
for Lithuanian females (I-13), Chinese males (I-32), and South Korean males
(1-33).
It appears reasonable to posit that substantial knowledge regarding differences

in the thoracic size of urban and rural children and youths is largely a matter for
future acquisition. Present limitations include the following:
1. Compared with the number of studies available for standing height and
body weight, the number was much smaller for girth of the chest.
2. Several different methods were used in determining chest girth (see Mere-
dith, 1969a, 1969b): some of them no doubt fell short of yielding high reliability
(Marshall, 1937; Meredith, 1960). Moreover, systematic error may have had a
confounding effect in a few comparisons inadvertently based on urban and rural
records from differing methods.
3. Often the procedure used in taking chest girth was not indicated. Rarely
were there statements on (a) the training measurers received, ( b )whether urban
and rural measurers-also measurers of females and males-were trained simi-
larly, and (c) whether ongoing surveillance sought to maintain like procedure in
measuring both sexes at town and country locations.
VI. Differences in Other Somatic Variables

A. COMPARISONS FOR SIZE OF HEAD, TRUNK, AND LIMBS IN
CHILDHOOD
Table XXII was constructed to display urban-rural differences in sitting

height and eight dimensions of the head, trunk, and limbs. The assembling of
materials began with sitting height, then proceeded from head, through trunk, to
upper and lower limbs.
With two exceptions, sources and sample descriptions were supplied in Sec-
tions III,A and B. The exceptions:
Tag X X U - I . Data collected during 1958-1960 at schools in “the central

region of Shizuoka” and “rural communities located in the peripheral region”
(Yamada, Hara, & Mitsuhashi, 1972). Composite samples were 11 15 urban
girls, 400 rural girls, 1308 urban boys, and 432 rural boys
Tag X X l l - 2 . Polish records gathered in 1959 at Warsaw, and during 1964 -
1965 in the Suwalki and Ostroleka districts (Wolanski & PyEuk, 1973; N .
Wolariski, personal communication, 1980). The late childhood samples were
193 and 222 for upper limb length of rural females and males, 108 and 132 for
foot length of rural females and males, and 446 and 444 for both measures of
urban children. Corresponding numbers (applicable to Table XXIII) were 223,
72, 124, 37, 466, and 315 in early adolescence, and 245, 78, 113,43,403, and
303 in late adolescence.
TABLE XXII
Head, Trunk, and Limb Measures (Centimeters) in Late Childhood: Average Difference 7-10
Years (Girls) and 8-1 1 Years (Boys) between Urban and Rural Children Studied during
1950-1980
~ ~~
Urban minus rural0
Measure Tag Ethnic group Time Girls 7-10 years Boys 8-1 1 years
Sitting height 1-10 Indian (India) 1957-1960 I .7 1.5

1-1 I Indian (India) 1957-1960 I .3 1.1
XXII-1 Japanese 1958-1 960 .4 .4
1-14 Bulgarian 1960-1 961 1.4 1.7
1-15 Bulgarian 1960-1961 .4 .I
1-31 Polish 1973-1974 1.4 1.o
1-32 Chinese 1975 1.9 2.0
1-33 South Korean 1976 1.6 1.6
Head Girth 1-10 Indian (India) 1957-1960 1 .o .2

1-11 Indian (India) 1957-1960 .4 .2
XXII-I Japanese 1958-1960 .3 .1
1-14 Bulgarian 1960-1961 .4 .5
1-15 Bulgarian 1960-1 961 .o .o
1-32 Chinese 1975 .3 .3
1-33 South Korean 1976 .2 .8
Biacromial XXII-I Japanese 195% 1960 .2 .3
shoulder width 1-12 Polish 1959-1960 .9 1 .o
1-14 Bulgarian 1960-196 1 .3 .5
1-15 Bulgarian 1960-1961 .I .o
1-30 Australian White 1970-197 1 .I .4
1-31 Polish 1973-1 974 .o .2
1-33 South Korean 1976 .4 .3
Biiliocristal hip 1-10 Indian (India) 1957-1960 .7 .4
width 1-11 Indian (India) 1957-1960 .6 .6
I- 14 Bulgarian 1960- 1961 .3 .3
1-15 Bulgarian 1960-1961 .2 .o
1-3I Polish 1973-1974 .o .2
1-33 South Korean 1976 .4 .3
Upper lip length 1-14 Bulgarian 1960-196 I 1.1 1.5

1-15 Bulgarian 1960-196 1 .8 .6
XXII-2 Polish 1959-1965 1.8 1.2
1-31 Polish 1973-1974 .9 .6
Arm girth 1-14 Bulgarian 1960- 1961 .7 .8
1-15 Bulgarian 1960-1 961 .2 .2
11- 13 Mexican mestizo 1968- I972 - .6
1-33 --South Korean 1976 .9 I .o
(coarinued)
124
Urban-Rural Dixerences in Human Body Growth I25
TABLE XXll (Continued)

~~
Urban minus rural"
Measure Tag Ethnic group Time Girls 7-10 years Boys 8-1 I years
Lower limb 1-10 Indian (India) 1957- I960 .3 .6

length 1-1 1 Indian (India) 1957- I960 .5 .4
XXII- I Japanese 1958- 1960 1.3 .9
1-14 Bulgarian I96G 196I I .9 I .9
1-15 Bulgarian I96G196 I 1.1 1.8
1-3I Polish 1973- 1974 .4 I.3
1-32 Chinese 1975 3.3 3. I
1-33 South Korean I976 1.5 I .9
Thigh girth 11-3 Polish 1956- I966 - 2.2
1-14 Bulgarian I96& I96 I 2.3 2.6
1-15 Bulgarian l96ckl961 I.o .7
Foot length 1-14 Bulgarian 196G1961 .5 .6
1-15 Bulgarian 1960- I961 .I .o
XXII-2 Polish 1959-1965 .7 .5
<"Each value in these two columns is the average of four differences, that is. see Table I. footnote
u. and Table 11, footnote a .
Pooling differences for the two sexes, Table XXII showed:
1 . During late childhood, average amounts by which urban children exceeded

rural children were 1.8 cm for thigh girth, 1.3 cm for lower limb length, I .2 cm
for sitting height, I . 1 cm for upper limb length, .6 cm for arm girth, .4 cm for
foot length. and . 3 cm for head girth, shoulder width, and hip width.
2 . Among the 98 specific comparisons, 56 (57%) showed urban children
larger than rural coevals by .5 cm or more. In no instance were urban girls or
boys smaller than rural peers by .5 cm or more.
3. The 40 comparisons for sitting height, upper limb length, and lower limb
length included 26 (65%) where urban children exceeded rural coevals by 1 .O cm
or more, and 7 (17%) where differences were in the same direction by .5 to .9
cm. For the 7 comparisons remaining, differences were between - .4 and .4
cm .
4. Among the 58 comparisons for head girth, shoulder width, hip width, arm
girth, thigh girth, and foot length, 23 (40%) registered somatic averages higher
for urban than rural children by .5 cm or more. In 35 comparisons (60%), values
were between .O and .4 cm, indicating little or no urban-rural difference.
5. For each of the nine somatic dimensions, the Bulgarian differences from
comparing Sofia and village children were larger than those from comparing
children at urban centers other than Sofia with village peers.
Mitchell (1932), from the h e r t o Rican “ten-year-old’’ study described in the

last paragraph of Section III,A, obtained means higher for urban than rural
children by 1.4 cm in arm girth and .7 cm in hip width.
B. COMPARISONS FOR SIZE OF HEAD, TRUNK, AND LIMBS IN

ADOLESCENCE
Urban-rural differences listed in Table XXIII revealed the following:
1. During early adolescence (10-13 years, females; 12-15 years, males), the
average amount by which urban residents surpassed rural peers were 2.2 cm for
thigh girth, 1.7 cm for sitting height and lower limb length, 1.3 cm for upper
limb length, .7 cm for arm girth, .6 cm for shoulder width, .5 cm for head girth
and foot length, and .4 cm for hip width. Corresponding values for late adoles-
cence were 1.7, 1.8, 1.1, 1.4, .7, .6, .7, .3, and .4 cm, respectively.
2. Among the 194 comparisons for early and late adolescence, 135 (70%)
showed youths living at urban centers exceeded those living in rural districts
by .5 to 3.9 cm. Urban and rural groups were similar (differences between - .4
and .4 cm) in 56 paired comparisons, and in 3 instances (less than 2%) urban
averages were lower than those for rural peers (- .5 to - .7 cm).
3. Forty-nine (64%) of the 76 comparisons for sitting height, upper limb
length, and lower limb length indicated urban adolescent youths surpassed their
rural coevals by 1.0 cm or more. An additional 19 (25%) were in the same
direction yielding differences from .5 to .9 cm.
4. Among the 52 comparisons for head girth, arm girth, and thigh girth, urban
and rural adolescent youths were similar in 17 instances (differences between
- .2 and .4 cm), and in 35 instances (67%) averages for urban youths exceeded
those for rural peers by .5 to 3.0 cm. For shoulder width, hip width, and foot
length, urban-rural differences were between - .6 and .4 cm in 32 instances,
and between .5 and 1.9 cm in 34 instances.
Taking late childhood, early adolescence, and late adolescence together (Ta-
bles XXII and XXIII), urban females and males measured during 1975 on main-
land China (1-32) were larger than rural peers by 2.3 cm in sitting height and 2.6
cm in lower limb length. Average differences in the same direction were 2.0 cm
for sitting height, 1.6 cm for lower limb length, and 1.1 cm for upper limb length
from data collected during 1960-1961 at Sofia and Bulgarian villages (1-14); 1.9
cm for sitting height, 1.1 cm for lower limb length, and .5 cm for hip width from
TABLE XXIII
Head, Trunk, and Limb Measures (Centimeters) in Early and Late Adolescence: Average Difference between Urban and Rural Youths of Each Sex
Studied during 1950-1980
Females: urban minus rural Males: urban minus rural
Measure Tag Ethnic group 10-13 years 15-17 years 12-15 years 15-1 7 years
Sitting height 1-10 Indian (India) 2.4 2.5 1.2 2.2

1-1 1 Indian (India) 1.9 1.8 1.2 2.0
1-14 Bulgarian 2.2 2.0 2.6 2.2
1-15 Bulgarian .9 .5 .9 .5
IV-l South African White - .o .6
IV-2 Romanian - 1.40 2.4 3.20
1-3I Polish -- .3 - 1.7 -
1-32 Chinese 2.5 1.7 2.9 3.1
1-33 South Korean 2.2 .7 2.6 2.9
Head girth 1-10 Indian (India) 1.6 2.1 .1 .9
1-1 1 Indian (India) .7 1 .o .3 .8
1-14 Bulgarian .6 .5 .6 .9
1-15 Bulgarian .2 - .I .4 .3
1-32 Chinese .4 - .2 .5 .7
1-33 South Korean .4 .7 .6 .6
Biacromial shoulder 1-12 Polish 1.3 .5 I .5 1.9
width 1-14 Bulgarian .7 .4 .6 1 .o
1-15 Bulgarian .4 .7 .2 .6
IV-2 Romanian - .2a 1.3 .9a
1-30 Australian White - .4 - .4= .5 .7a
1-31 Polish - .I - .3 -
1-33 South Korean .8 - .2 .8 1 .o
TABLE X W I (Conrinued)
Females: urban minus rural Males: urban minus rural
Measure Tag Ethnic group 1&13 years 15-17 years 12-15 years 15-17 years
Biiliocristal hip 1-10 Indian (India) 1.1 1.3 .s 8

width 1-11 Indian (India) .8 .9 .4 .8
1-12 Polish .6 - .s .o - .I
1-14 Bulgarian .2 - .6 .o .o
1-15 Bulgarian .2 .2 .2 .2
Iv-2 Romanian - .3a 1.0 1.1a
1-31 Polish .2 .2 -
1-33 South Korean .8 .3 .4 .5
Lower limb length 1-14 Bulgarian 1.3 .6 .9 1.3
1-15 Bulgarian .9 .4 .9 .8
XXII-I Polish 2.3 1.6 .6 3.9
1-31 Polish .I - .s -
Arm girth 1-14 Bulgarian .9 .8 .8 .9
1-15 Bulgarian .2 .O .4 .3
IV-2 Romanian - .4" 1.7 1.7"
11-13 Mexican mestizo .2b - -
1-33 South Korean .8 .o .8 1.6
Lower limb length I- 10 Indian (India) 1.3 1.1 .5 2.1
1-11 Indian (India) .4 - .7 .4 1.5
I- 14 Bulgarian 2.3 .6 1.1 1.7
1-15 Bulgarian 1.8 .3 I .5 1.4
IV-1 South African White - .5 .5
IV-2 Romanian - .8 3.6 3.5
1-31 Polish 2.1 - I .6
1-32 Chinese 3.3 1 .o 2.9 2.0
1-33 South Korean 1.9 - .2 1.3 .1
-
N
Thigh girth 11-3 Polish 2.7 - - -
\o 1-14 Bulgarian 3.0 2.1 2.5 2.2
1-15 Bulgarian 1.4 .I .6 .3
IV-2 Romanian I .5" 2.8 2.5"
Foot length 1-14 Bulgarian .6 .4 .6 .I
1-15 Bulgarian .1 .I .o .o
XXII- 1 Polish .7 .o 1.1 .5
~ ~~
"Averages for ages 15 and 16 years only; age 17 years not sampled.
bThe average for urban girls surpassed that for a rural subgroup of 89 "Zapotec-speaking" girls by .8 cm.
I30 Howard V . Meredith
measures taken in South Korea during 1976 (1-33); and 1.9 cm for sitting height,
1.0 cm for lower limb length, and .8 cm for hip width from data amassed
between 1957 and 1960 in India (1-10). From the South Korean study, calf girth
was greater for urban than rural subgroups by .9 cm in late childhood, 1.2 cm in
early adolescence, and 1.1 cm (less for females than males) in late adolescence.
Pryor and Trelander (1972) analyzed measures of the head and trunk taken in
1968 on Mexican mestizo children and youths at Oaxaca City and at rural
locations “in or near Mitla and Chiapas.” Using data at ages between 7 and 15
years on 332 urban and 368 rural residents, they generalized that urban residents
exceeded rural in “cephalic circumference, length and breadth of head . . . bi-
iliac diameter, and . . . sitting height,” whereas rural residents “had deeper and
wider chests than urban” residents. Supporting statistics were not given. Be-
sides, the urban and rural samples were not ethnically similar: the urban subjects
had primarily Spanish progenitors, and the rural subjects predominantly Amerin-
dian progenitors.
VII. Summary
The objective was to assemble and synthesize, for the three decades between
1950 and 1980, research on urban-rural differencesin body size and growth rate
during late childhood, early adolescence, and late adolescence. Urban-rural
comparisons, specific for sex, were made for standing height, body weight, chest
girth, sitting height, head girth, shoulder width, hip width, upper limb length,
arm girth, lower limb length, thigh girth, and foot length. The investigations
drawn upon were conducted in Australia, Austria, Bulgaria, China (People’s
Republic), Chuvash S.S.R., Costa Rica, East Germany, Finland, France,
Ghana, Greece, Hungary,India, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Kirghiz S.S.R, Lithua-
nian S.S.R., Malaya, Mexico, Moldavian S.S.R., New Zealand, Peru, Poland,
Romania, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Surinam, Tatar S.S.R., Tunisia,
Turkey, the Soviet Union (other than minority republics), and the United States.
Thirty-six comparisons for girls (ages 7 to 10 years) and more than 40 for boys
(ages 8 to 11 years) provided a base for generalizing that, on average, in the
period 1950-1980 urban girls and boys at late childhood ages exceeded their
rural peers by nearly 2.5 cm ( 1 .O in.) in standing height, and 1.1 kg (2.5 lb) in
body weight. Average urban-rural differences in height and weight were 1.6 cm
and .9kginthe 1950s,2.5cmand 1.1 kginthe 1960s,and3.6cmand 1.5kgin
the 1970s.
Close to 80% of the late childhood comparisons showed that urban children
surpassed rural coevals in average standing height by 1.0 cm or more, and in
average body weight by .5 kg or more. For height and weight, respectively,
urban and rural averages were practically alike on White children of each sex in
Urban-Rural Direrences in Human Body Growth 131
New South Wales and New Zealand, mestizo boys in Mexico, and Moldavian
boys in the Soviet Union.
More than 40 comparisons for females (ages 10 to 13 years) and 35 for males
(ages 12 to 15 years) supported the generalization that, on average, in the period
1950-1980 urban youths at early adolescent ages surpassed rural coevals by 2.9
cm (1.2 in.) in standing height, and 2.0 kg (4.4 Ib) in body weight. Urban young
adolescents were larger than rural peers by 2.0 cm or more in 67% of 78
comparisons for height, and by 1.0 kg or more in 77% of 75 comparisons for
weight. Urban and rural averages for Australian White, French, and Moldavian
youths of each sex differed less than .9 cm in height; differences in weight were
less than .9 kg for Australian White, Moldavian, and New Zealand White youths
of each sex.
In late adolescence (ages 15 to 17 years) 22 comparisons for height and 21 for
weight showed female urban youths were taller and heavier than rural coevals by
1.7 cni and 1 .O kg. Corresponding differences from 18 to 17 comparisons for late
adolescent males were 3.1 cm and 2.2 kg. For the early and late adolescent
periods together, average amounts by which urban youths surpassed rural peers
in height and weight were 2.5 cm and 2.1 kg in the 195Os, 2.8 cm and 1.8 kg in
the 1960s, and 2.7 cm and 2.2 kg in the 1970s. These averages for successive
decades were derived from 31, 67, and 20 comparisons for height, and slightly
fewer for weight.
Differences for standing height and body weight in late childhood, early
adolescence, and late adolescence were evaluated statistically at p = .01.
Among 203 significance tests for height, 82% allowed the inference that urban
children and youths were taller than rural coevals, 1% allowed the reverse
inference, and 17% did not meet the criterion for rejecting the null hypothesis.
Among 194 significance tests for weight, 76% allowed the inference that urban
children and youths were heavier than rural peers, and 24% did not allow rejec-
tion of the null hypothesis.
Comparisons in common for late childhood, early adolescence, and late ado-
lescence were compiled on females residing in Bulgaria, China (People’s Re-
public), Costa Rica, India, Japan, Lithuania, New South Wales, Poland, South
Korea, the Soviet Union, and Surinam. Taking the three periods consecutively,
averages from these urban-rural comparisor,s were 2.0, 2.9, and 1.8 cm for
standing height, and 1.0, 2.0, and .9 kg for body weight. Were pubescent
increases in height and weight velocity, on average, timed earlier among urban
than rural youths, these findings of greater urban-rural differences in early
adolescence than in late childhood and late adolescence would be expected.
Large samples studied in China, Europe, India, Japan, New Zealand, and
Surinam gave typical increments in standing height for the quinquennium be-
tween ages 8 and 13 years near 27.5 cm for urban females and 26.5 cm for rural
females. Increments in body weight of urban and rural males for the quinquen-
nium between ages 10 and 15 years were near 20 and 19 kg, respectively. For a
few groups, urban and rural increments were almost alike, for example, gains in
standing height (centimeters) and body weight (kilograms) of Japanese females
and males.
Among 35 urban-rural comparisons for chest girth in late childhood, 71% fell
between -.7 cm and .7 cm; the average difference was near zero. Among 60
comparisons for early and late adolescence, 42% showed chest girth greater for
urban than rural youths by 1.O cm or more, and 10% showed a difference of 1.O
cm or more in the opposite (negative) direction. Limitations of the aggregate
findings on urban-rural differences in chest girth were discussed.
Measurements taken during 1950- 1980 in late childhood and adolescence
showed urban residents surpassing rural peers, on average, by 1.9 cm in thigh
girth, 1.6 cm in sitting height, 1.4 cm in lower limb length, 1.3 cm in upper limb
length, .7 cm in arm girth, .5 cm in head girth and shoulder width, and .4 cm in
hip width and foot length. These values resulted from averaging 17 (thigh girth)
to 45 (sitting height, lower limb length) urban-rural differences.
In several ways the 1950-1980 studies drawn upon fell short of providing a
collection of rigorously similar urban-rural comparisons. Urban centers used in
different studies had populations above 1000 (I-20), between 5000 and 100.000
(I-ll), above 50,000 (I-1), between 100,000 and 250,000 (11-5, 11-6, 11-8),
between 400,000 and 600,000 (1-14, 11-8), and above 1,000,000 (11-1). Rural
samples were drawn from collective farms (I-16), widely scattered farm areas
(I-19), villages with fewer than 1000 inhabitants (I-20), villages with fewer than
2000 inhabitants (11-I), and rural districts not defined by reference to population
densities (1-9, 1-25).
The socioeconomic composition of urban samples varied from mainly upper
classes (1-34); through middle and upper strata (I-24), middle classes (1-25), and
equally privileged and underprivileged homes (11- 12); to lower income groups
(11-8,11-13). Comparisons were made of urban children and youths reared under
good conditions and rural peers reared at impoverished villages (I- 12), healthy
urban and rural youths taken without regard to socioeconomic background
(IV-l), urban and rural children and youths from low-income homes (11-8, V-1),
and urban and rural children and youths of low socioeconomic status and poor
nutrition (11-13). The majority of reports was lacking in specific information on
population densities, gene pool compositions, vocation or income classes, nutri-
tion and sanitation provisions, and access to health facilities and personnel.
Future investigators of urban-rural differences should attempt to minimize such
shortcomings.
The direction of urban-rural differences in standing height and body weight
usually found in the period 1870-1915 was the opposite of that typifying the
period 1950-1980. Data at ages 7 to 15 years collected during 1913-1915 on
Urban-Rural Differences in Humun Body Growth 133
children and youths of New South Wales living at a metropolitan center and in
rural districts showed urban residents were smaller than rural peers by 1.9 cm in
standing height and .9 kg in body weight (Mecham, 1918-1919). Mecham
inferred that the larger body size of rural children and youths resulted from
“fresh air and free life” in rural settings. From data at like ages collected during
1968-1972 on Polish children and youths living at Lublin and in nearby rural
areas, Chrzgstek-Spruch and Dobosz-Latalska (1973) found that urban residents
surpassed rural peers by 3.2 cm in standing height and 2.7 kg in body weight.
They interpreted their findings to indicate that the somatic growth of Polish rural
children and youths was “not adequate.” Juxtaposition of these two claims
nudges toward the realization that, to date, an unequivocal statement identifying
the determinants of urban-rural differences cannot be made.
As documented earlier, the existing reports of somatic research on urban and
rural children and youths afford a paucity of information regarding regional
differences in dietary content, hygienic practice, disease treatment, environmen-
tal pollution, and gene pool heterogeneity. Such particulars for specific habitats
are needed to advance beyond general perspectives that draw upon notions of the
following sort: many cities, compared with outlying rural regions have a broader
array of food supplies; better regulated water purification, milk pasteurization,
food inspection, and garbage disposal; more conveniently located medical and
dental clinics, with sustained avenues of nutritional, dental, and pediatric guid-
ance; a wider range of housing accomodations; more restrictive measures on
excessive child labor and other physical abuse; greater opportunities for par-
ticipation in activity programs planned and supervised by physical educators;
more air pollution from conveyances and industrial plants; greater exposure to
stress and infectious disease; and a more diversified gene pool for mate selection.
Broad citations of this kind should be recognized as preliminary to precise
information on relevant variables in the cities and villages where urban-rural
comparisons are sought. Along this path human biologists can move toward
attainment of definitive knowledge on body size and growth rate in relation to
difference constellations of genetic and environmental variables. Varying con-
stellations occur within countries at any given time, and they may occur at any
given location over time. Between 1950 and 1980, immigration increased gene
pool heterogeneity at Howa Huta (Panek & Piasecki, 1971) and other expanding
urban communities; health services reduced malnutrition and disease at some
villages in mainland China, Guatemala, Nigeria, and other locations (Chinese
Academy of Medical Sciences, 1977; Guzmin, Scrimshaw, Bruch, & Gordon,
1968; Morley, Woodland, Martin, & Allen, 1968); while many other villages,
and some sectors of urban centers “such as the shanty slums of South America
and Africa,” changed little in gene pool composition and remained grossly
deficient in health services (Eveleth & Tanner, 1976, p. 251).
I34 Howard V. Meredith
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Gratitude is expressed to the following persons who assisted with literature search, reference
procurement, provision of unpublished material, language translation, verification of statistics, and
manuscript criticism: V. Ashley, H. Chrzgstek-Spruch, A. Carborn6, L. Finger, 1. E. Goettach, T.
Kambara, V. B. Knott, R. M. Malina, E. M. Meredith, F. J. Miller, 0. Neyzi, H. Oglesbee, H. W.
Reese, B. D. Richardson, J. H. Spurgeon, N. Woladski, H. Boutourline-Young, and S. Zhang.
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WORD MEANING ACQUISITION IN
YOUNG CHILDREN:
A REVIEW OF THEORY AND RESEARCH
Pamela Blewitt’
DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHOLOGY
VILLANOVA UNIVERSlTY
VILLANOVA. PENNSYLVANIA
I . OVERVIEW . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
11. APPROACHES TO THE STUDY OF EARLY WORD MEANINGS . . . . . . . . . . . . 141

A. STUDIES OF SPONTANEOUS PRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
B. STUDIES OF COMPREHENSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
C. STUDIES OF ELICITED PRODUCTION .............................. 143
D. TRAINING STUDIES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
I11 . NOMINAL WORDS ................................................... 143

A . CLARK’S SEMANTIC FEATURE HYPOTHESIS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
B . NELSON’S FUNCTIONAL CORE HYPOTHESIS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
C . EMPIRICAL TESTS OF CLARK’S VERSUS NELSON’S PREDICTIONS ... 146
D . A “NEW PARADIGM OF REFERENCE” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
IV . RELATIONAL AND DIMENSIONAL WORDS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153

A . TEMPORAL WORDS ............ 154
B. SPATIAL WORDS . . . ........... 160
C . WORDS REFERRING TO SIMILARITY RELATIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
D . SIZE WORDS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
E . LOGICAL CONJUNCTIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
F. VERBS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
V . DISCUSSION: THEORETICAL DIRECTIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175

A . THE SEMANTIC FEATURE HYPOTHESIS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
B . THE REFERENTIAL PROPERTIES OF EARLY WORD MEANINGS . . . . . . 178
C . THE ABSTRACT PROPERTIES OF EARLY WORD MEANINGS. . . . . . . . . 181
D . CONCEPTUAL COMPLEXITY, RELATIVE FREQUENCY. AND
CONTEXTS OF USE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
‘The author has previously published under the name of Pamela Blewitt Seely .
139
ADVANCES IN CHILD DEVELOPMENT Copynghr 6 1982 by Acadcmic hers. Inc
.
AND BEHAVIOR VOL . 17 All nghrs of reproduction in any form reserved.
ISBN 0-12-ao9717-6
140 Pamela Blewitt
VI. CONCLUSION: RESEARCH DIRECTIONS ............................... 184

A. TAKING PERFORMANCE FACTORS INTO ACCOUNT ................ 184
B. TAKING VARIABLE WORD MEANINGS INTO ACCOUNT.. . . . . . . . . . . . 185
C. PURSUING THE EFFECTS OF CONTEXT AND FREQUENCY OF USE.. . 186
REFERENCES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I87
I. Overview
Words are tools for expressing and interpreting meanings. As such, they both
signify external objects or events and symbolize interior meanings or concepts.
Ordinarily, we expect the interior meaning to specify the objects or events that
can be labeled appropriately by a word, except in metaphorical uses where a
word’s meaning may be only dimly related to its external referents.
Words are arbitrary and conventional. Their meanings are strictly determined
by social agreement, not by any similarity between a word and what it repre-
sents. To study how children learn words, then, is to study how arbitrary vocal
forms become associated with external referents and with related concepts in the
course of social exchange,
In this article, concepts are defined as mental representations that specify how
one should group objects or events (cf. Bourne, 1966). Verbal concepts, or word
meanings, are those concepts which are symbolized by words. However, one’s
set of word meanings (or semantic system) is not necessarily equivalent to one’s
set of concepts (or conceptual system). For example, one can have a concept for
which no label is available. Furthermore, how the process of word meaning
acquisition is related to the process of concept formation can be viewed in
different ways. Some theorists consider the two processes to be equivalent.
Thus, the concern is to describe the process of concept formation and to describe
when and how words are attached to concepts (e.g., Nelson, 1974). Other
theorists do not describe the two processes as equivalent. For example, they
might treat word meanings as combinations of preformed concepts and describe
how children construct these combinations (e.g., Clark, 1973b). Such theorists
do not examine the process of concept formation per se.
In this article, I review recent literature on word meaning by preschool-aged
children. Most of the studies are descriptive: Investigators have attempted to
determine when children learn words and to specify the meanings and external
referents of those words for children at different ages. Not many studies have
been designed specifically to investigate the process of acquisition (learning),
although all of the studies have some bearing on that process.
For a child to learn a word’s meaning, somehow the word as a unit must be
abstracted from longer utterances. As Werner and Kaplan (1963) pointed out,
initially words may not be experienced as units by young children or by other
naive listeners. This whole aspect of word learning is given little attention in this
article, except indirectly in the acknowledgment that not just vocabulary but
Word Meaning Acquisirion in Young Children 141
sentence structure as a whole is an important determinant of children’s perfor-

mance in the studies reviewed. I have assumtd that to the extent that preschool
children use words in novel combinations, one can say that words are func-
tionally disengaged from their linguistic contexts. I do not intend to suggest that
preschool children are conscious of words as units or of the arbitrary nature of
words. The development of such awareness may be profoundly related to other
aspects of word meaning acquisition, but I leave that entire issue for another
time.
The literature reviewed is organized on the basis of the kinds of concepts to
which words can refer. “Nominal words” label concrete categories; “rela-
tional” and “dimensional” words refer to relationships among objects or events
and to attributes which may characterize objects and events. Not all words can be
neatly grouped into just one of these word types. For example, some ‘*nominal”
words have obvious relational components of meaning, like kinship terms. One
issue considered is whether the differences that do exist among word types affect
the processes involved in word meaning acquisition.*
In Section 11, the principal procedures that have been used to study word
meaning acquisition are described. In Sections 111 and IV, I summarize recent
theoretical and empirical work, with several goals in mind: first, to assess the
predictive validity of the available theories; second, to identify what is presently
known about children’s use and understanding of words; and third, to identify the
factors that affect children’s performance in studies of word meaning acquisition.
In both sections, predictions based on Eve Clark’s (1973b) Semantic Feature
Hypothesis are important in determining the organization, because this theory
has had a great heuristic impact on research on word meaning acquisition. In
Sections V and V1, I summarize some of the theoretical issues that have been
reviewed, propose future theoretical directions based on empirical findings, and
suggest a course for future research.
11. Approaches to the Study of Early Word

Meanings
A. STUDIES OF SPONTANEOUS PRODUCTION
Like their predecessors (e.g., Preyer, 1889/1890) modern researchers have

collected corpora of the spontaneous utterances of children to provide data on the
21 was unable to include every recent study of children’s word meanings. I revtew studies of most
of the word groups that have been extensively researched so that comparisons across studies can be
made. Among the groups not included are personal and deictic pronouns (e.g., Baron & Kaiser,
1975; Chipman & de Dardel, 1974; Clark & Sengul, 1978; de Villiers & de Villiers, 1974; Webb &
Abraharnson, 1976; T a m , 1977) and definite and indefinite articles (e.g., Karmiloff-Smith, 1977;
Maratsos, 1976; Warden, 1976).
142 Pamela Blewiii
range of early vocabulary, the early communicative functions of words, and the
possible conceptual underpinnings of early words (e.g., Bloom, 1973). Such
accounts are useful, but the inferences that they allow may be limited. For
example, a young child’s use of a word to label a new object may be merely
playful, or it may reflect a comparative or metaphorical judgment (“that looks
like a . . .”), or it may actually represent a conceptual judgment (e.g., Piaget,
1962). Because of this ambiguity, studies of spontaneous productions now often
include some systematic comprehension tests.
However, although researchers often assume that comprehension tests are
more reliable measures of children’s knowledge of word meanings than spon-
taneous production, that assumption is not always justified. Many different rela-
tionships may hold between production and comprehension. In some cases,
children may know the meanings of a word, showing adequate comprehension,
but not produce it, perhaps because of some performance limitation (e.g., recall-
ing the word is difficult). When children do produce a word, they may use it
incorrectly (for any of the reasons listed above), but still understand the word’s
meaning in comprehension tests. Finally, a child may use a word correctly in
production but actually fail a comprehension test, perhaps because the child’s
understanding of the word is limited to certain contexts of use (Bloom, 1974), or
because the child uses different criteria for judging the applicability of a word in
some contexts than in others (Kay & Anglin, 1982).
B. STUDIES OF COMPREHENSION
Although procedures vary, the common feature in all comprehension tests is
that the investigator uses the test word in a statement or question and provides
children with appropriate materials and response opportunities to demonstrate
understanding.
One kind of task requires children to manipulate objects in order to demon-
strate understanding of test words. For example, children might have to respond
to commands (e.g., Put the dog on the box) or act out a sentence using toys (e.g.,
The girl washed her hands before she climbed the stairs).
In other tasks, children are given a set of pictures or objects. Depending on the
particular task, they may be asked to select the alternative that best represents a
situation that the experimenter has described using a test word; they may be
asked to sort or put together pictures or objects that belong to the same labeled
class (e.g.. animals); or they may be asked yes-no questions about the items
(e.g., Is this an animal?).
In sentence completion tasks, children must complete sentences that have
beginning fragments containing the test word. For example, in a study of the
comprehension of because, Corrigan (1975) gave children fragments like John
laughed at Sue. Sue hit John because -.
Finally, definition and word association tasks may be used. Given a word, a
Word Meaning Acyuisirion in Young Children I43
child might be asked to say what it means or might be encouraged to free

associate or to respond in specific ways, such as with antonyms.
As this article will reveal, all of these comprehension paradigms have limita-
tions. A number of variables can and do affect children’s performance on these
tasks. Sorting out which effects are due to understanding or lack of understand-
ing of a test word is no simple matter.
C. STUDIES OF ELICITED PRODUCTION
Many researchers have attempted to elicit production of test words either to

explore the relationship between comprehension and production or because pro-
duction is construed to be a measure of comprehension. One technique is to
require children to imitate sentences containing certain test words. This is fre-
quently considered a test of comprehension on grounds that if the length of a
sentence exceeds a child’s auditory memory (for nonsense strings) then the child
will be able to imitate the sentence accurately only if it is understood. (For
further discussion see Bloom, 1974; Kuczaj & Maratsos, 1975b; Slobin &
Welsh, 1973.) Other techniques include asking children to label real or pictured
objects or events, to tell stories about objects or events, or to answer questions
that might force them into using the test words. For example, after showing
children a sequence of actions with toys, Clark (1971) asked children questions
designed to elicit production of the words before and ufrer, like When did rhe doll
jump?
D. TRAINING STUDIES
In training studies, children are taught concepts under conditions that may or
may not simulate natural learning situations. Such studies allow researchers to
control variables that may affect acquisition. Typically, children are taught to use
nonsense syllables or unfamiliar words to label referents that are specially de-
vised by the researcher (e.g., unusual animals; Horton & Markman, 1980) or that
are members of real word categories known to be unfamiliar to the children being
trained (e.g., the color “olive green”; Carey & Bartlett, 1978). Though training
procedures may vary from study to study, children are usually tested for com-
prehension at some point. In some studies, comprehension tests are repeated
after intervals of time to yield longitudinal data.
111. Nominal Words

A. CLARK’S SEMANTIC FEATURE HYPOTHESIS
Eve Clark’s ( 1973b) Semantic Feature Hypothesis added developmental pos-

tulates to the semantic feature theories that were offered to explain semantic and
I44 Pamela Blewitt
syntactic properties of words in the era of linguistic theorizing initiated by Noam

Chomsky (e.g., Bierwisch, 1970; Katz & Fodor, 1963; Postal, 1966). In these
theories, word meanings are said to be composed of units of meaning called
“features. ” Features are concepts, sometimes viewed as corresponding to uni-
versal perceptual and relational categories (e.g., Bierwisch, 1970). What chil-
dren learn when they learn a word is the set of features associated with the word
and the rules for combining features.
Clark hypothesized that children may at first acquire only one or two features
of meaning for a word, with other features being added later. She further hypoth-
esized that which features will be acquired first is determined in one of two ways.
First, because semantic features are “derived from the encoding of . . . per-
cepts,” features that are based on easily perceptible aspects of the environment
are likely to be learned earliest (Clark, 1973b, p. 74). Second, when features can
be related to each other hierarchically, the most general feature will be learned
first, and the remaining features will be learned in order from the more general to
the most specific.
One can make the following predictions about the acquisition of nominal
words based on Clark’s theory. First, earliest word meanings should be overly
general because they are based on only one or two features. Therefore, children
can be expected to overextend the use of a word in their early speech.
Second, “easily perceptible” features should comprise the earliest word
meanings and should form the basis for early overextensions of a word. Clark
suggested that these features include such attributes as shape, movement, overall
size and sound. ‘‘Less perceptible” features include abstract relational concepts.
For example, the word brother includes a feature like [SiblingI3which should be
learned later than the physical characteristics of brothers. Other features that may
be “less perceptible” are not clearly specified in Clark’s account, but the usual
interpretation (e.g., Clark & Clark, 1977; Smith, 1978) is that functional features
of objects, that is, features that specify how an object can be used, would be less
perceptible than features like shape. For example, in learning the meaning of the
word bull, a child should learn a feature like [Round] before a feature like
[Throwable].
Third, for words related in meaning, simpler terms having fewer features
should be learned before more complex terms. This has been referred to as the
“complexity hypothesis” (Clark, 1973; Haviland & Clark, 1974). For example,
boy may be learned earlier than brother because the latter is more complex in the
sense that brother has all the features of boy, plus at least one relational feature,
like [Sibling]. Following the same logic, the more general or superordinate
3Features of meaning can be represented in many ways. Eve Clark has used a simple binary system
in which each labeled feature is given a positive or negative valence (Clark, 1971, 1972, 1973a). She
has also used a system suggested by Bienvisch (1970) in which “X” stands for the object, person, or
event to which the word makes reference, so that one of the features for boy might be [Male X] (Clark
& Garnica, 1974; Haviland &. Clark, 1974).
Word Meaning Acquisition in Young Children 145
words within a taxonomic hierarchy should be learned before the more specific
or subordinate words. For example, the word animal might be learned before the
word dog.
Fourth, for words that overlap in meaning, a more complex term may initially
have the meaning of a simpler term. For example, a child may for a time treat
brother as if it means “boy,” because additional features like [Sibling] have not
yet been learned.
Kinship terms are among the nominal words that are related in meaning and
that can be ordered with respect to relative complexity. Haviland and Clark
(1974) described a feature analysis for I5 kinship terms and predicted that words
with fewer features would be learned first. Children from ages 3 to 9 were asked
to give definitions of the words. Most children up to age 6 either named a person
or gave irrelevant responses. But for the most part, older children bore out the
third and fourth predictions listed above, giving more complete definitions for
the simpler terms than for the more complex terms.
Research on hierarchically related nouns, however, has failed to support the
complexity hypothesis. Words of intermediate generality (e.g., dug) seem to be
learned before words that are more general (e.g., animal) or more specific (e.g.,
collie) (Anglin, 1977; Durkin & Seely, 1978; Rosch, Mervis, Gray, Johnson &
Boyes-Braem, 1976). Adults use more intermediate level words than any other
type in speech to small children (Anglin, 1977; Blewitt, in press), but Horton and
Markman (1980) found in a training study that even with equal frequency of
exposure, nursery school and kindergarten children learned intermediate level
words more readily than superordinate words.
Rosch et al. (1976) described words of intermediate generality as “basic
level” words, and argued that the basic level division of objects is maximally
useful to know about in most situations. The argument is similar to one made by
Brown: “Objects are most commonly assigned to the category that reminds us of
the attributes that are important for its common use” (1958, pp. 284-285). A
general category like animal includes such diverse members that the label pro-
vides few cues as to appropriate behavior toward or expectations of the labeled
item. On the other hand, collie labels items that are not much different from
some noncategory members (e.g., German shepherds) and so adds few cues
beyond those provided by dog, the term with “maximal cue validity.”
Clark and Clark (1977) proposed that the complexity hypothesis may not apply
to hierarchies of concrete nouns, but only to relational terms, that is, “verbs,
adjectives, and nouns that pick out more abstract relational information” (p.
501). Presumably, kinship terms are nouns of this type.
B. NELSON’S FUNCTIONAL CORE HYPOTHESIS
Katherine Nelson (1974) proposed a theory of concept formation that empha-

sized the importance of the functional properties of objects in forming concrete
I46 Pamela Blewitt
concepts. Nelson proposed that a concept can be formed on the basis of a single
experience of an object in a context. The concept is determined by an object’s
functional relationships to other objects and/or to people in the context. Nelson
defined the functions of an object as the actions of the object and the uses to
which the object can be put, especially from the child’s point of view. Initially, a
great deal of specific information may be part of the concept, such as information
about locations. But gradually a core of functional characteristicsof the object is
synthesized. Finally, the child will abstract perceptual features (especially shape)
from objects that have the appropriate functional characteristics and use these
features to identify new instances of the concept. Originally, Nelson proposed
that words are matched to previously learned concepts (Nelson, 1974). Later, she
suggested that words may be linked to concepts at any stage in the formation
process (Nelson, Rescorla, Gruendel, & Benedict, 1978). Thus, for Nelson, the
process of concept formation is equivalent to the process of word meaning
acqui~ition.~
One can make at least two predictions from Nelson’s Functional Core Hypoth-
esis that are different from predictions based on Clark’s (1973b) theory. First,
because early word meanings can be based on “objects-in-context,” they might
at first be overly specific (leading to underextensions). Second, the essential and
salient aspects of meaning are always the functional properties of objects, so that
early word meanings would not be based on perceptual features. Thus, a child
might incorrectly use a word to apply to a new object strictly on the basis of some
perceptual similarity to other instances of the concept. But presumably, once the
child has had an opportunity to observe the functional properties of the new
object, it will no longer be considered an instance of the concept.
C. EMPIRICAL TESTS OF CLARK’S VERSUS NELSON’S PREDICTIONS
1 . Functionally versus Perceptually Based Word Meanings

a . Definitional studies. Several attempts to determine the nature of chil-
dren’s nominal word meanings have involved asking children to define words.
Preschoolers usually give examples (as Haviland & Clark, 1974, found), or they
describe specific experiences with an object. However, they do sometimes de-
scribe properties that could be construed as defining features of the concept.
4Therefore, Nelson’s theory of word meaning acquisition is also a theory of concept formation,
whereas Clark’s is a theory of word meaning acquisition in which the formation of concepts (features)
is not described. However, this apparent distinction blurs on close examination. For example, in
Nelson’s theory, the core of an object concept (and of a word’s meaning) is a set of functional
features. The formation of these functional features is not explained, so that Nelson’s theory is like
Clark’s in that nominal word meanings are combinations of preformed concepts or features (Bower-
man, 1976; Greenberg & Kuczaj, 1982).
Word Meaning Acquisition in Young Children I47
These properties may be appropriate from an adult perspective, for example, the
child may define food by saying “you eat it.” Or the properties may be charac-
teristic of a single encounter with an instance, for example, when a child defines
dog as “brown and white.” (Examples are from Anglin, 1978). Both perceptual
and functional properties may be mentioned, but the latter predominate (e.g.,
Andersen, 1975; Anglin, 1977, 1978; Litowitz, 1977; Nelson, 1978; Wolman &
Barker, 1965). This finding appears to support the Functional Core Hypothesis
(Nelson, 1978, 1979a) but caution is warranted in interpreting these findings,
because definitions may not accurately reflect the meaning of a word for a child.
For example, Anglin (1978) found that properties that a child mentions when
defining a word are not necessarily characteristic of items that the child identifies
as referents of the word.
b. Other evidence. Some evidence exists that the functional aspects of

objects are the most salient features to children (Nelson, 1979a). For example,
the nominal words that are learned earliest almost exclusively refer to objects that
have special interactive significance for children4bjects they have acted on or
observed in action (e.g., Nelson, 1973b). However, the aspects of objects that
attract attention are not necessarily the essential aspects of word meaning (An-
glin, 1977; Bowerman, 1976; Gentner, 1978b).
Other support for the Functional Core Hypothesis comes from a study with I -
to 2-year-old children (Nelson, 1973a). Adults ranked a set of objects first in
terms of their functional similarity to a child’s rubber ball and then in terms of
their perceptual (shape) similarity. After the objects were laid out in front of a
child, the experimenter asked the child to “give me the ball.” After the instruc-
tions had been repeated sufficiently for half the objects to have been chosen, the
objects were all returned to the child, who was allowed 10 minutes of free play
with them. Then the selection test was repeated. On the initial test, perceptual
and functional similarity to a real ball seemed equally important in determining
children’s choices. But on the second test functional similarity generated signifi-
cantly more choices, as Nelson had predicted.
Bowerman (1976) reported, however, that in their earliest spontaneous use of
words, her two children frequently overextended a word to objects that the
children were familiar with. In many cases the overextensions were based on
perceptual similarity to other instances of the concept, even though the children
were aware of functional dissimilarities. For example, one child extended the
word moon to small round leaves she had manipulated and to a ball of spinach
she was about to eat. However, productive overextensions may serve many
linguistic functions for a child with a limited vocabulary (see the next section), so
that Bowerman’s data do not provide an explicit test of Nelson’s hypothesis.
Gentner (197813) attempted an experimental test of the importance of function
by teaching children new words. She constructed two objects which were func-
148 Pamela Blewirr
tionally and perceptually dissimilar. Children were taught that one was called a
“jiggy” and one a “zimbo.” They were later confronted with an object that
looked like a “jiggy” and acted like a “zimbo” and were asked what the object
should be called. The majority (not all) of the youngest children, ages 2%to 5,
responded on the basis of perceptual similarity, even though they had interacted
with the new object and had seen it function before labeling it. Older children,
ages 6 to 15, were more likely to respond on the basis of functional similarity,
although adults more often used perceptual similarity.
Tomikawa and Dodd (1980) performed a series of similar studies with 2- and
3-year-old children. They tested children’s concept formation by having them
sort a set of novel objects into two groups. The sorts could have been based on
either perceptual properties (e.g., shape) or functional properties (e.g., “it rat-
tles”), but the majority (e.g., 72% in one study) were based on perceptual
properties. In another study, children were taught labels for the same novel
objects. If the labels represented perceptually based concepts, the children
learned the labeling system faster than if the labels represented functionally
based concepts. Prawat and Wildfong (1980) also found that when nursery
school children (approximately 39’2 to 5 years old) were asked to label “ambigu-
ous” objects that could be considered either bowls or cups, the children were not
affected by the contexts in which the objects appeared, even though the contexts
depicted different functional uses (e.g., use as a container for breakfast cereal
versus for coffee). Older children, ages 7 and 8, were more affected by func-
tional information, as in Gentner’s study.
Generally, the experimental findings support Clark’s position. However, be-
cause definition studies tend to support Nelson’s position, and because function
based groupings or labeling systems were produced by some young children in
the experimental studies, a strong case cannot be made for the primacy of either
functional or perceptual properties in early word meanings (cf. Greenberg &
Kuczaj, 1982).
2. The Generulity of Early Word Meanings

As I noted earlier, children often give explicit examples when asked to define a
word. To the extent that definitions can be construed as indicators of word
meanings, this finding suggests that early verbal concepts may be overly specif-
ic, as Nelson’s theory predicts.
Most investigations of generality have involved measures of the extension of a
term in spontaneous or elicited production, and in comprehension. Overexten-
sions have frequently been reported in production. (See Clark, 1973b, and Bar-
rett, 1978, for reviews of early production studies. More recent studies include
Benedict, 1979; Bowerman, 1976; Bloom, 1973; Gruendel, 1977; Rescorla,
1980; Winner, 1979; and many others.) However, researchers generally agree
that overextensions in production do not necessarily indicate overly general word
meanings. Children may be using a word playfully, or metaphorically, or simply
Word Meunirig Acquisition in Young Childreri 149
because they do not remember a more appropriate label for an object and they
have a need to communicate. (For further discussion see Clark, 1978; Nelson,
1979b; Nelson et al., 1978; Piaget, 1962; Rescorla, 1980; Winner, 1979). How-
ever, underextension or overextension of a word in comprehension may be more
revealing of underlying meaning. Clark’s theory predicts at least some overex-
tension in comprehension, whereas Nelson’s theory predicts either an adequate
extension or a tendency toward underextension.
Many studies indicate that children from just over 1 year old can demonstrate
appropriate extension (or at least no overextension) in comprehension (e.g.,
Bowerman, 1978b; Fremgen & Fay, 1980; Goldin-Meadow, Seligman, & Gel-
man, 1976; Gruendel, 1977; Huttenlocher, 1974; Nelson & Bonvillian, 1978;
Thomson & Chapman, 1977). However, both overextension in comprehension
(Anglin, 1977; Chapman & Thomson, 1980; Kay & Anglin, 1982; Nelson &
Bonvillian, 1978; Thomson & Chapman, 1977) and underextension in com-
prehension (Anglin, 1977; Kay & Anglin, 1982; Blewitt & Durkin, in press;
Reich, 1976; Saltz, Dixon, Klein, & Becker, 1977) have been reported.
In general, studies of the generality of early word meanings leave the impres-
sion that anything is possible. The full range of findings is not easily interpreted
within the framework of Clark’s theory. Within Nelson’s theory, underextension
in comprehension is predicted, and overextensions could be accounted for if they
were based on functional properties (given that one can assume that the children
being observed have had adequate interactive experience with potential refer-
ents). However, other research indicates that overextensions in comprehension
are not usually based on functional properties. Anglin (1977) reported a series of
studies with 2- to 6-year-olds in which children were required to judge category
membership of pictured items in a name recognition task, answering questions
like “Is this an animal?” Adults had previously rated noninstances as percep-
tually or functionally similar to real instances. For children, overextension was
much more likely to occur with perceptually similar noninstances.
Two problems arise in interpreting Anglin’s data, however. First, the stimuli
were pictures, so that children could only infer functions, thus perhaps biasing
the subjects toward the use of perceptual criteria (Bowerman, 1976). Second,
objects that appear to adults to be only perceptually similar may, from a child’s
perspective, also be functionally similar. An apple, to an adult, is functionally
dissimilar to a ball, but to a child, both may be equally “throwable” (Howe,
1978). This problem also applies to the interpretation of the experimental studies
reported by Gentner (1978b), Tomikawa and Dodd (1980), and Prawat and
Wildfong (1980), described in the last section. The functional and perceptual
characteristics of objects are probably so inextricably interdependent that they
are not dissociable for the purpose of empirically investigating verbal concept
formation in childhood. Perhaps they are also inextricable in the actual process of
verbal concept formation (cf. Greenberg & Kuczaj, 1982; Rosch & Mervis,
1975).
I50 Pamela Blewirt
D. A “NEW PARADIGM O F REFERENCE”
1. Referential Models of Word Meaning

A different approach to explaining nominal word meanings is based on Eleanor
Rosch’s research on adult conceptual structure (summarized in Rosch, 1978).
Using what Brown (1978) has called a “new paradigm of reference,” Rosch and
her co-workers have demonstrated that adult categories have a “prototype”
structure (e.g., Rosch & Mervis, 1975). Adults consider some category members
better exemplars of a labeled category than others, and they find it meaningful to
rate items for typicality within a labeled category. When adults are asked to list
the characteristics of category members, there is more overlap, or “family
resemblance,” among central (typical) members than among peripheral (atypi-
cal) members. Also, the central members of a category share fewer attributes in
common with contrasting categories than do peripheral category members. These
findings fit with other data indicating that the boundaries between concrete
categories are usually “fuzzy” (e.g., Labov, 1974; Lehrer, 1970). At least for
peripheral items, the appropriate label for an object may often depend on
context.
One interpretation of such data is that internal representations of categorical
information consist of, or at least include, one or more holistic analogs or
“prototypes” of the members of the category (e.g., Posner, 1969). Another
view is that conceptual representations may be “associative complexes,” con-
sisting of a set of characteristic but not defining properties derived from the
referents that have been experienced (e.g., McCloskey & Glucksberg, 1979). In
any case, one would predict that judgments of verbal category membership or
appropriate use of a label would be probabilistically based on the degree of match
between a potential referent and the internal analog(s) or complex. Explicit,
unvarying criteria may not exist. Evidence supporting this prediction has been
found with adult subjects (e.g., McCloskey & Glucksberg, 1979). Theories of
the type described above will hereafter be referred to as “referential models.”
Like Nelson’s theory, in these theories concept formation processes are treated as
equivalent to word meaning acquisition processes.
2. Empirical Support for Referential Models

Several studies of nominal words indicate that children’s internal representations
of word meanings may be referential. Bowerman (1976, 1978b) reported evi-
dence that her two daughters frequently associated a word with one or more
original (prototypical) referents and then applied the words to other objects or
events that shared one or more attributes in common with the original referents.
The productive overextensions were not consistently based on particular at-
tributes; the overextended referents shared some attributes in common with the
original referents. The original referents were also the ones that the parents most
Word Meaning Acquisirion in Young Children 151
frequently labeled using the words in question. Other researchers have reported
similar phenomena (e.g., Bloom, 1973; Gruendel, 1977; Rescorla, 1980).
Early definitions in which children describe specific examples or the proper-
ties of specific examples, can be construed as support for referential models of
early meanings. Also, the occurrence of both overextensions and underexten-
sions is consistent with referential models. Variability in extension is expected in
both production and comprehension. Children may, for example, differ consider-
ably in the amount of divergence from a prototype they are willing to allow a new
exemplar. In addition, characteristics of the original referents of a word, such as
their typicality, may affect extensions. For example, Mervis and Pani (1980)
suggest that if children first learn a label for a peripheral category member, either
they may underextend the term because the stored instance is not yet grouped
with its appropriate category, or they may overextend the term because the stored
instance is a member of more than one category.
According to referential models, applications of a word, including overexten-
sion, will be based on overall similarity of the potential instance to the referent
concept. A study by Kuczaj (1979) supports this prediction. Children ages 1.9 to
2:4 (i.e., 1 year, 9 months to 2 years, 4 months) were presented with an array of
six objects. A child was repeatedly asked to “Give me a ~ (e.g., doggie).”
Children who had overextended the use of the word in production were more
likely to choose first the correct exemplars as referents, then the nonexamples to
which they themselves had previously overextended the word in spontaneous
production, and finally the other nonexamples. Kuczaj argued that the order of
referent choices supports the view that overextension errors in production were
probably based on the overall similarity of the nonexamples to a prototypical
representation of the word. (Fremgen & Fay, 1980, report data consistent with
Kuczaj’s, but they interpret it differently. See Chapman&Thomson, 1980, for a
discussion.)
One can also predict from referential models that underextensions are most
likely to occur with instances that are peripheral category members, because such
instances bear least resemblance to other category members. This prediction has
been supported in tests of both comprehension and production with children
ranging in age from approximately 2 to 6 years (Anglin, 1977; Blewitt & Durkin,
in press; Kay & Anglin, 1982; Mervis & Pani, 1980).
3 . Comparisons to Clark’s and Nelson’s Theories

Several referential models of nominal concept acquisition have been proposed
(e.g., Anglin, 1977; Greenberg & Kuczaj, 1982; Mervis & Pani, 1980; Mulford,
1977; Rescorla, 1980). Although they differ among themselves regarding how
concepts are represented (see Section V,B), they are similar in two ways, and in
these ways they tend to differ from Clark’s and Nelson’s theories (cf. Palmer,
1978, on the nature of prototype representations). First, in referential models,
152 Pamela Blewitt
verbal concepts have highly specified representations. Although sometimes they

may be based on only one or a few examples, a great deal of information is
considered to be included. Some aspects of information eventually may become
more salient or weighted than others, but verbal concepts remain very detailed.
However, in Clark’s theory, early verbal concepts may initially consist of only
one or a few elements of information. In Nelson’s theory, although concepts may
initially incorporate a great deal of information about specific objects, as in
referential models, concepts are soon honed to their functional core, with percep-
tual information gradually added.
Second, in referential models the process of categorization involves making
probabilistic decisions based on some sort of “best fit” criterion, so that con-
sistent sets of defining properties cannot be identified. However, in Clark’s
theory, criterial features comprise the concept. Nelson’s theory is more ambigu-
ous; functional characteristics are ultimately criterial, but categorical judgments
may initially depend on noncriterial perceptual feature^.^
Among the available theories, Clark’s is the least consistent with the data on
nominal word meaning acquisition, perhaps partly because hers makes the most
precise predictions. However, she has revised her theory as it applies to nominal
concepts to accommodate the data (Clark, 1975, 1977; and in Clark & Clark,
1977). She now proposes that labels for concrete categories may initially be
associated with a single instance, although she does not describe the representa-
tional form of this stage of concept formation. Later, the word’s meaning may
consist of only one feature or property with other properties gradually added, as
in the original Semantic Feature Hypothesis. However, in the revised theory,
once there is a feature list, a child may use a process of “partial overextension”
in applying the word to a new referent, such that the criteria seem to fluctuate.
“The child applies a word whenever there is a certain degree of overlap between
what he or she has picked out as the conditions of application and the properties
of the object he [or she] wants to call attention to” (Clark, 1977, p. 152). This
revised theory appears similar to the form of referential model called an “asso-
ciative complex,” in which abstracted features comprise the concept but none of
them is criterial (cf. Bowerman, 1976; Rescorla, 1980). However, Clark states
that partial overextensions are the result of the need to communicate with a
limited vocabulary, implying that features that comprise a concept can be criterial
even though they may be applied independently in early usage (Clark, 1977).
Clark and Clark (1977) have also suggested that some nominal concepts may
have criterial features and some may not.
Nelson and Nelson (1978), Nelson postulates developmental changes in children’s criteria for
judging category membership. At some stages fewer features are likely to be required in potential
referents than at other stages. However, this model is apparently not intended to supplant her original
Functional Core Hypothesis. Functional features or properties are still considered criterial in some
sense (e.g., Nelson, 1979a).
Word Meuning Acqrri~ifionit7 Yrwng Children 153
IV. Relational and Dimensional Words

Nominal words, especially concrete nouns, have been described as different in
kind from relational words (e.g., Clark & Clark, 1977; Gentner, 1978a; Hut-
tenlocher & Lui, 1979). For Gentner (1978a) the difference is based on a distinc-
tion between referential and relational concepts. Concrete nouns are referential.
They can be used to point out things in the environment, and their conceptual
representations may have thing-like, or holistic, properties. However, relational
words represent abstract concepts (relationships) that cannot be directly per-
ceived or referred to in the environment. (See Reese, 1968, for a historical
review of issues relevant to this argument.) The implication in Gentner’s analysis
is that relational words (e.g., verbs) are not likely to be referentially represented.
Rather, they may only be represented by sets of abstract conceptual relation-
ships, or units of meaning. Children must learn the abstract aspects of the
environment that can serve as the units of relational word meaning, and they
must learn which units apply to a given relational word. Since Clark’s (1973b)
Semantic Feature Hypothesis is a theory based on the acquisition of units of
meaning, it may more adequately explain the acquisition of relational words than
referential words (Gentner, 1978a).
In each of the following sections I summarize research on one kind of rela-
tional or dimensional word. Much of the research reviewed is directly relevant to
predictions derived from the Semantic Feature Hypothesis, although other the-
oretical issues also arise. Researchers studying different kinds of words often
address somewhat different issues. In each section, I describe the theoretical and
empirical issues that have been emphasized in research with the particular kind of
word being discussed.
Specific predictions for relational or dimensional words that form antonym
pairs (e.g., big and little) have been derived from the Somantic Feature Hypoth-
esis, in addition to the predictions enumerated in Section 111,A (e.g., the com-
plexity hypothesis).6 Antonym pairs are said to differ in meaning only with
respect to the valence of the final feature on their “feature lists.” For example,
big and little may both have a general feature, [Size], and a somewhat less
general feature, In-Space), specifying that these words refer to size along any
%ome of Clark’s ideas about the acquisition of antonyms are based on the marking distinction.
Linguists have described some positive terms as “unmarked” and their negative antonyms as
“marked” (e.g., Clark, 1969). The nature of the distinction is complex, but it refers mainly to the
fact that an unmarked term can be used as a general (nonpositive) word, although the marked term
always has a negative meaning. For example, one can ask a neutral question about a dimension using
an unmarked word, such as, “How big is he?” Some of the studies reviewed include considerations
of the importance of the marking distinction (e.g., Townsend, 1976). However. because the Seman-
tic Feature Hypothesis and related empirical issues can be understood without knowledge of the
marking distinction, 1 do not consider it further.
154 Pamela Blewirr
number of spatial dimensions. In addition, big refers to “more than standard

extent” along any dimension [+Polar], while little refers to “less than standard
extent” along any dimension [-Polar]. (See Clark, 1972, for similar arguments
about other antonyms.)
One prediction is that the positive word big should be learned before the
negative word little, because positive features ordinarily represent more percepti-
ble or salient aspects of the environment than negative features. For example,
greater extent will usually be more noticeable than lesser extent. I will refer to
this as the “positives-first hypothesis.” A second prediction is that, after the
positive member of an antonym pair has been learned, the negative member will
at first be used in the same way as the positive member. Originally, Clark
(1973b) proposed that, for a time, little should mean “big” to a child. Because
the positive value of each feature is easier to learn or more perceptually available
than the negative value, children are likely to add the feature [+Polar] to their
meanings for little before learning the negative valence. Subsequently, Clark
(1973a) proposed a different mechanism (the partial semantics hypothesis; see
Section IV,B) that might account for the latter prediction as well as for other
situations in which children treat words that are related but not equivalent in
meaning as though they are equivalent.
A. TEMPORAL WORDS
Much of the research on temporal words is relevant to predictions based on the

Semantic Feature Hypothesis. Predictions have been supported by some findings
but not by others. Performance seems to depend on many linguistic and non-
linguistic variables, so that different tests of the same words lead to different
results.
1. Testing the Semantic Feature Hypothesis

Clark (1971) proposed a feature analysis for the words before, after, and when
using hierarchically arranged binary features. The first, most general feature for
all of the terms was [+Time], because they all refer to time. For when, the only
additional feature was [+Simultaneous], designating “a punctual relation. ” For
before, the feature list was composed of [+Time], [-Simultaneous], and
[+Prior], in that order. For after, the last feature was negative, [-Prior]. Clark
did not explain why simultaneity was assumed to be positive, or more salient,
than sequentiality. Priority was apparently considered to be positive because it
would be positive in spatial uses of the words (i.e., if they were used to mean “in
front of” or “in back of”). Spatial before would be positive because it refers to
“the visible perceptual field,” and spatial after would be negative because it
refers to “the area that is out of sight.”
Based on the Semantic Feature Hypothesis, one would predict that when
would be learned prior to before or after (from the complexity hypothesis);
Word Meonit18 Acquisition it1 Young Children 1ss
before should be learned before after (from the positives-first hypothesis); and
because the positive value of each feature is learned before the negative value,
for a time afer should seem to mean “before” to children.
Clark tested 3- to 5-year-old children with both a production and a comprehen-
sion task. After the experimenter performed a series of two actions with a doll,
children answered questions like “When did the girl jump over the fence?”
designed to elicit use of before and afer. Then the children were required to act
out sentences like (1) “The girl jumped the gate before she patted the horse” and
(2) “Before the girl jumped the gate she patted the horse.”
The three main findings were consistent with the Semantic Feature Hypoth-
esis. First, the simplest term, when, was understood earliest. Second, before
seemed to be understood earlier than after. Third, for some children at least,
after appeared to mean the same thing as before.
The first finding has been replicated by some researchers at least in the sense
that words referring to simultaneity were understood prior to before and ufter
(Amidon, 1976; Friedman & Seely, 1976; Ginsburg & Abrahamson, 1976).
However, in two studies, children understood before and afer prior to words
referring to simultaneity (Feagans, 1980a; Keller-Cohen, 1975).
The finding that before is learned before after has been supported by some
researchers (Feagans, 1980a; Johnson, 1975; Kavanaugh, 1979; Keller-Cohen,
1975). Other investigators have found no differences in comprehension of before
and after (Amidon & Carey, 1972; French & Brown, 1977; Friedman & Seely,
1976). In some studies, after seems to have been learned first (Amidon, 1976;
Barrie-Blackley, 1973; Feagans, 1980b). And finally, some researchers have
found that children appear to understand before first on some tasks and after first
on others (Coker, 1978; Harner, 1976). See Table 1 for a summary of findings on
the order of acquisition of before and after and of other antonym pairs discussed
in this article.
No replications of Clark’s (1971) third finding, that for a time, after seems to
mean “before,” have been reported.
The many studies of before and after do not provide a clear picture of the
course of acquisition for temporal words, but they do indicate that many charac-
teristics of the linguistic and nonlinguistic context can influence children’s per-
formance in word meaning studies. In the following section, I will discuss the
effects on temporal word comprehension of the syntactic structure of the stimulus
sentence, the syntactic role of the test word in the sentence, the semantic content
of the sentence, and the nonlinguistic context in which the word is tested.
2. Vuriubles AfSecting Word Comprehension
u. The structure of the sentence. Amidon and Carey (1972) had 5-year-
olds act out commands like “Before you move the green car, move the red car.”
In general, children’s performance was much worse than it had been in Clark’s
TABLE I
Summary of Studies Reporting Order of Acquisition of Antonymsa
Selected antonyms Positive before negative Negative before positive Simultaneous acquisition
~
Beforelafterb Clark (1971); Coker (1978): Task 3; Amidon (1976); Banie-Blackley (1973); Amidon and Carey (1972); Coker
Feagans ( 1980a); Hamer ( 1976): Coker (1978): Task 1; Feagans (1978): Task 2; French and Brown
Study 1; Johnson (1975); Kavanaugh (1980b); Harner (1976): Study 2 (1977); Friedman and Seely (1976)
(1979); Keller-Cohen (1975)
In front of/ Cox (1979); Johnston and Slobin (1979); Clark (1980); Harris and Strommen
In back of Leehey and Carey (1978); Tanz (1972); Kuczaj and Maratsos (1975a);
(or behind) (1976); Washington and Naremore Windmiller (1976)
( 1978)
Same/different Donaldson and Wales (1970); Glucksberg et al. (1976): Task 2; Seely
Glucksberg er al. (1976): Task 1; (1977)
Webb er af. (1974)
Size words‘ : Bartlett ( 1976): tallishort; longlshortd; Berndt and Caramazza (1978): Bigilittle; Bartlett (1976): Bigilittle; Berndt and
Bigilittle, Brewer and Stone (1975); Coots Coots ( 1975): Selection task, Dunck- Caramazza (1978): TalVshort; Carey
tallishort. (1975): Description test; Donaldson ley and Radtke (1977): Bigismall; tall/ (1978a). Eilers et a / . (1974): Experi-
etc. and Wales (1970): Dunckley and short: wideinarrow: Eilers rt ul. ment 11; Townsend (1976): Higher/
Radtke (1977): Deep/shallow; high/ (1974): Experiment I lower
low; Ehri (1976); Marschark (1977);
Siege1 (1977); Townsend (1974):
Townsend (1976): Tallerlshorter;
thickerithinner: fatteriskinnier
More/less Beilin (1965); Carey (1978b); Donaldson
and Balfour (1968): Griffiths et al.
(1967): Kavanaugh (1976); Palermo
(1973); Seely (1977): Townsend
(1974); Townsend (1976): Wan-
namacher and Ryan ( 1978): Weiner
(1974)
Comeigo Clark and Gamica ( I 974) Macrae (1976): Richards (1976)
Bringitake Clark and Gamica 1974) Richards (1976)
““Order of acquisition” is defined by differences in performance on the members of antonym pairs in these studies,
“The word listed first is considered the positive term.
.‘Because most studies included several size word pairs. all word pairs are considered here as a group.
dSpecific words are mentioned only when different orders of acquisition were found for different pairs.
158 Pumela Blewitt
(197 I ) study. Performance did not differ for commands involving before and
after, and children frequently ommitted the action described in the subordinate
clause, indicating that they did not even understand that a sequence was being
described. In Clark’s study, children had performed better on before than after,
and children’s errors tended to be reversal errors rather than omission errors,
perhaps suggesting that the children had some notion that temporal sequence was
being described.
In her comprehension task, Clark used declarative sentences with two different
actions to be performed by a single third-person agent (with the child’s help).
The Amidon and Carey commands had a second-person agent, with only one
type of action using two different objects. Johnson (1975) tested 4- and 5-year-
olds with both procedures and respectively replicated most of the essential find-
ings of both previous studies. Clearly, differences in the test sentences affected
children’s performance. However, which of the semantic and syntactic dif-
ferences between them may have been important is unclear.
b. The syntactic role of the test word. Coker (1978) studied before and
after comprehension in a series of three tasks and found task-dependent perfor-
mance by 5- to 7-year-olds. In Tasks 1 and 2, children memorized the temporal
sequence of three pictures, then answered questions like “What did I show you
before the X?” (Task I ) and “Did I show you the X before the Y or after the
Y?” (Task 2). In Task 3, children acted out sentences like those in Clark’s
(197 1) comprehension task. In Task 1, children performed significantly better on
after than on before; in Task 2 , performance levels were nearly equivalent; in
Task 3, performance was significantly better on before, but there was no stage
where after was treated to mean “before.”
Because Coker’s subjects were older than Clark’s (1971) subjects, age dif-
ferences might account for some of the discrepancies between the findings of the
two studies. However, the task differences within Coker’s study indicate that
variables other than age contributed to children’s performance on these words.
Coker attributed many of the task differences to the syntactic role of the word in
the sentence. In Tasks 1 and 2 the terms were used as prepositions, and perfor-
mance was better than in Task 3 where they were subordinate conjunctions.
Children apparently used different strategies for interpreting sentences when the
terms played different syntactic roles. Children often interpreted the words to
mean “next event in time” when they were used as prepositions. With the terms
used as subordinating conjunctions “main clause first” and “order of mention”
were commonly adopted strategies.
c. General semantic content of the sentence. French and Brown (1977) and
Kavanaugh (1979) studied comprehension of before and after in two kinds of
Word Meaning Acquisirioii in YounR Children I59
sentences: sentences describing logically constrained, but not causal sequences

(e.g., After Raggedy Ann fills the bottle, she feeds the baby), and sentences
describing arbitrary or logically reversible sequences (e.g., Raggedy Annfills the
bottle before she washes her hands). Children ranging in age from 3 5 to 5:l
responded more accurately to logically constrained than to arbitrary sentences.
Following Macnamara (1972), French and Brown argued that children proba-
bly work out the meanings of words like before and after by first determining
what the sentence is likely to mean in the context, which is easier with sentences
that describe logically constrained events. Kavanaugh ( 1 979) suggested that if
this is the case, when adults speak to children they may most frequently use such
words in sentences that describe logically constrained events. However, I have
collected large samples of nursery school teachers’ speech to children and have
found that logically constrained orderings are described less frequently than
unconstrained orderings. These frequency data are reported in Table 11. The
assumption that children use logical constraint cues to help them comprehend
sentences, and perhaps to help them learn word meanings, is quite plausible, but
the evidence does not support the position that adults are especially prone to
provide logical constraint cues.
d. Nonlinguistic contexts ofuse. Up to this point, 1 have considered factors

in the linguistic context that appear to affect performance. Factors in the non-
linguistic context may also be important. For example, if children more fre-
quently hear words used in one kind of context, their performance on word
comprehension tests may partly depend on how closely the context of the task
resembles the typical contexts of use.
William Friedman and I (Friedman & Seely, 1976) demonstrated that with
syntactically identical sentences children will show better comprehension in
some contexts than in others. We tested 3- to 5-year-old children on words like
before, after, first, and last in exclusively spatial and exclusively temporal
contexts. Clark (1973) had predicted that the spatial meanings of such words will
be learned before the temporal meanings because aspects of space may be more
“perceptually available” than aspects of time.
Friedman and I found that children performed better in spatial contexts with
some words and in temporal contexts with other words. Before and czfter belong
to the latter group. We proposed that the data might reflect the frequency with
which adults use the words in temporal versus spatial contexts, especially in
speech directed to children. From my samples of nursery school teachers’ speech
to children, I have determined the relative frequency with which the test words
from my study with Friedman were used in temporal and in spatial contexts. For
each of the words, frequency of adult use was much greater in the context in
which our subjects had best understood the word. The results for before and after
are reported in Table 11.
160 Pamela Blewitt
TABLE I1
Uses of Before and After in Adult Speech to Young Children
Before After
A . Logically constrained vs unconstrained referent situations

Constrained 48O (.28)h 62 (.44)
Unconstrained 126 (.72) 79 ( S 6 )
B . Temporal vs spatial referential contexts
Temporal 172 (.99) 133 (.94)
Spatial 2 (.01) 8 (.06)
C. Future vs past sequencesC
Future 85 (.89) 96 (.96)
Past 1 1 (.II) 4 (44)
UNurnber of references of this type in 137.5 observer hours in a nursery school setting.
"Proportion of total references for this word.
cNot all uses of before and after could be analyzed as past or future sequences. Some references
were indefinite, as in We know thur we all brush before luiich. Many others did not describe
connected events, as in Did you hear rhis music before?
Harner (1976) found that, depending on context, temporal meanings of before

might be understood better than those of after, or vice versa. She concluded that
both words may be understood better when they describe sequences of future
events, perhaps reflecting the frequency of adult usage. The samples of nursery
school teachers' speech that I have collected support this hypothesis. Adults
much more frequently used before and after to describe future rather than past
sequences. (See Table 11.)
B . SPATIAL WORDS
Studies of spatial words have centered on determinants of the order of acquisi-

tion for words related in meaning. In a revised version of her Semantic Feature
Hypothesis, Clark ( 1973a) proposed that nonlinguistic strategies play a critical
role in determining order of acquisition. 1 examine research relevant to this issue
before turning to other possible determinants of order of acquisition.
I. The Effects of Nonlinguistic Strategies on Order of

Acquisition
Spatial prepositions were the subject of a study by Clark (1973a). Children ages
1:6 to 5:O were instructed to put a toy animal either in, on, or under one of six
reference objects. Children under 2:O performed correctly with in all the time,
with on some of the time, and with under none of the time. Performance im-
proved with on and under for older children. Error data indicated that the young-
er children seemed to be comprehending instructions by using two simple, or-
Word Meatling Acquisition irr Young Children 161
dered strategies based on characteristics of the reference objects. If the object

were a container a child would respond to any instruction as though it included
in. If the reference object had a horizontal surface a child would respond as if the
instruction contained on.
Based on these data, Clark offered the “partial semantics” hypothesis as a
revision of the Semantic Feature Hypothesis, which she now called a “full
semantics” hypothesis. She proposed that at first children have only partial
semantic knowledge of a word or a set of related words. For example, they may
initially have a single feature [+Locative] for words like in, on, and under. At
this point children use nonlinguistic response strategies to interpret the words
further, like the strategy of always locating objects inside of containers.
The partial semantics hypothesis provides a slightly different explanation for
the equivalent responses children sometimes give to words related, but not iden-
tical, in meaning. Instead of assuming, for example, that after means “before”
to the child (Clark, 1971), one might assume that the child has an incomplete
feature list for both words and is using a nonlinguistic strategy that makes his or
her responses to both words equivalent.
More importantly, in the partial semantics hypothesis nonlinguistic strategies
are said to affect the course of word meaning acquisition by forming the basis for
the child’s linguistic hypothesis about a word’s semantic features. For example,
the strategy of always locating objects inside of containers might lead a child to
hypothesize that something like [+Containment] is a feature of meaning for
spatial prepositions. The child’s hypothesis would be correct about in, and so the
child should easily learn its meaning. Furthermore, as Clark found with in, on,
and under, the order of acquisition of words within a semantic field would
depend on and be predicted by the degree to which each word’s feature list
corresponds to children’s strategies for interpreting words.
Subsequent studies of in, on, and under cast some doubt on the viability of the
partial semantics hypothesis. Although children do seem to learn under some-
what later than in and on, little evidence exists that this acquisition order is
determined by children’s nonlinguistic response strategies (e.g., Grieve, Hoog-
enraad, & Murray, 1977; Wilcox & Palermo, 1974). Rather than being con-
sistently based on features of reference objects, often children’s strategies seem
to depend on context in the sense that they tend to reflect conventional relation-
ships among specific sets of objects. Thus, Wilcox and Palermo found that, in
certain contexts, strategies consistent with the meaning of under were more
likely than strategies consistent with in. although their youngest subjects (ages
1:6 to 1: 11) tended to use the strategies Clark had identified. Grieve ef a f . found
that the strategy children used to position two boxes relative to one another
varied depe.nding on whether the children were instructed to think of the boxes as
a table and a chair or as just two boxes.
These findings create two difficulties for the partial semantics hypothesis.
162 Pamela Blewitt
First, if as children get older, their response strategies reflect the meanings of
different semantically related words in different contexts, then one cannot predict
the order of acquisition of the words solely on the basis of children’s strategies.
One would also have to consider some other factor like the frequency with which
children experience words in different kinds of contexts. Second, if strategies
suggest word meaning to children and if strategies sometimes depend on context,
it would seem that early word meanings would also depend on context.
Other difficulties are suggested by the fact that children’s response strategies
are sometimes unrelated to reference objects. For example, some children use a
response alternation strategy when repeatedly tested with the same materials
(e.g., Wilcox & Palermo, 1974). Even when strategies are relevant they some-
times appear to be independent of acquisition rather than predictive of it. For
example, the subjects tested by Grieve et al. sometimes used response strategies
when required to position objects relative to reference objects, even though they
had demonstrated understanding of in, on, and under in another task in which
they could simply select the correct arrangement of objects from an array of
possible arrangements.
Recently, Clark (1980) reported another series of studies in which she related
the acquisition of top, bottom, front, and back to response strategies. Based on
her earlier work (Clark, 1973a), she suggested that children prefer “on” or “on
top of“ placements of objects to “underneath” placements. Based on work by
others (e.g., Braine, 1972; Bryant, 1974), she proposed that children prefer to
choose sides on the vertical dimension rather than the horizontal dimension. She
predicted that these two strategies combined should favor earlier learning of top
and bottom over front and back. Both strategies are compatible with the mean-
ings of top, the second strategy is consistent with bottom, but neither is compati-
ble with the meanings of front and back.
In one experiment, Clark found that children from 3:O to 4:5 performed better
on top and bottom than on front and back when shown various objects and asked
“Where is the top(bottom, front, back)?” In addition, the errors children made
usually involved selecting the upper or lower horizontal surface of an object, that
is, sides along the vertical dimension. For example, children were most likely to
make errors on top and bottom if the “conventional” top was not the uppermost
side, such as with a book lying on a table. With such objects, children often
selected the uppermost side (the front cover) as the “top” and the lower side (the
rear cover) as the “bottom.” The predicted order of acquisition was also sup-
ported in a second experiment. Children from 2:6 to 4:9 were asked to “Put your
fingers on the top(bottom, front, back)” of wooden blocks. Children performed
best on top, and across age performance improved for bottom before front or
back. Clark again related order of acquisition to children’s a priori preferences
for topside choices and for the vertical dimension.
Closer analysis, however, suggests that the data from the second experiment
Word Meaning Acquisitior? in Young Children 163
do not provide strong support for the partial semantics hypothesis. Performance
was best for fop and selecting the topside was a consistent strategy, but as Clark
pointed out, one cannot say whether top was learned earliest or whether chil-
dren’s response strategies made that appear to be the case.7 Furthermore, select-
ing the bottom side (the other side along the vertical dimension) was no more
prevelant than selecting the sides along the horizontal dimension, for any of the
age groups. Thus, the earlier acquisition of bottom does not appear to have been
related to a strategy of selecting sides along the vertical dimension in this
experiment.
2. The Iniportance of Conceptual Complexity ,for Order of

Acquisition
a. Order of acquisition of reluted words. In the Semantic Feature Hypoth-

esis, in its “full” or “partial” form, the prediction is made that words with
fewer features will be understood before words with similar but longer feature
lists (the complexity hypothesis). In addition, Clark has variously predicted that
words whose meanings encode perceptually salient aspects of the environment
(Clark, 1973b) or words whose meanings match nonlinguistic response strategies
(Clark, 1973a, 1977, 1980) are easier to learn than words whose meanings do not
have these characteristics. Regardless of whether one accepts Clark’s analyses of
the determinants of a word’s complexity, the prediction that complexity will
affect how early a word can be fully understood seems eminently reasonable.
Another approach to assessing the relative conceptual complexity of words with-
in a semantic field has been to borrow from cognitive developmental theory.
A number of authors have predicted the order of acquisition of spatial preposi-
tions based on Piaget and Inhelder’s (1956/1967) analysis of the order in which
spatial concepts are constructed. First, simple topological notions are acquired.
Objects can be located only with reference to the boundaries of other objects.
Words like in, on, outside. and around can specify such topological relations.
Later, children construct projective and Euclidean concepts of space. Projective
concepts include the viewer’s perspective on the location of objects. Knowledge
of a viewer’s perspective is usually required for understanding terms like in front
of, in buck of, beside, and behind. In Euclidean concepts, space is construed as
multidimentional, and objects can be related to one another along any axis or
dimension. Words like under, over. berween, and rhrough label Euclidean con-
’Clark now suggests that, in all research on words related in meaning, children cannot be credited
with knowing one word until they contrast it with another word (Clark, 1980). However, this
criterion seems necessary only in tasks where children are using a response strategy favoring correct
performance on one word over others in a related set. When errors on related words are random, or
when response strategies d o not favor correct performance on one word, use of Clark‘s criterion
should not be necessary for judging a child’s understanding of a word.
164 Pamela Bfewirt
cepts. Studies of spatial prepositions have generally supported the order of ac-
quisition predicted by a Piagetian analysis of conceptual complexity, although
under is usually understood and produced much earlier than other words said to
specify Euclidean concepts (Johnston & Slobin, 1979; Parisi & Antonucci, 1970;
Washington & Naremore, 1978; Windmiller, 1976).
b. Order of acquisition of levels of meaning for a single word. Many

spatial words seem to have somewhat different meanings when used in different
contexts. These “levels” of meaning may themselves differ in conceptual com-
plexity, possibly accounting for children’s ability to understand a word in some
contexts but not in others.
A study by Kuczaj and Maratsos (1975a) demonstrates that spatial words may
be understood differently in different contexts of use. Children ages 2:6 to 4: I
were tested for comprehension of in front of, in back of, and on the side oJ along
with related words like front and back. First, children could understand in front
of and in back of only with respect to their own bodies. Second, they could
identify the front and back of fronted objects (objects with a clearly defined
front, like televisions or stoves). Third, they could place an object in front of and
in back of fronted objects, and fourth, on the side of fronted objects. Fifth,
children could identify the front and back of novel machines, and finally they
could place objects in front of, in back of, and on the side of nonfronted objects.
Many researchers have replicated aspects of the findings reported by Kuczaj and
Maratsos (Cox, 1979; Harris & Strommen, 1972, 1979; Johnston & Slobin,
1979; Leehey & Carey, 1978; Tam, 1976; Windmiller, 1976). See Harris and
Strommen (1979) for a review of this literature.
To some extent, children’s progress through the stages identified by Kuczaj
and Maratsos may be due to differences in the conceptual complexity of different
uses of the test words. For example, only the final use of the terms seems to
require knowledge of projective space. The levels of meaning acquired earlier
seem to be less complex. They all include the ability to recognize the front of
something, or the ability to place another object near the front of something,
which seem to require only a topological understanding of spatial relations.
3 . Other Variables Affecting the Order of Acquisition of Words

Clearly, the relative complexity of word meanings, and of the levels of meanings
of polysemous words, are important variables in word meaning acquisition. But
when the order of acquisition of words is predicted on the basis of conceptual
complexity alone, exceptions occur (e.g., the early acquisition of under). These
exceptions may be due to the inadequacy of the theories from which the analyses
of complexity are derived. But other variables may also be having an effect on
acquisition orders.
One variable may be the frequency with which words are used in speech to
children. In a preliminary analysis of spatial word frequency in nursery school

teachers’ speech to children, I have found that in and on are used with greater
frequency than under, matching their order of acquisition. Similarly, top is used
much more frequently than bottom. and both are used more frequently thanfront
and back, matching the order of acquisition described by Clark (1980).
I also found that back and in back of are used more frequently than front and in
front of. Harris and Strommen (1979) also reported that across studies of written
and spoken language, with child and adult speakers, back is used more fre-
quently than front. These frequency data are consistent with the order of acquisi-
tion of front and buck reported by most investigators (see Table I). This order of
acquisition is contrary to the positives-first prediction of the Semantic Feature
Hypothesis.
Slobin (1971; Johnston & Slobin, 1979) has also pointed out that the order of
acquisition of words may partially depend on their linguistic complexity, includ-
ing factors like lexical diversity (how many different words are available to
encode the same concept) and homonymity or polysemy (the number of different
concepts encoded by the same word).
C. WORDS REFERRING TO SIMILARITY RELATIONS
This section will cover the words same, different, more, and less which refer
to the conceptual domain of similarity relations in the most general sense. Many
studies of similarity words have been designed to test predictions of the Semantic
Feature Hypothesis, especially the positives-first hypothesis and the prediction
that negative words may have the same meaning as positive words. Though early
research seemed to support the predictions, later work has not. As with other
relational words, variations in linguistic and nonlinguistic contexts have critical
effects on children’s performance with these words.
I. Testing the Predictions of the Semantic Feature Hyljothesis
a. Same and different. Donaldson and Wales (1970) presented 3E-year-

olds with arrays of objects. One object was selected as a standard and children
were given instructions like “Give me one that is the same in some way.” Most
of the children responded equivalently to same and diflerent, in both cases
choosing an object from the array that was a maximally similar object. (The
standard itself was not among the choices available.)
Donaldson and Wales suggested that young children may comprehend sume,
but that they may understand different only in the sense of “another member of
the same category.” However, Clark (1973b) proposed that Donaldson and
Wales’ young subjects may have understood both same and different to mean
same,” since same is the positive term.
‘ 6
166 Pamela EIewitr
Webb, Olivieri, and O’Keefe (1974) found evidence for Clark’s proposal in a
series of studies that replicated and extended the Donaldson and Wales work.
Young children tended to select an object that was maximally similar to a
standard when asked to “Pick one for me that is different from this one.” In one
task, Webb et al. found that subjects younger than about age 3:3 would choose
the standard itself when it was included as one of the possible choices. This
finding was interpreted as an indication that these children viewed different as
synonymous with same. However, Webb et al. did not test children’s under-
standing of same in this task and seemed to assume that young children in-
terpreted same to mean “identity.”
Glucksberg, Hay, and Danks (1976) obtained very different results with chil-
dren under age 3:3 when they varied the test procedure. In Task l , like the one
used by Donaldson and Wales, the subjects tested by Glucksberg et al. re-
sponded to the instruction “Give me one that is different in some way” as if
different meant “same.” But in Task 2 in which the choice objects were a set of
beads of varying colors with instructions to “Give me one that’s a di8erent color
from this bead (emphasis added),” children did not perform as though diflerenf
meant “same. They appropriately selected a color unlike the standard. The
”
procedure in Task 2 differed in two ways from earlier work on different. The
linguistic context provided explicit information as to which dimension was to be
considered for comparison, and the nonlinguistic context limited the number of
comparative dimensions to just one. Though it is unclear whether only one or
both of these alterations were critical, this study seems to demonstrate again the
importance of contextual variations in determining children’s performance in
tests of comprehension. Of course, this study may also indicate that children’s
understanding of words is contextually bound.
b. More and less. Several studies have supported the Semantic Feature
Hypothesis, indicating that the positive word more is learned before less and that
at some point during acquisition less is understood to mean “more.” For exam-
ple, Donaldson and Balfour (1968) tested children ages 3:5 to 4:1 for their
understanding of the terms. In one task, children responded to instructions like
“Put more apples on this tree than on this tree” by adding or subtracting
“apples” from two identical toy apple trees. Most children performed quite well
on most tasks with the word more, but typically responded to less as if it meant
“more.” Palermo (1973) replicated and extended these findings with 3-, 4-, and
5-year-old children.
Although other studies of more and less have corroborated the finding that
more is understood earlier than less (see Table I), there is no further evidence in
this literature for the less means “more” phenomenon (Beilin, 1965; Carey,
1978b; Griffiths, Shantz, & Siegel, 1967; Kavanaugh, 1976; Seely, 1977; Wan-
Word Meuning Acquisition in Young Children 167
namacher & Ryan, 1978; Weiner, 1974). Young children generally do not seem
to understand less; whether they will respond to less as if it means “more”
seems to depend on their use of different strategies for responding in different
tasks. For example, Carey (1978b) tested 3- and 4-year-old children in several
tasks for understanding of more, less, and “tiv,” a nonsense syllable. Perfor-
mance was much better for more than for less. The kinds of responses children
made to less they also made to “tiv,” sometimes treating both items as if they
meant “more.” Unless we are to conclude that “tiv” meant “more” to these
young children, it appears that children’s responses to less reflected response
strategies.
2. Contexts of’ Use: Frequency and Conceptual Complexity as

Factors in Acquisition
In previous sections I have reported evidence that children understand words
better in some contexts, perhaps because they more frequently hear the words in
those contexts than in others (e.g., Friedman & Seely, 1976). Perhaps, too, the
conceptual complexity of a word’s meaning varies in different contexts of use,
causing children to perform differently in different contexts (e.g., Kuczaj &
Maratsos, 1975a). I have done a study with similarity words which further
indicates that either variable-frequency of use or conceptual complexity-may
determine the contexts within which children will understand test words (Seely,
1977).
I attempted to specify the variable meanings of the words same, dzfferenf,
more, and less in different contexts of use. For example, same has at least two
meanings. It can refer to “identity” as in Did you lose the sume button that I
sewed on yesterday? It can also refer to aspects of similarity between objects at
several levels: categorical similarity, similarity on one or more qualitative di-
mensions (e.g., same color or shape) or on a quantitative dimension (e.g., same
number). 1 proposed that the “identity” meaning of same would be earliest,
because concepts of identity are presumably early acquisitions (e.g., Piaget,
1968). I further speculated that when same is used to refer to similarity between
objects, qualitative comparisons would be easier for children than numerical
comparisons, because number concepts may not be clearly established until
beyond the preschool years (e.g., Piaget, 1952/1965). Also, in several investiga-
tions of same involving numerical comparisons, even 4- and 5-year-old children
have failed to understand the word (Beilin, 1965; Griffiths et a l . , 1967; LaPointe
& O’Connell, 1974; Palermo, 1973).
In this fashion, several uses of each of the test words (same, diaerent, more,
and less) were ordered for estimated conceptual complexity. Children ages 2:6 to
5:6 were tested for understanding of the various uses of words. The estimated
conceptual complexity of word use predicted the children’s relative degree of
168 Pamela Blewitt
understanding of the words in different contexts, with one exception: the “iden-
tity” meaning of same was not understood by children at any of the ages tested.
Karmiloff-Smith (1977) has reported a similar finding.
In my study (Seely, 1977), I also collected corpora of adults’ speech to nursery
school children. In 50 hours of observation, there were 19 uses of the word same.
Of these, 89.5% (17) referred to similarity between objects and only 10.5% (2)
referred to identity, suggesting that relative frequency of use may account for the
children’s failure to understand same when it means “identity.” For each of the
other test words in my study, adults most frequently used the level of meaning
that I had estimated to be least complex.
Several aspects of my findings appear to have implications for work that I have
discussed previously. Evidence that diflerent means “same” has been based on
findings that, when asked for a “different one,” children may select the standard
itself if it is available as a choice and, otherwise, tend to select a maximally
similar alternative (e.g., Webb et al., 1974). Children’s tendency to select the
standard itself when it is available may reflect a response bias because my study
suggests that children do not understand the identity meaning of same in the first
place. Furthermore, when adults used different in my study, they did so only to
refer to comparisons of objects within the same category. In most cases, the
objects were alike in every respect except for the attributes being compared. If
these are the typical uses of the word in a child’s experience, it is not surprising
that in most studies of dzfferent, children have selected maximally similar objects
when asked for “a different one.” Finally, as in many studies, 1 found that more
was understood earlier than less. Interestingly, the frequency of adult usage was
entirely consistent with this finding. Of the 25 occasions in which adults used
either more or less, 96%(24) involved the use of more and only 4% (1) involved
the use of less.*
D. SIZE WORDS
In this section 1 review research on size words which refer to extent along
various spatial dimensions. Some investigators studying words like big, little,
fall, short, and their comparative or superlative forms have reported data that
support aspects of Clark’s (1973b) Semantic Feature Hypothesis. However, in
many instances further research has failed to corroborate earlier findings, and
alternative explanations of how children learn dimensional words have been
offered.
“he relative frequencies reported here were recorded in the same nursery schools where children
had been tested for word comprehension. Subsequently, I collected additional corpora of adult speech
to children in other nursery schools, corroborating all of the findings reported here. However, the
relative frequencies of more or less were more startling in this larger sampling of adult speech. Of the
479 times the words were used, 478 involved the use of more.
I. Order of Acquisition: The Coniplexity Hypothesis versus

Frequency Explanations
Clark (1972) ranked size words for complexity based on Bierwisch’s (1967)
semantic feature analysis. Big and smull (or little) were considered their pair with
the shortest feature lists; tall and short, high and low, and long and short were
considered somewhat more complex; and wide and narrow, thick and thin, and
deep and shallow were described as the most complex. Many investigators have
reported that this complexity analysis predicts the order of acquisition of
size-word pairs with simpler pairs being learned before more complex pairs
(e.g., Bartlett, 1976; Brewer & Stone, 1975; Carey, 1978a; Clark, 1972; Coots,
1975; Eilers, Oller, & Ellington, 1974). However, the relative frequency with
which these words are used (e.g., Kucera & Francis, 1967) also matches their
relative complexity. If the frequency of use in child-directed speech is compara-
ble to the general frequencies of use, relative frequency alone could account for
the observed order of acquisition (Dunckley & Radtke, 1977).
2 . The Positives-First Hypothesis

Klatzky, Clark, and Macken (1973) taught 3- and 4-year-old children new labels
for dimensional size concepts. They reported that children learned nonsense
labels for positive concepts more quickly than for negative concepts, a finding
that is consistent with Clark’s (1973b) notion that it is easier to learn “positive
extent” because it is more perceptually salient. However, Dunckley and Radtke
(1977), using similar procedures, found that preschoolers learned labels for
negative concepts somewhat more quickly than for positive concepts. They
concluded that positive concepts are not necessarily easier to learn than negative
concepts. This conclusion seems consistent with the literature on size words.
Some studies support the positives-first hypothesis (Brewer & Stone, 1975;
Donaldson & Wales, 1970; Ehri, 1976; Marschark, 1977; Siegel, 1977; Towns-
end, 1974). But in other studies, for some words or for some tasks children do
not perform better on positive words than on negative words (Bartlett, 1976;
Berndt & Caramazza, 1978; Coots, 1975; Dunckley & Radtke, 1977; Eilers et
al., 1974; Townsend, 1976). See Table I.
3. Semantic Conjusion: Semantic Feature Hypothesis and

Alternative Explanations
a. Semantic Feature Hypothesis. In the Semantic Feature Hypothesis

Clark ( 1973b) predicted that when features can be hierarchically organized, the
most general feature will be learned first. For size words, Clark (1972) suggested
that the most general feature of meaning is something like [n-Space], indicating
that the word applies to one or more spatial dimensions. The next most general
features describe which spatial dimensions are referred to, such as [+Vertical]
170 Pamela Blewiti
for tall and short. The last feature to be learned specifies polarity, whether a
word refers to positive or negative extent. Children should initially have overly
general meanings for size words, based on the most general features of meaning.
To test this hypothesis, Clark (1972) used a word association task in which 4-
and 5-year-old children were encouraged by example to produce antonyms.
While children were often able to give opposite pole responses as required, the
response word was frequently more general than the stimulus word. For exam-
ple, to the stimulus “tall” the child might respond “small” or “little.” Clark
interpreted this tendency as evidence that children had learned the more general
features of the stimulus word but not the more specific features. For example, the
child above might not yet know that tall has more specific dimensional features
than the word big. However, the findings of this study might also be explained
on the basis of frequency. Because the more general words are the more fre-
quently used words, children may tend to respond with more general words
because they are more “available” for produ~tion.~
b. An alternative feature analysis: Polarityfirst. Because children are able

to give appropriate opposite responses before they can give responses referring to
the appropriate dimension, some researchers have argued that children acquire a
polarity feature before they learn the dimensional features for size words (Bar-
tlett, 1976; Brewer & Stone, 1975; Carey, 1978a).
The polarity-first hypothesis has been tested by giving children selection tasks
with arrays of objects, usually two pairs of objects. Items within one pair differ
along one dimension only (e.g., height), and items in the second pair differ along
a second dimension (e.g., length). Children are given instructions like “Point to
the tall one.” If children know the polarity of the word but not the appropriate
dimension, they should make more same-pole, different-dimension errors than
opposite-pole, same-dimension errors. The data generally support this prediction
(Brewer & Stone, 1975; Carey, 1978a). Moreover, children’s performance on
double dimension arrays, as described above, is worse than on single dimension
arrays where objects vary on only one size dimension (Bartlett, 1976). This
finding seems to be another indication that children may learn polarity before
they work out dimensional aspects of meaning.
9Clark argued that whereas relative frequencies of use might account for the order of acquisition of
size words, the substitutions children produced in this task could not be explained on the basis of
frequency, because ”a frequency hypothesis has no way of predicting that there should be substitu-
tions, or that those substitutions that occur should preserve components of meaning” (Clark, 1972, p.
758). However, depending on how children approach an antonym production task, frequency could
be an important determiner of their responses. For example, if children first try to imagine an object
or event that is opposite of one described by the stimulus word, and second try to recall a word that
would describe the imagined object or event, the relative frequency with which words have been used
to describe similar objects or events should affect which word is produced.
Word MeatriiiR Acquisition irr Yoirrrg Childrrw 171
c. Other explcmarions,for semcintic cotfirsions. In several explanations for

the apparently overlapping meanings of size words, the importance of contexts of
use have been emphasized. Webb (1975) argued that the early meanings of
dimensional words are largely context-bound. That is, children may know the
objects to which size words refer, but may not have differentiated the abstract
dimensions to which the specific words refer. Given this referential quality of
their verbal concepts, children’s early confusions among size words may be due
to redundancy of size attributes in the referents to which the words apply. In a
child’s life, what is big (like a grown-up) is also usually fat (in contrast to the
child) and also tall. Thus, it may be very difficult to learn which words refer to
which attributes of a given referent or group of referents. Carey (1978a) and
Heidenheimer ( 1975) made similar arguments.
Children do seem to experience a good deal of confusion working out the
dimensional meanings of size words, even making inappropriate inferences
about big for a period of time. For example, Maratsos (1973, 1974) found that 4-
and 5-year-olds may actually treat big as if it meant “tall” or “high” in some
contexts. (See also Tinder, Arnold, & Abrahamson, 1976.) Like Webb, Marat-
sos (1974) noted that attributes like top point, tallness, and bigness are often
correlated in the environment. Unlike Webb, he postulated that children do
abstract these attributes from the contexts of a word’s use. The attributes form a
loose associative complex-a set of characteristic but not defining features. In
different contexts, different features are salient and are given more weight in
word interpretation.
E. LOGICAL CONJlJNCTlONS
Some uses of a word are understood earlier than others, as we have seen with
temporal words (e.g., Friedman & Seely, 1976), with spatial words (e.g.,
Kuczaj & Maratsos, 1975a), and with similarity words (e.g., Seely, 1977).
Studies of the conjunctions crncf, o r , and D~cc~u.se.which can describe logical
connections between events, corroborate the notion that some levels of meaning
are easier for children to learn.
And can refer to the logical relation of conjunction, meaning that both con-
nected events are necessary for defining a concept. Or can refer to disjunction,
the condition in which one or both connected events can be sufficient for defining
a concept. Given that investigators have found that logical conjunction does not
seem to be understood until middle childhood and disjunction not until adoles-
cence (e.g., Neimark & Slotnick, 1970), Johansson and Sjolin (1975) attempted
to detcrmine what und and or mean to young children. The children in their study
seemed to understand both words by age 4. On the basis of the children’s
spontaneous uses of the words, the authors speculated that and is used to enumer-
ate a series related either temporally or spatially, and or denotes a choice situa-
172 Pamela Blewitr
tion. Both meanings appear to involve surface level, concrete phenomena more
often than the abstract logical relations that the terms can denote for older
children and adults.
These findings are corroborated in part by a longitudinal study of the speech of
4 children up to the age of 3. Bloom, Lahey, Hood, Lifter, and Fiess (1980)
found that the earliest use of and was strictly “additive.” The events being
described were usually concurrent with the utterances, and no dependent rela-
tionship between the events seemed to be intended. Later, and was used to
describe temporally related events and later still, causally related events.
Because can be used to specify many different types of causal relationship.
Corrigan ( 1975) described three meanings: ‘‘concrete logical” meanings specify
the necessary relationship between empirical events, as in The cat must be alive
because it meowed; “physical” meanings specify how one physical event has
affected another, as in The bottle broke because I dropped it; and “affective”
meanings relate motivational states to physical events, as in The boy ran because
he was afraid. (See Piaget, 1924/1969, for additional meanings of because.)
In several studies of children’s understanding of because, rather late com-
prehension has been reported, as late as 7 years or older (Bebout, Segalowitz, &
White, 1980; Corrigan, 1975; Emerson, 1979; Kuhn & Phelps, 1976). Corrigan
found that affective causality, however, was understood somewhat earlier than
other forms, and Hood and Bloom (1979) reported that even 2- and 3-year-olds
use because to express their own intentions. It may be that as the studies of in
front of and in back of indicated (e.g., Kuczaj & Maratsos, 1975a), children
begin to understand and use many relational words in reference to themselves:
their own bodies, their own intentions, their own frequently experienced interac-
tions with others.
F: VERBS
Nearly all of the issues that have been raised in previous sections on relational
words are reflected in research on verbs. Predictions of the Semantic Feature
Hypothesis have been tested and the outcome with verbs is consistent with work
already reviewed. The data generally support the complexity hypothesis, but not
the positives-first hypothesis. Alternative explanations of the data have centered
on the importance of contexts of use in determining children’s word meanings.
I . Testing the Semantic Feature Hypothesis

Clark and Garnica (1974) predicted that the verbs come, go, bring, and take
would be learned in a sequence consistent with the positives-first hypothesis and
the complexity hypothesis. Come and bring were said to be the positive members
of the antonym pairs because either the speaker or the addressee would already
be at the goal at the time referred to in the utterance, while this would not be the
Word Meoning Acquisition in Young Children I73
case for utterances containing go and take. Come and go were considered less
complex than bring and take, because the latter contain an additional feature of
meaning, [To cause to]. Using a model farm with toy animals, the authors
required children to say which animal would be the addressee if, for example, the
horse said, C a n I come into the barnyard? As predicted, children from age 5:6 to
9:5 performed better on the “positive” terms and better on the comelgo pair than
on the bringltake pair. In agreement with the “partial semantics” hypothesis
(Clark, 1973a), Clark and Garnica suggested that better performance on positive
words may initially be due to children’s adopting fixed strategies for interpreting
all the verbs, leading to responses that are more often correct for positive words
than for negative words. These strategies, in turn, make positive terms easier for
children to learn.
Other investigators, however, have found that performance on these verbs
does not necessarily follow the pattern predicted by Clark and Garnica. Macrae
(1976) reported that in spontaneous speech come and go are used with equal
facility by 2-year-olds. Richards (1976) tested children from ages 4:O to 7: 1 1 ,
younger than the children in the Clark and Garnica study. She used a simple
comprehension task that required movements by children in response to com-
mands containing the four verbs. She also required the children to produce
commands in situations designed to elicit the test words. Children did not per-
form better on positive words than on negative words, and the strategies Clark
and Garnica identified were not used by children in Richard’s tasks. Come and
go were understood earlier than bring and rake, as Clark and Garnica found.
Based on a feature analysis, Gentner (1975) predicted the order of acquisition
of seven related verbs. Give and take should be learned before trade and pay.
followed by spend, buy, and sell. Not only did the order of complexity success-
fully predict order of acquisition with children from 3:6 to 8 : 5 , but errors seemed
to reflect incomplete meanings such that the meanings of more complex verbs
seemed to be for a time equivalent to the meanings of less complex verbs.
Clark’s (1973b) complexity hypothesis is supported by these verb studies, but
again the order of acquisition might also be predicted by frequency of word usage
in speech to children, although no data relevant to this claim exist. In addition,
when one word in a semantic field appears to mean the same thing to a child as
either a less complex term or as a more complex term, such as big being
interpreted to mean “tall” (e.g., Maratsos, 1973, 1974), it may be due to
children’s having frequently heard the words used in the same or similar con-
texts. Children may have little need to differentiate the terms in their early
exposure to them.
2. Alternative Explanations
In the spontaneous speech of her two daughters, Bowerman (1978a) found that
when verbs and other relational words first appeared in a child’s speech, they
174 Pamela Blewifi
were used in appropriate ways for several weeks or months. The overextensions
that would be expected with incomplete feature lists were not observed. Howev-
er, after a period of correct usage, the children would begin to use the words
incorrectly. Specifically, words with related meanings, like bring and take,
would be inappropriately substituted for one another, just as adults sometimes
produce semantically related “slips of the tongue” (e.g., Fromkin, 1973).
Bowerman suggested that the early correct usage is the result of children’s
having learned the contexts in which the words are appropriate and then using the
words only in those contexts. Later, children begin to isolate aspects of the
context that may be relevant for the word’s meaning, and a rather prolonged
period of time might ensue during which children are working out how these
aspects of meaning apply to the various words within a semantic field. The
process involves abstracting feature-like aspects of meaning from context as well
as discovering that some words are related in meaning. Carey (1978a) has pre-
sented a similar and somewhat more detailed explanation.
3. Levels of Meaning and Contexts of Use

Several investigators have studied children’s understanding of ‘‘mental”
verbs, like think, know, and remember (Hidi & Hildyard, 1979; Johnson &
Maratsos, 1977; Johnson & Wellman, 1980; Macnamara, Baker, & Olson, 1976;
Miscione, Marvin, O’Brien, & Greenberg, 1978; Wellman & Johnson, 1979).
Some of these studies indicate that children associate the words with outcomes in
the external context, rather than just with mental states, suggesting that children
may interpret verbs as having levels of meaning that are consistent with contexts
of use but that are not necessarily the meanings intended by adults (Hidi &
Hildyard, 1979; Miscione et al., 1978; Wellman & Johnson, 1979). For exam-
ple, both remember and forget imply prior knowledge, but typically, remember-
ing something is related to a successful outcome, while forgetting is related to
failure. Wellman and Johnson (1979) told children stories in which two charac-
teristics were systematically varied: whether a character had prior knowledge of
an object’s location and whether a search for the object was successful. Children
were asked questions like “Does the girl remember where her shoes are‘?” The
majority of 5-year-olds were able to answer test questions correctly, but most 4-
year-olds answered on the basis of the success of the story character’s search,
ignoring whether prior knowledge was available to the character. The children
had been pretested for their ability to understand that a story character may not
have access to information available to the children themselves. Many 4-year-
olds did understand the mental state of the story character even though they
interpreted the test verbs only with respect to outcomes. This finding seems
consistent with the view that children base their interpretations of words on the
typical contexts of use.
Johnson and Wellman (1980) argued further that children are initially basing
Word Mecining Ac.yui.si~ionin Young Children I75
their interpretation of mental verbs on typical contexts of use. They pointed out
that while some of these verbs may tend to be linked with particular outcomes in
certain contexts of use, certain other common uses of the terms are not closely
connected to outcomes. Specifically, the words are frequently used to assert
things and to express one’s degree of certainty about a statement, as in, I guess
my shoes are downstairs. Thus, while in some testing contexts outcomes may
determine a child’s comprehension of the terms, in other contexts children may
show an awareness that the terms can be used to describe one’s personal
expectancy.
To test comprehension of the words know. remember, and guess, Johnson and
Wellman used several tasks in which children from ages 4:O to 10:3 were re-
quired to search for a hidden object. In one trick condition, children were given
information about an object’s location, but the object was secretly moved so that
children were wrong when they pointed to the object’s location. When children
were asked, “Did you know (remember, guess) it’s there?” (referring to the
child’s choice of location), 4-year-olds tended to agree that they knew, remem-
bered, and guessed where the object was. In a task where the children had no
prior knowledge, and where they had guessed incorrectly about an object’s
location, 4-year-olds tended to deny remembering, knowing, or guessing where
the object was. In these two tasks, outcomes were the same (children incorrectly
chose an object’s location), but in the first task children had established a prior
expectancy about location and in the second task they had not. Thus, for the 4-
year-olds, all of the words seemed to refer to the presence of an expectancy, as
one would predict if children frequently hear the words used to make assertions.
Youngest children tended not to make distinctions among the three words in
these two tasks, although distinctions increased with age. Based on these and
other findings in this study, the authors argued that children’s understanding of
words is initially context dependent, and that children only gradually isolate
defining features.
V. Discussion: Theoretical Directions

A. THE SEMANTIC FEATURE HYPOTHESIS
Clark’s (1973a,b) Semantic Feature Hypothesis, in its “full semantics” or

“partial semantics” forms, offers an orderly and broadly applicable view of the
nature of early word meanings. The heuristic impact of this theory in the last
decade has been enormous. However, although many studies have supported its
predictions, many studies have not, and the lack of consistency across studies is
difficult to explain within the theory.
For nominal words, predictions about the nature of children’s word meanings
176 Pamela Blewitf
and the order in which features are acquired have not been consistently sup-
ported. (See Section 111.) First, the hypothesis that children originally learn one
or two of a word’s features and thus have overly general word meanings does not
account for the data. Underextensions as well as the predicted overextensions in
comprehension and production have been reported. Also, even when overexten-
sions occur, some evidence indicates that the items to which a word is overex-
tended do not necessarily have the same features in common.
Second, most studies of nominal words have not supported the complexity
hypothesis, which states that, among words with similar feature lists, a word
with relatively few features will be fully understood before a word with more
features. On the contrary, in a taxonomy of concrete categories, more general
words which should have fewer features of meaning, are usually learned later
than more specific “basic level words.”
Third, although data from experimental and observational studies of extension
support the hypothesis that the earliest features children attach to nominal words
are perceptual, other data are less supportive (e.g., from studies of children’s
definitions).
Although Clark has revised her view of the acquisition of nominal word
meanings to accommodate the data (see Section III,D), she and others have
proposed that the predictions of the Semantic Feature Hypothesis may more
adequately apply to children’s learning of relational words (e.g., Clark & Clark,
1977; Gentner, 1978a; see the introduction to Section IV).
However, data on relational and dimensional words have not consistently
supported either the “full semantics” or “partial semantics” forms of the theo-
ry. The most consistently supported aspect of the theory is the complexity hy-
pothesis, although alternative explanations may account for the findings, such as
the relative frequency with which children hear the words. Further, one can
accept the importance of the relative conceptual complexity of word meanings
without assuming that relative complexity is determined by the length of a
feature list.
The data are inconsistent with respect to the hypothesis that general features
are added to a word’s meaning before more specific features. For example, with
size words, the evidence indicates that the more specific polarity features are
acquired before the more general size dimension features. However, the primacy
of polarity does not generalize to all other relational or dimensional words.
Similarly, the predicted order of acquisition within antonym pairs, with posi-
tives before negatives, has not been found consistently across word pairs. For
some pairs, the positive member is always reported as the first learned (e.g.,
morelless). For some pairs the only studies reporting a sequential order of ac-
quisition indicate that the positive word is learned first, but in other studies this
order has not been detected (e.g., sameldifferent; comelgo; bringltake). For
other pairs, some researchers have reported that positives are first and some have
reported that negatives are first (e.g., size word pairs; beforelufier). And for
some pairs, the negative member is usually reported as the first learned (e.g.,
frorztlback). (See Table I for a list of studies.) Moreover, negative members of
antonym pairs are not necessarily treated at some point as though they have the
same meaning as positive members. Children sometimes misinterpret positive
words as negatives as well as vice versa.
In the “partial semantics” revision of the Semantic Feature Hypothesis, the
importance of children’s response strategies in determining their hypotheses
about word meanings is emphasized. Although response strategies do sometimes
account for apparent semantic confusions among relational or dimensional
words, little evidence exists that these strategies are sufficiently consistent to be
instrumental in the acquisition of word meaning.
Overall, the data on rational and dimensional words do not consistently sup-
port the theory. Many possible reasons, at several levels of analysis, may con-
tribute to the lack of support. At the most superficial level, the postulated
constituent features may be incorrect for any set of words. However, any evalua-
tion of feature lists still requires that findings across studies be consistent. At this
point, it is not clear how any revision of the Semantic Feature Hypothesis
involving alteration of feature analyses can successfully explain the existing
range of data. (See Richards, 1979, for further discussion of these issues.)
Authors have critically evaluated semantic feature theories in general (e.g.,
Bolinger, 1965; Franks, 1974) and feature acquisition theories in particular (e.g.,
Greenberg & Kuczaj, I982), suggesting more fundamental problems with this
approach to word meaning acquisition. I will consider only three of these more
basic problems.
First, if well-defined feature lists could adequately characterize word rnean-
ings, verbal concepts should have crisp and precise boundaries. However, in
actuality, verbal concepts seem to have vague and variable definitions. (See
Miller, 1978, for a fuller discussion.) Given a word in differing contexts, adults
seem to alter what they consider to be defining features. Furthermore, for some
concrete concepts, adults are unable to specify a single feature of meaning that is
characteristic of all members of a category (e.g., Rosch & Mervis, 1975).
Although the ill-defined nature of verbal concepts has been most clearly estab-
lished for concrete nominal words, it may apply to relational and dimensional
words as well (cf. Bransford & McCarrell, 1974).
Another problem with feature theories may reside in the assumption that
verbal concepts are built up of smaller units of meaning. Humans are capable of
abstracting, that is, conceiving of and labeling features or attributes of a concept.
But many philosophers (e.g., Cassirer, 1955) and psychologists (e.g., Franks,
1974; Neisser, 1967; Nelson, 1974; Piaget, 1970) have argued that we abstract
discrete features from holistic underlying meaning structures that perhaps “can
be sliced in an infinite number of ways” (Franks, 1974, p. 254).
I78 Pamela Blewitt
A third and related problem is specific to feature acquisition theories. What

appear to adults to be universal atoms of meaning, like the semantic features
[Space] and [Time], are products of abstract logical reflection that may not exist
in any comparable way for the young child. In many instances, children may be
unable or at least unlikely to differentiate aspects of reality that adults experience
as separable. For example, a young child may not have a clear notion of spatial
sequence apart from temporal sequence or vice versa (Friedman & Seely, 1976).
Nonetheless, children may apply words with spatial or temporal meanings to
referent events with reasonable accuracy. In such cases a child may know which
events a word refers to, and the mental representation of these events may
constitute the word’s meaning. In other words, a child may have a holistic verbal
concept. What the child is not yet able to do is abstract out of the concept the
same set of “features” that adults are likely to abstract.
B. THE REFERENTIAL PROPERTIES OF EARLY WORD MEANINGS
1 . Empirical Indicators
Both nominal and relational verbal concepts seem to have referential properties.
By “referential” I mean that children frequently act as though a word refers to
particular events or to particular objects or even to objects in particular contexts.
The evidence for the referential nature of nominal words is coextensive with data
reviewed in Section II1,D that support referential models of concrete concepts.
The data that indicate a referential quality to relational word meanings are scat-
tered throughout this article. An example is Bowerman’s (1978a) finding that her
children’s earliest use of relational words was usually correct-and limited to a
small set of referential contexts. This finding was true not only for verbs (see
Section IV,F) but also for other relational words like after and behind. Other
examples include findings that children initially understand some words only in
reference to their own bodies or their own actions or intentions (e.g., Kuczaj &
Maratsos, 1975a; see Section IV,B). Although not included in this article, an-
other suggestive finding is that children frequently make referential responses to
relational words in word association and word definition tasks. For example,
William Friedman and I pilot-tested children for comprehension of the words
early and late (Seely & Friedman, 1976). One child, who appeared not to
understand the words in most of our comprehension tests, told us that late is
“when you come to school and all the children are inside.”
2. Theories That Account for Referential Properties

As indicated in the discussion of nominal words (Section III,D), several views of
conceptual structure seem particularly well suited to explain the referential char-
acteristics of early word meanings. These views are all referred to here as
referential models. In this section, I will discuss the alternative forms of these
models and consider some of their relative merits.
Word Meaning Acqitisirion in Young Children I79
a. Exemplur-based models. One view is that children store representations

of one or several of the first instances of the concept that they experience and that
these representatives serve as prototypes (e.g., Bowerman, 1978a; Carey, 1978;
Greenberg & Kuczaj, 1982). Greenberg and Kuczaj argued that such representa-
tions are holistic analogs of the actual instances (cf. Brooks, 1978).
b. Prototype abstraction models. Another view is that children abstract a

prototype from the exemplars of a concept (e.g., Anglin, 1977). A prototype
represents the central tendency of a category, and it forms as all of the exemplars
experienced are averaged in some way (cf. Posner, 1969). Most theorists have
described this form of prototype in terms of its perceptual (especially iconic)
characteristics, but no apparent reason exists why an abstracted prototype cannot
include both perceptual and functional or dynamic properties and thus be a kind
of holistic analog.
c. Associative con1ple.r models. A variation on the prototype abstraction

model is what has been referred to as a “weighted features” model (e.g., Reed,
1972), or an associative complex model (e.g., Bowerman, 1976; Maratsos,
1974; Rescorla, 1980; cf. Nelson & Nelson, 1978). In this view, children ab-
stract a set of properties from each concept instance encountered, forming a loose
association of properties. Some of these properties may become central or heav-
ily weighted, perhaps because they are so frequently characteristic of referents.
But none of the properties is necessarily defining or criterial.
d. Relationships antorig the models. In practical terms, there is presently

no obvious way to operationally differentiate the three forms of referential
model. Models of all three types can account for the referential properties of
word meaning previously described. In addition, in all three types the initial
phase of concept formation is described in much the same way. If a child has
experienced or attended to only one instance of a word, his or her word meaning
is composed of an analog of the exemplar, according to both exemplar-based
models and prototype abstraction models. Associative complex models are dif-
ferent primarily in that the representation of the single instance is thought to be a
set of properties rather than an analog.
Perhaps these models represent different stages in the development of a con-
cept. Children (or adults) may initially store representations of particular in-
stances of a concept, as exemplar-based models predict, but later begin to ab-
stract a central core, either in the form of a prototype or an associative complex.
Possibly, as concepts develop, they include both representations of individual
instances and more abstract central cores.
3. Applications of Referential Models

The notion that word meanings have referential qualities may help to reconcile
180 Pamela BIewitt
certain findings that would otherwise appear to be in conflict. One case in point
involves confusions among words related in meaning. Sometimes, as Bower-
man’s data suggest, words within a semantic field seem to be understood as
having distinctly different meanings, at least initially. This finding might be
based on children’s having heard the words in very different contexts.
However, children do seem to misunderstand and confuse some related words.
This finding would be expected if adult caretakers frequently use the related
words in the same or similar contexts, so that children associate several words
within a semantic field with the same or similar referent concepts. Confusions
among dimensional size words can be explained this way, as Webb (1975)
argued. Some confusions between antonym pairs may have a similar basis. For
example, Kuczaj (1975) reported evidence that some children believe that always
and never are either both positive terms or both negative terms. In Kuczaj’s
study, one child who interpreted always as negative was observed in interaction
with his mother, who was heard to say You always make a big mess when you
play in yourfood. This use of always has a negative connotation something like
“I don’t like you to play with your food,” which the mother subsequently said.
Her use of always, then, was something more like the conventional use of never:
“Never play with your food.” The child, reasonably enough, seemed to have
interpreted always in this negative sense. Of course, this example is anecdotal
and more systematic data are needed to support such a claim.
Another set of conflicting findings can be interpreted to be the result of the
referential properties of word meanings. Depending on the context, children
sometimes appear to alter their criteria for judging the applicability of a word in a
way that adults find inappropriate. (See Donaldson & McGarrigle, 1974; Kuczaj
& Lederberg, 1977; Maratsos, 1974; Wellman & Johnson, 1979). For example,
in comprehension tests of the word more, Donaldson and McGarrigle (1974)
presented to children two rows of toy cars, one with four cars and one with five
cars. Many children could select the longer row as the one with “more.”
However, if the context were changed, some children selected the row of four
cars as having “more.” The change of context involved placing rows of con-
nected garages over the rows of cars. A row of four garages was placed over the
row of four cars, so that each garage stall was full. A row of six garages was
placed over the row of five cars, so that one garage stall remained empty.
Children who now selected the row of four cars as having “more,” seemed to be
interpreting more to mean “full.”
One can speculate that such data are the result of the referential nature of
children’s concepts of more. For example, children may have previously associ-
ated the word with situations in which extent or amount was correlated with the
fullness of a container (e.g., a glass has “more” milk when it is fuller). Thus,
children’s reference situation may embody the notion of extent relative to a
container. When containers are part of a new context in which children must
choose the alternative that has “more” of something, children would be ex-
pected to choose the correct alternative when extent and fullness are positively
correlated and the wrong alternative when extent and fullness are placed in
opposition. If containers are not part of the new context, children might choose
correctly because, without containers as reference points, the alternative with
greater extent would provide a better match to their reference situations. Of
course children’s judgments also may be based on several different reference
situations, some of which include containers and some of which do not. (See
Donaldson. 1978/1979, for an extended discussion of other implications of these
data.)
Clearly, the foregoing is a speculative interpretation of existing data. Such
speculation demonstrates that a variety of findings can be interpreted in terms of
the referential properties of children’s verbal concepts. Unfortunately, assuming
that word meanings are referentially represented may allow one to explain any
data on a post hoc basis. Testing this explanatory mechanism will require doing
observations of the typical contexts in which children hear words, and on the
basis of the observations, predicting children’s performance on tests of compre-
hension.
C . THE ABSTRACT PROPERTIES OF EARLY WORD MEANINGS
1. Empirical Indicators
Children’s word meanings appear to have referential properties, but verbal con-
cepts may also come to have more abstract properties. Children become in-
creasingly able to relate words that share common aspects of meaning. An
example is Bowerman’s ( 1978a) observation that children begin to produce
“slips of the tongue” in which semantically related words are substituted for
each other, even though they have previously been used correctly. Although not
included in this article, some evidence indicates improvement in children’s abil-
ity to understand and use taxonomic systems with age. Children’s tendency to
produce appropriate antonym, synonym, superordinate, and subordinate catego-
ry responses in word association tasks improves with age. (See Nelson, 1977;
Petry, 1977, for reviews.) Preschool children show improvement over age in
their ability to use categorical relationships among nouns to aid recall of lists of
words (e.g., Moran & Blewitt, 1980; Perlmutter & Myers, 1979).
To many investigators, data of this sort suggest that children are isolating or
abstracting aspects of meaning like semantic features, and discovering the words
to which the features apply, so that semantic fields are being constructed. As
Bowerman (1980a) described it, perhaps the child “implicitly compared the
contents of her [or his] existing [lexical] entries and recognized that some of the
meaning components are the same” (p. 983).
I82 Pamela Blewitt
2 . Carey’s Model
To account for children’s apparent knowledge of abstract meaning components,
Carey (1978) proposed that although early word meanings consist of holistic
representations of one (or a few) instances of a concept (haphazard examples),
children also isolate relatively abstract features of meaning. For a time, verbal
concepts may consist of both haphazard examples and a partial list of critical
features. Any feature that has been isolated can be used as a “lexical organizer,”
that is, children will be likely to explore its applicability to other words and thus
begin to construct semantic fields. How children decide to which other words a
lexical organizer can apply may depend on the use of the words in similar
linguistic and nonlinguistic contexts.
3 . An Alternative Hypothesis
Perhaps children’s apparent awareness of relatively abstract similarities among
word meanings can be explained without assuming a list of criteria1 features.
First, consider how changes in referential concepts might lead to late occurring
misuses of a word, such as the “slips of the tongue” reported by Bowerman
(1978a). Initially, related words may be associated with relatively distinct refer-
ential contexts. However, as children gain more experience with any word, it is
likely to be associated with more and more of the same referential contexts that a
semantically similar word is associated with. Thus, the representations of each
word will begin to overlap to some extent and misuses of the related words may
be more likely for a time. However, as the central cores (prototypes or associa-
tive complexes) of related concepts are refined with further experience, misuses
should decline somewhat, though “slips of the tongue” would always remain
possible.
In a similar fashion, increasing similarity or overlap among the referential
representations of related words may account for improvements over age in
children’s ability to recall lists of semantically related words. Marianne Moran
and I (Moran & Blewitt, 1980) have found that preschoolers show better recall
when word lists contain pairs of hierarchically related words (such as dog/
animal) than pairs of coordinates (such as doglhorse). One possible interpreta-
tion of these findings is that the referential representation of a word like dog is
more likely to be similar to the representation of a superordinate word like
animul than to the representation of a coordinate word like horse. That is, the
word dog is more likely to have been associated with some of the same referents
as the word animal than with some of the same referents as the word horse.
Finally, young children clearly have some ability to abstract and label proper-
ties or features of meaning from their conceptual representations. For example,
children demonstrate such an ability when they define words by labeling proper-
ties (e.g., Anglin, 1978; Nelson, 1978). Moreover, this ability improves with
age. However, these facts do not require one to assume that children’s referential
Word Meaning Acquisition in Young Children I 83
word meanings are beginning to be supplemented by lists of criteria1 features.

Children’s verbal concepts may continue to be represented by prototypes or
associative complexes. What improves and expands with age may be processing
skills underlying the ability to abstract particular properties from an available
concept for a given purpose (cf. Greenberg & Kuczaj, 1982). Such a change in
processing skills may also account for other developmental changes, like
changes in the nature of word associations.
D. CONCEPTUAL COMPLEXITY, RELATIVE FREQUENCY, AND

CONTEXTS OF USE
Conceptual complexity may be an important determinant of word meaning

acquisition. Investigators have found that within some semantic fields “sim-
pler” words are learned first, and that for polysemous words “simpler” mean-
ings are learned first.
However, analyzing the relative complexity of verbal concepts is not a simple
matter. Clark (1973b) defined complexity in terms of the number of semantic
features required to specify a word’s meaning. Among semantically related
words, those with fewest features of meaning were assumed to be “simplest”
and thus the earliest learned. Predictions based on this view have often been
supported by studies of relational words, but not by studies of nominal words, so
that this approach to analyzing complexity is not broadly applicable.
Most other attempts to analyze the complexity of word meanings have been
based on theories of cognitive development, like Piaget’s, with some success
(e.g., see Section IV,B). Yet, any theory of cognitive development is only an
approximation and may be inaccurate to some extent. In addition, many argu-
ments regarding which cognitive skills have or have not developed (and thus
which concepts may or may not be comprehensible to a child) depend partly on
which words children seem to understand. For example, the argument by Inhel-
der and Piaget ( 1964) that children d o not understand class inclusion may be
partly based on children’s errors in comprehension of all, some, and more. Thus,
although the conclusion that the relative complexity of verbal concepts is based
on cognitive development is intuitively and logically compelling, the reasoning
from which the conclusion derives may be circular.
Another problem in evaluating the role of conceptual complexity is that it may
be correlated and confounded with relative frequency of word use with children.
Frequency of use in child-directed speech has been shown to be correlated with
order of acquisition of related words, and of levels of meaning for polysemous
words (e.g., Seely, 1977). Further, frequency may override the expected effects
of complexity (Seely, 1977).
Of course, frequency of word use often may be determined by conceptual
complexity (Clark, 1972). Adults apparently adjust vocabulary in accordance
I84 Pamela Blewirt
with their estimation of children’s ability to understand. For example, Phillips

(1973) found that mothers use a greater variety of verbs and modifiers in speech
to 28-month-old children than in speech to 18-month-old children. However,
communicative needs of all sorts may affect word frequency, so that relative
frequency of use cannot be construed as a direct measure of the relative complex-
ity of verbal concepts.
A complete characterization of word learning in young children would in-
clude, among other things, specifying the relative complexity of word meanings
and determining the relationships between children’s knowledge of words and
contexts of use. However, some of these goals may be more within reach than
others. At present, conceptual complexity is difficult to determine. Rather than
pursuing an understanding of word learning by speculating about conceptual
complexity, perhaps a more fruitful approach would be to study how parameters
of the word learning context affect acquisition (cf. Anglin, 1977). Studies of
adult word usage in speech to children seem especially likely to provide insights
into the word learning process given the apparent referential properties of word
meanings. If children initially associate words with specific contexts, how fre-
quently and exclusively caretakers use a word in a particular context should have
important consequences for a child’s word meanings.
VI. Conclusion: Research Directions

A. TAKlNG PERFORMANCE FACTORS INTO ACCOUNT
Many interacting variables have been identified as affecting chiLen’s perfor-

mance in studies of word comprehension. The syntactic form and complexity of
stimulus sentences are important (e.g., Coker, 1978; Johnson, 1975). The syn-
tactic role of the test word in stimulus sentences is important (e.g., Coker, 1978).
Children may have strategies for interpreting or responding to particular sentence
and phrase types that can be brought into play whether or not the test words are
understood.
The semantic information available from the sentence as a whole may also
affect performance, regardless of the child’s comprehension of the test words.
For example, in tests of before and afier, test sentences that describe events
occurring in a conventional order are likely to elicit better performance than
sentences describing arbitrarily ordered events (e.g.. French & Brown, 1977;
Kavanaugh, 1979). Similarly, in studies of dzjferent, when test sentences are
very explicit as to exactly what comparisons a child is expected to make, children
may perform better than when test sentences do not specify dimensions of com-
parison (e.g., Glucksberg el al., 1976).
The information and options available in the nonlinguistic context may also
Ward Meoning Acquisition in Young Childrrn I85
affect children’s performance. When required to manipulate materials, children

sometimes produce conventional arrangements whether or not the instructions
call for such arrangements, and whether or not the test words are understood
(e.g., Grieve et a l . , 1977; Wilcox & Palermo, 1974). Other response tendencies,
or strategies, seem to be elicited by the form of the task itself. Wilcox and
Palermo found some children to be perseverators and some to be alternators in a
test situation in which similar instructions were given repeatedly.
In sum, although a number of useful paradigms for studying comprehension
have been developed by investigators, using any one of them alone may yield
results that are task specific. To differentiate task specific responding from actual
indications of word comprehension, the same children should be tested within
several different paradigms and with various materials. Psychological evidence
is convincing when many different operations converge on the same interpreta-
tion. Converging operations seem especially important in the study of children’s
verbal understanding (Richards, 1979). l o
B . TAKING VARIABLE WORD MEANINGS INTO ACCOUNT
1 . Polysemy
For polysemous words, any study should include independent assessments of
several of a word’s levels of meaning. Children who understand only the simpler
uses of a word may appear to understand more complex uses because simpler
interpretations worked in the task provided. (See Warden, 1976, for an exam-
ple.) However, children may fail to show any comprehension of a word only
because its simpler levels of meaning were not tested. (The variability of findings
with the word sume exemplify this point.)
2 . What i s Adult-Appropriare?
Determining exactly what interpretations of a word are possible should not be left
to experimenter judgment. Most of the studies reviewed here have not included
adult subjects, which may be a serious oversight. In those studies that have
included adults, just how words are interpreted or used in a given task is often
surprising. (See Blewitt & Durkin, in press; Glucksberg et ul., 1976; Seely,
1977; Warden, 1976; Webb et a l . , 1974). For example, in a study of indefinite
articles (not previously reviewed), Warden (1976) found that adults often “in-
correctly” used the when a had been deemed appropriate. Several revisions of
the task were needed before adult performance was brought into line with experi-
menter expectations. Obviously, the significance of children’s errors in the early
tasks might have been interpreted differently had no adults been tested.
‘Osee Richards’ (1979) review for a useful, detailed discussion of the pitfalls of research on word
comprehension.
I86 Pamela Blewitt
C. PURSUING THE EFFECTS OF CONTEXT AND FREQUENCY OF USE
1 . Comparing Comprehension and Production

Observations of children’s spontaneous production of words often lead to conclu-
sions that are at variance with findings from studies of comprehension. Children
have sometimes (not always) been observed to use words appropriately at an
early age even though much older children have failed to show understanding of
the words in comprehension studies. An example from this article is the early
spontaneous use of because reported by Hood and Bloom (1979), contrasting
with much later comprehension reported by Bebout et al. (1980), Corrigan
(1975), Emerson (1979), and Kuhn and Phelps (1976). Bloom (1974) argued that
appropriate production of linguistic forms may sometimes precede adequate
comprehension partly because when children speak they can pick their own
contexts of use.
This sort of finding is in line with the view that early word meanings are
referential. It also suggests a useful research strategy involving careful observa-
tions of the contexts within which children spontaneously use words (e.g.,
Bowerman, 1978a,b), perhaps combined with comprehension tests designed to
compare children’s performance in preferred versus nonpreferred contexts of
use.
2 . Adult Speech to Children

If children learn word meanings from contexts of use, research into word mean-
ing acquisition should include observations of adult speech to children, allowing
an assessment of the frequency with which children hear words in various con-
texts (e.g., Seely, 1977).
3 . Training Studies
Increasingly, researchers are using training techniques to investigate word learn-
ing (e.g., Becker & Perlmutter, 1980; Carey & Bartlett, 1978; Gentner, 1978b;
Horton & Markman, 1980; Nelson & Bonvillian, 1978; Tomikawa & Dodd,
1980; Schurr, 1977). The most promising use of this paradigm emphasizes the
introduction of new words under “natural” circumstances (for example, intro-
ducing the new word during an ongoing classroom activity), but with the advan-
tage of control over the frequency of exposures, the contexts of use, and the
number of different exemplars available to the child, so that these potential
causal factors can be manipulated as independent variables.
4 . Longitudinal Design
To fully understand the impact of possible causal factors on children’s use and
comprehension of words, longitudinal assessments may be especially useful.
Cross-sectional studies are certainly informative and suggestive, but longitudinal
research seems likely to yield additional critical information about the genesis of
verbal concepts. Longitudinal designs may be essential to test theories that
specify how word meanings change with age. For example, Miller (1977) re-
ported that, using a cross-sectional design, researchers in his laboratory found
that children learn before before after, and that changes in error patterns over age
were comparable to those found by Clark (1971). However, longitudinal assess-
ments of the same children indicated that knowledge of these cross-sectional age
changes was not helpful in predicting how a particular child’s performance
would change. As Miller pointed out, “cross-sectional studies tell us what to
expect on the average, but not what individual children do” (1977, p. 139).
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The author is deeply grateful to Thomas C. Toppino for extensive critiques of earlier drafts. His
many useful suggestions have improved this article considerably.
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LANGUAGE PLAY AND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
Stan A . Kuczuj II
SOUTHERN METHODIST UNIVERSITY
DALLAS TEXAS .
I . INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198
I1 . LANGUAGE PLAY AND LANGUAGE PRACTICE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198
I11 . TYPES OF PLAY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199

A . IMITATION/REPETITION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
B . MODIFICATIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
C . IMITATION/MODIFICATION COMBINATIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
IV . WHAT DETERMINES THE CONTENT OF CHILDREN'S LANGUAGE PLAY'? 202

A . ASPECTS OF LANGUAGE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202
B . SOCIAL CONTEXT AND LANGUAGE PLAY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204
C . STUDIES OF SOCIAL CONTEXT AND LANGUAGE PLAY . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205
V . DEVELOPMENTAL TRENDS IN LANGUAGE PLAY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209

A . IMITATION/REPETITION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209
B . MODIFICATIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210
VI . IS LANGUAGE PLAY DEVELOPMENTALLY PROGRESSIVE? . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210

A . IMITATION/REPETITION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212
B . MODIFICATIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
VII . CONCLUSIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225

A . WHAT TYPES OF BEHAVIOR CONSTITUTE LANGUAGE PLAY? . . . . . . 225
B . WHAT IS THE DEVELOPMENTAL COURSE OF LANGUAGE PLAY
BEHAVIORS? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225
C . WHERE ARE PLAY BEHAVIORS MOST LIKELY TO OCCUR? . . . . . . . . . 226
D . WITH WHAT ASPECTS OF LANGUAGE DO CHILDREN PLAY? . . . . . . . . 226
E . IS LANGUAGE PLAY DEVELOPMENTALLY PROGRESSIVE?. . . . . . . . . . 227
F . NEEDS AND DIRECTIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221
REFERENCES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228
I97
ADVANCES IN CHILD DEVELOPMENT Copynghi Q 19x2 by Academic Press Inc ..
.
AND BEHAVIOR VOL 17 All nghlr uf reproduction in any fomi reserved
ISBN 0-12-M19717-6
198 Stan A . Kuczaj I1
1. Introduction
It is a common observation that young children play with language (although
children from disorganized lower-class families seem less likely to do so; Mat-
tick, 1967). This activity has two aspects. One aspect involves the use of lan-
guage as an instrument for play (see Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, 1976, for a collec-
tion of papers on this topic; see also Smilansky, 1968). In such cases, children
use language as a means to a goal (the overall play activity). The second aspect
involves the use of language as both a means and a goal. In such cases, children
play with aspects of language not to facilitate some other play activity, but
instead actually to play with language, the manipulation of linguistic forms being
the play activity.
This article is concerned with the latter type of language play. The primary
concern is to consider the nature of this type of language play and the roles of
such play in children’s acquisition of their mother tongue. More specifically, this
article is concerned with the following questions: (1) What types of behaviors
constitute language play? (2) What is the developmental course of these behav-
iors? (3) Where are such behaviors most likely to occur? (4) With what aspects of
language do children play? (5) Is language play developmentally progressive?
Definitive answers to these questions will not be forthcoming in the present
article. The reason is simple. Relatively little systematic investigation has been
done of language play and its influence on the child’s acquisition of language.
Although the work that has been done has been informative (as will be seen in the
rest of this article), much of it is based on anecdotal and/or fragmentary data.
However, this tendency has been less true of recent investigations (those con-
ducted within the last 10 years) than of those in the more distant past. Hence, I
have high hopes that answers to at least some of the above questions will be
obtained in the not too distant future. Nonetheless, currently too few data are
available to yield conclusive answers to these questions. As a result, the answers
I shall offer will be more speculative and suggestive than conclusive. Perhaps
these speculations and suggestions will play a role in the evolution of the conclu-
sive answers.
11. Language Play and Language Practice
Play is certainly similar to practice, in that children are prone to play with and
practice many aspects of language. Clearly, not all play is practice, nor is all
practice play. Nonetheless, it is difficult to differentiate the two. One possible
basis of differentiation lies in the primary functions of the two activities. Practice
has mastery as its primary goal. In contrast, the primary goal of play is enjoy-
ment (one aspect being the control the child has in the play situation; see Garvey,
1974). To complicate matters, however, the primary goal of play may be the
Language Pluy und Lunguuge Acquisition 199
TABLE I
The Relation of Play and Practice to the Goals
of Enjoyment and Mastery
Play Practice
Primary function Enjoyment Mastery

Secondary function Mastery Enjoyment
secondary goal of practice, and vice versa. These relations are shown in Table I .
The child has control during both play and practice, as well as in activities that
combine play and practice. Given the overlapping nature of the functions which
play and practice serve, and the difficulty of defining play in terms of specific
behaviors (Garvey, 1977a), differentiating play and practice is quite difficult.
Garvey (1977a) suggested that play is best viewed as a type of orientation or a
mode of experiencing. I should like to suggest that practice be viewed in like
fashion. Although play can be described in terms of specific behaviors and
practice in terms of other specific behaviors, play and practice seem to be best
viewed as means toward a set of goals (control, enjoyment, and mastery). The
means cannot be defined in terms of specific behaviors, because children (and
adults) can play and/or practice with almost anything. Nonetheless, play and
practice can be described in terms of types of behaviors. In the rest of this article,
given the difficulty of discriminating play and practice, I shall use the term play
to refer to those activities which seem to function as play or practice.
111. Types of Play
Language play (and play in general) involves two basic mechanisms: modifi-
cation and imitationh-epetition (of the self or others). Modification involves the
transformation of a preceding activity; irnitationh-epetition involves the (some-
times partial) reproduction of a preceding activity. In some cases, play involves
both modification and imitation/repetition. Play sequences may involve alterna-
tion of modifications and imitationhepetitions, as well as combinations of modi-
fications and imitatiodrepetitions. In the following subsections, particular atten-
tion will be given to the types of transformations, imitationkepetitions, and
combinations evident in language play. As will be seen, imitation/repetition has
been the most studied, and studies of transformations and combinations are
needed (as well as further investigation of imitationhepetition).
A. IMITATION/REPETITION
One common type of language play is that in which children repeat all or part
of a preceding model utterance. Two categories of such play can be identified:
200 Stan A. Kuczaj I1
TABLE I1
Examples of Types of Imitation and Repetition from the Spontaneous Speech
of a 29-Month-Old-Child
Type of imitatiodrepetition Mother Child
Exact imitation Pick those up. Pick those up.

Exact repetition Cats fall and booms. Cats fall
and booms.
Reduced imitation Stop splashing the bubbles all Splashing bubbles all the
over the bathroom. bathroom.
Reduced repetitidn Craig stand on chair. Stand on
chair.
Expanded imitation Thai’s nice. That’s nice song.
Expanded repetition That burns. That burns I touch
it.
Reduction/expansion combina- Please get down Get down and stay down.
tion imitation
Reduction/expansion combina- Grovers my friend. Grover my
tion repetition friend and big bird my
friend.
( 1) imitation-those instances in which children repeat another person’s preced-

ing utterance; and (2) repetition-those instances in which children repeat their
own preceding utterance. Both imitations and repetitions may be exact (or full)
reproductions, reduced reproductions, expanded reproductions or reductionlex-
pansion combinations. Exact imitations and repetitions consist of complete re-
productions of the model, with nothing deleted or added. Reduced imitations and
repetitions are those in which part of the model is omitted, but nothing is added.
Expanded imitations and repetitions are those in which children add something to
the model. In addition, reductiordexpansion combinations exist-the imitation or
repetition is a reduction of the model but something is added as well. Examples
of these types of imitations and repetitions are given in Table 11. They were taken
from spontaneous social-context speech samples from a 29-month-old child in-
volved in several language development projects. As will be shown in a later
section, developmental differences exist in the frequency of these reproduction
types. Developmental differences in the length and complexity of the reproduc-
tions of different types are also evidence in the available data (Kuczaj, 1982b).
The examples in Table I1 illustrate the types of imitations and repetitions that
may occur in children’s language play. The examples, however, are all immedi-
ate reproductions (exact, reduced, or expanded) of the model utterance. Imitation
and repetition need not be immediate, although considerable disagreement exists
about the maximum possible latency between the model’s occurrence and the
onset of the imitation or repetition, which can range from immediate to deferred
(Keenan, 1977; Moerk & Moerk, 1979; Piaget, 1951, 1963; Scollon, 1976;
Snow, 1981). Immediate reproductions are those in which no intervening utter-
Lariguage Play and Language Acquisirion 20 I
ances occur between the model and the reproduction. Deferred imitations are
those in which sufficient time has elapsed between the occurrence of the model
and the subsequent reproduction to necessitate that some mental representation of
the model has been created by the child and used as the model for the reproduc-
tion (Piaget, 1951, 1963). Of course, all imitationlrepetition, particularly that
involved in language play, likely involves some sort of mental representation.
The distinction between immediate and deferred imitation is not necessarily one
of mental representation, but is most definitely one of latency. However, the
longer the latency between model and reproduction, the more difficult the deter-
mination that imitation or repetition has occurred. Since imitation and repetition
as language play tend to involve immediate reproduction or very brief delays, the
present article is concerned only with reproductions from this end of the latency
dimension.
Another dispute has occurred over what Keenan (1977) referred to as cross-
utterance similarity, that is, the degree of similarity between a model and its
reproduction. Some investigators have argued that reproductions be exact or that
they add nothing to the model (i.e., be reduced; Bloom, Hood, & Lightbown,
1974). As the above discussion and examples suggest, such restrictions are too
limiting. A wide range of cross-utterance similarity exists, as does a wide range
of latency between model and reproductions. However, although only part of the
latency range is pertinent for the concerns of the present article, the entire range
of cross-utterance similarity is apropos for this consideration of language play.
Exact, reduced and expanded reproductions are all aspects of language play and
will be considered as such.
9. MODIFICATIONS
There are a number of types of modifications which occur in language play

(Braine, 1971, 1974; Snyder, 1914; Weir, 1962). Following Weir (1962), these
types may be referred to as buildups, breakdowns, completions, and substitution
patterns. Examples of such modifications are shown in Table 111.
Braine (1971, 1974) suggested that the phrase “replacement sequences” be
used to denote structurally related sequences. He viewed Weir’s notion of se-
quence as overly broad in that thematically related sequences were included as
well as structurally related ones. In the present article, I shall retain Weir’s
terms, but will restrict their use to structurally related sequences.
C . IMITATIONIMODIFICATION COMBINATIONS
The types of modifications listed in Table 111 involve children’s transforma-

tions of something they have just said. These same sorts of modifications may
also be involved in children’s responses to the utterances of others. Thus, the
other’s utterance could provide the model for a subsequent buildup, breakdown,
TABLE 111
Examples of Types of Play Modifications Suggested by Weir (1962)
Type of play modification Example
Buildup block
yellow block
look at all the yellow blocks
Breakdown clock off
clock
off
Completion and put it
(pause)
up there
Substitution pattern What color blanket?
What color map?
What color glass?
completion, or substitution by the child. This type of interaction between imita-

tion and transformation was hinted at in the earlier discussion of imitation and
repetition types. Reduced and expanded imitations and repetitions involve modi-
fication as well as reproduction. Imitation/repetition and modification, then, are
not mutuaily exclusive aspects of language play, although they are theoretically
different entities.
IV. What Determines the Content of Children's

Language Play?
A. ASPECTS OF LANGUAGE
The answer to the question of what aspects of language children play with is
straightforward. Children play with all aspects of the language system-pho-
nological, pragmatic, syntactic, and semantic. Thus, all aspects of the language
system are potential materials for play.
The use of newly acquired resources for playful exploitations is most striking in children's play
with language. Almost all levels of organization of language (phonology, grammar, meaning)
and most phenomena of speech and talking, such as expressive noises, variation in timing and
intensity, the distribution of talk between participants, the objectives of speech (what we try to
accomplish by speaking) are potential resources for play. It is curious that there has been little
systematic study of this topic, since play with language and speech provides overt and easily
observable forms of behavior. But this behavior is rather difficult to quantify, and it is of
course difficult to elicit in experimental studies (Garvey, 1977b. p. 59). From the vocalizations
built on syllable structures to the relatively sophisticated violations of the structure of speech
Lunguuge Pluy m d Lunguuge A q i t i s i r i o n 203
acts or of conversational conventions, almost evcry type of systematic regularity o f language

form and use is available for play. The more we understand of the various facets of language
use. the better we will be able to identify instances o f children’s play with the rebources of
language and communication. (Garvey, 1977b. p. 7 6 )
Children, then, play with all aspects of the language system. Garvey (1977a,b)
distinguished the following types of spontaneous language play: ( 1 ) play with
noises and sounds, (2) play with the linguistic system (phonological, grammati-
cal, and semantic), (3) play with rhymes, word play, fantasy and nonsense play,
and (4) play with speech acts and discourse conventions. Noise and sound play
seem to be the most primitive sort of language play (Garvey, 1977a; Groos,
1901). Consistent developmental differences are more difficult to ascertain for
the remaining types of language play. One attempt by Sanches and Kirshenblatt-
Gimblett ( 1976) suggested the following developmental sequence of language
play: ( I ) play with the phonological component of language, (2) play with the
syntactic component of language, ( 3 ) play with the semantic component of
language, and (4) play with the pragmatic component of language. Although this
hypothesized sequence may prove to be valid, the available data better support
the notion that children engage in all types of language play from an early age,
although sound play does seem to be the earliest type of language play (Cazden,
1976; Garvey, 1977a,b). Weeks (1979) summarized the current state of affairs as
follows:
Perhaps all we can say for certain about the developmental order in the acquisition of language
play is that children must have a minimal control over an aspect of language before they can
play with i t . [For example,] children cannot play with words before they produce words or
experiment with strcss patterns in sentences before they are producing two word tittcrances.
(Weeks. 1979, p. 112)
Thus, children seem to engage in play with different aspects of language as

these aspects become meaningful to them. Given that from the earliest stages,
language development involves the acquisition of phonological, syntactic, se-
mantic, and pragmatic knowledge, children’s play with each of the components
from an early age should not be surprising.
However, the specific aspects of language with which individual children play
may depend on individual differences that also affect the processing and organi-
zation of linguistic information. Individual differences are more likely to be the
rule rather than the exception in language development (Bowerman, I982a;
Kuczaj, 1982a; Nelson, 1981). Bowerman recognized the importance of such
differences in the following manner:
Some children may do a great deal of “in depth” linguistic processing. ferreting out hidden
regularities, while others do less. getting along indefinitely with relatively unintegrated, super-
ficial rules. In addition, children may differ with respect to the particular domains of language
204 Stan A . Kuczaj R
in which they discover regularities. Some patterns are no doubt recognized by virtually all
children . . . while others are grasped by fewer. And finally, children, like adults, may differ
along the dimension of linguistic caution/innovativeness, which means that failure to produce
errors in a given domain may not unequivocally be taken as evidence that the underlying
structured regularity has not been appreciated. (Bowerman, 1982a, p. 45)
B. SOCIAL CONTEXT AND LANGUAGE PLAY
Social context places some obvious limits on language play. Self-repetition

may occur in the presence or absence of another person, but imitation necessi-
tates another person to provide the model. Modifications may occur in either the
presence or absence of another person, as may play with discourse conventions.
However, play in social contexts may or may not be the same as play in solitude.
This issue-the effects of social situation on language play-is considered in the
present subsection.
As mentioned earlier, Garvey (1977a,b) suggested the following categories of
spontaneous language play: ( 1 ) play with noises and sounds, (2) play with
aspects of the linguistic system, (3) play with rhymes, speech acts, etc., and (4)
discourse play. The last two types of play are primarily social. The first two
types appear to be primarily nonsocial-not because no one is present when the
child engages in the first two types of play, but because such play does not take
the present other into account. That is, the play is self-centered rather than social
in the true sense of the word. Thus, three types of language play may be
discriminated: ( 1 ) solitary play-individual self-centered play which occurs in
solitude: (2) social context play-individual self-centered play which occurs in
the presence of others, none of whom is engaged in the play activity; and (3)
social play-interactive play, or that “state of engagement in which the succes-
sive, nonliteral (play) behaviors of one individual are contingent on the nonliteral
behaviors of the other person (Garvey, 1976, p. 570).”
Just as play may be characterized as solitary, social-context, or social, chil-
dren’s speech may be classified according to its social context. Private speech,
social-context speech, and social speech may be distinguished. For the purposes
of the present paper, these types of speech may be distinguished as follows: (1)
Private speech is that speech which children produce when alone. (3) Social-
context speech is that speech produced in the presence of others, but which is not
produced for any communicative purpose. That is, the speech is not directed
toward the present others in any sense. Like private speech, it is speech for the
self and so might best be viewed as social-context monologues (Piaget, 1955).
(3) Social speech is that speech directed toward another with some communica-
tive intent. Such speech may or may not accurately take the other person’s
perspective into account, but it is nonetheless directed toward the other person.
Language Play and Language Acquisition 205
The primary function of social speech is communication, but communication

is not a function of private speech or social-context speech (although practicing
of communicative skills might occur in such speech). The latter types of speech
serve a multitude of functions (Fuson, 1979; Kuczaj & Bean, 1982), but in the
present article I shall focus on the similarities and differences in language play in
the three types of social contexts and the three types of speech contexts. The
crucial variables for both social context and speech context are in fact social: the
presence or absence of others, and the exclusion or inclusion of the present others
in the play or speech activity.
C. STUDIES OF SOCIAL CONTEXT AND LANGUAGE PLAY
In this subsection, a brief review of studies of language play in types of

situations is given. In social-context play (that in which another individual is
present), the language play may be either individual or social. In social play, the
language play will involve an interdependency on the part of the involved play-
ing individuals (Garvey, 1976).
As already mentioned, Garvey (1977a,b) suggested that play with noises and
sounds and play with the linguistic system appear to be primarily nonsocial and
so occur in private and social-context situations more often than in social ones.
Moreover, Garvey suggested that social language play is not produced until
relatively late in development. When this type of play occurs, it is most likely to
be play with rhymes, word play, fantasy, and nonsense, and play with speech
acts and discourse conventions (Garvey, 1977a,b). The idea, then, is that al-
though young children may play with language in the presence of others, the play
will nor be part of the social interactions, that is, it will be nonsocial language
Play.
The key word in the above paragraph is primarily. The first types of language
play are not always private (or nonsocial in social-contexts), nor are the later
types always social. For example, Keenan (1974; Keenan & Klein, 1975) re-
ported that her twin sons engaged in social sound play at the age of 1 :9 ( 1 year, 9
months), such play occurring in their speech when they were playing together in
their bedroom in the early morning hours. In her discussion of this work, Garvey
(1977a) suggested that children may need to be very well acquainted with one
another in order to engage in this type of social sound play. A number of studies
bear on this hypothesis, as well as the notion that social language play is a
relatively late development.
Garvey (1977a,b) studied the language play of 48 dyads ranging from 2:lO to
5:7 for a 15-minute period. The social language play she observed increased with
age, and involved spontaneous rhyming and word play, play with fantasy and
nonsense, and play with speech acts and discourse conventions. However, when
the children engaged in nonsocial speech (i .e., social-context monologues), they
were more likely to produce noise and sound play, word play, and grammatical
modifications (though they were less likely to do so than was Weir’s son C.n-
thony in his crib speech; Weir, 1962).
Martlew, Connolly, and McCleod (1978) studied the speech of a boy, Jamie,
beginning at age 5%. His speech was observed over a 3-month period in three
conditions: (1) playing alone, (2) playing with one or two friends, and (3)
playing with his mother. Jamie’s mean length of utterance (MLU) in morphemes
was lowest when alone ( 3 . 9 , slightly higher when playing with friends (3.71,
and highest when playing with his mother (4.3). The remaining data are summa-
rized in Table IV. This table shows that play with noise was much more common
when Jamie was playing alone, and twice as frequent when playing with a friend
as when playing with his mother. Imitation and repetition were about as common
in solitary and mother-present situations, and least common when playing with
the friend. Rhymes were most common when playing with the friend, less
common when alone, and nonexistent with the mother present. Use of nonsense
words was most frequent when alone, almost as frequent when playing with the
friend, but virtually nonexistent when the mother was present. Taboo words were
occasionally used when alone, but were most common when the friend was
present. They never occurred with the mother present. Martlew et al. suggested
that the differences in Jamie’s speech in the three sampling situations reflected
his awareness of the role requirements in each situation. According to this view,
play, particularly fantasy play, aids the child in learning and becoming aware of
various social roles and their requirements.
In a similar study, Heibert and Cherry (1978) studied 14 children at the age of
2:6 in a play setting when the child was with the father, the mother, or a peer.
Each child participated in each situation. The findings may be summarized as
follows: (1) The children were much more likely to engage in social language
TABLE IV
Mean Percentage Occurrences of Various Categories of Language Play in Three Play Situations
by a 5:6 Malec1
Play situation
With With
Type of language play Alone friend mother
Noise 40.0 10.5 4.3

Imitative 14.3 8.3 13.3
Rhyme 1.8 3.8 .0
Invention 6.8 5.3 .7
Taboo .3 1.7 .o
OFrom Martlew et a!. (1978).
Language Play und Lunguage Acquisition 207
play when playing with the mother or father than when playing with a peer. ( 2 )
Play with noises and sounds was by far the most frequent category of language
play, perhaps because the parents provided models of such play. However, it was
most frequent when the child was playing with a peer. Also, analyses of the
samples revealed no sound play characterized by phonological modifications.
Keenan had observed such play in her twin sons (Keenan and Klein, 1975).
Perhaps this type of play is in fact specific to twins. However, the data for this
speculation rest on relatively brief observations of a small number of children.
Too few data are available to evaluate Garvey’s suggestion that early social
language play is restricted to familiar peers. The studies of Heibert and Cherry
(1978) and Martlew et al. (1978) strongly suggest that the social context influ-
ences the amount and type of language play that occurs. However, in both
studies, the critical contrast was that between parent-present and peer-present.
The critical comparison for an accurate test of Garvey’s hypotheses would be that
between unfamiliar peer-present (strange peer) and familiar peer-present
(friend). This dimension ranges from total stranger to best friend. This variable
has received some study.
Rubin, Hultsch, and Peters (1971) and Dickie (1973) reported that social-
context speech in situations with a familiar other (e.g., a friend or parent)
resulted in a higher incidence of verbal repetition and word play (about three or
four times more) than was reported in other studies with unfamiliar children or
adults (see Fuson, 1979; for a thorough review of the relevant literature, see also
Zivin, 1979). Thus, the presence or absence of familiar others appears to be one
determining factor of children’s language play in private speech.
A pilot study currently being conducted in my laboratory deals with the dif-
ferences that occur when children between 1:6 and 2:O are placed in play situa-
tions with a totally unfamiliar peer, a peer who is a good friend, and peers who
fall in between these extremes. The available data, although only suggestive,
support Garvey’s hypothesis and agree with the results of the studies citied in the
preceding paragraph, in that the young children studied to date engaged in much
more social language play with a good friend than with a strange peer. Moreover,
language play per se (social-context and social) was less frequent the less famil-
iar the present peer. This positive correlation between the frequency of language
play and the familiarity of the present peers suggests that strange peers inhibit
language play. This effect may result from a more general effect that strange
peers have on young children (and adults, for that matter). Strange peers arouse
scrutiny, which is incompatible with many activities, including all kinds of play,
and language play in particular. However, the children that we have studied
were more likely to engage in toy play than language play with strange peers,
suggesting that language play is more like to be affected by the presence of a
‘1 am grateful to Hayne Reese for this observation.

strange peer than is play per se. Moreover, social language play appears to be
more likely to be affected by the presence of a strange peer than is social-context
language play, at least for young children.
The same procedure is being replicated in a similar current pilot study with
children from 3:6 to 4:O. The data, although even a bit more fragmentary than
those of the first pilot study, suggest that by this age period children have largely
overcome the inhibitory effect of a strange peer. The presence of a strange peer
still resulted in less social language play than did the presence of a good friend,
but the difference was very slight, particularly in comparison to the difference
found for the younger children. If these preliminary patterns hold true, then
young children would seem to be more susceptible to social context variation in
regard to language play than are older children. In turn, this developmental
pattern might reflect the older children’s better mastery of the skills involved in
social language play (i.e., the pragmatics that underlie successful language
play).
Along these lines, Heibert and Cherry (1978) suggested that children acquire
the notion that language can be an object of play through interaction with adults.
This may prove true for social language play, but seems unlikely to be true of
solitary and social-context language play. The latter types of play begin at such
young ages that language play with adults seems more likely to consolidate the
child’s propensity for play rather than to create it.
Some evidence indicates that children are more likely to imitate those with
superior knowledge (e.g., parents) rather than those with less or identical knowl-
edge (e.g.. peers; Heibert & Cherry, 1978; Martlew et al., 1978). Imitation
may be developmentally progressive by virtue of its selectivity-hildren seem
most likely to imitate those from whom they may learn something. This pos-
sibility is also likely to prove true for social modifications. Children are most
likely to choose to modify utterances that they are in the process of acquiring.
The nature of the overall play activity may also affect the nature of the play
behaviors (see Vanderberg, 1981). Rubin and Dyck (1980) studied the social-
context speech of children between 3 5 and 5:3 in a play setting and reported that
non-goal-oriented play was more likely to result in word play and verbal repeti-
tion than constructive play, which led to planful social-context speech (as hy-
pothesized by Vygotsky, 1962; see also Fuson, 1979; Kuczaj & Bean, 1982).
Dickie (1973) has reported results similar to those of Rubin and Dyck.
The above discussion has focused on social (or social-context) language play.
Solitary or private language play has also been investigated. One of the private
speech settings that has been investigated is crib speech (i.e., speech children
produce while alone in their crib). Children appear to use such private speech to
play with noises and sounds, all aspects of the linguistic system, fantasy and
nonsense, and conversational exchanges (Black, 1979a,b; Britton, 1970;
Jespersen, 1922; Weir, 1962). However, these same sorts of play are often
observed in social-context settings (Bohn, 1914; Craig & Gallagher, 1979; Klei-
man, 1974; Shields, 1979; Jespersen, 1922; Johnson, 1972; Britton, 1970;
Garvey, 1977a; Snyder, 1914). In social-context settings, the language play may
occur as an accompaniment to other behavior (e.g., Britton, 1970, reported a
child who engaged in linguistic play while drawing pictures at the age of 2:2) or
as a primary activity (Bohn, 1914; Snyder, 1914).
V. Developmental Trends in Language Play

The above discussion illustrates that language play is affected by social con-
text. The following discussion covers evidence suggesting that developmental
period affects the frequency and amount of language play.
A. IMITATlONiREPETITlON
Both imitation and repetition of speech make their first appearance in early
infancy (Hurlock, 1934; Johnson, 1932). Examples of such play with noises and
sounds are numerous in the literature. The earliest form of vocal imitation in-
volves sound-making during the first months of life (Piaget, 1951, 1963; Valen-
tine, 1942). This early imitation of sound does not necessarily involve the imita-
tion of particular sounds, but instead involves the imitation of sound per se; that
is, the infant produces a sound in response to having heard a sound. Self-
repetition of particular sounds appears around the age of 3 months (Britton,
1970; Lewis, 1936). The imitation of particular sounds produced by others and
the ability to imitate novel sounds appear around the age of 6 months (Britton,
1970; Valentine, 1942). Valentine (1942) also reported that 9-month-olds tended
to whisper when they imitated new sounds or words, suggesting to him that the
children were aware of the novelty of the new forms. This hypothesis is an
historical precursor of the notion that metalinguistic awareness plays a role in
imitation, language play, and language development (Cazden, 1976; E. V.
Clark, 1978; Kuczaj & Maratsos, 1975).
Children continue to imitate and repeat themselves as they learn words and
learn to combine these words to form grammatical utterances (Bohn, 1914; Dore,
1975; Miller, 1979; Scollon, 1976). Children who are prone to imitate increase
this activity until sometime during the second half of the second year of life, after
which imitation begins to decline in frequency (Keenan, 1977; Piaget, 1962;
Valentine, 1930). Similarly, self-repetition begins to decline in frequency at
about 2 years. It continues to decline until approximately age 7 years, after which
it remains at approximately the same level (Rubin, 1979). The decline of imita-
tion and self-repetition most likely depends on both individual differences and
the type of repetition involved (e.g., Slobin, 1968; more on this later).
B. MODIFICATIONS
The earliest form of modifications in language play also involve sound play
(Groos, 1901; Hurlock, 1934; Leopold, 1949; Lewis, 1936). The playful manip-
ulation of sounds, both in terms of imitation/repetition and transformation, ap-
pears quite early in development, and as such appears to be the most primitive
type of verbal play (Garvey, 1977a,b; Weeks, 1979). This type of play continues
throughout early childhood, and from an early age involves rhythm, rhyme, and
alliteration (Piaget, 1951; Stem & Stem, 1928).
As soon as children begin to combine words, the sorts of modifications de-
scribed by Weir (1962) occur. Although little longitudinal evidence on this topic
is available, and much of the available evidence is fragmentary, the available
evidence suggests that playful modifications of syntactic and morphological
constructions are most common from 1:6 to 3 5 , after which they begin to decline
(Braine, 1971, 1974; Britton, 1970; Craig and Gallagher, 1979; Scollon, 1976;
Snyder, 1914; Weeks, 1979; Weir, 1962). This type of play has been found in
private speech (Jespersen, 1922; Weir, 1962) and in social-context speech (Brit-
ton, 1970; Johnson, 1932).
To sum up, both the frequency and the type of language play in which the
child engages appear to change with age. Social context variation also seems to
influence both frequency and type of language play, as do individual differences
and cultural factors (Weeks, 1979).
In the following section, the notion that language play is developmentally
progressive will be examined. According to this notion, language play benefits
some and perhaps all aspects of language; that is, phonology, semantics, syntax,
and pragmatics. Also according to this hypothesis, the specific aspects of lan-
guage (phonological, semantic, syntactic, and pragmatic) with which children
play at a given time are those aspects which they are in the process of acquiring.
VI. Is Language Play Developmentally

Progressive?
The answer to the question of whether or not language play is developmentally
progressive is obviously related to the answer to the question of whether or not
play per se is developmentally progressive. Play is typically defined as those
activities which are spontaneously produced and for which extrinsic rewards are
either nonexistent or secondary (Lewis, 1936; Patrick, 1914; Vinacke, 1974).
Children obviously enjoy play, and even the casual observer might be led to
conclude that, to the child, play is its own reward. However, what is it about play
that the child finds so intrinsically satisfying?
The intrinsic reward for play appears to be the control which the child pos-
Lungitage P /uy und Langicuge Aiquisitioti 21 I
sesses in play situations (Britton, 1970; Lewis, 1936). While playing, the child is
in control of the situation, creating processes and results more or less at will. The
child’s control of the play situation is greatest for individual play and social-
context play (Reynolds, 1976), and is also evident in social play, although in
social play each child’s freedom and control is at least somewhat constrained by
virtue of interacting with the present others (Gamey, 1974, 1976).
The presence of control over the situation and its outcomes seems one of the
primary reasons that children play. What is it, though, that determines the
content of children’s play (that is, what they play with)’? Children seem most
likely to play with those things which they are in the process of acquiring
(Britton, 1970; Piaget, 1962, 1966; Vygotsky, 1966). The basic assumption of
this view is that by virtue of the control children enjoy in play situations, they
become able to consolidate acquisitions which they are able to manipulate in the
play situation (Piaget, 1962, referred to this process as functional or reproductory
assimilation). The impact of playful manipulation of behaviors on the develop-
ment of these behaviors is thought to occur not only because of the degree of
control children have in play situations, but also because the play situation is one
i n which children may freely simulate behavior. As such, children may create
situations in which they can engage in activities in which the normal conse-
quences of such activities are absent (Piaget, 1966; Reynolds, 1976). Thus,
children can experiment without worrying about normal consequences, but at the
same time learn from the experiences. Play, then, permits experimentation and
feedback without the object world’s interfering in the process.
The suggestion, then, is that play is developmentally progressive, in that
children seem most likely to play with those behaviors which they are in the
process of acquiring. If one assumes that practice facilitates acquisition of skills,
play becomes an obvious candidate as an important form of learning (Cazden,
1976; Elkonin, 1971). Along these lines, many theorists have suggested that
language play is developmentally progressive, assisting the child in the acquisi-
tion of various aspects of the linguistic system (Cazden. 1976; Chao, 1951;
Davison, 1974; delaguna, 1927; Elkonin, 1971; Jespersen, 1922; Johnson,
1932; Stem & Stem, 1928), as well as in the development of metalinguistic
abilities (Cazden, 1976). (Cazden, 1976, also suggested that play and metal-
inguistic awareness may be important factors in the development of reading
skill).
It should be noted that not all theorists have agreed that language play is
developmentally progressive. Chukovsky ( 1968) suggested that children play
with only those aspects of language which they have mastered.
When we notice that a child has started to play with some newly acquired component of
understanding. we may definitely conclude that he has become full master of this item of
understanding: only those ideas can become toys for him whose proper relation to reality is
firmly known to him. (Chukovsky, 1968, p . 103)
212 Stan A . Kuczaj II
As will be demonstrated in the following discpsion, the available data none-

theless support the notion that language play is developmentally progressive,
although children certainly play with aspects of language after these aspects have
been stably acquired. Language play during the course of acquisition presumably
has mastery as its primary function, whereas language play after mastery has
enjoyment as its primary .iinction.
A reasonable working hjpothesis thus suggests itself. The period of frequent
playful modifications and imitationhepetition (1:6 to 3:6) has to do with the
amount and nature of linguistic information that children acquire, organize, and
consolidate during the 2-year-period of concern. The decline of this type of play
after 3:6 has to do with the mastery of language which children have achieved by
this age. Bowerman (1 982b) has argued that a critical aspect of early language
development is the child’s discovery of the distinctions that have organizational
significance for the linguistic conceptual system (see also, Maratsos and Chal-
kley, 1980). Bowerman also suggested that the distinction often made between
unanalyzed and analyzed utterances or utterance parts is too simple. Rather,
“analysis . . . is best conceived not as an all-or-none phenomenon but as an
ongoing process that reveals progressively deeper and more subtle levels of
structure and regularity” (Bowerman, 1982b, p. 6). Thus, development is an
ongoing process, one which involves continual analysis. Language play may
facilitate both the discovery of the distinctions and the ongoing analysis.
As noted earlier, the hypothesis that play is developmentally progressive has a
long history in developmental psychology (Bohn, 1914; Lewis, 1936; Valentine,
1942). Play has also been thought to be intrinsically rewarding. Groos (1901)
suggested that children gain pleasure when they play, and reported that an 11-
month-old boy “actually appeared to take pleasure in systematically exercising
himself in all sorts of symmetric and asymmetric mouth movements, both si-
lently and vocally” (p. 33). This early work, as well as more contemporary
work, is summarized in the following two subsections.
A. IMITATION/REPETITION
In an early case study, Bohn (1914) reported that conscious correction of word
pronunciation began in the nineteenth month, and that from this time on the child
repreated words many times in an effort to pronounce them correctly. Bohn
suggested that the repetition occurred because the child’s speech development
was largely self-conscious and motivated by the “nascent” desire for social
relations. Other theorists have also suggested that language play assists in chil-
dren’s acquisition of communication skills, and so may be socially motivated.
That is, the desire for communicative effectiveness may cause the child to
practice and play with language in order to become a more effective social agent.
Valentine (1942) suggested that one type of sound play, the response to
Language Play and Languuge Acquisition 213
another’s vocalization (which Valentine termed responsive imitation), was moti-

vated by children’s desire for social relations. Valentine hypothesized that re-
sponsive imitation was but one aspect of a more general phenomenon, one in
which children are influenced by innate tendencies to imitate those things which
are involved in social exchanges (e.g., sounds, smiles, laughs).
More recently, a number of investigators have also argued that imitation and/
or repetition serve a variety of communicative functions and facilitate commu-
nicative development (McTear, 1976; Rees, 1975). Rees ( 1975) suggested that
imitation is a strategy which children use to “establish and maintain communica-
tion” (p. 347), and that children imitate when they are uncertain about what to
do in a communicative situation.
Keenan ( 1974) offered an assessment of the communicative functions that
imitation and repetition serve in the speech of young children. In her analysis of
the speech of her twins at 2:9, Keenan (1974) suggested that imitation functioned
as an acknowledgment that one had attended to the modeled utterance, and self-
repetition functioned as an attention-getting device. Thus, Keenan suggested that
imitation and repetition functioned as conversational aids.
In a recent case study, Scollon (1976) investigated the “discourse redundan-
cies” (imitation of others and self-repetition) in the spontaneous social speech of
a child, Brenda, from 1:0 to 2:O. All of the sampled speech was social or social-
context. Brenda’s repetitions sometimes involved the reproduction of a form
until the form was understood and/or received a response (Scollon termed such
repetitions discursive repetitions). To Scollon, both imitation and self-repetition
may be viewed as a means of introducing redundancy within the discourse
setting. As such, they are important components of pragmatic development (see
also Martlew et al., 1978).
Other support for the notion that imitation may be communicatively beneficial
comes from a study by Folger and Chapman (1978). They studied the imitations
of six children in a I-hour sample. The children ranged in age from 1.7 to 2:l.
The relative frequency with which children imitated their mothers was positively
correlated with the relative frequency with which the mothers imitated their
children (Spearman rank correlation = .77). Children were also much more
likely to imitate maternal imitations than other maternal speech acts. Folger and
Chapman viewed these findings as support for the notion that individual dif-
ferences in imitative tendencies may reflect the degree to which parents provide a
model of imitation. They also argued for the notion that imitations serve commu-
nicative functions. Recall that imitations may be exact, reduced, or expanded.
Folger and Chapman suggested that these different forms of imitation serve
different communicative functions. (They may also serve different developmen-
tal functions; Slobin, 1968.) In the Folger and Chapman study, children imitated
56% of maternal requests for imitation (“say ---”), 33% of parental expan-
sions, but only 22% of parental exact repetitions (e.g., the child says “red,” the
parent repeats “red,” and child says “red” again). Children were most likely to
imitate parental imitations of a preceding child utterance, less likely to imitate
parental requests for information, and least likely to imitate parental descrip-
tions, requests for action, statements, and conversational devices. Folger and
Chapman speculated that these findings suggested that children’s imitation of
new words and structures reflects, in part, parent’s differential tendency to repeat
or expand these new acquisitions. They also suggested that children who are
nonimitative may have parents who produce highly directive and subjective
speech, and who do not imitate the child.
Similarly, Seitz and Stewart (1975) found a .73 correlation between frequency
of parental expansions and frequency of imitation in the speech samples of nine
2-year-olds. Some parents, then, seem to provide children with a model of
imitation as well as with model sentences to imitate. In this sense, children’s
tendency to imitate may be socially determined.
Keenan (1977) summarized the notion that imitation influences communica-
tive development in the following manner:
What then is going on when a child repeats the utterance of a copresent speaker’?Is the child
learning anything about his language? We can say that in repeating, the child is learning to
communicate. He is learning not to construct sentences at random, but to construct them to
meet specific communicative needs. He is learning to query, comment, confirm, match or
claim and counterclaim, answer a question, respond to a demand, and so on. (Keenan, 1977, p.
133)
Keenan (1977) also argued that this aspect of imitation had been too long
neglected:
One of the characteristics of the literature on imitation is that it generally ignores the illocution-
ary force of the utterance that the child is responding to. The utterance repeated by the child is
not described as a request for information, request for services, an assertion, a greeting, a
rhyme, or song. All utterances are lumped together under the cover term “model sentence.”
The use of this term, of course, reflects the general assumption that all repetitions are imita-
tions. Furthermore, in comparing an utterance with its repetition, the investigator judges only
the extent to which the repetition succeeds as an imitation. (Keenan, 1977, p. 239).
Keenan suggested that if children repeat not only to imitate but also to satisfy
some communicative need, then inexact imitation might be the intended desire of
the child. Keenan presented data to demonstrate that young children are sensitive
to the illocutionary force of others’ utterances in discourse, and that they imitate
(or repeat, to use Keenan’s term) as an attempt to respond to particular types of
utterances.
The current zeitgeist, then, holds that imitation and repetition facilitate the
development of communication skills in young children (see Piaget, 1955; Ryan,
1973, for arguments supporting the opposing view that verbal repetition is de-
void of any social character). Thus, imitation and repetition are developmentally
progressive insofar as pragmatic development is concerned. However, not all
language play is motivated by social concerns. The desire for mastery also seems
to be an important aspect of why children play, as well as why they select
whatever they play with.
Piaget ( 1962) suggested that:
It is true that . . . it is only models which have some analogy with the children’s schemas
which give rise to imitation. Those which are too remote from the child’s experience leave him
indifferent. as for instance unfamiliar movements which would have to be made without being
seen. But sounds and movements which are new to the child, and yet comparable to those he
has already made, give rise to an immediate effort at reproduction. The interest thus appears to
come from a kind of conflict between the partial resemblance which makes the child want to
assimilate, and the partial difference which attracts his attention the more because it is an
obstacle to immediate reproduction. It is therefore this two-fold character of resemblance and
opposition which seems to be the incentive for imitation. (Piaget, 1962, pp. 50-51)
Curiously, Piaget did not seem to believe that verbal repetition at later stages
reflects the same processes as it does for the infant. Verbal repetition (or echo-
lalia, in Piaget’s term) during the preschool years was not viewed as develop-
mentally progressive, but was thought to occur for the “simple” pleasure in-
volved in producing sounds and/or language (Piaget, 1955). The available data
suggest that this view is incorrect, and that imitations and repetitions assist
language-learning children in their acquisition of their mother tongue throughout
the entire language-learning process, and not only in the beginning. For illustra-
tion, I shall consider phonological and grammatical development.
I . Phonological Development
Children’s imitations and repetitions of phonological forms are at least in some
cases developmentally progressive (Bohn, 1914; Jakobson, 1968 ; Valentine,
1942; Weir, 1962). In the speech he produced while alone in his crib at 1:6,
Anthony Weir played with phonological forms which he appeared to be in the
process of acquiring (Weir, 1962). Brenda, the child studied by Scollon (1976),
exhibited a tendency to imitate those phonological forms which she was currently
learning. Brenda’s imitations and repetitions were either exact or partial, the
latter leading to play with phonological variation. Scollon hypothesized that
imitation and repetition affect the development of phonological forms in the
following manner: Imitation allows children to practice forms and contrasts that
are not yet part of their productive phonological system. Repetition provides
children the opportunity to consolidate aspects of the developing system. Thus,
imitation declines in the development of a particular form, while repetition
increases until acquisition is consolidated, after which it declines. This view is
also likely to be true for semantic, syntactic, and pragmatic development. Like
most of the hypotheses discussed in this article, however, it is a candidate for

future confirmation or disconfirmation.
2. Grammatical Development
The hypothesis of concern is that imitation and repetition are important compo-
nents of the child’s acquisition of grammar. However, not long ago, the zeitgeist
was just the opposite. Brown and Fraser (1963) gave six children ranging in age
from 2:1 to 2:11 months old an elicited imitation task (i.e., the children were
asked to imitate specific model sentences), and found that the children’s imita-
tions were not longer than the utterances they spontaneously produced. Howev-
er, in another elicited imitation task, Fraser, Bellugi, and Brown (1963) found
that children from 3: 1 to 3:7 months old could imitate sentences that they could
neither comprehend nor produce spontaneously. In elicited imitation tasks, then,
young children appeared to have identical or inferior language skills compared to
those they evidenced in spontaneous speech. Older children were able to imitate
sentences they could not spontaneously produce. The implications of these find-
ings for the notion that imitation facilitates grammatical development is unclear.
After all, elicited imitations are qualitatively different than spontaneous imita-
tions. In the former, the child is explicitly asked to imitate. In the latter, the child
decides whether or not to imitate. Elicited imitations may serve no developmen-
tal function, but spontaneous imitations may serve important developmental
functions. The two types of imitation are not equivalent.
Work on spontaneous imitations during this period also suggested that imita-
tions were not grammatically progressive (Bloom, 1970; Ervin, 1964; Menyuk,
1963; Rodd & Braine, 1970). For example, Ervin (1964) studied five children’s
spontaneous imitations, and found that the imitations were not grammatically
progressive. For four of the children, the imitations were apparently produced by
the same rules as spontaneous utterances; that is, the imitations and spontaneous
productions were grammatically equivalent. Thus, under optimal conditions (im-
mediate recall and immediately preceding grammatical models), imitations were
not developmentally progressive. In fact, the imitations of one of the children
were less advanced than her spontaneous productions. The children’s imitations,
by virtue of being neither longer nor transformationally more complex than
spontaneous utterances, were not considered developmentally progressive.
Brown and Bellugi (1964) reported on the spontaneous imitations of two of the
three children studied by Brown and his students. The children’s imitations,
although typically reductions of the adult model, preserved the word order of the
model, leading Brown and Bellugi to posit that the child processes model sen-
tences in a holistic fashion. Importantly, as the length of the model sentences
increased, the children’s imitations did not (i.e., the children’s imitations were
the same average length as the children’s spontaneous utterances). This latter
finding was viewed as important in that it also suggested that children’s imita-
tions were not developmentally progressive. The children also tended to imitate
the heavily stressed parts of the model (see also, Scollon, 1976), which in
English happen to be content words such as nouns, verbs, and adjectives. Al-
though this study was taken as further support for the notion that imitations are
not developmentally progressive (a conclusion which subsequent work has sug-
gested is incorrect), Brown and Bellugi foreshadowed one of the contemporary
notions about the role of imitation in grammatical development. Their suggestion
that children process model sentences holistically even though they are capable
of reproducing only part of the model in their imitation fits well with the notion
that children use imitation as a means of producing grammatical forms which
they have not yet sufficiently analyzed into their component parts (R. Clark,
1977, 1982; Kuczaj, 1982a). However, the notion of holistic processing is trou-
blesome. Young children consistently fail to reproduce complex model sentences
exactly, and also consistently exclude certain parts of the model from their
imitation and consistently include other parts of the model in their imitation.
Such consistency strongly suggests that the model sentences are being processed
in some nonholistic fashion which results in the systematic inclusion and exclu-
sion of particular forms. Perhaps young children are more likely to engage in
holistic processing of unfamiliar forms and structures and more likely to engage
in analytic analysis of familiar forms and structures.
More or less contrary to the zeitgeist at the time, Slobin (1968) made the very
reasonable suggestion that spontaneous imitations serve many functions and that
these functions may vary at different ages. After noting that parents frequently
expand their children’s utterances, and that these expansions could be viewed as
expanded imitations of the child’s utterances, Slobin considered the role of
children’s imitations of parental expansions. Imitations of this type might be
viewed as important because the parents provide a model for a certain type of
imitation (the expanded type). Slobin noted that 15% of the children’s imitations
in Brown’s transcripts (see Brown, 1973) were repetitions of parental expansions
or responses to expansion questions. The percentage breakdown of these imita-
tions is given in Table V .
Expanded imitations were most common, but the children exhibited individual
differences in the relative frequency of unexpanded and reduced imitations.
Slobin suggested that expanded imitations may be one type of imitation that has a
positive impact on grammatical development in that children add linguistic forms
in their expanded imitations which they omit in their original utterances.
Slobin also noted that in these transcripts Adam and Eve tended to imitate less
with increasing age and that adults also tended to expand the children’s utter-
ances less often with the children’s increasing age. Thus, a sensitive period may
exist in which expansions are most helpful to the child (i.e., a period in which the
child is prone to produce expanded imitations of parental expansions and learn
novel forms in the process).
TABLE V
Percentages of Types of Imitation Found by Slobin (1968)
Relative frequency (%)
Type of imitation ExampIe Adam Eve
Unexpanded Child: Just like cowboy 45 17

Adult: Oh, just like the
cowboys
Child: Just like cowboy
Reduced Child: Play piano 7 29
Adult: Playing the piano
Child: Piano
Expanded Child: Pick mato 48 54
Adult: Picking tomatoes up?
Child: Pick mato up
Slobin also observed these age-related changes in children’s imitations of

parental expansions: (1) reduced expansions disappeared at an early age; (2)
unexpanded imitations disappeared shortly after reduced expansions; and (3)
expanded imitations persisted for the longest period. Thus, the accuracy of
claims that children’s imitations are typically reductions of adult models (Brit-
ton, 1970) most likely depends on the developmental period being considered
and the nature of the adult model.
In order to obtain preliminary data to test this hypothesis, I examined the
social speech transcripts of my youngest son Ben obtained at 2:0, 2:6, 3:0, and
3.6. Figures 1 and 2 show the relative frequencies of various types of imitations
and self-repetitions.
The relative frequency of exact imitations and repetitions declined with age, as
did that of reduced imitations and repetitions. Exact imitations showed more
rapid developmental decline than did exact repetitions, the opposite pattern hold-
ing for reduced imitations and repetitions. Expanded imitations showed an in-
crease in relative frequency from 2:O to 3:0, and then a decline. Expanded
repetitions increased in relative frequency from 2:O to 2:6, after which a decline
was observed. Reductiodexpansion combination imitations and repetitions both
increased in relative frequency with age.
Thus, type of imitation and type of repetition seem to change in relative
frequency during the course of development. Moreover, the types of changes
observed in Ben’s speech support the notion that imitations and repetitions may
facilitate grammatical development. He eliminated exact and reduced reproduc-
tions sooner than expanded reproductions and reductiodexpansion combina-
tions. The latter types of reproductions were consistently longer and/or more
complex than the former (as assessed by mean length of utterance in mor-
- 0
2:O 2:6 3.0 3:6
AGE
Exact Imitations
- ------_
- Expanded Imitations
ReductionlExpansionCombination
.......................
Imitations
Reduced Imitations
Fig. 1. The relative frequency of rypes of imitaiions in Ben's speech at four ages.
70 .
60
50
CT
m /---.-,
.-
3 30
-
W
a
20
... '\
10 '
I
, ... .
L.
I
0
20 26 30 36
AGE
Exact Repetitions
- ---- ---- Expanded Repetitions
ReductioniExpansionCombination
................... Repetitions
Reduced Repetitions
Fig 2 The relative frequency of types of repetitions in Ben's speech at four ages
219
phemes). Moreover, the expanded and combination reproductions were also

longer than Ben’s spontaneous nonreproductive utterances in the same speech
samples (see Table VI; see also Bloom et al., 1974, who reported that children
who were imitators had higher mean lengths of utterance in morphemes in
imitations than in spontaneous speech, the opposite being true for children who
were nonimitators). Thus, certain types of imitation and repetition seemed to be
developmentally progressive for Ben.
Snow (1981) reported another case study of a child’s spontaneous imitations
from 2:3 to 2:7. This child was quite prone to engage in imitation. As was the
case for Ben, reduced imitations decreased as mean length of utterance in tuor-
phemes increased (a finding also reported by Bowerman, 1973). Expanded im-
itations increased as a proportion of the imitations during this period, “presum-
ably because [the child’s] growing short-term memory enabled him to produce
successful expanded imitations of a greater proportion of adult utterances during
the later sessions” (Snow, 1981, p. 108). This child imitations also appeared to
be developmentally progressive.
Ryan (1973) noted that children tend to imitate unfamiliar utterances more
often than familiar ones. She suggested that even though children might not
reproduce complex adult forms exactly, they could learn from such imitative
attempts if they noticed the mismatch between the adult utterance and their own
imitative response. Ryan also cited an unpublished case study by Lieven in
which the child’s imitations were developmentally progressive. The child’s im-
itations contained a greater number of different lexical items and fewer routine
phrases than did her spontaneous speech. The child also rarely imitated words
that she used spontaneously. The importance of imitation for this child was
illustrated by the fact that in one spontaneous speech sample, 55% of the child’s
two-word utterances were preceded by the mother’s using both words, and 87%
of the two-word utterances were preceded by the mother’s using at least one of
the two words. Therefore, Ryan concluded that imitation can be developmentally
progressive for both lexical items and grammatical forms.
One of the variables that influences individual differences in imitation may be
the parent’s responses to the child’s imitations. In Leiven’s case study (cited by
Ryan, 1973), the mother was less likely to respond with a subsequent utterance
to imitations than to spontaneous utterances. When the mother did respond to the
child’s imitations, her responses tended to be simpler grammatically, to expand
the child’s utterance less often, and more often to be a repetition of the mother’s
own previous utterance, than was so in her responses to spontaneous utterances.
Such behavior might discourage imitation on the part of the child, even though
the child studied by Lieven imitated at a fairly high rate.
Apparently, both what children imitate or repeat (e.g., parental expansions,
Slobin, 1968; unfamiliar constituents, Ryan, 1972) and how children imitate or
repeat models (i.e., the type of imitation or repetition) influence whether or not
TABLE VI
Ben’s Mean Length of Utterance in Morphemes at Four Different Ages for His Nonreproductive Speech and Various Types
of Imitations and Repetitions
Reductiodexpansion
Exact Reduced Expanded combinations
N Nonreproduc t ive
‘J Age speech Imitations Repetitions Imitations Repetitions Imitations Repetitions Imitations Repetitions
2:O 2:o 1.8 2: 1 1:7 1.7 3:O 2:5 2:n 3:6

2% 3:3 2:8 2:7 2:7 3: 1 3:6 4:6 3% 4:2
3:O 3:8 2:5 3:4 3: 1 2:9 4:4 4:3 4:8 4:6
3:6 4:7 3:9 3:3 3:3 3: 1 5:9 6:8 6:3 6%
222 Stun A. Kuczuj 11
such processes are viewed as grammatically progressive. In addition to what and

how children imitate and/or repeat, when they do so also appears to affect the
developmental significance of the reproductions. Imitation during the early
stages of language development seems most likely to facilitate the acquisition of
words (Bloom et al., 1974; Ramer, 1976; Rodgon & Kurdek, 1977; Shipley,
Smith, & Gleitman, 1969), and imitation and repetition in later development are
more likely to benefit syntactic and pragmatic development (Miller, 1979;
Moerk, 1977; Valentine, 1942). This pattern may not hold for all children,
however, but only for those children who might be viewed as imitators. The
importance of recognizing individual differences in imitation was demonstrated
by Bloom er al. (1974).
Bloom et al. (1974) longitudinally investigated the imitations of six children
from mean length of utterance in morphemes of approximately 1:0 to 2:O. They
included only spontaneous exact or reduced imitations in their analyses. They
found that three of the children were consistent imitators, two were not (though
they did imitate from 4 to 31% of the time), and one child was neither a
consistent imitator nor a consistent nonimitator. The imitators were most likely
to imitate a model immediately, with no intervening utterances between the
model and its imitation. The imitators also exhibited a strong tendency to use
certain words only imitatively and others only spontaneously. Moreover, as
spontaneous use of a word increased, use of the word in imitations decreased.
Therefore, for imitators, imitation of lexical items did appear to be developmen-
tally progressive. They imitated words that they did not know (and thus did not
use spontaneously), and did not imitate words they used spontaneously. The
imitators also seemed to imitate semantic categories and syntactic forms that they
were in the process of acquiring (see also Scollon, 1976). Thus, they did not
imitate those forms that they had firmly acquired, nor those about which they
knew nothing, but rather they imitated only those things they knew something
about (see also Piaget, 1954; Kuczaj & Maratsos, 1975). Apparently, if children
are imitators, what they imitate depends on their current state of development.
Imitation is an active process, and imitators appear to find it rewarding because it
results in learning. Thus, children are most likely to imitate that about which they
have partial understanding (Guillaume, 1926; Piaget, 1954; Preyer, 1882; Valen-
tine, 1930).
Imitation, then, may not be a necessary component of the language develop-
ment process (given the individual differences that have been found), but does
appear to be important for those children who are imitators. Imitation may
facilitate grammatical development in that such reproduction permits the con-
tinuation of information processing to occur (Bloom et al., 1974; R. Clark,
1974, 1975, 1977, 1982). Such processing may nonetheless be incomplete.
Clark ( 1977, 1982) has suggested that imitation includes mechanical elements,
and that at least some novel forms enter the child’s repertoire as a result of this
mechanical aspect of imitation. She has also suggested that imitation may be a
form of overt rehearsal that children engage in before they can rehearse silently
(Clark, 1975), and that they have a “plagiarism” strategy, such that they pad an
utterance with underanalyzed portions of the preceding adult model (see also
Snow, 1981). Clark also hypothesized that children may engage in holistic
processing of adult utterances, such that they can store the utterances in the form
in which they perceive them, and later reproduce these underanalyzed forms.
This hypothesis places considerable importance on delayed (or deferred) imita-
tion (see Piaget, 1963; Snow, 1981). However, the status of such imitation qua
imitation is unclear as is the notion that children engage in holistic processing
of model sentences (see discussion in Section 111,A).
In closing this section, I should like to suggest that even though imitation
appears to be affected by individual differences, we do not know if repetition is
as susceptible to individual differences as it imitation. Children who are imitators
may also be self-repeaters, but the relation between imitation and repetition
needs to be systematically investigated.
B. MODIFICATIONS
As discussed in Section V,B, the modifications involved in language play

seem to be developmentally progressive for phonological development and
grammatical development (Weir, 1962), and are likely to be so for semantic and
pragmatic development. The developmental significance of play modifications is
currently being systematically assessed with a group of 14 children (Kuczaj,
1982b). Preliminary analyses suggest that the influence of such modifications on
language development varies from child to child, as does the content (syntactic,
pragmatic, etc.) of the play transformations (Kuczaj, 1982b; Kuczaj, Harbaugh,
Bean, & Boston, 1981). However, this variablity also appears to be influenced
by developmental period. Early in the acquisition process, children appear to use
presleep monologues to play with and practice linguistic forms they are in the
process of acquiring, although considerable individual differences are evident in
the degree to which children do so. Later in the acquisition process, however,
individual differences become even more evident, such that some children seem
to continue to use their presleep speech monologues to practice linguistic forms
they are in the process of acquiring, while other children do not practice new
forms in presleep monologues but instead appear to use such monologues pri-
marily to act out fantasies and to practice social communicative skills, carrying
on imaginary conversations in their monologues.
In addition to examining children’s modifications of utterances they have just
produced (which is what has been investigated in previous investigations of such
play modifications), we are looking at the children’s modifications of utterances
others have just produced. Just as repetition has a social corollary in imitation,
modifications may be either those which change one’s own preceding utterance
or another’s preceding utterance. In repetition and in modifications of their own
utterances, children produce both the antecedent and the consequent utterance. In
imitation and in modification of another’s utterance, the other person provides
the model for the imitation and/or modification. Although our analyses are
incomplete, we believe that the distinction between social language play (i.e.,
that in which another provides the model) and solitary language play may be an
important parameter of individual differences in language play. Even if this
belief proves to be incorrect, the notion that social modifications are important
aspects of language play has received preliminary support.
In addition to facilitating grammatical development, social modification may
facilitate communication and the development of communication skills (Keenan,
1974). Both imitation and social modifications seem to be governed by two
major functions (Keenan, 1974): (1) focus functions and (2) substitution func-
tions. Focus functions involve repetition. The repetition may be an exact re-
production of an entire utterance or a reproduction of only part of an utterance. If
it is a part of an utterance, the constituent most likely to be repeated is the
predicate or one of its parts. Or the repetition may involve an intonation altera-
tion, the syntactic expansion of a constituent from the model or the embedding of
a constituent from the model in a larger construction. Substitution functions
involve replacement sequences such as those described by Weir (1962). Again,
however, these functions reflect modifications found in both monologues and
social speech. (In Keenan’s study, the social modifications involved child-child
interactions rather than adult-child ones.)
Along these lines, Shields (1979) suggested that collective monologues may
reflect children’s initial attempts at communicative interactions in a non-family
group. Rubin and Dyck (1980) also posited that one of the functions of private
speech in a social context is the practice of social discourse. If so, then we might
expect such speech to involve practice with the level of description, the content,
the order of mention, and the relation of parts of discourse to one another, these
being the factors involved in descriptive communication (Clark & Clark, 1977).
Thus, “play” modifications may facilitate communicative development.
They may also facilitate syntactic development. Braine (1971) suggested that one
type of modification, “replacement sequences,” is an important aspect of gram-
matical development. He used the term replacement sequence rather than those
suggested by Weir (1962) because he viewed Weir’s notion of sequence as too
broad in that thematically related sequences were not excluded from Weir’s
analysis. Replacement sequences are those which are structurally related to one
another, usually via expansion (and so are “build-ups” in Weir’s terminology).
However, some replacement sequences also involve substitutions and comple-
tions (Braine, 1974). The role of replacement sequences in grammatical develop-
ment is as follows according to Braine.
Final mastery requires, over and above initial mastery, that the child have a sentence-produc-
tion program that incorporates the effect of the rule as an automatic routine. In the interim
between initial and final mastery, a child will sometimes not use i t but insert a lexical item
holophrastically. During this interim, one can often find evidence [i.e., replacement se-
quences] that use of a rule demands effort from the child. (Braine, 1974)
The notion of social modifications also illustrates that imitation and modifica-
tion are not necessarily mutually exclusive, but may instead occur as joint ac-
tivities (a notion that has been discussed several times in this paper). Similarly,
repetition and modification are not necessarily mutually exclusive, but are found
to interact in play involving buildups, breakdowns, etc. Future work should be
concerned with better delineating the differences between the two types of play,
as well as the similarities.
VII. Conclusions
In the introduction to this article, I specified five questions which would be the
focal concerns of this contribution. These questions were: (1) What types of
behaviors constitute language play'? ( 2 ) What is the developmental course of
these behaviors? (3) Where are such behaviors most likely to occur? (4)With
what aspects of language do children play'? (5) Is language play developmentally
progressive?
In the remainder of this article, I will briefly summarize the tentative answers
to these questions, and specify directions for future research.
A . WHAT TYPES OF BEHAVIOR CONSTITUTE LANGUAGE PLAY?
Modification, imitationkepetition, and combinations of modifications and im-

itationhepetitions are the types of behaviors which constitute language play.
Each of these types of play involves the manipulation of a preceding verbal
behavior. In modification, the preceding behavior is transformed in some way.
In imitation, children repeat at least part of another's preceding utterance. In
repetition, children repeat at least part of their own preceding utterance. Modifi-
cation imitationhepetition combinations involve the partial imitationhepetition
and partial transformation of a preceding utterance.
B. WHAT IS THE DEVELOPMENTAL COURSE OF LANGUAGE PLAY

BEHAVIORS?
Imitation appears to increase in frequency until approximately 1 :6, after which

it begins to decline. Self-repetition appears to increase in frequency until 2:0,
226 Stan A . Kuczaj 11
after which it declines until 7:O. The frequency of self-repetition seems to remain
relatively constant after 7:O. Modifications are most common during the age
range of 1:6 to 3:6,after which their frequency declines.
The above are gross developmental patterns. The relative and absolute fre-
quency of the types of play is significantly influenced by individual differences.
Moreover, the developmental patterns reflect only the general categories of types
of play. Subtypes of play do not always follow the same developmental paths as
the general categories of which they are a part. For example, the decline in
frequency of imitation and repetition with age ignores the developmental dif-
ferences which exist for types of repetition and imitation. Some types of imita-
tion and repetition increase during the same age range during which other types
of imitation and repetition decrease. Different types of modification may also
show different rates and patterns of developmental increases and decreases.
C. WHERE ARE PLAY BEHAVIORS MOST LIKELY TO OCCUR?
Both play and speech can be categorized as solitary, social-context, or social.

These discriminations are based on both the overall social context and the child’s
social role in the play and/or speech situation. If the child is alone, the play and
speech produced by the child is solitary, that is, asocial (even though the child
may practice communicative skills in such situations). If other people are pre-
sent, then the play and speech produced by the child will be either social-context
or social, only the latter involving true social interactions in the play and/or
speech situation.
Early language play appears to be primarily asocial. With increasing age,
children begin to produce more social language play, although it is unclear
whether or not solitary and social-context play decline with increasing age.
Social context also seems to affect language play in one other way. The famil-
iarity of the present other(s) appears to affect the nature and content of children’s
language play, particularly for young children. Young children engage in more
social language play with familiar others than with strangers.
D . WITH WHAT ASPECTS OF LANGUAGE DO CHILDREN PLAY?
The answer to this question is straightforward. Children play with all aspects
of language-phonological, semantic, syntactic, and pragmatic. Play with as-
pects of the phonological system appears to be the earliest type of language play.
Other than this, no conclusive evidence is available concerning developmental
changes in the relative and absolute frequency of play with different components
of the language system.
Language Play and Ltingirage Acquisirion 221
E. IS LANGUAGE PLAY DEVELOPMENTALLY PROGRESSIVE'?
The available data suggest that children do play with aspects of the language
system which they are in the process of acquiring. Such play may assist children
in their analyses and organization of linguistic knowledge, and thereby directly
facilitate the acquisition of such knowledge. However, the data demonstrate only
that children play with things they are in the process of acquiring. They do not
demonstrate that such play is in fact developmentally progressive, nor do they
indicate the manner in which play facilitates language development.
F. NEEDS AND DIRECTIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH
There is an obvious need for more research in this area. Each of the above five
questions has been partially answered at best. Complete and correct answers to
these questions will depend on both the evolution of a general theory of the
relation of play and language development in particular and on systematic em-
pirical investigation of the crucial variables.
The types of language play have received differential amounts of study. Imita-
tion has been studied in much greater detail than has repetition, and both have
been studied more than the various types of play modification. In order to deepen
our understanding of the influence of language play on language development,
we need to understand the developmental relations of imitation, repetition, and
modification. Future research should determine if imitations and repetitions are
more or less common than modifications, and how the relative frequency of the
types of play is affected by individual differences and/or developmental period.
In addition, future research should determine if repetitions and/or modifications
are as subject to individual differences as are imitations.
When individual differences are found, three questions need to be considered.
First. which patterns are the predominant ones? For example, are imitators or
nonimitators more common? Second, how do individual differences affect lan-
guage development? Third, what causes the individual differences? For instance,
although some children seem to be imitators and other nonimitators, we do not
know if children learn to be imitators or nonimitators or if children are somehow
predisposed to become imitators or nonirnitators.
Although children play with all aspects of language, longitudinal study is
needed in order to determine the developmental patterns in regard to frequency of
play with the various components of language. Specifying the aspects of lan-
guage most likely to be played with during given developmental periods should
greatly enhance our understanding of how language play is related to language
development.
Finally, more work is needed to determine the relation of social context and
language play. Social context does appear to affect both the frequency and the
type of language play. However, most of the work has demonstrated a correla-
tion rather than a causal relation among social context and language play. For
instance, parents who imitate their children have children who are more likely to
imitate them. This does not necessarily mean that the parents’ imitation causes
the children’s imitation. The opposite could be true. Or some other variable
might affect the frequency of both parental and child imitations. Longitudinal
research is sorely needed.
In addition to all of the research which needs to be done, a theory needs to be
constructed. Given that this theory will have to integrate types of language play,
developmental period, aspects of language, and social context, it will most likely
evolve gradually. However, the opportunities for empirical investigation and
theoretical construction make this an exciting area indeed, and one which un-
doubtedly will grow at a remarkable rate in future years.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The first draft of this article was written during my 1980-1981 academic year appointment as a
Visiting Associate Professor at the Institute of Child Development at the University of Minnesota.
The preparation of the paper was supported in part by NIMH grant # I R 0 3 MH 33362-01 and in part
by NSF grant # BNS 7824733. I am grateful to Hayne Reese for his written comments and
suggestions on an earlier version of this work. Of course, the grammatical quality, the pragmatic
style, and the semantic content found herein are my responsibilities, rather than those of Hayne
Reese, either funding agency, or the University of Minnesota.
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THE CHILD STUDY MOVEMENT: EARLY GROWTH
AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE SYMBOLIZED CHILD
Alexander W . Siege1
UNIVERSITY OF HOUSTON
HOUSTON, TEXAS
Sheldon H . White
DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHOLOGY AND SOCIAL RELATIONS
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
I. INTRODUCTION: THE CHILD IN TEXTS AND SYMBOLS.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234
11. THE LARGER SOCIAL CONTEXT OF THE CHILD STUDY MOVEMENT., . . ‘238
A. PUBLIC INTERESTS IN CHILD DEVELOPMENT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . , . . . . . 239
B. ORPHANAGES AND FOSTER HOMES FOR ABANDONED, ABUSED,
AND NEGLECTED CHILDREN . . . . . . . . . . . , . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . , . , . . 240
C. JUVENILE COURTS, JUVENILE ASYLUMS, REFORM SCHOOLS, AND
INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241
D. MILK STATIONS AND DEPOTS, HOMES FOR THE BLIND, DEAF,
CRIPPLED, DISEASED, AND FEEBLEMINDED. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . , , . . . 242
E. CHILDREN LEAVE THE WORKPLACE.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . , . . . . . . . . . 243
F. CHILDREN GO TO SCHOOL.. . . . . . . . . . . . , . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . , . . . . . 244
111. THE ENTERPRISES OF THE CHILD STUDY MOVEMENT. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248

A. CHILD STUDY AS SCIENTIFIC PSYCHOLOGY.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249
B. CHILD STUDY AS AN ACADEMIC LINK TO EDUCATION . . . . . . . . . . . . 262
C. CHILD STUDY AS A SCIENTIFIC PEDAGOGY. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 264
D. CHILD STUDY, CHILD SAVING, AND EARLY SOCIAL W O R K . . . . . . . . 269
E. CHILD STUDY AND THE ESTABLISHMENT OF CLINICAL
PSYCHOLOGY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271
F. CHILD STUDY AND PARENT EDUCATION.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273
IV. MOTIVES AND NEEDS FOR CHILD STUDY. . , , . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . , , , . . . 276

REFERENCES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 280
Grown-ups love figures. When you tell them that vou have made a new friend, they never ask
you any questions about essential matters. They never suv, “Whut does his voice sound like?
233
ADVANCES IN CHILD DEVELOPMENT Copyright 0 1982 by Academic Press. Inc
AND BEHAVIOR, VOL. 17 All righis u l repruduction in any form reservcd.
ISBN 0-12-009717-6
234 Alexander W . Siege1 and Sheldon H. White
What games does he love best? Does he collect butterflies?” Instead, they demand: “How old is
he? How many brothers h a s he? How much does he weigh? How much money does his father
make?” Only from these figures do they think they have learned any thing about him.
Antoine de Saint-Exupiry, The Little Prince (1943, p. 17)
Tables of correlations seem dull, dry unimpressive things beside the insights of poets and
proverb makers-but only to those who miss their meaning. In the end they will contribute
tenfold more to man’s mastery of himsev. History records no career, war or revolution that can
compare in sign8cance with the fact that the correlation between intellect and morality is
approximately .3, a fact to which perhaps a fourth of the worlds progress is due.
Edward L. Thorndike, ”Educational Diagnosis” (1913)
I. Introduction: The Child in Texts and Symbols

It is often said that the child study movement in America is an ancestor to
contemporary developmental psychology, as if there is a direct and linear linkage
between research with children as it was at the turn of the century and as it is
now. But what did the child study movement mean to Americans at the turn of
the century? What are the relationships between the activities and motives of that
movement and the activities and motives of contemporary developmental psy-
chology? In this article we will address those issues by elaborating four argu-
ments:
1. Child study was a crystallization into formal and intentional practice of

what had been accelerating incidental activities for several decades before-
writing about children, creating symbolic indices of their status and developing
arguments about their actual or to-be-expected life in various conditions and
statuses of society. Child study greatly fostered the growth of the “typical child”
and the “average child,” mythical creatures of great usefulness in representing
the conditions and possibilities of large numbers of children.
2. The child study movement came at a time when many local institutions and
services for children had been built across the United States and now a second
wave of national political organization and professionalization was beginning.
The second wave required cooperation among widely separated people. To link
them together, articulated representations of facts, conceptions, and values about
childhood had to be established. There had to be some community of belief with
respect to some basic issues and there had to be the possibility of negotiation of
beliefs with respect to others. Child study arose to provide a basic stock of
propositions and theses for this social construction of reality-not to fully adjudi-
cate and settle all value questions, although some hoped it would, but at the very
least to present the symbolic raw materials for articulate public debate about
issues of childhood.
The Child Srirdv Mo\*ement 235
3. The child study movement brought together an idea-that watching chil-

dren will permit the derivation of laws and universals of child development-and
a set of enterprises. Six sets of actors and six kinds of interests converged on the
idea. To understand the texture and meaning of the child study movement, we
have to understand the diverse motives that in part united, in part divided, early
psychologists, university administrators, schoolmen, social workers and child
savers, early clinical psychologists and psychiatrists, and parents.
4. G. Stanley Hall and a small company of others positioned themselves in the
midst of this surging movement. They proposed to provide facts, ideas, and
values about childhood through scientific work but they had little scientific
method or methodology with which to accomplish this. The needs and the
motives that animated child study were not satisfied in Hall’s time. Hall moved
from one audience to the next in several cycles of expectation and disappoint-
ment. But the needs and the motives of the child study movement remain alive
today. As methods and methodology are found by developmental psychologists,
further aspects of the nineteenth-century alliance are realized.
Not much is known about the children of Europe before the year 1700. Writ-
ings about them are relatively skimpy. Large-scale literacy was just coming into
being in eighteenth-century European society. Only then were elaborate social
records written, create& by a social stratum making texts to record, communi-
cate, argue about, and respond to the conditions of life faced by adults and
children of their time.
A script culture existed as early as the thirteenth century. Clanchy (1979)
analyzed the social changes that took place as people replaced human memory
with written records and as they shifted in their thinking toward what he called
“the literate mentality.” As large as these changes were, the social conse-
quences of print culture following upon them in the 1450s may have been even
larger (Eisenstein, 1979; see also Goody, 1968; Goody & Watt, 1968).
Phillippe Aries’ ( 1962) Centuries ofChildhood offers a well-known account of
the lives European children led in the Middle Ages. The conclusions reached in
this influential book must inevitably remain argumentative, because of the awk-
wardness and uncertainty of inferences about the lives of children in a historical
period for which there were not elaborate documentary records. Aries looked at
paintings of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries to see how children and
families were pictured. He read Doctor Heroard’s account of the upbringing of
the young French king, Louis XIII, to get a sense of how adults carried on with
children and the games children played. The changing regulations of medieval
schools and colleges gave clues to the changing lives led by young scholars in
those institutions. Using fragmentary data, Aries speculatively reconstructed the
life of the medieval child, much like someone recollecting a novel read long ago
from scattered memory items available to recall.
236 Alexander W . Siege1 and Sheldon H . White
Contemporary reconstructions of children’s lives can draw upon a wealth of

written records. For example, the descriptions of the state of the child in New
York City offered by Lash and her associates (Lash & Sigal, 1976; Lash, Sigal,
& Dudzinski, 1980) drew upon routinely collected descriptive statistics about
children from many agencies and sources. Modern society collects paper “mem-
ories” of its children in great number and variety: birth records, health records,
school records, diverse institutional records, and agency records ranging from
report cards through test scores to hundreds of levels and kinds of social statis-
tics; formal and informal correspondence; newspaper and magazine stories about
children; how-to books and child development books and don’t-worry books.
One must still make inferences to form a picture of children’s lives. But the data
base is much richer. There are many more bones with which to attempt the
reconstruction of the dinosaur.
In the twentieth century, developmental psychologists create texts like the
following:
5-month-old infants were presented visual patterns for 100-msec followed by a 100-msec
patterned masker at intervals of 0, 250, 500, and 2000 msec after the offset of the stim-
ulus. . , , The mean proportion of time fixating the novel stimulus during the novelty-prefer-
ence test was 0.46 for the 0-msec group, 0.47 for the 250-msec group, 0.46 for the 500-msec
group, and 0.62 for the 2000-msec group. . . . Only infants in the 2000-msec stimulus-masker
interval condition significantly fixated a novel stimulus longer than the familiar stimulus.
These results suggest that visual processing in infants is quite slow relative to that in older
humans. (Lasky & Spiro, 1980, p. 1292)
The effects of routine daily separations occasioned by out-of-home care on the formation and
maintenance of infant-mother attachment relationships were examined in a population of
economically disadvantaged mothers. 3 groups were constituted on the basis of the time in the
infant’s life when out-of-home care began: (1) before 12 months; (2) between 12 and 18
months; (3) home-care controls. . . . At 12 months 47% of the infants whose mothers had
returned to worWschool were classified in the anxious-avoidant group, while the other 2 groups
did not differ significantly in the proportions of infants assigned to the 3 attachment condi-
tions. , . . These data suggest that during the first year . , . regular, daily separations resulting
from out-of-home-care are associated with the development of anxious-avoidant attachments.
(Vaughn, Gove, & Egeland, 1980, pp. 1209, 1212)
Children’s contingency judgments were examined with respect to totally uncontrollable out-
comes (drawing cards blindly from a shuffled deck). , . , Kindergarteners . . . regarded com-
petence-related factors (age, practice, intelligence, and effort) as significantly affecting out-
comes. . . . By contrast, fourth graders identified the outcomes as resulting from luck and
downplayed the role of competence-related factors (Weisz, 1980, p. 387)
Reports like the above offer short histories of the lives of selected children in
situations created, or chosen out of the child’s larger history, by the researcher.
The purpose of such accounts is not history writing per se but rather an attempt to
The Child Study Movement 237
characterize something about the general nature of the child. The little history of
the study is treated as something like a parable. The three research reports just
quoted were suggestive of general proportions somewhat like these: (1) Infants
“see” things more slowly than older people; ( 2 ) children placed in very early
day care may develop an anxious kind of attachment; and (3) older children are
better than younger ones at recognizing when a task depends on luck versus skill.
Ideally, the study of children in highly controlled environments creates generic
accounts of the cognitive, emotional, and social functions of children. Other
kinds of inquiry are used to examine children’s lives and functions in various
places and conditions of society. Looking at children in the real world, re-
searchers assess their standing and progress, usually asking whether the condi-
tion of the child is desirable and fair. Researchers are not supposed to make value
judgments. They would be “biased” if they did, it is said. But they do. Lash et
al. (1980) wrote about New York children in these terms:
As the city changes, the lives of children change. It is only through the continual tracking of
their welfare that we can get an indication of whether current programs and policies are
adequate now and whether they will be so in the future. . . . Valid decisions about priorities
and programs depend not only on the information on the current level of well-being or
performance in one area compared to others, but also on knowing whether these levels have
improved or worsened over the years. (p. 6)
Are the lives of children getting better or worse? Are services adequate’?Facts
and values are always issues in describing children. The lines of surmise leading
from “is” toward “ought” are generally pretty apparent in descriptions of
children in society:
The 1975 median income for N.Y.C. families with children with $5,532 for female-headed
families compared to $15,905 for husband-wife families. . . . 170,000, or approximately one
out of every six N.Y.C. families with children were living below the official poverty level in
1975. 75% of these poor families were headed by women. . . . Poor children had more than
double the number of bed-disability days (8.4) than children with family incomes of $l5,000or
more. (Lash et a / . , 1980. pp. 63-64)
The scores of N.Y.C. students on the Scholastic Aptitude Tests (SATS) declined between
1972- 1973 and 1978- 1979, with a drop of 40 points in verbal skills (422 to 382) and 42 points
in mathematical skills (467 to 425). The N.Y.C. scores were consistently below the national
average, and the gap has been widening. In 1972-1973 N.Y.C. students scored 23 points
below the national average i n verbal skills and 14 points below in math skills. By 1978-1979
this difference had increased to 45 and 42 points, respectively. (Lash el al.. 1980, p. 115).
Fluoridation-particularly of community water supplies-is the most effective measure to

reduce the incidence of the largest problem, dental caries, with the capability of preventing 65
percent of dental caries and SO percent of children’s dental bills . . . Fluoridation of communi-
ty water supplies is estimated to yield $50 in saving from reduced treatment for each dollar
invested . . . The fluoridation of community water systems is the most effective, least costly
public health measure for preventing dental caries. (DHHS,1980, p. 51)
The three quotes just given say: (1) A lot of children come from female-headed
poor families and they tend to get sick; (2) schooling in New York City is going
downhill rapidly; and (3) fluoridation prevents cavities. Statements like these are
descriptive, evaluative, and-if not prescriptive-suggestive. Their evaluative-
ness and prescriptiveness depend upon two levels of description. On the one
hand, such statements depend upon the existence somewhere of descriptions of
the generic and/or the normative for children. We expect certain things of chil-
dren and of the institutions that serve them. (Most schools are expected to work.
Nowadays, we expect dental cavities to be serviced or prevented.) The studies of
children in the real world describe them in a way that will allow their condition to
be compared with what the generic or universal would lead us to expect or hope
for. Several kinds of people use comparative assessments such as these, offering
in return support for the generic and situational studies that are their foundation.
The study of children and the creation of data about child development are
today institutionalized, subsidized social activities. How did these activities be-
come established? There was a time when educators, physicians, and social
workers gathered knowledge about children informally and in connection with
the pursuit of other interests. Then, in the 1890s, career lines, societies, journals,
and social resources began to be dedicated to this kind of study that had once
been done informally and incidentally. G . Stanley Hall was the recognized leader
of the child study movement, although the term “child study” as used by his
contemporaries embraced some issues and purposes that were not wholly his. G.
Stanley Hall is today recognized as an ancestor of contemporary developmental
psychologists (Sears, 1975). One of the interests embraced in child study was an
interest in the scientific study of children’s behavior and, thus, one descendant of
child study is contemporary developmental psychology. However, child study
was an outgrowth of a number of social movements in the late nineteenth century
other than the rise of scientific psychology.
11. The Larger Social Context of the Child Study

Movement
Beginning in the late eighteenth century, there was a steady evolution of
public interests in child development and an increase in numbers of people,
buildings, and societies committed to work with children. People paid more
attention to children. They talked about children as a social resource, as the
future of society, as a means to progress or to the perfection of human society

(Mangold, 1914; Pinchbeck & Hewitt, 1973; Tyack, 1974). Until the American
Civil War, public activities on behalf of children were locally organized and
funded by philanthropy. After the Civil War, public support increased substan-
tially. As local activities became more widespread, state and national coordina-
tion of administration appeared (Bossard, 1948; Mangold, 1914; White, Day,
Freeman, Hantman, & Messenger, 1973).
The 1890s were a time of great social change. Henry Steele Commager calls
the decade of the 1890s a watershed:
On the one side lies an America predominantly agricultural; concerned with domestic prob-
lems; conforming, intellectually at least, to the political, economic, and moral principles
inherited from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. . . . On the other side lies the modern
America, predominantly urban and industrial; inextricably involved in world economy and
politics. (Commager, 1950, pp. 41-43)
In his history of progressive education Cremin (1964) described an “awaken-

ing” in the 1890s:
To look back on the nineties is to sense an awakening of social conscience, a growing belief
that this incredible suffering was neither the fault nor the inevitable lot of the sufferers, that it
could certainly be alleviated, and that the road to alleviation was neither charity nor revolution,
but in the last analysis, education. The awakening assumed a vast variety of institutional forms.
(Cremin. 1964, p. 59)
The lives children led were altered by these social changes. People saw “child
development” in a new way, and they formed a new kind of politics of children,
a liberal politics of public support and concern that was to be the forerunner of
what Gilbert Steiner (1976), in our own time, was to call “the children’s cause.”
A. PUBLIC INTERESTS IN CHILD DEVELOPMENT
White et al. (1973) suggested that four thematic public purposes motivated
programs for children in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: (1)
preparation of children to assume adult economic roles; (2) assimilation of chil-
dren into a community of shared values and ideals; (3) partial regulation of the
labor market; and (4) provision of services and support for children at risk.
These public purposes, acted upon again and again, created new “social
contracts.” Parents, politicians, and professionals made new bargains with one
another. A great variety of new social arrangements sprang up-“behavior
settings ” (Barker & Wright, 1954) dedicated to work with children. The
“whole child professions” emerged. Bledstein (1976) has described the broad
240 Alexander W. Siege1 and Sheldon H . White
growth of professionalism in the last century, and the rearrangements of space,

time and personhood that the elaborating professional role structure entailed.
Space and time were the most elementary categories in everyday experience, and in a simple
mental step individuals could recognize that space and time effectively delimited humap
behavior. . . . Mid-Victorians turned their interest toward identifying every category of person
who naturally belonged in a specific ground-space: the woman in the residential home, the
child in the school, the man in his place of work, the dying person in a hospital, and the body in
the funeral parlor. . . . Within broad spheres, of course, the specialization of space and the
increasingly complex human roles within it went on endlessly. . . . Natural functions accom-
panied every structured space; the more spaces an individual inhabited, the more power and
knowledge the person needed to command, the more complex and successful an American he
or she might become. (Bledstein, 1976, pp. 56, 63)
How did Americans rearrange their space and their time for the benefit of
children in the last century? First, they built publicly supported homes for chil-
dren who had none of their own. If children were inadequately cared for they
provided legal mechanisms and resources to place them in more adequate homes.
B . ORPHANAGES AND FOSTER HOMES FOR ABANDONED, ABUSED,

AND NEGLECTED CHILDREN
From the 1860s on, orphan asylums appeared in American cities. They were
regarded as positive social inventions because they took homeless children out of
almshouses, where they had been incarcerated with the poor, the blind, the
crippled, and the criminal. By 1892, 74,000 children were living in orphan
asylums in the United States (Bremner, 1971, p. 283).
Not everyone thought institutions were good for children. Agencies to place
children in foster care in private homes appeared, such as Children’s Aid So-
cieties. The New York City Children’s Aid Society sent children out to foster
care in the West, 40,000 of them by 1879. Between 1883 and 1909 Children’s
Home Societies were established in 28 states to promote adoption or foster home
placement of homeless or destitute children.
These social mechanisms provided places for children without families. Until
the late nineteenth century, English and American law offered children little
protection against abuse. In England in 1761, Anne Martin was sent to Newgate
Prison for 2 years for putting out the eyes of children with whom she went
begging about the country. In England in 1780, a little girl of 7 was hanged at
Norwich for stealing a petticoat. Anne Martin got 2 years for her crime, but “had
it been the eyes of her own children, possibly no notice would have been taken of
the matter, for parents treated their unhappy offspring as they chose” (Pinchbeck
& Hewitt, 1973, pp. 155-156).
The New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children was estab-
The Child Study Movemenr 24 1
lished in 1874. New York and Massachusetts took the lead in protecting children
because they were the most urbanized and industrialized of the states. By 1900,
the United States had more than 150 organizations dedicated to protecting chil-
dren (Bremner, 1971, p. 150).
C . JUVENILE COURTS, JUVENILE ASYLUMS, REFORM SCHOOLS, AND

INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS
Younger children were guaranteed a minimally caring home by the legislation

of the 1800s. Older children might be poorly served by their families, or so
people thought, if they were allowed to become delinquent, idle, vicious, im-
moral, drunken, or beggarly. A second group of behavior settings arose to deal
with them.
Wayward youth were not to be treated as adult crimjnals. They were to be
sentenced to juvenile asylums, reformatories, or training schools. Some had
great faith in such institutions (Rothman, 1980). Others felt that shutting up
youth in institutions would do more harm than good. They placed wayward
youth in indenture or in the country. In any case, society took charge of the
youth, asserting the public’s right to the youth as superior to that of the family:
“May not the natural parents, when unequal to the task of education, or unwor-
thy of it, be superseded by the parens patriae or common guardian of the
community?” (Bremner, 1971, p. 672).
Juvenile delinquents were spared harsh adult sentences by this new kind of
guardianship. At the same time, the doctrine led to a new class of what are today
called “status offenses.” Children could be removed from their families and
incarcerated without any showing of crime, simply on a judgment that they were,
in the words of an Illinois statute of 1863, “vagrant . . . destitute of proper
parental care or . . . growing up in mendicancy, ignorance, idleness, or vice”
(Bremner, 1971, p. 485). By 1892, 15,000 youths were in juvenile institutions.
By 1900, 70 such institutions had been established. (Bremner, 1971).
These modified institutional arrangements went hand in hand with a modified
legal system. By 1897 several states required separate hearings and detention for
children’s cases. The first Juvenile Court was established in Cook County,
Illinois, in 1899. Its proceedings were noncriminal and used special judges,
trials, detention centers, and supervision. By 1919 all but three states had laws
establishing juvenile courts. A juvenile justice system was created which remains
in use across the United States today. A recent case study of the New York
juvenile courts shows poignantly how completely entangled legal, psychiatric,
and social problems are in the cases coming before such courts (Prescott, 1981).
To provide for examination of the personalities and family situations of children
coming before the court, the Juvenile Psychopathic Institute was founded by
William Healy in 1909 as an adjunct to the Juvenile Court of Cook County,
Illinois (Rothman, 1980). Healy’s institute set a pattern for the subsequent
growth of child guidance and clinical psychology.
D. MILK STATIONS AND DEPOTS, HOMES FOR THE BLIND, DEAF,

CRIPPLED, DISEASED, AND FEEBLEMINDED
The acts we have so far been describing created a kind of “social security” for
childhood, guaranteeing minors a home somewhere and attempting to stipulate
and enforce minimal acceptable levels of family care and guidance. Other social
facilities were created in the interest of safeguarding children’s health, and to
offer special care and training suitable for diverse kinds of childhood handicap.
“Milk programs” were initiated widely in the 1890s, providing pasteurized
milk at or below cost. The first milk dispensary was established in New York
City in 1889. By 1911 every large American city had milk depots. The milk
programs worked. They decreased infant diarrheal diseases and mortality (Man-
gold, 1914, pp. 88-94).
Campaigns for children’s health were created. Fresh-air schools were estab-
lished in a number of places as a way of combatting tuberculosis and anemia.
Open-air playgrounds for children were established in large numbers, in part
driven by public health concerns, in part by a rural nostalgia and a faith in fresh
air that was strong in many people in the late nineteenth century. New York State
passed a law in 1895 requiring all New York City schools henceforth to have
attached open-air playgrounds. This law started one trend. Ohio passed a law in
1892 requiring physical education in the schools. This law started another trend.
The public schools began to be used for health screening and preventive
measures. School physicians were appointed in Chicago in 1895 and in New
York in 1897. The New York City Health Department began compulsory vac-
cinations for school children in 1897.
Handicapped children began to be singled out for specialized care and train-
ing. Homes and training facilities for blind, deaf, crippled, diseased, and feeble-
minded children were created. Twenty-five public residential schools for the deaf
existed in 1864 and 38 more by 1913. By 1898, feebleminded children were
cared for in 25 public institutions; all but four states had some institutional care
for retarded children by 1918. In 1892, the United States had 5000 children in
schools for the feebleminded, 4500 in schools for the deaf, and 1500 in schools
for the blind (Bremner, 1971, p. 283). Overall, there was a total estimated
number of 12,600 caretakers for the estimated 100,000 children under public
care or charitable agencies (Hart, 1892).
The many enlargements of health and hygiene-related agencies brought forth
journals, societies, and the creation of child health specialties. The American
Association for the Study of the Feeble-Minded was established in 1876, the
Association for the Deaf in 1880, and a Pediatric section of the American
The Child Studv Movement 243
Medical Association in 1880. The Archives of Pediatrics, the first pediatric

journal, was started in 1884, the American Physical Education Review in 1896.
The social structure to create and maintain adult roles was built as the buildings
were built. Now, people and buildings were dedicated to children and self-
perpetuating facilities were established-institutions committed to training, pro-
tection of professional standards, and resource-finding.
E. CHILDREN LEAVE THE WORKPLACE
Children began to work less toward the end of the nineteenth century. A rising
tide of economic, humanitarian, and even evolutionary writings opposed child
labor.
Some said that child labor dissipated a child’s future value as a worker: “By
employing labor before it is mature an earlier yield upon the investment will be
realized, but the human being will be exhausted so much sooner that great harm
will have been done and the total trade life will be actually shorter” (Mangold,
1914, p. 299).
Children’s proneness to accidents made them even more costly: In the recent federal investiga-
tion of conditions in the cotton mills it was found that children were generally employed in the
less hazardous occupations and were not required to handle very dangerous machines; still the
accident rate in the Southern cotton mills was 48% higher for persons 14 or 15 years of age than
for those 16 or over. The accident rate for these children, working among shafts, belts, and
gears. was 133 percent higher than for the older group, and in gear accidents the rate was three
and one-third times as high for the younger group! (Mangold, 1914, p. 300)
In her “Evils of Child Labor” letter, printed in newspapers across the coun-
try, Jane Addams said that child labor created social problems.
We may trace a connection between child labor and pauperism. not only for the child and his
own family, bringing on premature old age and laying aside able-bodied men and women in the
noon-tide of their years; but also that grievous charge is true that it pauperizes the community
itself. 1 should also add that it debauches our nioral sentiment, it confuses our sense of values,
so that we learn to think that a bale of cheap cotton is more to be prized than a child properly
nourished, educated and prepared to take his place in life. Let us stand up to the obligations of
our own age. Let us watch that we do not discount the future and cripple the next generation
because we were too . . . dull to see all that i t involves, when we use the labor of little
children. (Addams. 1903)
A Principal in Connecticut argued that child labor was counterrevolutionary:
Those animals which at birth are well-nigh helpless and which remain for a time in this state,
being dependent upon parental help, are capable of change and of education . . . Man stands at
the head of the animal kingdom. The period of infancy with man is the longest of any of the
animals. He is therefore, the most capable of education. . . . The character-forming agencies
of the past have been the school, the home, and the Church. The work of the school now ceases
for many children at the age of fourteen years. The training of the Church and the home
becomes optional, and is often disregarded by many children soon after this age. Children are
becoming men and women too early. If the principle laid down at the beginning of this paper is
correct, this means retrogression. (Verplanck, 1904, pp. 406-407)
Beginning in the 1880s, effective laws requiring compulsory education and

limiting child labor began to be passed. Half the states had passed child labor
laws by 1900 but only one in 10 enforced them (Bremner, 1971). The laws
usually applied only to manufacturing, not to farming, and covered only very
young children. “Home work” was the most difficult to regulate. The extent of
child labor actually increased until 1900. What turned the tide was, in part, the
rise of the labor union movement in conjunction with the rise of nationally
organized social work. Labor leaders and social workers alike recognized that the
most effective child labor laws were compulsory school attendance laws.
In 1888, Samuel Gompers attacked child labor in his presidential address to
the American Federation of Labor. Children must be protected alike from the
“ignorance and greed of their parents, as well as the rapacious avarice of their
employers” (Bremner, 1971, p. 663). Subsequently, the Federation took an
active interest in the passage of state labor laws. A National Child Labor Com-
mittee was organized in 1904, composed of prominent philanthropists and settle-
ment house workers such as Lillian Wald, Florence Kelley, Jane Addams, and
Felix Adler. Slowly, in the opening decades of the twentieth century, child labor
laws were both passed and enforced.
The 1870 census found one of eight children between 10 and 15 employed. By
1900, there were 1,750,000 children (or one out of six) employed. By 1918, all
states had compulsory school attendance laws and 17 enforced child labor laws
(Abbott, 1938).
F. CHILDREN GO TO SCHOOL
From colonial times, Americans have placed a high value on schooling

(Bailyn, 1960). The late nineteenth century saw a great growth of formal school-
ing. More and more children began to receive more and more education. All the
statistics climb sharply upward after 1870. A 1933 report of the United States
Office of Education gives statistics to indicate that between 1870 and 1915: (a)
the total number of American pupils aged 5 to 17 increased from 7 to 20 million;
(b) high school teachers increased from 200,000 to 600,000; (d) number of
schoolhouses increased from 1 16,000 to 278,000; and (e) school expenditures
went from $63 to $605 million. Schooling became big business.
The mushrooming growth of education took place in parallel with the growth
of industry, science, professionalization, and hierarchical management in busi-
ness and government. Not only did children live and work in new places in the
nineteenth century. So did adults. More schooling was necessary to serve the
rising social demands for literate, skilled, professional labor. At the same time,
educational institutions themselves participated in the organizational and mana-
gerial inventions of the time. Tyack has written about the attempt to establish a
“one best system” of scientifically managed education between 1890 and 1920:
An interlocking directorate of urban elites-largely business and professional men, university

presidents and professors, and some “progressive” superintendents-joined forces to central-
ize the control of schools. They campaigned to elect small boards composed of “successful”
people. to employ the corporate board of directors as the model for school committees, and to
delegate to “experts” (the superintendent and his staff) the power to make most decisions
concerning the schools. Part and parcel of urban expertise, efficiency, and the disinterested
public service of elites. (Tyack. 1974, p. 7)
The administration of enlarging school systems became complex and demand-

ing. Principals, superintendents, school administrators, and teachers of more
advanced subjects in the growing number of high schools had to be trained. First
normal schools and then colleges of education within universities were estab-
lished from 1880 onward to provide special training. Education, like all large
industries, began to generate its own flood of paper and “child accounting”
emerged as a profession:
In part as a consequence of the new laws, school systems developed new officials whose sole
purpose was to insure universal attendance. . . . Members of these new bureaucracies-school
census takers, truant officers, statisticians, and school workers-became experts in “child
accounting.”
As city systems grew in size and bureaucratic complexity, the number of specialized admin-
istrative officers and administrators expanded dramatically. In I889 the U . S . Commissioner of
Education first included data on officers ”whose time is devoted wholly or principally to
supervision”. . . . That year 484 cities reported an average of only 4 supervisors per city. But
from 1890 to 1920 the number of “supervisory officers” jumped from 9 to 144 in Bal-
timore . . . 7 to 159 in Boston. and 10 to 159 in Cleveland. (Tyack, 1974, p. 185)
The expanding educational system was to give and receive rational manage-
ment. The idea of “scientific management” in business and government was
expounded by enthusiasts like Frederick Winslow Taylor (191 1) and was very
popular. I Taylor argued that scientific management diffusing through American
‘Taylor was a former factory worker who rose to become an engineer and then an exponent of
“scientific management” in 1895. He offered principles of time and motion study that would
enhance productivity in factory work. His methods were widely used by American companies such as
Dupont. General Motors, and Lorrain Steel (Chandler, 1977). Taylor thought that scientific deter-
mination of one best method would optimize factor work, just as some others of his time felt that a
“one best system” might be found to optimize education (Tyack. 1974). Taylor said:
Now, among the various methods and implements used in each element of each trade there is
always one method and one implement which is quicker and better than any of the rest. And
this one best method can only be discovered or developed through a scientific study and
analysis of all of the methods and implements in use, together with accurate, minute. notion
society would end labor-management conflict, class strife, and social unease.
His utopian view of what rational management would bring about was similar to
the vision of John B. Watson a few years later.*
and time study. This involves the gradual substitution of science for rule of thumb throughout
the mechanic arts. (Taylor, 191 I , pp. 24-25)
Scientific management, in Taylor’s utopian vision, would provide the basis for a prosperous society
free of strife:
The general adoption of scientific management would readily in the future double the produc-
tivity of the average man engaged in industrial work. Think of what this means to the whole
country. Think of the increase, both in the necessities and luxuries of life. . . . Scientific
management will mean, for the employers and the workmen who adopt it-and particularly for
those who adopt it first-the elimination of almost all causes for dispute and disagreement
between them. (Taylor, 1911, p. 142)
Of course, in this society individuals would be assigned to play different roles. The basis for this
differentiation was in “natural abilities.” The “intelligent” person was, by nature, suited to become
a manager; the less intelligent was to be a worker. Taylor gives a long dialogue with a hypothetical
worker who speaks in a stageGerman accent. The workman oafishly fails to understand the benefits
of more pay for more output, while it is repeatedly told to him half-patiently and half-snappishly.
Taylor draws the moral:
Now one of the very first requirements for a man who is fit to handle pig iron as a regular
occupation is that he shall be so stupid and so phlegmatic that he more nearly resembles in his
mental make-up the ox than any other type . . . the workman who is best suited to handling pig
iron is unable to understand the real science of doing this class of work. He is so stupid that the
word ‘percentage’ has no meaning for him, and he must consequently be trained by a man
more intelligent than himself into the habit of working in accordance with the laws of this
science before he can be successful. (Taylor, 191 I , p. 59)
Chandler (1977) points out that Taylor’s costing and control techniques were based on extreme
specialization of the worker, and that all companies who adapted his ideas modified them. The legacy
of Taylorism is large in American business. One can view that legacy in both positive (Chandler,
1977) and negative (Braverman, 1974) terms.
21n the conclusion to his Behaviorism, a section entitled “Behaviorism a Foundation for All Future
Experimental Ethics,” Watson says:
Behaviorism ought to be a science that prepares men and women for understanding the
principles of their own behavior. It ought to make men and women eager to rearrange their own
lives, and especially eager to prepare themselves to bring up their own children in a healthy
way. I wish I could picture for you what a rich and wonderful individual we should make of
every healthy child if only we could let it shape itself properly and then provide for it a universe
in which it could exercise that organization-a universe unshackled by legendary folk-lore of
happenings thousands of years ago; unhampered by disgraceful political history; free of foolish
customs and conventions which have no significance in themselves, yet which hem the indi-
Could society be measured and improved? Social statistics were compliled and
used early in American society. Prior to the Civil War, census data, vital statis-
tics (demographic and epidemiological data), and head counts of the “defective,
dependent, and delinquent classes” were believed to provide the possibility of a
science of society (Davis, 1972). In 1839, at the meetings of the American
Statistical Association in Boston, a speaker argued that:
None of our institutions are in a perfect state. All are susceptible of improvement. But every
rational reform must be founded on thorough knowledge. . . . Statistics will provide the
scientific basis for the art of government, the barometer of moral perfection, the ledger of
economic progress and the numerical record of the American experiment. (Davis, 1972, p. 75)
Commenting later on American society in 1860, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

said:
The two dominant words of our time are Law and average, both pointing to the uniformity of
the order of being in which we live. Statistics have tabulated everything-population, growth,
wealth, crime, disease. We have shaded maps showing the geographical distribution of larceny
and suicide. Analysis and classification have been at work upon all tangible objects. (Holmes,
1895, p. 180)
To manage things rationally or scientifically you need plain, publicly observ-

able indices of social affairs. You need to be able to count and dimensionalize.
Only with experience so annotated can you calculate productively.
Henry Steele Commager has called attention to “the quantitative cast of
American thought” and linked it with the special experience of people in an
expanding society:
He [the American] was accustomed to prosperity, resented anything that interfered with it, and
regarded any prolonged lapse from it as an outrage against nature. . . . Whatever promised to
increase wealth was automatically regarded as good. . . . All this tended to give a quantitative
cast to his thinking and inclined him to place a quantitative valuation upon almost everything.
When he asked what was a man worth, he meant material worth, and he was impatient of any
but the normal yardstick. His solution for most problems was therefore quantitative-and
vidual in like taut steel bands. I am not asking here for revolution; I am not asking people to go
out to some God-forsaken place, form a colony, go naked and live a communal life, nor am I
asking for a change to a diet of roots and herbs. I am not asking for “free love.” I am trying to
dangle a stimulus in front of you, a verbal stimulus which, if acted upon, will gradually change
this universe. For the universe will change if you bring up your children, not in the freedom of
the libertine, but in behavioristic freedom-a freedom which we cannot even picture in words,
so little do we know of it. Will not these children in turn, with their better ways of living and
thinking, replace us as society and in turn bring up their children in a still more scientific way,
until the world finally becomes a place fit for human habitation? (J.B.Watson, 1930, pp. 303-
304; see also Lomax. 1978, Chapter 4; J.B. Watson, 1928; R . R. Watson, 1930)
education, democracy, and war all yielded to the sovereign remedy of number. (Commager,
1950, p. 7)
The appeal of the idea of a scientific pedagogy and a rationally managed

education was an important factor in drawing some nineteenth-century psychol-
ogists out of philosophy departments and into free-standing psychology depart-
ments iIl American universities.
111. The Enterprises of the Child Study Movement

Public interests in child development changed in the nineteenth century. We
have briefly reviewed a number of social changes that took place: (1) the estab-
lishment of orphanages, foster care arrangements, and anticruelty societies; (2)
the building of reform schools and and juvenile courts; (3) the establishment of
child health facilities and facilities for handicapped children; (4) the decline of
child labor; and (5) the great growth of schooling. In the aggregate, a dramat-
ically altered social scheme of socialization for child development was being
created. The lives of adults no less than children were altered by the changes in
the ecology of human development. Tens of thousands of adults had jobs that
involved them with child care, protection, training, and rehabilitation. Parenting
in a society full of the new institutions and people simply could not be the same.
The larger purposes and meaning of these institutional activities needed to be
recognized and discussed, particularly toward the end of the nineteenth century
when the many local activities began to fuse into national organizations, when
localities needed mutual cooperation, when private philanthropy could no longer
do all that needed to be done, and a politics of child welfare emerged. The social
activists turned to the universities for concepts and ideas. There they found
professors who were waiting and willing to help, but who were not so ready.
It was a David versus Goliath situation. On the one side was a many-sided
social juggernaut bearing down on academia, diverse parties all bursting with
enthusiasm for some things like child study, scientific management, expertise,
social Darwinism, muscular Christianity, child-saving, physical education,
Froebelianism, parks and playgrounds, feminism, moral prophylaxis, mental
hygiene, common schooling, and a dozen other movements and causes. On the
other side, facing them, were a few a c a d e m i c s 4 . Stanley Hall of Clark Uni-
versity, William 0. Krohn of the University of Illinois, and Earl Barnes of
Stanford University. These were the early child study people. Hall was by far the
most active and prominent, the bellwether of child study. The activists were
vague about what they wanted. Child study brought them together in part be-
cause it offered a not-too-clear vision they could subscribe to. Donald Schultz
has remarked, “the first rule of a successful political process is, ‘don’t force a
The Child Srudy Movement 249
specification of goals or ends . . . necessary agreement on particular policies can

often be secured among individuals or groups who hold quite divergent ends’ ”
(Schultze, 1968, pp. 47-49).
Broadly speaking, there were six parties to child study, six kinds of propo-
nents holding to distinct motives and goals for child study appropriate to their
special place and interests in the social scheme. Proponents of different kinds
viewed child study as: (1) a form of scientific psychology; (2) an enterprise that
would join the university to the schools; ( 3 ) a science of pedagogy; (4) a support
for child-saving and social work; (5) a support for early clinical psychology; and
( 6 ) a source of parent education and guidance.
A. CHILD STUDY AS SCIENTIFIC PSYCHOLOGY
Hall stood as scientist for those who wanted to bring observation, reflectivity,
and rationality to bear upon child care and training. But the science he stood
upon was a vision and a prospectus, not an actuality. In the early 1880s G .
Stanley Hall was regarded by many as America’s premier experimental psychol-
ogist. He had been William James’s student and Harvard’s first Ph.D. in psy-
chology. He had been the first American to visit Wundt’s Leipzig laboratory. At
Johns Hopkins he established what was arguably the first American research
laboratory of experimental psychology. He founded and edited America’s first
psychological journal, the American Journal of Psychology in 1887. He brought
together the group that founded the American Psychological Association in
1892. His career was a spectacular succession of firsts and founding, but all this
gave Hall virtually no developed tools for child study.
What initially attracted attention to Hall as a protagonist of scientific work
with children was a speech Hall made to the National Education Association in
1882 calling for child study as the core of a new profession of pedagogy (Ross,
1972, pp. 125-126). People had been looking for some time to link child
development and education. The author of a book for teachers put the issue this
way in 1867:
For many years there has been a growing conviction in the minds of the thinking men of this
country that our methods of primary instruction are very defective because they are not
properly adapted either to the mental, moral, or physical conditions of childhood. But little
reference has hitherto been had to any natural order of development of the faculties or the many
peculiar characteristics of children. (Sheldon. 1867)
In 1880, 2 years before Hall, Charles Francis Adams had urged members of
the National Education Association to revise their pedagogy in the light of child
development. Hall’s subsequent speech in 1882 aroused great enthusiasm. Hall
published a study entitled “The Contents of Children’s Minds (on entering
school)” in the PrincetonReview in May 1883. At about the same time, he wrote
a privately printed 13-page pamphlet entitled “The study of children.” Apart
from a few casual articles on moral and religious education, these were Hall’s
only substantive activities directed toward research with children in the early
1880s.
Hall turned away from education in the 1880s and for a time concentrated his
efforts on the leadership of American experimental psychology. He went to
Clark University as its first President in 1888. Hall returned to child study in the
early 1890s, probably because he wanted to use public interest in child study to
bring support for his university.
1 . The Contents of Children’s Minds

Hall’s first research venture in the 1880s was different from the child study he
was to elaborate in the 1890s. Hall was an ardent experimental psychologist in
the early 1880s. Dennis (1949) has argued that Hall’s “The Contents of Chil-
dren’s Minds,” together with Preyer’s “The Mind of a Child” (1888), stands as
a cornerstone of scientific developmental psychology.
Hall was following some German research in his first study of children. An
1869 study by the Berlin Pedagogische Verein of 2238 children entering Berlin’s
schools was the most direct antecedent of Hall’s study. A second antecedent was
an 1879 study by K. Lange of 800 children entering schools in the region of
Plauen, and a third was Hartmann’s study of 1312 children entering the schools
of Annaberg (Dennis, 1949). Hall (1891) took note of antecedent books by Piltz
and Sigismund, apparently presenting the findings of similar questionings of
children. It seems reasonable to believe that Hall’s first work transplanted a
German line of inquiry to the United States. After Hall first published his work in
the Princeton Review in 1883, Superintendent Greenwood in Kansas City tested
678 children of the lowest primary classes of the city (Hall, 1891). When Hall
renewed his interest in child study in the 1890s, he republished his work in the
second number of the Pedagogical Seminary in 1891, including a few compari-
sons of his findings with those of Greenwood.
The antecedent German work had revealed an innocence and ignorance about
things on the part of children that was somewhat remarkable to the adults con-
ducting the studies. What the studies seemed to point to was how little children
knew about things and how much needed to be done in the schools. The Germans
had found that kindergarten children knew a little more than nonkindergarten
children, and they had found some sex differences. City and country children
were different. For example, Lange had reported that 42% of country children
had seen the sun rise vs only 18% of city children, and that 70% of country
children had reported seeing and hearing a lark vs only 20% of city children,
For Hall’s study, four examiners, supplemented by 60 teachers, questioned
over 400 children entering the Boston schools in September 1880. The examiners
were experienced kindergarten teachers. The 134 questions they asked were an
The Child Study Movement 25 1
expansion of the set of 75 questions originally used in the Berlin study. The
Germans had asked questions in seven areas: mathematics, astronomy, meteorol-
ogy, animals, plants, local geography, and miscellaneous. Hall asked more
questions but kept to the same seven areas.
Hall seems to have been quite sensitive to questions of method in this, his first
child study paper, and he seems to have taken much more care than the anteced-
ent Germans had. He noted that the rate of the German work, about one question
every half-minute, suggested that the inquiry had been perfunctory. Here was
evidence that the teachers doing the work in Germany were uninterested. Hall
took pains to get four experienced kindergarten teachers, to see to it that they
were reasonably motivated, and to allow for cross-questioning. Since Hall was
concerned that children are easily rattled and confused, he pretested his questions
to make sure they were phrased so that children could grasp what they meant.
Explicit procedures were developed to make sure that the questioners encouraged
the children and did not embarrass them. After Hall collected his data, he divided
the questionnaires into subsets. Results obtained from one subset were checked
with those of another to give an estimate of reliability of findings.
Hall interpreted his findings to mean that children do not know very much
when they enter school, but that country children know much more than city
children. Among children entering school in Boston:
1. With regard to animals, 80% did not know what a beehive is, 77% did not
know what a crow is, 63% a squirrel, 62% a snail, 47.5% a pig
2. With regard to plants, 92.5% did not know about growing wheat, 32% did
not know about growing pears, 21% did not know about growing apples
3. With regard to body parts, 90.5% did not know what ribs are, 65.5%
ankles, 25% elbows, and 7% knees
4. With regard to natural phenomena, 92% did not know what dew is, 73%
had never seen hail, 65% had never seen a rainbow, only 7% had never seen the
moon
5. With regard to spatial and numerical concepts, 87.5% did not know what an
island is, 92% what a triangle is, 35% did not know what a circle is, 15% did not
know what a brook is, 28.% did not know the number “5”
6. Finally, with regard to practical knowledge, 93.5% did not know that
“leathern things” come from animals, 91.5% could not explain a maxim or
proverb, 58% could tell “no rudiment of a story,” 39% could not beat time
regularly, 36% had never saved cents at home.
Hall concluded:
From the above tables it seems not too much also to infer-
I . That there is next to nothing of pedagogic value the knowledge of which it is safe to
assume at the outset of school life. Hence the need of objects and the danger of word
cram.
11. The best preparation parents can give their children for good school training is to make
them acquainted with natural objects, especially the sights and sounds of the country,
and send them to good and hygienic, as distinct from the most fashionable,
kindergartens.
111. Every teacher on starting with a new class in a new locality to make sure that his efforts
along some lines are not utterly lost, should undertake to explore carefully section by
section children’s minds with all the tact and ingenuity he can command and acquire,
to determine exactly what is already shown.
IV. The concepts which are most common in the children of a given locality are the earliest
to be acquired, while the rarer ones are later. This order may in teaching generally be
assumed as a natural one.
A few days in the country at this age [6] has raised the level of many a city child’s
intelligence more than a term or two of school training could do without it.” (Hall, 1891, pp.
154-156)
This first study by Hall has a curiously awkward and unsatisfying quality as a
piece of research. Consider the conclusions just quoted. Having finished the
narrative description of his findings-his story-Hall elevates the level of dis-
cussion of his findings, pretty much the way modem researchers do when they
move from “Results” to “Discussion.” Hall moves from the concrete to the
general. He becomes generically descriptive, evaluative, and prescriptive. In
terms of what children-in-general know, this is what is generally good or bad for
parents-in-general or teachers-in-general to do. The study as reported seems
reasonably sane and sensible, in that the story of the study does not arouse either
bewilderment or alarm. Neither the pupils nor the teachers did anything awkward
or inexplicable. What really seems to cause problems is the elevation of Hall’s
level of discussion at the end, the movement from the plane of concrete specifics
to the plane of the general.
One can mount a series of technical criticisms of the study as a piece of
research, considering in turn the sampling, the design of the questionnaire, the
use of kindergarten teachers as research assistants, the limited quantitative analy-
sis of the data, etc. Comparing this study with modern studies that are something
like it-achievement testing, the Piagetian clinical method, attitude and opinion
surveys-one might specify a wealth of methodological weaknesses. But no
single shortcoming of Hall’s study is absent from more convincing modem work.
Hall’s work fails to be convincing because the sum of its technical elements does
not lend persuasiveness to its bid for the general.
Let us set aside Hall’s evaluativeness and prescriptiveness, his advice to
parents and teachers. These are serious problems, but problems we will not
consider for the time being. Consider only the adequacy of the “contents of
children’s minds” as a descriptive account of what children-in-general are like.
It is hard to believe that Hall’s study achieved representativeness, mirroring the
real world enough so that as we detect patterns of events in the small world of the
study we suspect that those are reflections of the larger patterns that lie beyond. It
is hard to believe that 400 children entering the Boston schools are representative
of all children. It is hard to believe that Hall’s 134 questions are representative of
children’s knowledge, children’s minds, or the instructional goals of schools
and/or parents. The larger meaning of the study is uncertain because the study
sits in a conceptual limbo. No “theory,” no larger frame of reference, no
mapping of cognitive development or of schooling links the particularities of the
study to a realm of generic phenomena.
As limited as this first Hall questionnire study was, it seems to have repre-
sented something like the state of the art of scientific research techniques with
children during the life of the child study movement.
2. The Hope f o r Quantitativeness and Lawfulness

Hall expressed his renewed interest in child study expansively in a speech at the
1893 Chicago World’s Fair. He said “Hitherto we have gone to Europe for our
psychology, let us now take a child and place him in our midst and let America
make her own psychology.” (Cockburn, 1908). One person who followed him
was Earl Barnes, Professor of Education at Stanford University.
Barnes saw formal, quantitative child study as the cornerstone of a scientific
pedagogy. He sought to give all the forms of child study extant in the 1890s their
due, but to emphasize the special value of the more rigorous methods. In
1896- 1897, Barnes edited 10 numbers of a journal, Studies in Education, selling
them as separates and then as a book subtitled A Series of Ten Numbers Devoted
to Child Study and the History of Education (Barnes, 1896-1897).
In his opening essay, “Methods of Studying Children,” Barnes stated the
importance of empirical study: “Whatever success has attended educational
efforts in the past has been due to the direct or indirect study of human nature”
(p. 5 ) . He defined child study as an applied science standing in relation to
psychology as horticulture to botany. “It is prosecuted for the most part by
parents and teachers who want knowledge that can be used in the development of
the children for whose future happiness and usefulness they are immediately
responsible” (Barnes, 1896, p. 5).
Barnes divided the methods of child study being employed in his time into
nine categories:
I . Undirected observation in everyday home and school life. This is the

informal “unconscious” knowledge of mothers and teachers. Barnes conceded
that this kind of knowledge gets nearer to the real child than more formal
methods do, but “cooperation is nearly impossible, and advance of any kind is
very difficult.”
2. Miscellaneous written coliections without any hypotheses. These are collec-

tions of miscellaneous written records of children’s activities. A few people of
Barnes’s time were publishing simple surveys of children’s dances, games,
dolls, etc. Barnes assigned them minimal value.
3 . Personal reminiscences of the student. Barnes here referred to exercises in

which adults wrote out their memories of childhood. He conceded that these
reminiscences address a kind of everyday memory of childhood that people
appeal to all the time. But, of course, such memories are treacherous.
4 . Personal journals, or letters, of children. Barnes conceded that children’s
writings have freshness and validity although, of course, they can reach no
further than the scope of children’s understanding.
5. Reminiscent autobiographies, written or printed. Barnes placed here ex-
tended literary accounts of childhood such as John Stuart Mill’s Autobiography,
and Tolstoy’s Childhood, Boyhood, and Youth.
6 . Artistic interpretations of childhood. These are literary treatments of fic-
tional children. Barnes said that the artist may speak truth about childhood,
although addressing in writing a fictional child.
In discussing the above six types of child study, Barnes acknowledged the
value of informal and literary writings about childhood. But now he argued for
the special value of a more scientific approach to childhood.
The general observation of child-life about one, the gathering of unrelated observations and
incidents, the writing up of one’s personal memories, the study of children’s diaries and letters,
and the wide reading of autobiographies, will quicken our interest, broaden our sympathies,
and give us a larger understanding of special instances. However, if such a work is not
accompanied by direct and well-ordered observation, by experimentation and statistical study,
leading to some general quantitative results, it is apt to leave us with a feeling that human life is
not amenable to law; that circumstance, desire, and will can brush aside everything except the
law of gravity. . . . The thing most needed to-day is, however, brilliant studies on masses of
commonplace children.” (Barnes, 1896, pp. 10-1 I )
Barnes then specifies three more scientific methods of child study:
7 . Direct studies on children. Barnes includes here studies that resemble the
experimental child psychology of today, for example, studies on children’s color
sense. He also includes studies ancestral to today’s research on instructional
psychology, for example, a study by E. W. Scripture and S. Lyman of the Yale
Psychological Laboratory on “Drawing a Straight Line: A Study in Experimen-
tal Didactics” (Scripture & Lyman, 1893).
8. Biographies of young children. Barnes alludes here to Preyer’s work. He
seems to be alluding to precisely kept baby biographies, but gives little detail
about the utility of this method.
9. Statistical studies, on the lines of a syllabus. Last, and presumably highest,
on Barnes’s list is G . Stanley Hall’s questionnaire method, which Barnes felt to
be full of promise. Hall and his students were by now circulating sets of ques-
The Child Srudy Movement 255
tions, called “topical syllabi,” for use in personal interviews and mail surveys.
Barnes said that he personally had a collection of 200 syllabi. He noted that
William James had become testy about Hall’s incessantly circulating question-
naires. [James said, “It will be well for us in the next generation if such circulars
be not ranked among the common pests of life” (Barnes, 1896, p. 83).] But such
syllabi are essential, Barnes said, if we are to form expectations about the
generality of children.
Barnes also offered, across the 10 numbers of his Studies in Education, a

disciplined and lawful analysis of children’s reactions to discipline and lawful-
ness, step by step. Eight articles are given whose titles are all prefaced by the
word “Discipline”: “I. The Problem Stated”; “11. What to Read”; “111. How
to Study the Subject”; “IV. Examination of the Evidence”; “ V . How to Work
Up the Evidence”; “VI. The Reducing of Data to Numerical Tables”; “VII.
The Tabulated Results”; “VIIl. Generalizations. Barnes had given his readers
”
eight lessons in how to do research on discipline. Then in the last two numbers he
drew some morals. In the ninth number, entitled “The Child as a Social Factor,”
he said that childhood and children are important for human civilization and
social progress. In the last number he said: “Any one who has read these Studies
carefully must feel that they deal with phenomena that fall within the range of
law” (p. 263). Barnes reviewed the data the series had offered and he reasserted
the point:
No-one can examine the tables and charts connected with the studies on children’s stories, the
development of the historical sense in children, children’s superstitions, children’s interests,
children’s ambitions, or the various studies of discipline, without feeling that he is well within
the domain of law. The effect of this realization on pedagogy must be profound. . . . This
conception raises the teacher from the position of a pdtcher of personalities to a co-partnership
with the Divine Spirit in the Development of a law abiding soul in a law abiding universe.
(Barnes. 1897, pp. 363-364)
Other people proposed different categorizations of the methods of child study.

Tucker (1895) described 12 methods. Findlay (1909) counted Hall’s “census
method” as one of three methods. These surveys made it clear that Hall’s
questionnaire method was the method of rigor and science in its time. Like
Barnes, most of these authors felt that it was essential to establish a scientific
approach. W. L. Bryan wrote in the Child Study Monthly in 1895:
Now come a large body of scientific men representing many special departments of science and
say that they wilt help fill out our knowledge. They must do this in their own way. They must
take their own time. They cannot be hurried. They cannot promise every whipstitch a new
discovery. They cannot promise that each bit of their work will by itself illustrate some general
educational law or supply some school-room recipe. What is it they will do that takes so long?
1st. They will measure several hundreds of thousands of children in every way in which
children show measurable change as they grow. (Bryan, 1895, p. 16)
256 Alexander W.Siege1 and Sheldon H. White
Bryan conceded, just as Barnes did, that a nonscientific child study could be
valid and useful. The teacher can use it to find the child’s “higher instincts” as
they ripen and capitalize upon them: “Does he love sports? Be his comrade and
make him see how fine it is either to win or lose and be a gentleman. Does he
love tools? Turn him loose in your high school workshop and let him make
physical apparatus (Bryan, 1895, p. 19).
Freely translated, Barnes, Bryan, and others of the late nineteenth century felt
that the child-in-general must be known securely-that is, scientifically. The
parent and the teacher can and should use observations of children to enrich their
understanding and their work. Literary and artistic insights might enrich their
personal typifications and understandings of childhood. These might build empa-
thy and communion. But the general must be known rationally as well as intu-
itively and, to that end, number and measure must be used in our child study. As
we count and calculate, we reveal measurable changes in children, and lawful-
ness. The child-in-general is known to us, in Barnes’s florid prose, as a law-
abiding soul in a law-abiding universe. We have, stated quite directly, the
scientific ideal that was one important contributor to child study. Scientists did
not want any old child study. They wanted a child study that was universalizable,
quantitative, and revealing of the lawfulness that pervades all natural things.
An examination of the first few numbers of Hall’s journal, the Pedagogical
Seminary, reveals that rigorous child study was at first only a hope. No well-
formed program of research on children existed at the beginning.
3. The Pedagogical Seminary: The First Three Volumes

(1891 -1 894)
Hall turned back to child study in the 1890s under the pressure of necessity. Hall
envisioned Clark University as an elite institution, promulgating the highest
standards of science and scholarhip for the benefit of American social institu-
tions, including education. Hall was something of a Hegelian, like a number of
prominent educators and psychologists of his time: William Torrey Harris, John
Dewey, Nicholas Murray Butler, and-in a backhanded way-Charles Sanders
Peirce. (In his journals, Peirce repeatedly characterized his Pragmaticist philoso-
phy as what Hegel would have written if he had only known science.)
Hall had a kind of “trickle-down” theory of science and scholarship. You put
a group of very bright men in the university, working on ideas in an atmosphere
of great openness and freedom from practical concerns. A shower of benefits,
development, and progress would fall upon society. In short, Hall was against
what we now call “targeted research.” Hall had originally not wanted pedagogy
or teacher training at Clark (Ross, 1972, p. 211). Hall’s reluctance to include
education at Clark had an impact on President Charles William Eliot at Harvard,
leading Eliot to resist the growth of education as a subject at his university
(Powell, 1980, p. 43).
We can get some sense of the child study Hall returned to in the early numbers
of the Pedagogical Seminary. In Volume 1, Number 1 of the journal Hall began
with a brief editorial describing what he hoped to be his audiences: (1) “promi-
nent laymen”; (2) college and university presidents and school superintendents;
(3) professors of pedagogy, principals, and teachers in normal schools; and (4)
the Education Department of Clark University. The rest of the opening number
was about European education. The number included a piece on educational
reforms in Germany, an article by Burnside on German schooling, reviews of
monographs dealing with higher education in France, Germany, and other Euro-
pean countries, and, finally, a lengthy piece on the reconstructed primary school
in France.
The second number was largely given over to reissuing Hall’s older writings
about children, together with a few pieces by his assistants at Clark, In an 11-
page set of notes on the study of infants, Hall argued that the first center of
psychic life is the mouth. The second piece was an updated version of Hall’s
“The Contents of Children’s Minds.” A paper by Burnham offered a nice
discussion of adolescent experience, drawn in part from the diary of an adoles-
cent and in part from correspondence with young people. Burnham held the title
of Docent at Clark University and in each of the early numbers of the Pedagogi-
cal Seminary we seem to find him working on whatever Hall chose as his theme
for the number. The journal continued with the reproduction of Hall’s “The
Moral and Religious Training of Children,” originally published in the Prince-
ton Review when Hall was first flirting with child study. The piece offered what
seems to be advice to parents. Train early. Touch. Mother must be calm and
tranquil. Then there was a questionnaire study offering a typology of seven kinds
of lying children do. In a short paper, Burnham said that textbook training of
teachers should be supplemented by direct observation. In another short paper,
Franz Boas commented on the value of anthropometric measures of physical
growth.
A third and last number of the first volume was dedicated to higher education
and, again, offered articles describing European approaches to education as
examples for American practice.
The first volume of the Pedagogical Seminary in 1891 offered nothing new in
the way of a child study. Hall was struggling, and it is quite possible that his
return ta child study and his founding of the journal was more of an improvisa-
tion than an affair of deep conviction. Hall had become President of Clark in
1888. His wife and his 8-year-old daughter were accidentally asphyxiated in
1890, and Hall was devastated. Two years after he got Clark going, there was a
debacle. Hall had been having trouble with Jonas Clark, with the city of Worces-
ter, and with his faculty. In the spring of 1892, two-thirds of those of faculty rank
and 70% of the student body left Clark University (Ross, 1972, p. 227). Hall had
weaknesses as an administrator. Ross speaks of Hall’s
justifying his decisions with evasive and contradictory deceptions, carrying tales, tactlessly
encroaching on the work of other professors and their students, and most of all, in his sharp
financial practices with the men below faculty grade. (Ross, 1972, p. 219)
After Volume I of the Pedagogical Seminary appeared in 1891, Volume I1

appeared across 1892 and 1893, and Volume 111 appeared across 1894, 1895,
and 1896. Volume 11, Number 1 of the journal was dedicated to health, accord-
ing to Hall’s lead editorial. The faithful Burnham offered an extended essay on
school hygiene, essentially an encyclopedic account of various human factors
parameters in schools. One vision of a scientific child study in the 1890s was an
industrial vision. Child study would reveal the time and motion capabilities of
children as productive beings in the classroom. In this vein, one of Hall’s notes at
the end of Volume I, Number 3 of the Pedagogical Seminary reported on the
work of a Dr. Burgerstein:
Dr. Leo Burgerstein of Vienna caused four classes of children from 10 to 14 to work in simple
arithmetic for 10 minutes, then rest five, then work 10 minutes again, rest five, then work 10,
then rest five and work 10 again, making thus 40 minutes of work in an hour. Vigor and
certainty gradually fell off during each period. He holds that children should work 45 minutes
and rest 15 during all school time, but desires much further investigation as to how much strain
children can stand without over exertion. (Hall, 1891, p. 486)
Dr. Burgerstein was honored at Clark University at the same time that Freud and
his group came over in 1909, and we find him standing at Hall’s right hand while
Freud and Jung stand at Hall’s left in the well-known group picture that was
taken at the time.
The second year of the Pedagogical Seminary continued with an exhortative
essay by Hall on moral education and will training, a brief essay on fatigue by
Dresslar and, finally, a piece by E. W. Scripture on “Education as a Science.”
Scripture argued that every pedagogical seminary should have a laboratory for
experimental study of didactic procedures.
Two possibilities of a scientific child study were sketched out in the first
number of the second year; first, the possibility of an ergonomics of the school
child and, second, the possibility of an instructional psychology. But these
possibilities were not explored in Hall’s journal. Instead, what appeared in the
next few years in the journal, and in Hall’s work at Clark University, was the
elaboration of questionnaire work through “topical syllabi.” The second number
of the second volume appeared in 1893 and, at last, we have reports from people
who had systematically observed children and who reported data. In a four-page
report, Earl Barnes discussed “Feelings and Ideas of Sex in Children”. Burn-
ham gave a good review of literature on individual differences in imagination,
proposing that children have four types of mind: tactile, visual, auditory, or
motor. H. W. Brown reported on observations of 500 children of the State
Normal School at Worcester, Massachusetts. These observations had to do with

thought and reasoning processes in children as well as their notions about God,
Christ, and Heaven. Young children have limited understanding, he concluded.
Oscar Chrisman reviewed tests and findings on the hearing of children. Finally,
Earl Barnes reported on a study of 6393 children between ages 6 and 16 who
were read a poem and who then drew one of more pictures in response to the
poem. The data set included 15,218 distinct scenes. Barnes stated his findings in
very broad terms. No quantitative analyses were offered.
4 . The Topical Syllabi

In the first few numbers of the Pedagogical Seminary, we can watch the early
psychologists struggling to create a scientific approach to child study. Things are
very tentative. There are thrusts in a number of directions. Looking at that early
work with modem eyes, we can recognize the beginnings of what are to become
substantial research ventures in our own time.
The heyday of the child study movement was in the middle and late 1890s.
The central empirical enterprise involved the topical syllabi-uestionnaires on
selected topics generally addressed either to children or to caretakers and teach-
ers. These topical syllabi were leaflets of from one to four pages each privately
printed at Worcester. A total of at least 194 were developed at Clark between
1894 and 1915.3Judging from their titles these sets of questions were directed at (1)
3Hall’s topical syllabi for the years 1894-1895 were listed by Wilson (1975) as: Anger; Dolls;
Crying and Laughing; Toys and Playthings; Folk-Lore Among Children: Early Forms of Vocal
Expression; The Early Sense of Self; Fears in Childhood and Youth; Some Common Traits and
Habits; Some Common Automatisms, Nerve Signs. etc.: Feeling for Objects of Inanimate Nature;
Feeling for Objects of Animate Nature; Children’s Appetites and Foods; Affection and its Opposite
States in Children; Moral and Religious Experiences.
Hall’s topical syllabi for the years 1895-1896 were: Peculiar and Exceptional Children. with E.
W. Bohannon; Moral Defects and Perversions, with G. E. Dawson; The Beginnings of Reading and
Writing, with Dr. H. T . Lukens; Thoughts and Feelings about Old Age, Disease and Death, with C.
A. Scott; Moral education, with N. P. Avery; Studies of School Reading Matter, with J . C. Shaw;
Courses of Study in Elementary Grammar and High Schools, with T. R. Crosswell; Early Musical
Manifestations, with Florence Marsh; Fancy, Imagination, Reverie, with E. H. Lindley; Tickling,
Fun, Wit, Humor, Laughing, with Dr. Arthur Allin; Suggestion and Imitation, with M. H. Small;
Religious Experience, with E. D. Starbuck; Kindergarten. with Miss Anna E. Bryan and Miss Lucy
Wheelock; Habits, Instincts, etc., in Animals, with Dr. R. R . Gurley; Number and Mathematics,
with D. E. Phillips; The Only Child in the Family, with E. W. Bohannon.
Hall’s topical syllabi for the years 1896-1897 were: Degrees of Certainty and conviction in
Children, With Maurice H. Small; Sabbath, and Worship in General, with J . P. Hylan; Migrations,
Tramps, Truancy, Running Away, etc., vs. Love of Home, with L. W. Kline; Adolescence, and its
Phenomena in Body and Mind, with E. G . Lancaster; Examinations and Recitations, with J . C.
Shaw; Stillness, Solitude, Restlessness, with H. S. Curtis; The Psychology of Health and Disease,
with Henry H. Goddard; Spontaneously Invented Toys and Amusements, with T. R. Crosswell;
Hymns and Sacred Music, with Rev. T. R. Peede; Puzzles and Their Psychology, with Ernest H.
Lindley; The Sermon. with Rev. Alva R. Scott; Spccial Traits as Indices of Character and as
characteristic thoughts and behavior of young children; (2) children’s ethical

and religious impulses; (3) problems of childhood, ranging from the disciplinary
to the psychiatric; (4)children’s responses to school settings and activities; and
(5) professional concerns of educators. Most of the time, one gathers, these
questionnaires were mailed out to respondents who filled them out and returned
them. In an article in the Child Study Monthly, Hall described the kinds of
cooperation he sought from those filling out his questionnaires (Hall, 1895).
Syllabi were developed at places other than Clark. A set of 19 syllabi was
offered in the Handbook, Illinois Society for Child Study (Van Liew, 1895).4
Most of these syllabi were not developed in Illinois, but Illinois was the place
where the Child Study Monthly was published under William 0. Krohn’s editor-
ship. Krohn had been Hall’s student at Clark. Earl Barnes at Stanford asserted in
1896-1897 that he had a collection of over 200 syllabi. Some of them, at least,
Mediating Likes and Dislikes, with E. W. Bohannon; Reverie and Allied Phenomena, with G. E.
Partridge; The Psychology of Health and Disease, with Henry H. Goddard.
Hall’s topical syllabi for the years 1897-1898 were: Immortality, with J. Richard Street; Psychol-
ogy of Ownership vs. Loss, with Linus W. Kline; Memory, with F. W. Colegrove; Humorous and
Cranky Side in Education, with L. W. Kline; The Psychology of Shorthand Writing, with J . 0.
Quantz; The Teaching Instinct, with D. E. Phillfps; Home and School Punishments and Penalties,
with Chas. H. Sears: Straightness and Uprightness of Body, by G. Stanley Hall; Training of Teach-
ers, with W. G . Chambers; Educational Ideals, with Lewis Edwin York; Water Psychoses, with
Frederick F. Bolton; The Institutional Activities of Children, with Henry D. Sheldon; Obedience and
Obstinacy, with Tilmon Jenkins; The Sense of Honor Among Children, with Robert Clark.
Hall’s topical syllabi for the years 1898-1899 were: The Organizations of American Student Life,
with Henry D. Sheldon; Mathematics in Common Schools, with E. B. Bryan; Mathematics in the
Early Years, with E. B. Bryan; Unselfishness in Children, with Willard S. Small; the Fooling
Impulse in Man and Animals, with Normal Triplett; Confession, with Erwin W. Hunkle; Pity, by G.
Stanley Hall; Perception of Rhythm by Children, with Chas H. Sears.
Wilson notes that these topical syllabi are “Leaflets, of from one to four pages each, privately
printed at Worcester, Mass., upon the results of which 35 studies have been printed in the Am. Jour.
of Psychology and the Pedagogical Seminary” (Wilson, 1975, p. 16).
4The Handbook, Illinois Sociery for Child-Study (Van Liew, 1895) in the following pieces: The
Social Sense, by James Mark Baldwin; A Study of Habit Degeneration, by F. B. Dresslar; Child
Language, by H. T. Lukens; Evolution of Language in Children, by Col. F. W. Parker; Comparative
Child Study Observations, by T. P. Bailey; Relation of Physical Development to Mental Superiority,
by G . W. Patrick; Fears in Childhood and Youth, by G. Stanley Hall; Scientific Child Study, by E.
W. Scripture; Physical Characteristics of Children, by M. V. O’Shea; Suggestions for School
Visitation, by Col. F. W. Parker; Imitation of the Teacher by the Pupil, By W . L. Bryan & U. I.
Griffith; A Plan for Experiments on the Color Sensitiveness of Children, by A. J. Kinnaman;
Pedagogical Viewpoints in Child Study, by W. J. Eckoff; Study of the Child on Entering School, by
C. C. Van Liew; Study of Abnormality in Children, by Adolf Meyer; Simple but Accurate Tests for
Child-Study, by E. W. Scripture; Anthropometrical Investigations, by W. 0. Krohn; The Prerequi-
sites of the Scientific Observation of Children, by Thaddeus L. Bolton; Aimless Activity in Children,
by Thaddeus L. Bolton; The Study of Children’s Interest, by E. E. Brown; Methods of Calculating
Results in Child-Study, by J. Allen Gilbert. Nineteen of these were topical syllabi; two were short
methods pieces.
must have been original with Barnes because we know he was publishing inde-
pendent questionnaire work at that time.
Why would one collect or publish such sets of questions? Many believed that
such questions would be guides to teachers and parents for their practice of child
study. What can one make of the syllabi as scientific instruments? Many of the
early child study papers seem loose, poorly organized, and without serious
scholarly interest, but the “method” of preparing topical syllabi seems too
formless to be intrinsically good or bad. Nevertheless, we have several bits of
definite evidence suggesting that, in the right hands, work done with the ques-
tionnaires could be fertile.
1. Early in Hall’s program and consistent with his religious interests, two of
Hall’s students, J. H. Leuba and E. D. Starbuck, did questionnaire studies of
religious experiences (cf. Leuba, 1896; Starbuck, 1897). This work served as
one important source for William James’s classic The Varieties of Religious
Experience (James, 1902).
2. In a syllabus study of children’s moral judgments, Margaret E. Schallen-
berger (1 894) questioned 6- to I6-year-old children about a story:
Jennie had a beautiful new box of paints. and in the afternoon, while her mother was gone, she
painted all the chairs in the parlor, so as to make them look nice for her mother. When her
mother came home, Jennie ran to meet her, and said, “0, mamma, come and see how pretty I
have made the parlor.” but her mamma took her paints away and sent her to bed. If you had
been her mother, what would you have done or said to Jennie? (Schallenberger, 1894, p. 88)
Schallenberger’s data suggested that at around age 9 children shift from a

morality of consequences to a morality of intentions. “The young child thinks of
the result of an action. If the result is bad, punishment should follow. . . . The
older children 19 to 161, on the contrary, think of the motive that led to the
action” (Schallenberger, 1894, p. 95). Schallenberger’s questionnaire study ap-
pears to offer a well-done anticipation of the later work of Piaget and Kohlberg.
Thorndike, a man who was fussy about his child study, quoted the study ap-
provingly and at length (Thorndike, 1901, pp. 125-127).
3. A questionnaire study of adult recall of early childhood memories was
undertaken in France by the Henris. Data for 123 adults were reported by them in
1897. These data appear to have been an important source for Freud’s formula-
tion of the mechanism of “screen memories” in 1899.
Although suggestive and useful generalizations could be created through the

use of the syllabi, the judgment of Hall’s scientific peers on child study was
negative. Discussions of child study discounted it (Munsterberg, 1898; Thorn-
dike, 1903). William James, Hall’s old mentor, ignored child study completely
in his Talks to Teachers on Psychology (James, 1899). Baldwin (1898) said of
the topical syllabi: “They lack the first requisites of exact method; and moreover
they are often further vitiated by a certain speculative philistinism and crudity of
results” (p. 219).
Several factors may have been involved in these reactions. Hall had not been
universally liked by his colleagues at Johns Hopkins. His weaknesses as an
administrator and a human being had been dramatized in the Clark debacle of
1892. In the later 1890s Hall precipitated fresh controversies with his scientific
peers by such things as blistering book reviews and a quarrel with William James
about the proprietorship of the first experimental psychology laboratory (Ross,
1972). Hall’s religiosity was on the rise in the 1890s, perhaps in reaction to his
catastrophic personal experiences. Conceivably, psychologists might have been
reacting to Hall the man as well as to his work. The vogue for child study brought
amateurs near the scientific arena just as, today, many kinds of people do studies
with children. Conceivably, research with children might have looked as sprawl-
ing, polyglot, and incoherent to the scientific community of the nineteenth cen-
tury as it occasionally looks today.
As a scientific method, Hall’s questionnaires had a short flowering. By the
very early 1900s child study was moribund as a scientific movement. Writings
by Hall (1903) and by Barnes (1902-1903) reflect what must have been the
devastating impact of the criticisms that had come from scientific peers in the late
1890s.
B . CHILD STUDY AS AN ACADEMIC LINK TO EDUCATION
In 1893, an editor described American university presidents in these terms:
There is no class in the community more influential to-day. . . . No class of men is rendering
more important service to the Nation, none commands greater respect. . . . They are heard
with respect on public questions no less than on academic and educational questions; they are
credited with large intelligence, with disinterestedness, and with high aims. They are in a
position to render notable public service by dealing with public questions with a breadth,
courage, and freedom from party bias which are conceded to them on account of the position
they occupy. (Mabie, 1893, p. 338 and p. 341)
An entrepreneurial, active, aggressive, virile kind of university president was on

the American scene. The powerful college presidents were James Burrill Angel1
at Michigan, Andrew Dickson White at Cornell, Daniel Coit Gilman at Johns
Hopkins, William Rainey Harper at Chicago, Noah Porter at Yale, William
Watts Folwell at Minnesota, Charles William Eliot at Harvard, James McCosh at
Princeton, and Frederick A. P. Barnard and Nicholas Murray Butler at Colum-
bia. These men moved easily from their seats in the university back and forth to
national commissions, memberships on school boards, corporate directorships,
and ministerial and ambassadorial functions for the government.
Colleges were expanding in number and size. In 1870, the country had 563
institutions of higher learning in which an average of 92 students were taught by
an average of nine faculty. In 1900, the country had 777 colleges and universities
in which an average of 243 students were taught by an average of 24 faculty.
This growth was guided by visits to Europe. In the years before 1920, at least
10,000 Americans studied at German universities (Sokal, 1981, p. 2). Training
in Europe was obligatory for an American professorship before 1900. As Ameri-
can colleges grew to become universities they drew into themselves medical and
legal training so that, for all practical purposes, medical and legal education were
captured and owned by the university by 1900. Engineers in American industries
had once come up from the ranks of workmen. In the latter half of the nineteenth
century, university-trained engineers began to compete with them and gradually
took their place (Chandler, 1977). American universities took on teacher train-
ing, and Doctor of Education work for school administrators. They established
degrees in social work. A11 this was unlike the European pattern.
What Americans put up in the late nineteenth century was the “multiversity,”
a conglomerate of teaching, research, planning, policy, and consultative arrange-
ments. The size and the diversity of American universities was quite unlike that
of the model universities Americans were visiting at that time in Germany,
England, and France. American professors were unlike European professors:
Traditionally European professors looked down upon the career ambitions of American pro-
fessors, who were disposed to sell their professional services as teacher, scholar, researcher,
administrator, or recognized name to the highest bidder. (Bledstein, 1976, p. 298)
G . Stanley Hall, of course, was a preeminent teacher, scholar, researcher,

administrator, and recognized name of American psychology in the early 1890s,
second only to William James in these regards. Hall turned back toward child
study as president of Clark because he sensed that a bridge needed to be built
between the university and the schools. In the case of law, medicine, and en-
gineering, the path to university preeminence was relatively clear, resting upon
coherent bodies of skills, science, scholarship, and knowledge. Law, medicine,
and engineering were recognized professions. The colleges could become pro-
viders of the special skills and knowledge they required and, in a generation,
could become the primary agents of professional training. But being an educator
did not depend upon rare skills and knowledge, nor was it clear that education
was a profession. Some academic administrators were uncertain that the univer-
sity had a legitimate role to play in education (Powell, 1980). Nevertheless,
Schools of Education were established in the universities and, as history has
made clear, have stayed and grown. They are still not completely loved nor are
they well rationalized.
Scholars were prominent in the leadership of American education in the late
nineteenth century. William Torrey Harris who founded America’s first philo-
sophical journal, The Journal of Speculative Philosophy, was briefly considered
for a philosophy professorship at Harvard, and led the “St. Louis Hegelians,” a
philosophical group, while he was Superintendent of Schools in that city. In
1899 he became United States Commissioner of Education (Kuklick, 1977). In
his history of American education, Tyack (1974) lays out in some detail the
linkages between American social leadership and university scholars near the
turn of the century. Some have suggested that the growth of common schooling
was controlled by elite interests and, therefore, that American college presidents
and professors set forth ideology that was in tune with Establishment preferences
(e.g., Katz, 1968). The writings of G. Stanley Hall read as though he believed,
in his blurred and passionate way, that he might find academic leadership for
education. The writings of other prominent psychologists who moved into educa-
tional work-Edward L. Thorndike, Charles H. Judd, Lewis M. Teman, John
Dewey+annot be explained simply by attributing to them the desire to dance to
the establishment’s tune.
Hall did not have a clear idea about how and where psychological research
might touch education. When he was being scientific in the 188Os, he did not
explore his method of child study. Quite conceivably, he saw the shortcomings
of “The Contents of Children’s Minds” with open eyes, no matter what the
hoopla about him. When he turned back to child study in the 1890s he was no
longer concentrating on scientific work and, for that matter, had no time for
methodical development. Hall had trouble closing on an exact scientific method
for child study, and he was equally uncertain about the exact way in which child
study research might have a utility for educational practice. He did, for a time,
draw educators toward him, through the force of the general idea of child study
and through his personal magnetism. But others were to solidify and regularize
the connection between the university and education.
C . CHILD STUDY AS A SCIENTIFIC PEDAGOGY
Lewis M. Terman has left us a lengthy and warm description of student life at
Clark University (Terman, 1932). Whatever Hall’s shortcomings as a college
president he created for at least some of his students an atmosphere of freedom,
openness, and excitement about ideas. Terman is particularly enthusiastic about
Hall’s Monday night seminars. Arnold Gesell’s (1952) recollections of his train-
ing under Hall sound similar in tone. Hall was an enthusiastic teacher, but not a
strong scientific mentor. Both Terman and Gesell testify that they sought rigor
and quantitative training outside of Hall’s sphere.
Hall lost faith in experimental psychology in the 1890s. He may have hoped
that child study might reconstitute psychology on a genetic and evolutionary
basis. Evolutionistic psychologies were prominent in Hall’s time. The influence
The Child Study Movemenr 265
of Herbert Spencer was very large (Spencer, 1872; Hofstadter, 1955). Romanes
(1884, 1889) and Baldwin (1895) put forth important systematic genetic ac-
counts of the human mind (White, 1982), anticipating a recapitulationistic orien-
tation to child development that was to be a cornerstone of Hall’s 1904 Adoles-
cence and his views on education and child rearing. Hall may have seen in
genetic psychology something broader and sounder than experimental psychol-
ogy and something more suitable as a foundation for an educational psychology.
In 1894, Hall persuaded the National Education Association to establish a
Department of Child Study. He seems to have regarded this as a triumph. What
was Hall’s vision of a scientific pedagogy? He was a Herbartian, believing in
education as a form of growth. He followed Rousseau and Froebel, holding that
education should be fitted to the child, pedocentric, rather than be based on
pedagogy that forced the child to fit the school, seholiocentric (Cremin, 1964, p.
103). These were liberal views, but not all Hall’s views were liberal. He was
against the growth of sentimentality, permissiveness, and lax discipline that he
saw arising in schools. He attributed these things to female teachers and derno-
cratic aspirations. Probably, Hall did not have a very exact sense of the political
tides in American education. He was a romantic in politics and, increasingly as
the years went on, his appeal or lack of appeal to educators rested on how they
resonated to his romantic vision.
Edward L. Thorndike began his career teaching child study to teachers. His
Notes on Childstudy (Thorndike, 1901) reflect this teaching, a year or two after
his doctorate. Thorndike turned away from child study and built an educational
psychology which was fully elaborated in his three volumes of 1913-1914
(Thorndike, 1913-1914). There, in a section titled “The Discovery of Original
Tendencies by a Census of Opinions” he discussed and largely dismissed Hall’s
topical syllabi work (Volume 1, pp. 28-37). Later, he considered Hall’s re-
capitulationistic theories about child development and his quasi-Darwinian ideas
about education and, in a slightly less measured way, dismissed them. The dates
of Thorndike’s three volumes are just about right. Hall was in eclipse among the
national leadership of American education, both as scientist and Darwinian
prophet, by the 1910s. But Hall’s was not a completely high-level approach or
appeal.
One of Hall’s students once wrote that child study was “primarily for the
teacher, secondarily for children, incidentally for science” (Kett, 1977, p. 234).
Kett (1977) argued that Hall’s child study had a great vogue among teachers
because it seemed to upgrade the status of the teacher.
Teaching was not a very elevated occupation in the United States in the late
nineteenth century, not much rewarded or respected. While Hall’s child study
may not have won the enthusiasm of school superintendents, the evidence is
reasonably clear that Hall collected and maintained loyalty among masses of
teachers for some years. Hall’s questionnaires might have looked like a positive
contribution to some teachers. Not so long ago, a child study textbook was
published for use in Africa (Maynard, 1966). The book uses the device of a
model, Wise Mphunzitsi, who shows how good teaching is to be carried out. The
message of Wise Mphunzitsi’s behavior, over and over again, is: “Watch chil-
dren. Be guided by them. You need knowledge. Study children yourself. Here’s
how. Learn to see.” One might well imagine that turn-of-the-century American
teachers, at the onset of professionalism, progressivism, and child-centeredness,
could have benefitted from Hall’s child study devices for what one might today
call sensitivity-training or consciousness-raising. Those methods, in turn, might
well have fallen by the wayside as more complex and more adequate schemes for
professional training became established in the early twentieth century.
Roughly, three visions of an educational psychology were in position in the
1890s, each one centering on a place and a journal. In an official survey prepared
for the Paris Exposition of 1900, James McKeen Cattell (1900) listed three
education journals: the Pedagogical Seminary, the Educational Review, and the
School Review. The Pedagogical Seminary was Hall’s journal. We have exam-
ined the composition of the early volumes of the journal and Hall’s views. The
Educational Review was founded by Nicholas Murray Butler, Professor of Phi-
losophy in Columbia College, in the same year.
Where Hall backed into educational politics, driven there by circumstances,
Butler sought out the political arena. Education was changing at three levels,
driven by three political initiatives, in the 1890s. A small movement of upper
middle-class women pushed early education, under the banner of Froebelianism;
this movement was tied to feminism. A second movement was the push towards
common schooling led by labor leaders and social workers, which we have
discussed above. The third movement was in many respects the most potent
politically. It involved the enlargement and reconstruction of secondary
education.
In the 1870s, few American children went to high school and when they did
they finished their formal schooling there. College training required classical
knowledge which one received at preparatory schools. An enlarging number of
youth were going to high school. More and more, they wanted to go on to
colleges, and the colleges were eager to have them. To reach toward this market,
the colleges reduced classics requirements in their curriculum and they began to
standardize admissions requirements. At the same time, the colleges reached
downward into secondary education to try to create teaching directed more
toward the college curriculum (Powell, 1980; Tyack, 1974).
Hall’s Pedagogical Seminary dealt mostly with child development and educa-
tion during the kindergarten and elementary school years. Child study was seen
as research by and for teachers. Nicholas Murray Butler directed his Educational
Review principally toward the people and agencies concerned with secondary and
higher education. Hall had a limited sense of educational politics. Butler was a
master at it. Perhaps because Butler was so exactly attuned to American educa-
tional politics, a viable educational psychology was first established at his Teach-
ers’ College.
Edward L. Thorndike, James McKeen Cattell, and John Dewey were at Co-
lumbia. Thorndike, more than any of the others, set the pattern. Thorndike had
been a student of William James. He had first encountered James’s Principles of
Psychology at a seminar at Wesleyan College in 1893- 1894. This encounter
inspired him with an interest in psychology, and by 1895-1896 he was studying
with James. As has been noted above, Thorndike began his academic career by
teaching child study but quickly moved away from it. He became interested in
statistics and measurement.
The first edition of Thorndike’s Educational Psychology, published in 1903,
offered a vision of a connection between psychology and education different
from that of child study. The book includes chapters on the measurement of
individual differences, sex differences, differences in race or remote ancestry,
differences in immediate ancestry or family, maturity, the influence of the en-
vironment, individual differences, and extreme individual differences (retarda-
tion and pathology). The writing is measured and dry, with an emphasis on data
and prudent inference. Yet the chapters are cogent and, in a measured way,
relevant to some interests of education. One year after the Educational Psychol-
ogy, Thorndike published his Introduction to rhe Theory of Mental and Social
Measurements. Thorndike had staked out the ground for a new arena of in-
terchange between psychology and pedagogy.
Thorndike’s full development of an educational psychology appeared in his
three volumes of 1913- 1914. The first volume, subtitled Orzginai Nurure r$
Man, dealt with innate, instinctive, and maturational factors in human nature.
The second volume, subtitled Psychology qf’learning,dealt with connectionistic
research on processes and laws of learning. Thorndike’s third volume was a
hybrid in which the first half dealt with mental work and fatigue and the second
half was an update of the original one-volume Educational Psvchology.
Why was Thorndike successful in establishing a viable educational psychol-
ogy when Hall was not? Thorndike found, with considerable sophistication, a via
media between an educational audience with many and confusing needs and an
infant psychological science with primitive research capabilities. He worked
with Butler, who had a very good sense of where the levers of power were in
education, and with Cattell, whose forte since graduate school days had been
counting and measuring human mental activities (Sokal, I98 I ) . Perhaps these
men helped steer Thorndike toward a special interest in educational testing. One
cornerstone of educational psychology was achievement and ability testing. A
second was the study of learning and the hope, not to be realized, that scientific
laws of learning could be established for the benefit of education. The vision was
popular in the early 1900s among both educators and psychologists.
Thorndike’s educational psychology pointed to an applied psychology, mental

testing, that was immediately useful to education. Research would yield not the
general, but the normative, for the rational guidance of educational practice.
Ability tests and achievement tests would align the work of education with ideals
via “intelligence quotients” and “grade point averages.” Comparisons with the
normative would yield evaluation and guidance. Thorndike’s work set the stage
for psychometry and learning theory, both destined to be very successful in the
decades to come. In broadest terms, Thorndike’s educational psychology was
depoliticized in relation to education and given a technical, ancillary function.
That place might not have suited G . Stanley Hall; Hall saw academic psychology
in a nineteenth century way, providing leading ideas and values to society in the
tradition of the old moral philosophy course. Thorndike, as a “sane positivist,”
was comfortable in the engineering role (Joncich, 1968). Later in his career, he
was to try to devise something like an achievement test for cities and to write at
some length about his vision of a psychology propaedeutic to political decision
making (Thorndike, 1939, 1940). He did a 3-year study of the general goodness
of the human condition in 310 American cities, rating each on 37 items like
“Infant Death Rate,” “Percentage of Illiterates Per Capita,” “Balance of Phy-
sicians, Nurses and Teachers over Male Domestic Servants,” and “Value of
Public Property in Schools, Libraries, Parks and Hospitals.” One or 2 years
later, giving the William James lectures at Harvard, he proposed an extension of
his G Index to 72 measurable or potentially measurable items (Thorndike, 1943).
Where Hall wanted to offer intellectual and moral leadership, Thorndike was
concerned above all else to offer practical assistance for social problems.
The third educational journal of the 1890s was the School Review, established
at Chicago in 1893. If Hall’s vision of a scientific pedagogy was based on child
study and Thorndike’s on educational psychology, then the Chicago position
might reasonably be characterized as based on social psychology. Chicago was,
of course, the home of John Dewey and his first laboratory school, of William
Cooley, Albion Small, George Herbert Mead, and Edward A. Ross. Charles H.
Judd consolidated Chicago’s educational philosophy when he came in 1909 to
take charge of the School of Education. Interestingly, Judd had entered psychol-
ogy in the very same Wesleyan class as Thorndike. Where Thorndike was
inspired to move to Harvard to study with James, Judd moved off to Leipzig
where he studied with Wundt.
Most nineteenth-century American psychologists received Wundt through
Titchener and became sensationists and experimental psychologists. Judd got a
more rounded view of Wundt’s position and became interested in voluntarism
and ethnic psychology. Judd was, for a time, Professor of Psychology at Yale.
With his movement to Chicago he appears to have developed his socially based
view of psychology as a science:
The Child Stud.y Movement 269
11 may be that there is a phase or branch of fundamental social research which is legitimately
distinguished from what I have called social psychology. Personally, I think social phenomena
are so much more illuminating as manifestations of what human intelligence tends to do than
are any purely individual exhibitions of intelligence that I cannot believe that individual
psychology when detached from social psychology is a fundamental science. (Judd, 1932, p.
234)
A third vision of an educational psychology was built at Chicago. The best

development of that vision probably lay in Dewey’s work-his development of a
laboratory school, his social activism, and his progressivist vision of education in
hisDemocracyand Education (1916) published when he was at Columbia. Dewey
had a large influence on American thinking about schools, but little impact on the
psychology or the educational psychology that was to follow him. His influence
may not have lasted long at Chicago. W. T. White (1982) has argued that,
despite Judd’s interest in a social psychology, he moved Chicago’s education
faculty away from an interest in operating schools and towards academic disci-
plinary specialties.
Cotxeivably, the “sensorimotor” foundation, the research technology of
American psychologists, was adequate for Thorndike’s educational psychology
but not for Hall’s child study or the social-psychological orientation of the
Chicago group. You had ideas in search of methods in the 1890s and early 1900s
and only some ideas could “come to ground.” In that view, Hall’s vision was
“found” in method years after his death, when Piagetianism came to education
in the 1960s, and another educational psychology linkage could be formed at that
time.
Something like the Deweyan perspective may be entailed in contemporary
efforts to build a more ecologically sound developmental psychology, more
socially and historically articulated theories, and applied and explicit linking
institutions for child development and social policy.
D. CHILD STUDY, CHILD SAVING. AND EARLY SOCIAL WORK
Louis N. Wilson, Librarian at Clark University, published in the Pedagogical

Seminary a series of bibliographies of child study each year from 1898 through
1907. If we compare the most frequent subject-index entries of the first bibli-
ography of 1898 with those of the last two bibliographies of 1906 and 1907 we
find some changes in the frequency of topics. Entries under anthropological,
anthropometry, autobiographical, emotions, eye-eyesight, psychology, and
speech show declines, while child labor, feeble-minded, hygiene, juvenile jus-
tice, kindergarten, school hygiene, sex, and sociological show increases. It is
unlikely that these reflect general trends in the contemporary literature of chil-
dren. The Clark child study bibliographies were probably selective and idiosyn-
cratic, so that changes in them probably reflected changes in Hall’s interests.
Hall became more aware of the complex political structure of the children’s
cause of his time as he got into it. In the beginning, Hall concentrated on infancy
and early childhood. Later, he centered his interests more and more on youth. He
supported the Boy Scouts, the Young Men’s Christian Association, and other
youth work. He wrote Adolescence: Its Psychology and its Relation to Physiol-
ogy, Anthropology, Sex, Crime, Religion, and Education (Hall, 1904), a book
that established him as the national prophet of recapitulationism. Someone called
him “the Darwin of the mind,” a title that thrilled him (Ross, 1972).
The book on adolescence helped Hall to find a new, warm audience among
contemporary social workers as it lost him further academic support. [After
writing a review of Adolescence for Science, Edward L. Thorndike wrote a letter
to Cattell in which he said of the book that “it is chock full of errors, masturba-
tion, and Jesus” (Joncich, 1968, p. 243).] In July 1909 Hall convened the first
National Child Welfare Congress at Clark. The political tides were running with
the child welfare people. In 1909 Theodore Roosevelt convened the first White
House Conference on the Care of Dependent Children and in 1912 the United
States Congress established the Children’s Bureau, with Julia Lathrop, long
associated with Hull House, as its first director. In fact, Lathrop built up the
Children’s Bureau by a brilliant exploitation of a child study strategy involving
statistical studies of the social distribution of children’s problems (Parker &
Carpenter, 1981).
Hall also had some influence upon the early professional organization of social
work (Lubove, 1965). He tried to connect his child study enterprise to the child
welfare movement. But from his perspective the child welfare people were not
really interested in scientific child study (Ross, 1972). From the perspective of
the early child welfare workers, in turn, Hall’s good will might have been
suspect. He mixed his show of concern for defective, dependent, and delinquent
children with somewhat dismaying side remarks. In an article, “What is to
Become of Your Baby?” in Cosmopolitan in 1910, Hall said:
There is a considerable difference . . . between different social classes, and . . . what would
really seem hardship to one may be luxury to another. . . . The children of the poor . . . thrive
well under a certain degree of neglect. (Ross, 1972, p. 362)
Hall established a Children’s Institute at Clark in 1909. It was supposed to be a

nucleus for research connected with children’s welfare. Hall hoped that the
Institute would engage in research, maintain a clinic and a school, and coordinate
science and social activism for children. The Institute never got going but it may
have served as a model for the institutes and centers of the child development
movement that was to follow. Although Iowa started its Child Welfare Research
Station in 1917, Cora Bussey Hillis was campaigning for something like it as
early as 1906 (Sears, 1975). Hall’s Institute might have helped give flesh to the
Iowa idea.
Generally speaking the professionalization of social work seems to have taken
place in the early 1920s. Hall was not personally important in the forming of a
vision of professionalized social work, but associates of his such as William
Healy, Arnold Gesell, Adolf Meyer, and his Clark University were involved
(Lubove, 1965).
The Wilson bibliographies reveal the currents of concern for service to disad-
vantaged and handicapped children that flowed through the child study move-
ment. Wilson’s bibliography for the year 1906 contained, among its 362 entries,
articles or books on juvenile crime, the blind, the feebleminded, the incorrigible
boy, imbecility, tuberculosis, alcoholism, stuttering, the atypical child, the hard-
of-hearing child, the dullard, naughty boys, weakmindedness and moral weak-
ness, defective children, a case of multiple personality, juvenile criminality,
infant mortality, mental deficiency, the idle boy, bodily defects or weaknesses,
the incorrigible child, crippled children, morbidity, difficult boys, idiocy, and
nervous diseases. In addition, many of the papers dealt with the special problems
of children as they present themselves to people in institutional settings con-
cerned with education, care, or treatment. The tubercular child was discussed
from the perspective of school management. Naughty boys were discussed as
they present themselves in kindergartens. Children’s morbidity and infant mor-
tality were discussed from the perspective of medical inspections in schools and
the need for pediatric facilities.
Many of the entries in the Wilson child study bibliographies have to do with
problems of managing the new services and behavior settings for children of the
time, Hall was not personally sympathetic with child welfare and the care of the
poor and the handicapped. He was something of an elitist and a Social Darwinist.
Nevertheless, the open and dynamic environment he created at Clark offered a
home for an emerging American interest in mental hygiene, clinical psychology,
and the human services.
E. CHILD STUDY AND THE ESTABLISHMENT OF CLINICAL

PSYCHOLOGY
Very early, some American psychologists became interested in special states

of consciousness, mystic and psychic phenomena, hypnotherapy, mind cures and
“talking cures,” hysteria, and the phenomena of disordered mental states. After
publishing his monumental Principles of Psychology in 1890, William James
became disenchanted with biological and brass-instrument psychology and he
explored the spiritual. He wrote his Varieties of Religious Experience (James,
1902) a decade after the Principles. The book drew heavily upon the work of
abnormal psychologists such as Myers, Janet, and Freud and it opened the door
to personality psychology in setting forth the thesis that human spiritual experi-
ence could be analyzed in functional and pragmatic terms.
Hall was interested in the unconscious, the instinctual, and religious experi-
ence no less than his mentor James. A paper by Julius Nelson on the study of
dreams was included in the first volume of Hall’s American Journal of Psychol-
ogy (Nelson, 1887). Hall’s broad interests provided an umbrella for diverse
student interests. The psychology department at Clark was a haven for indi-
viduals with clinical-psychological interests amidst a growing number of psy-
chology departments committed either to the philosophical-experimental or the
educational.
Boston was an American center for the study of psychopathology in Hall’s
time. Morton Prince, James Jackson Putnam, Boris Sidis, Hugo Munsterberg,
William James, and Josiah Royce formed the nucleus of the “Boston School,”
which studied abnormal psychology and experimented with psychotherapy be-
ginning in 1887 (Hale, 1975). Morton Prince of this group began the Journal of
Abnormal Psychology in 1906. In 1909, Freud was invited to America by G .
Stanley Hall and James Jackson Putnam. Pierre Janet had previously crossed the
water at the invitation of the Boston group. Freud, Jung, Ferenczi, and Brill
represented psychoanalysis at a conference celebrating the second decennial of
Clark University (Ross, 1972, pp. 388-389). The great enthusiasm generated by
psychoanalysis seems to have led to the absorption of a flourishing indigenous
American movement into a tide of enthusiasm for psychoanalysis. Freud’s com-
ing to America was less of a beginning than it is sometimes held to be.
When Adolf Meyer came to the Worcester State Hospital in 1895, a rising
figure in American psychiatry was situated in close proximity to child study.
Meyer never fully accepted the theory or method of psychoanalysis, but his
psychobiology emphasized dynamic concepts and the utility of the case study
method (Malamud, 1944). Meyer was a leader of the mental hygiene movement
which had, within its sphere of influence, a strength comparable to that of child
study in educational and child saving circles. Hall, Meyer, William Healy, and
Morton Prince reinforced one another in American public life. They were a kind
of ideological establishment for the rationalization and professionalization of the
human services of their time (Rothman, 1980).
G . Stanley Hall’s old office at Clark University still remains as he left it, kept
intact by a wise psychology faculty, and a small set of letters that is kept there
includes a copy of a letter from Adolf Meyer to G . Stanley Hall on December 7 ,
1895. In the letter, Meyer outlines his Worcester Plan of “controlled clinical
studies conducted by personnel trained in scientific investigative methods. ”
Meyer’s vision of “patient study” resembled Hall’s vision of child study. Hall
believed that teachers should study children following topical syllabi prepared by
scientists (Williams, 1896). Meyer’s Worcester Plan had attendants in lunatic
asylums mingling data collection with patient care. Both Meyer and Hall saw the
study of human beings as humanizing, enlightening, and progressive forces. The
act of doing research was seen as educative and developmental. Meyer and Hall
saw patient study and child study as instruments of staff development in social
institutions.
Hall never became a psychotherapist or a clinical psychologist. He became
more and more committed to religion as the years went on. He founded the
Journal of Religious Psychology in 1916, and in 19 I7 he published Jesus, the
Christ, in the Light of Psychology. Boring (1950, p. 523) remarks that the book
brought Hall the odium theologicum to stand beside the odium sexicum he had
picked up with the adolescence volumes. But, as Wallin’s (1960) retrospective
account shows, Clark students were prominent in the early political struggles of
clinical psychology for a place in the American Psychological Association. By
1909, H. H. Goddard had established a facility for the study of feebleminded
children at the Vineland State Training School in New Jersey. In 191 1, Arnold
Gesell established a Psycho-clinic at Yale. Child study appears to have been
important for those clinical interests that were to mature in the founding of the
American Orthopsychiatric Association in 1924.
F. CHILD STUDY AND PARENT EDUCATION
In 1909, G. Stanley Hall wrote to Adolf Meyer asking for advice on how to set
up a children’s clinic. He had had, in the last year, nearly 600 letters from
“anxious parents, . . . with which I am able to do practically nothing. I find this
the most difficult of all the departments” (Ross, 1972, p. 355). A reasonable
amount of written history now deals with nineteenth-century changes in the
circumstances of children and the growth of social institutions and policy for
childhood. But relatively little effort has been made to connect this social history
with the social history of the family. In the last decade, we have experienced a
shifting of liberal political emphases away from “child development policy”
toward “family policy.” But any publicly imposed change in the conditions of
children is ipsofacto a piece of “family policy.” Any program with legal or
professional authority over some facet of childhood changes the authority and
responsibility of the family. The new program demands that the family know
about something else in society and coordinate their activities with it.
Parents wrote to Hall because their lives were changing as parents, becoming
more complicated, or because they were being placed on strange new ground
where they were uncertain about the proper rules, procedures, and values. Chil-
dren were going from the labor force into schools. This had large fiscal implica-
tions for many families. A study of working-class family budgets in Mas-
sachusetts in the 1870s indicated that children between 10 and 19 provided one-
quarter of the family income in families headed by unskilled workers (Kett,
1977, p. 169). With a lengthening “social adolescence,” families found them-

selves supervising 0- to 18-year-old children. The human and moral responsibil-
ity for the child’s behavior was theirs, but power and authority was shared once
with the school and once again with a variety of other youth organizations.
The many new institutions and professionals dealing with handicapped chil-
dren were a blessing and a curse. Suddenly, parents found themselves responsi-
ble for preliminary screening of a variety of potential physical and mental abnor-
malities, Most parents know firsthand how complicated it is to see or imagine all
kinds of dire possibilities in this or that fragment of an infant’s behavior, to
wonder whether it would be more irresponsible to ignore the systems or to go
running off to seek expert diagnostic help. For children with unmistakable physi-
cal or mental problems many parents, even today, have trouble knowing what to
do and where to find help. One can imagine, then, the circumstances of the late
nineteenth-century parent, when the word was out that there expertise was
around and the responsibility to find it and use it was theirs.
To an increasing extent the concerned parent we have been talking about was
female. The change in women’s places in the late nineteenth century has been
much discussed: the movement of families from country to city, the shift in
workplace away from the home, the loss of a productive economic role for
women, the consignment of women to an empty life in a city house or apartment
taking care of small children. Women began to seek early child care, and they
began to go to work. Mixed in with parent education and early childhood educa-
tion, then as now, was a large streak of feminism.
What did parents seek from child study? They wanted information that would
help them decide when and how to act. Standing at the opposite pole of child
study from the academic scientists, they wanted descriptive accounts of children
only as they prescribed action or helped them to restrict their option space.
Descriptions of the generic or the average might help them to judge when
something they were faced with was or was not a “problem.” Faced with a
recognized and labeled problem, for example, a deaf child, they wanted informa-
tion about where to go, whom to see, and what to do. They might be interested in
descriptions of other deaf children, to form expectations of what they might
meet. They might be interested in accounts of what other parents did and what
they saw after they did it, to form expectations of what they might do and what
kind of efficacy and responsibility they might assume. Beyond their need for
information about potential or actual problems, parents wanted some kind of
understanding of their situation as parents. Sharing their work with the teacher,
the pediatrician, perhaps the social worker or school counselor, they wanted to
know what the other’s work was and how their own work might connect with it.
A kindergarten movement was active in the late 1800s with Froebel as its
patron saint. Beatty (1981) has described the interests in early childhood ac-
tivities that placed, first, infant schools, and then Froebelian kindergartens in
Boston. In the 1890s the advocates for kindergartens were organized in an
International Kindergarten Union; they published a Kindergarten Magazine and

a Kindergarten Review. The pages of these journals gave an interesting mixture
of earnest practicality, genteel chitchat, syrupy sentimentality, and brass-knuckle
feminist politics. There were stories for children. There was advice about bathing
children, the value of Sunday School, arts and crafts exercises, etc. There were
suggestions about articles to read, news about what this or that expert on child
study said recently, and news about institutions and activities of the children’s
cause. People reported on international trips, for example, news of Frau Froebel
in an old age home in Hamburg, a brief description of the Pestalozzi-Froebel-
haus in Berlin, and a longer report on the lnstituto Froebellino in Naples.
Most of the child study information transmitted to the readers was eminently
sane and tidy. A favorite slogan of the kindergarteners was “Order is Heaven’s
first law.” But, then as now, the writers in the kindergarten journals could not
completely resist the provocative and the flamboyant. In one number the readers
were told about an argument by Frances W. Willard. Perhaps the fact that dolls
are given to women early in life accounts for their “dulled curiosity, greater
passivity, inferior enterprise, bravery and courage. Willard suggested that per-
”
haps the dolls should be given to the boys instead to encourage their father
instinct (Willard, 1888).
In a piece titled “What Should Our Children See?” Alice H. Putnam, Super-
intendent of the Chicago Froebel Association, paraphrased Seguin: “A mother
must be very destitute or despondent who does not try to enliven her baby’s
cradle with some bright thing laid or hanging over it.” But mothers should be
warned tht the use of highly wrought or colored figures, or things that are
grotesque or untrue to nature, may fatigue the young infant’s brain. The mother
must remember that “the seeds of most of the insanities are sown at or before
this time” (Putnam, 1888).
Organized parenthood gave child study a base of social support that was more
sustained, and conceivably stronger, than the support of any of the emergent
professional audiences. In 1897, an organization known as the National Con-
gress of Mothers convened in Washington. This large group was politically
potent, and it was influential in bringing about the White House Conference for
Dependent Children in 1909. The organization became the National Congress of
Parents and Teachers in 1924. By 1915, a Parent-Teacher’s Association had a
paid membership of 60,000. That organization grew to a membership of 190.000
in 1920, 875,000 in 1925, and 1,500,000 in 1930 (Schlossman, 1976).
As envisaged by this audience, child study entailed knowledge that would help
families engage in their basic functions, while serving to coordinate and dis-
tribute responsibilities of socialization across parents and schools. Hall’s sun
never set for this audience (Schlossman, 1976). In fact, what lived on of child
study after Hall’s death was, to a large extent, a body of activities intended to
bring research with children to bear on the problems of families.
Needs for parent education remained an important force supporting the estab-
216 Alexander W . Siege1 and Sheldon H . Whire
lishment and funding of the second phase of child psychological work-the child
development movement of the 1920s and 1930s (Anderson, 1956; Frank, 1962;
Sears, 1975; Senn, 1975). The child development institutes and centers are
sometimes taken to be ancestral to contemporary developmental psychology, but
this view streamlines and modernizes their activities. At the heart of their inter-
disciplinary research activities were commitments and responsibilities for parent
education and early education.
An important source of support for the child development institutes and cen-
ters was provided by Laura Spellman Rockefeller in a program administered by
Lawrence K . Frank. Ruby Takanishi (1979) elegantly spells out the expectations
that surrounded the support of these second-generation institutes. Frank believed
in “preventive politics,” a progressivist conception that held that society could
be made better by upgrading the circumstances under which people were reared
and lived. The institutes would study children, maintain exemplary forms of
preschool education, and serve as a vehicle for the transmission of the fruits of
such study to parents.
In actuality, the institutes and centers slowly drifted away from interdisciplin-
ary work and their commitments to work with parents, and toward a more and
more central preoccupation with psychological inquiry. Coming near the end of
this history one can see the work of Robert Sears and his associates at Iowa,
Harvard, and Stanford as a brilliant effort to reconcile the traditional mission of
the institutes toward parent education with stimulus-response psychology and
psychoanalysis as scientific bases (White, 1970). The Sears group blended S-R
theory and psychoanalysis into an antecedent-consequent analysis of familial
variables and their influence on child development. If parent behaviors were
solely “antecedents” and children’s behaviors solely “consequents,” a predic-
tive science of parenting might have been found. The work of Sears and his
associates paved the way for early work in experimental child psychology and,
ultimately, for the modern era of research in developmental psychology.
When deveIopmenta1 psychologists became a force in government programs
and policies in the 1960s, when departments began their commitments to various
forms of applied developmental psychology in the late 1970s, when linkages
between developmental psychologists and “whole child professions” were
formed, one could say that the manifold enterprises and agendas of the child
study movement had become differentiated and hierarchically integrated.
IV. Motives and Needs for Child Study

The child study movement brought to a focus a number of motives and needs
in American society in the late nineteenth century. Child study was not a simple
outgrowth of either scientific progress or social change. It was something that
happened at a meeting place of science and society. Several groups in society,
not identical in their interests, engaged with scientists and scholars who were not
unanimous in their visions of ways and means and possibilities. G. Stanley Hall
was an emblematic figure in all this, in part an actor intent on his own vision, in
part an impresario, setting forth a stage on which various groups could project
their disparate interests in child study. Six groups with six motives took an
interest in child study.
1 . Scientists of the late nineteenth century saw in child study a legitimate arena
for the search for rationality and lawfulness in human behavior. Their “philoso-
phy of science” was less complex than the elaborate ratiocinations about con-
cepts and laws and theories that were to become fashionable in the 1930s and
1940s. For the scientists of the 1890s to do science was to find convincing ways
of moving from the actual to the generic, to count and measure, and to find
pattern and law in nature. The scientists despaired of child study as early as
1900, but the normative child development studies of the 1930s and 1940s
earned an indifferent kind of scientific legitimacy and respect. The new methods
of the 1950s brought something like child study to the very center of basic
psychological inquiry, as Hall had hoped and as some-Baldwin, Werner,
Piaget-had long prophesized would happen.
2. Leaders of higher education were concerned less about form and more about
the efficacy of child study. Not all university presidents regarded the building of
schools of education as desirable, but eventually most went along with it as a
marketable and administratively reasonable idea. Child study textbooks were
used in teacher-training early in the twentieth century. Hall established a kind of
friendly communion between the university and pedagogy, but it was Thorndike
who built a working relationship. Thorndike’s bridge was built out of mental
testing, learning theory, and fragments of ergonomics and motivational theory.
As child study has been enlarged in the twentieth century, new planks have been
added to the bridge.
3. American education had several demands upon child study, corresponding
to changes that were appearing in the late nineteenth century in early education,
elementary education, and high schools. More hierarchical management of edu-
cation called for a kind of child study leading to quantitative indices of school
performance. Standardized achievement tests were used to ensure a modicum of
accountability and standardization in American schools. We think of these as
fortunate inventions of psychological science, but test developments in education
ran exactly parallel to the development of productivity indices in industry and
government-for example, Civil Service Examinations-many of which were
created in the nineteenth century before the psychologists got going on mental
measurements and testing (Chandler, 1977).
Since children were now being required to receive schooling, tests were
needed that would serve as aids and justifications in the tricky business of
classifying children (White, 1975). Hall did not like mental tests but his stu-
dentsqoddard, Huey , Terman, and Kuhlmann-were leaders in bringing Bin-

et and Simon’s test over to this country (Peterson, 1925, p. 225) and in establish-
ing the instrument’s use with feebleminded and normal populations of children
(Goddard, 1910, 1911, 1916).
Tests provided guidance to educators by allowing them to refer their actions
and standards, if not to the generic child, then to the normative child. Those who
managed aggregates of distant children needed symbols representative of the
status and performance of the aggregate child. Those who dealt with flesh and
blood children wanted accounts of children’s motivation, learning, and thought
that might help in bringing understanding. They wanted what one might reasona-
bly call myths of childhood-not fabrications, not fairy tales, but stories that
would allow them to understand the facts of childhood in a context of values
(White, 1978). To this end child study had to encompass things other than the
quantitative technologies elaborated in Thomdike’s educational psychology.
Freud, Erikson, Bettelheim, Redl, and Rogers were to provide a rich case study
literature that was to be another plank of child study in education in the twentieth
century.
Finally, educators wanted a larger idea of what the aims of education could be.
How plastic is a child? Are there better and worse times to teach things, better
and worse ways? What is a comfortable pace for education? What constitutes tact
with a child? When are you being too severe? Too lenient? How do families and
schools and churches and community fit together? The public-at-large was
warmly receptive to Hall’s sociobiological romancing in his Adolescence. Right-
ly or wrongly, Hall offered people an evolutionary conception of what happens
when a child is socialized and educated. Hall had a short vogue as a prophet of
education. After him came Dewey and later, perhaps, Piaget. One function
people wanted from child study was, precisely, a vision of the Good (White,
1982). When Hall, Judd, and the Hegelians envisaged the university as a temple
of Ideas showering out the benefits of science and scholarship to society, they
had in mind the vision of a natural theology-that is, ethical and moral impera-
tives dictated by science and scholarship.
4.The social workers and child savers were a conglomerate group with diverse
needs for child study (Platt, 1969). They wanted channels of communication
through which they could discuss the work they were doing and its efficacy and
through which they could receive news of others doing similar work. They
wanted notions of the normative and the optimal in child development because
they were so often concerned with children who were handicapped or at risk. If
there were “critical periods” or “nascent periods” in development, they wanted
to know about them. And, finally, they wanted social indicators of incidence and
epidemiologial factors in part for planning services, and in part to be used for
political advocacy. Hall’s establishment at Clark University could not provide
these things. In the second establishment of child study, the child welfare in-
stitutes of the twentieth century, precisely those interests were to play a pronii-
nent part in determining the research agenda.
5. Child study’s fifth audience, the early clinical psychologists, were groping.
They were in the curious position of having to establish a nosology while they
worked on questions of diagnosis and treatment. What were their needs for child
study? They needed literatures comparable to those of the child savers noted
above-data on the normative, on sensitive periods, and on the overall structure
of cognitive and emotional development and its reaction to stress. They needed
service-relevant literatures, through which they could share experiences and
offer suggestions to one another. And they needed to find some structure and
form for their arena of “mental hygiene,” “mental illness,” “mental health,”
or “child guidance.” Freud was almost as important in structuring the problem
of mental illness as he was in providing solutions, and the long shadow of
Freud’s ideas still falls on The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual-111. Freud
made child development, and therefore child study, central to the concerns of
psychiatrists and clinical psychologists. The liaison of clinical psychology and
child study continues today in a number of journals, book series, and societies
that maintain the interface.
6. Finally, parents formed a large and interested audience for child study. Like
all the “in service” audiences, the parents wanted ideas about the possibilities
and limits of their efficacy and responsibility. For specific problems they wanted
prescriptions for action or at the very least, operational advice that might help
them recognize their options and deal with them. They wanted ideas about the
etiquette and courtesy and tact they should give to and receive from their chil-
dren. They wanted ideas about values. Quite conceivably, they wanted encour-
agement and comfort and company. All this, willy-nilly, they brought to the door
of child study.
One would not expect a uniform body of literature to flow from the many
motives and needs that people brought to child study in the late nineteenth
century. In fact, the child study literature brought together in Wilson’s bibliogra-
phies seems to be ancestral to a number of literatures today in developmental
psychology, educational psychology, early education, social work, mental retar-
dation, physical education, etc. What brought disparate audiences with disparate
motives together in a concern for child study in the late 18OOs?
The common thread running through all the child study writings was the need
to elevate singular, individual, flesh-and-blood encounters toward universal ac-
counts. The late nineteenth5entury was, roughly, the time when the “average
child” was born. The twentieth century was to count the child’s teeth, measure
his or her height and weight, count the child’s vocabulary, and try various
methods to render quantitatively its creativity, knowledge of mathematics, popu-
larity, need for achievement, and love of mother. The late nineteenth century
was also the time when our stock of legends about “typical children” began to
be greatly enlarged. Before 1890, parents might ponder the state and fate of their
children in the light of Emile and David Coopefleld. With the growth of child
study, a family of mythical prototypes appeared from the Wild Boy of Aveyron,
Karl Witte, William James Sidis, little Hans, Albert, Johnny and Jimmy, and
Joseph Kidd, to Laurent-and-Jacqueline-and-Lucienne,Adam-and-Eve-and-
Sarah, and Joey the Mechanical Boy. Some of these children were prototypes
useful for developing an intuitive understanding of the development of will and
impulse and civilization in young children. Some were the objects of idiographic
studies of the organization of infant sensorimotor itelligence or early grammati-
cal development. Child study gave people who lived with children and were
concerned about them a sense of the general and, through that sense, a sense of
what their practical and ethical commitments to children might be.
In that functional sense, the child study movement is integral to contempory
developmental psychology and its other first-cousin descendants of child study.
The child study movement of the 1890s consisted of an idea, some disparate
motives, some audiences, and some fragmentary empirical methods. G. Stanley
Hail tried by inventing the topical syllabus and by improvisation and by personal
magnetism, to hold his several audiences. One by one he lost all but the parents,
who gave him respect as a prophet of childhood until his death. But all the
audiences and motives of child study remain alive today, and as new research
methods are developed to meet the standing needs, further aspects of the nine-
teenth-century alliance are realized.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors would like to thank Jeffrey Bisanz, Robert R . Sears, Alice Smuts, and Eugene Taylor
for helpful critical readings of an earlier draft of this work.
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AUTHOR INDEX
Numbers in italics refer to the pages on which the complete references are listed.
A Baer, D. M., 37, 42

Bailyn, B . , 244, 280
Abbott, G., 244, 280 Baker, E . , 174, 192
Abelson, R. P., 60, 76 Baldwin, J . M., 261, 265, 280
Abrahanison, A . A , , 141, 155, 171, 190, 194, Balfour, G . . 157, 166, 189
I95 Banik, N. D. D., 89, 134
Acredolo, C., 37, 42 Barker, E . N., 147, 195
Addams, J . , 243, 280 Barker, R. G . , 239, 281
Allen, G . L., 54, 76 Barnes, E., 253, 254, 255, 260, 262, 281
Allen I . . 133, 137 Baron, J., 141, 187
Alp, H., 94, 137 Barrett, M. D., 148, 187
Amidon, A , , 155, 156, 187 Banie-Blackley, S . , 155, 156, I87
Amsel, E . , 37, 39, 43, 44 Bartlett, E . , 143, 157, 169, 170, 186, 187,
Andersen, E. S . , 147, 187 188
Anderson, J. E . , 276, 280 Bean, A . , 205, 208, 223, 230
Anderson, J . R., 50, 52, 53, 63, 66, 75, 76 Beasley, C . M., 63, 66, 76
Anderson, N . H . , 37, 42 Beatty, B. R., 274, 281
Angelev. J . , 6, 36, 43 Bebout, L. J . , 172, 186, 187
Anglin, J. M . , 142, 145, 147, 149, 151, 179, Becker, G., 149, 194
182, 184, 187, 191 Becker, J. A., 186, 187
Annett, M . , 59. 76 Beilin, H . , 157, 166, 167, 187
Antonucci, F . , 164, 193 Bellugi, U., 216, 229
Anzai, Y . , 3, 38, 42 Belogorskii, V. I . , 92, 135
Aries, P., 235, 280 Benedict, H., 146, 148, 149, 187, 193
Arnold, M . R., 171, 194 Berndt, R. S . , 157, 169, 187
Arquedas, G., 88, 138 Bertalanffy, L . von, 67, 77
Ashcroft, M . T., 92, 99, 134 Bertan, M . , 94, 137
Atkinson, J. W . , 71, 76 Bienvisch, M . , 144, 169, 188
Atkinson, R . C.. 46, 76 Bindra, D., 5 , 43
Aubenque, M . , 86, 89, 134 Bisanz, G . L . , 60, 63, 67, 70, 72, 80. 81
Bisanz, J . , 56, 59, 63, 67. 70, 72, 77, 78, 80
Black, R . W . , 208, 228 \
B Bledstein, B. I . , 239, 240, 263, 281
Blewitt, P . , 145, 181, 182, 188, 192
Bach, M. J., 59, 76 Bloom, L . , 141, 142, 143, 148, 151, 172,
Backstrom-Jarvinen, L., 88, 134 186, 188, 191, 201, 216, 220, 222, 228
Baddeley, A. D., 61, 77 Bobrow. D. G . , 52, 79
287
288 Author Index
Bohn, W. E., 209, 212, 215, 228 Carpenter, E. M., 270, 283
Boldurchidi, P. P., 92, 137 Carter, P., 56, 77, 78
Bolinger, D . , 177, 188 Case, R . , 39, 43, 47, 62, 63, 64, 68, 73, 75,
Bonvillian, J. D . , 149, 152, 179, 186, 193 77
Book, W., 3 , 4 3 Cassirer, E., 177, 188
Boring, E. G . , 273,281 Cattell, J . McK., 266, 281
Bossard, J. H. S . , 239, 281 Cazden, C . B . , 203, 209, 211, 229
Boston, R. D . , 223,230 Chandler, A. D . , Jr., 245, 246, 263, 277, 281
Bourne, L . , 140, 188 Chao, Y . , 211, 229
Bovet, M . , 66, 78 Chapman, R. S . , 149, 188, 194, 213, 229
Bowerman, M . , 146, 147, 148, 49 * 50. Charzewska, J . , 100, 134
152, 173, 178, 179, 181, 182, 186, 188, Cherry, L. J . , 206, 207, 208, 230
203, 204, 212, 228 Chi, M. T. H., 62, 65, 77
Boyes-Braem, P., 145, 194 Chipman. H. H . , 141, 189
Bradbury, D . E., 281 Chrzgstek-Spruch, H . , 89, 133, 134
Braine, L. G., 162, 188 Chukovsky, K., 211, 229
Braine, M. D., 201, 210, 216, 224, 225, 228, Clanchy, M. T., 235, 281
23 1 Clark, E. V., 59, 77, 140, 141, 143, 144,
Brainerd, C. J . , 37, 43, 75, 77 145, 146, 148, 149, 152, 153, 154, 155,
Brannock, J . , 5, 6, 7, 43 156, 157, 158, 160, 161, 162, 163, 165,
Bransford, J . D., 177, 188 168, 169, 170, 172, 173, 175, 176, 183,
Braverman, H., 246, 281 187, 189, 190, 191, 209, 224, 229
Bremner, R . H . , 240, 241, 242, 244, 281 Clark, H . H . , 46, 77, 144, 145, 152, 153,
Breslow, L., 47, 73, 74, 75, 77 159, 176, 189, 224, 229
Brewer, W. F., 157, 169, 170, 188 Clark, R . , 217, 222, 223, 229
Britton, J., 208, 209, 210, 211, 218, 228 Clarke, K. M . , 5, 43
Broadbent, D. E., 46, 72, 77 Cockburn, J. A., 253, 281
Bronfenbrenner, U.,281 Cocking, R. R . , 39, 44
Brooks, L., 179, 188 Coker, P. L., 155, 156, 158, 184, 189
Brown, A. L., 47, 77, 155, 156, 158, 184, Collins, A. M . , 50, 52, 58, 77
I90 Commager, H. S . , 239, 248, 281
Brown, R . , 145, 150, 188, 216, 217, 228, Commons, M . , 36, 43
229 Connolly, K . J . , 206, 207, 208, 213, 230
Bruch, H. A , , 133, 135 Cooper, L. A., 56, 57, 77
Bruner, I. S . , 59, 62, 64, 77 Coots, J . H., 157, 169, 189
Bryan, W. L., 255, 256, 281 Corrigan, R . , 142, 172, 186, 189
Bryant, P. E., 46, 77, 162, 188 Cox, M. V . , 156, 164, 189
Brzezinski, 2. J . , 90, 135 Craig, H . K., 209, 210, 229
Buschang, P. H . , 92, 108, 136 Cremin, L. A,, 239, 265, 281
Butkowsky, I. S . , 5, 44 Cristescu, M., 96, 134
Butterfield, E. C . , 47, 78 Cuneo, D . 0.. 37, 42
C D
Caharack, G., 61, 78 Danks, I. H . , 156, 166, 184, 185, 190

Caramazza, A., 157, 169, 187 Danner, F., 56, 77
Carey, P . , 155, 156, 187 Davidson, M., 36, 43
Carey, S., 143, 156, 157, 164, 166, 167, 169, Davidson, W. S . , 86, 134
170, 171, 174, 179, 182, 186, 188, 192 Davila, G. H . , 102, 137
Author Index 289
Davis, R. C., 247, 281 Feagans, L., 155, 156, 190

Davison, A,, 211, 229 Fernandez-Fernandez, M . D., 88, 135
Day, M . C . , 55, 77, 239, 285 Fiawoo, D. K . , 89, 134
de Dardel. C . , 141, 189 Fiess, K., 172, 188
DeLaguna, G . A., 211, 229 Findlay, J. M . , 255, 281
DeMarinis, M., 64,81 Fischer, K., 38, 39, 43
Denney, D. R., 59, 77 Flavell, J . H . , 37, 43, 72, 78
Dennis, W . , 250, 281 Fodor, J . A., 144, 191
Desabie, M . , 86, 89, 134 Foellinger, D. B . , 62, 81
Deutsch, C., 59, 79 Folger, J. P., 213, 229
Deutsch, D., 46, 77 Forman, E., 36, 43
Deutsch, J. A , , 46, 77 Francis, W . N . , 169, 191
de Villiers, J . G . , 141, 189 Frank, L. K . , 276, 281
de Villiers, P. A , , 141, 189 Franks, J. J . , 177, 190
Dewey, J . , 269, 281 Fraser, C., 216, 229
Dezs6, G . , 86, 134 Freeman, P. K., 239, 285
Dickie, J., 207, 208, 229 Fremgen, A., 149, 151, 190
Dixon, D., 149, 194 French, L . A., 155, 156, 158, 184, 190
Dobosz-Latalska, 0.. 89, 133, 134 Freud, S., 261, 281
Dodd, D. H . , 148, 149, 186, 194 Friedman, W . J . , 155, 156, 159, 167, 171,
Donaldson, M . , 156, 157, 165, 166, 169, 178, 190, 194
180, 181, 189 Fromkin, V., 174, 190
Dore, J . , 209, 229 Fuchs, M . , 101, 135
Dover, A., 37, 44 Furth, H . G . , 73, 81
Dudzinski, D., 235, 237, 283 Fuson, K. C . , 205, 207, 208, 229
Duncan, E. M., 60, 78
Dunckley, C. J. L., 157, 169, 189
Durkin, M., 145, 149, 151, 185, 189 G
Dyck, L . , 208, 224, 231
Gallagher, T. M., 209, 210, 229
Galli, G . , 86, 135
E Garcia, R.. 5 , 43
Garcia-Almansa, A,, 88, 135
Egeland, B., 236, 284 Gamica, 0. K., 144, 157, 172, I89
Ehri, L. C . , 157, 169, 189 G a m y , C., 198, 199, 202, 203, 204, 205,
Eiben, 0..100, 134 209, 210, 21 1 , 229
Eilers, R. E., 157, 169, 190 Gelman, R . , 149, 190
Eisenstein, E . G . , 235, 281 Gentner, D., 147, 149, 153, 173, 176, 186,
Elkonin, D . B . , 211, 229 I90
Ellington, J . , 157, 169, 190 Gesell, A., 264, 282
Emerson, H . F., 172, 186, 190 Ginsberg, E. H . , 155, 190
Erismann, F., 85, 134 Girshick, M. A., 100, 108, 109, 112, 137
Ervin, S. M., 2 1 6 ~ 2 2 9 Glaser, R., 42, 43
Eveleth, P. B., 133, 134 Glegg, R. A., 85, 137
Gleitman, L. R., 222, 231
Glenn, C. G . , 60, 80
F Glucksberg, S., 55, 79, 150, 156, 166, 184,
185, 190, 192
Faust, M. S., 102. 134 Goddard, H. H . , 278, 282
Fay, D., 149, 151, 190 Godina, E . Z . , 92 136
290 Author Index
Goldberg, J., 62, 64, 77 Hofstadter, R., 265, 282

Goldfeld, A. Y.,88, 92, 98, 109, 118, 119, Holmes, 0. W., 247, 282
135 Hood, L., 172, 186, 188, 191, 201, 220, 222,
Goldin-Meadow, S., 149, 190 228
Goody, J., 235, 282 Hoogenraad, R., 161, 185, 190
Gordon, J. E., 133, 135 Hopwood, S . , 89, 135
Cove, F. L., 236, 284 Horton, M. S . , 143, 145, 186, 191
Graham, G. G . , 112, 135 Howard, D. V., 59, 78
Gray, W. O., 145, I94 Howard, J . H., 59, 78
Greenberg, J., 146, 148, 149, 151, 177, 179, Howe, C. I . , 149, 191
183. 190 Hultsch, D., 207, 231
Greenberg, M. T., 174, 192 Hunt, E. P., 100, 108, 109, 112, 137
Grieve, R., 161, 185, 190 Hunt, J. McV., 66, 78
Griffiths, J. A,, 157, 166, 167, 190 Hurlock, E. B . , 209, 210, 230
Grobbelaar, C. S., 96, 135 Huttenlocher, J., 149, 153, 191
Groos, K., 203, 210, 212, 229
Gruendel, J., 146, 148, 149, 151, 190, 193
Guillaume, P., 222, 230 I
Guzrnan, M. A., 133, 135
Imanbaev, S. I., 92, 135
Inhelder, B., 5 , 6, 43, 66, 78, 163, 183, 191,
H I93
Hagen, J . W . , 46, 78
Hale, C., 54, 78 J
Hale, G . A , , 46, 78
Hale, N. G., 272, 282 Jakobson, R., 230
Hall, G. S . , 249, 250, 252, 258, 260, 262, James, W., 261, 271, 282
265, 270, 282 Jaworski, Z., 90, 135
Hamill, P. V. V., 88, 93, 135 Jespersen, O., 208, 209, 210, 211, 230
Hantman, S. A,, 239, 285 Johansson, 9. S . , 171, 191
Hara, J . , 123, 138 Johnson, B., 209, 210, 211, 230
Harbaugh, B., 223, 230 Johnson, C. N., 174, 180, 191, 195
Hamer, L., 155, 156, 160, I90 Johnson, D. M., 145, 194
Hams, L. J., 156, 164, 165, 190 Johnson,H., 155, 156, 158, 184, 191, 209,
Harris, M., 85, 137 230
Hart, H. H., 242, 282 Johnson-Laird, P. N., 20, 44
Haviland, S . E., 144, 145, 146, 190 Johnston, F. E., 88, 89, 93, 135
Hay, A., 156, 166, 184, 185, 190 Johnston, I . R., 156, 164, 165, 191
Heidenheimer, P., 171, 19I Joncich, G., 268, 270, 282
Hemphill, W . , 89, 135 Jones, D. L.. 89, 135
Henri, C., 261, 282 Jongeward, R. H., 46, 78
Henri, V., 261, 282 Judd, C. H., 269, 282
Hewitt, M., 239, 240, 283
Hidi, S . E., 174, 191
Hiebert, E. H., 206, 207, 208, 230 K
Hildyard, A,, 174, 191
Himes, J. H . , 92, 108, 136 Kagan, J., 59, 78
Hirst, W . , 61, 78 Kahneman, D., 61, 72, 78
Hitch, G., 61, 77 Kail, R., 46, 54, 56, 59, 63, 72, 77, 78, 79,
Ho, V., 35, 43 80
Author lndex 29 I
Kaiser, A . , 141, 187 Lapitskii, F. G . , 92, 135

Kallman, C. H . , 112, 135 LaPointe, K., 167, 192
Kambara, T., 88, 135 Laros, C., 88, 138
Kaplan, B., 140, 195 Lash, T. W.. 235, 237, 282, 283
Karmiloff-Smith, A,, 141, 168, 191 Laska-Mierzejewska, T., 100, 136
Katz, J . J . , 144, 191 Lasky, R. E., 236, 283
Katz, M . B., 264, 282 Lasota, A , , 88, 138
Kavandugh, R. D., 155, 156, 157, 158, 159, Lawler, R . , 3, 39, 43, 66, 78
166, 184, 191 Lederberg, A . R . , 180, 191
Kay, D. A., 142, 149, 151, 191 Leehey. S. C.. 156, 164, 192
Keating, D. P., 61, 62, 64,79 Lehrer, A , , 150, 192
Keenan, E. O . , 200, 201, 205, 207, 209. 213, Lemeshow, S., 88, 93, 135
214, 224, 230 Leopold, W . , 2 10, 230
Kelin, E., 205, 207, 230 Leuba, J. H., 261, 283
Kellas, G . , 60, 78 Lewis, L., 33, 43
Keller-Cohen, D., 155, 156, 191 Lewis, M. M., 209, 210, 211, 212, 230
Kendler, T. S., 66, 78 Liebert. R . , 5, 44
Kett, J . F., 265, 273, 282 Lifter, K., 172, 188
Kim, N . I . , 92, 135 Lightbown, P. M., 201, 220, 222. 228
Kintsch, W., 52, 60, 78 Ling, J . , 99, 134
Kirschenblatt-Gimblett. B., 198, 230. 231 Litowitz, B., 147, 192
Klahr, D.. 46, 47, 53, 54, 63, 66, 68, 74, 75. Lloyd, B. B., 194
78 Loftus, E. F., SO, 52, 58. 77
Klatzky, R. L., 169, 191 Lomax, E. M. R . , 247, 283
Kleirnan, A. S . , 209, 230 Lopez, F. G . , 92, 108, 136
Klein, S., 149, 194 Lorenz, K . 2.. 48, 78
Kline, P. I . , 63, 66, 76 Losiak, B . , 89, 136
Kopczynskd, J., 90, 135 Lovell, H. G . , 92, 99, 134
Krawozynski, M., 96, 135 Lowenstein, F. W . , 93, 136
Kriesel, G., 99, 135 Lubove. R . , 270, 271, 283
Krishna, R . , 89, 134 Lui, F., 153, 191
Kucera, H., 169. 191 Lyman, S., 254, 284
Kuczaj, S . A . , 11, 143, 146, 148, 149, 151,
156, 164, 167, 171, 172, 177, 178, 179,
180. 183, 190. 191. 192, 200, 203, 205, M
208, 209, 217, 222, 223, 230
Kuhn, D.. 5, 6, 7, 35, 36, 37, 38. 39, 41, 43, Mabie, H. W., 262, 283
172, 186, 192 Macken, M., 169, 191
Kuklick, B., 264, 282 MacLean, W. C., Jr., 112. I35
Kurdek, L., 222, 231 MacNamara, J . , 159, 174, 192
Kurland, D. M.. 62, 64, 77 Macrae, A . J . , 157, 173, 192
Kuyp, E. van der, 88, 135 Malamud, W., 272, 283
Kwon. N . , 89, 135 Malan, M., 86, 136
Malina, R. M.. 92, 108, 136
Mandler, I. M., 59, 79
L Mangold, G. B., 239, 242, 243, 283
Manis, F. R . , 61, 62, 64, 79
Labov, W., 150, 192 Maratsos, M. P , 141, 143, 156, 164, 167,
Lachman. J. L.. 47, 78 171, 172, 173, 174. 178, 179, 180, 191.
Lachrnan, R . , 47, 78 192, 209, 222. 230
Lahey, M., 172, 188 Marcusson. H., 90, I36
292 Author Index
Markman, E. M., 143, 145, 186, I91 N

Marschark, M., 157, 169, 192
Marshall, E. L., 123, 136 Naremore, R. D., 156, 164, 195
Martin, W . J., 133, 137 Nashed. S . , 94, 137
Martlew, M., 206, 207, 208, 213, 230 Naus, M. J., 55, 56, 57, 79
Marvin, R. S . , 174, 192 Nayar, S., 89, 134
Maynard, M. J . , 266, 283 Neimark, E. D., 171, 192
McCall, R., 2, 43 Neisser, U.,46, 61, 67, 78, 79, 177, 192
McCarrell, N. S . , 177, 188 Nelson, J., 272, 283
McCleod, C., 206, 207, 208, 2 13, 230 Nelson, K., 59, 60, 79, 140, 145, 146, 147,
McCloskey, M., 150, 192 149, 152, 177, 179, 181, 182, 186, 192,
McGarrigle, J., 180, 189 193, 203, 231
McKigney, I . I . , 89, 135 Nemzer, M. P., 92, 135
McTear, M., 213, 230 Newell, A . , 46, 48, 49, 52, 53, 74, 75, 79
Mecham, F. A., 85, 133, 136 Neyzi, 0.. 94, 137
Melkman, R., 59, 79 Norman, D. A., 46, 52, 53. 79
Mellits, E. D., 112, 135
Mendelson, R., 5 , 4 4
Menyuk, P., 216, 230 0
Meredith, H. V., 83, 87, 90, 93, 94, 123,
136 O’Brien, R., 100, 108, 109, 112, 137, 174,
Merkova, A. M., 88, 92, 98, 109, 118, 119, 192
135 O’Connell, D. E., 93, 136
Mervis, C. B., 145, 149, 150, 151, 177, 192, O’Connell, J. P., 167, 192
194 O’Keefe, L., 156, 166, 168, 185, 195
Messenger, K. P., 239, 285 Olivieri, M. E., 156, 166, 168, 185, 195
Meyers, E. S. A,, 89, 135 Oller, D. K., 157, 169, 190
Miall, W. E., 99, 134 Olson, C. L . , 174, 192
Miklashevskaya, N. N., 92, 136 Ornstein, P. A . , 46, 5 5 , 56, 57, 79
Miller, G. A,, 177, 187, 192 Osborne, J . A., 88, 138
Miller, J. G . , 48, 79 O’Shea, M. V., 283
Miller, M., 209, 222, 230 Overton, W. F., 48, 67, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73,
Mims, M., 5 , 44 79, 80
Miscione, I. L., 174, 192
Mitchell, H. H., 94, 126, 137
Mitsuhashi, K., 123, 138 P
Moerk, C., 200, 230
Moerk, E. L., 200, 222, 230 Paivio, A., 50, 79
Moran, M., 181, 182, 192 Palacios, J. M., 88, 137
Morley, D. C., 133, 137 Palacios-Mateos, J. M., 88, 135
Morozova, T. V., 92, 137 Palermo, D. S . , 157, 161, 162, 166, 167,
Morrison, F. J., 61, 62, 64, 79 185, 193, 195
Moshman, D. S . , 20, 43 Palmer, S . E., 151, 193
Moss, H., 59, 78 Panek, S., 90, 92, 133, 137
Moulton, P. A,, 59, 77 Pani, J. R., 151, 192
Mulford, R., 151, 192 Parisi, D., 164, 193
Munsterberg, H., 261, 283 Parker, J. K., 270, 283
Murray, D., 161, 185, 190 Pascual-Leone, J., 39, 41, 43, 47, 62, 63, 65,
Mussen, P. H . , 46, 79 73, 79
Myers, N. A,, 181, 193 Patrick, G. T., 210, 231
Author Index 293
Payne, F. J . , 88, 138 Resnick, L. B., 56, 77

Pazak, B., 56, 77 Reynolds, P. C . , 21 I , 231
Pearce, J . , 5 , 44 Rezza, E., 86, 137
Peiper, E., 85, 137 Richards, D. D., 54, 80
Pellegrino, I . , 56, 59, 77, 78, 79 Richards, M. M., 157, 173, 177, 185, 194
Pefia-Gdmez, R. M., 94, 137 Richardson, B. D., 93, 137
Pepper, S . C., 73, 79 Riley, S. J., 64, 81
Perlmutter, M., 181, 186, 187, 193 Roberts, C., 85, 137
Peters, D., 207, 231 Robinson, C. A,, 59, 79
Peterson, J . , 278, 283 Roche, A. F., 102, 137
Petry, S., 181, 193 Rodd, L., 216, 231
Phelps, H., 172, 186, 192 Rodgon, M. M., 222, 231
Phillips, J. R., 184, 193 Romanes, G . J., 265, 283
Piaget, J., 5 , 6, 39, 43, 62, 69, 79, 142, 149, Rosch, E., 145, 149, 150, 177, 194
163, 167, 172, 177, 183, 191, 193, 200, Ross, D. G., 249, 256, 257, 258, 262, 270,
201. 204, 209, 210, 211, 214, 215, 222, 272, 273, 283
223, 231 Roth, R. E., 85, 137
Piasecki, E., 92, 133, 137 Rothman, D. J., 241, 242, 272, 283
Pinard, A,, 37, 43 Routil, R., 86, 137
Pinchbeck, I., 239, 240, 283 Rubin, K . H., 207, 208, 209, 224, 231
Pitt, R. B., 6, 44 Rumelhart, D. E., 53, 79
Platt, A , , 278, 283 Ryan, J., 214, 220, 231
Posner, M. I., 150, 179, 193 Ryan, M . L., 157, 167, 194
Postal, P. M., 144, 193
Powell, A. G., 256, 263, 266, 283
Powell, J. S . , 47, 53, 80 S
Prawat. R. S., 148, 149, 193
Prescott, P. S., 241, 283 Saint-Exupery, A., de, 233, 283
Preyer, W., 141, 193, 222, 231, 250, 283 Salthouse, T. A , , 63, 80
Pryor, H. B., 130, 137 Saltz, E., 59, 80, 149, 194
Putnam, A . H., 275, 283 Sanches, M . , 203, 231
Pytuk, N., 123, 138 Schallenberger, M. E., 261, 283
Schlossman, S. L., 275, 283
Schmidt, E., 85, 137
R Schneider, W., 64, 80
Schultze, L., 249, 283
Rabold, J . , 112, 135 Schurr, S. C . , 186, 194
Radtke, R. C., 157, 169, 189 Schweickert, R., 49, 80
Raj, L., 89. 134 Scollon, R., 200, 209, 210, 213, 215, 217,
Ramer, A,, 222, 231 222, 231
Rampal, L., 89, 137 Scrimshaw, N. S . , 133, 135
Reaves, C. C., 61, 78 Scripture, E. W . , 254, 284
Reed, S. K., 179, 193 Sears, R. R., 238, 271, 276, 284
Rees. N . , 213, 231 Seely, P. B., 145, 149, 151, 155, 156, 157,
Reese, H. W., 46, 47, 48, 69. 70, 72, 73, 79, 159, 166, 167, 168, 171, 178, 183, 185,
80, 153, 193 186, 189, 190, 194
Reich, P. A , , 149, 193 Segalowitz, S . J., 172, 186, I87
Rein, M . , 283 Seitz, S., 231
Rescorla, L. A,, 146, 148, 149, 151, 152, Seligman, M. E. P., 149, 190
179, 193 Sengul, C. J . , 141, 189
294 Author Index
Senn, M. J. E., 276, 284 Strommen, E. A., 156, 164, 165, 190
Shah, P. M., 89, 137 Swann, W. B., 20, 44
Shaklee, H., 5, 44 Szajner-Milart, I., 134
Shanfield, H., 5, 44
Shantz, C. A., 157, 166, 167, 190
Shaw, J. G . , 46. 48, 79 T
Sheldon, 249, 284
Shepard, R. N., 56, 57, 77 Takanishi, R., 276, 284
Shields, M. M., 209, 224, 231 Tanner, J. M., 133, 134
Shiffrin, R. M., 46, 64, 76, 80 Tanz, C., 141, 156, 164, 194
Shipley, E. F., 222, 231 Tarasov, L. A,, 92, 137
Shultz, T. R., 5, 37.43, 44 Taskar, A. D., 89, 134
Sidorova, V. S., 92, 135 Taylor, F. W., 245, 246, 284
Siegel, A. W., 59, 63, 67, 70, 72, 77, 80 Teitelbaum, P., 48, 67, 80
Siegel, I. E., 157, 166, 167, 190 Terman. L. W., 264, 284
Siegel, L. S., 157, 169, 194 Thelander, H. E., 130, 137
Siegler, R. S., 5, 37, 44, 47, 53, 54, 78, 80 Thomson, J . , 149, 188, 194
Sigal, H., 235, 237, 282, 283 Thorndike, E. L., 261, 265, 267, 268, 284
Sigel, I., 39, 44, 59, 78, 80 Tinder, P. A., 171, 194
Simon, H. A., 3, 38, 42, 44, 46, 48, 49, 52, Tivnan, T., 36, 44
53, 59, 64, 71, 75, 79, 80 Tomikawa, S. A , , 148, 149, 186, 194
Sinclair, H., 66, 78 Townsend, D. I . , 153, 157, 169, 194
Sjolin, B., 171, 191 Trabasso, T., 46, 62, 77, 81
Slobin, D. I., 143, 156, 164, 165, 191, 194, Tschirgi, J. E., 5, 6, 44
209, 213, 217, 218, 220, 231 Tseimlina, A. G., 88, 92. 98, 109, 118, 1 19,
Slotnick, N. S., 171, 192 135
Smelker, J., 89. 135 Tucker, D., 5, 44
Smilansky, S., 198, 231 Tucker, M. A., 255, 284
Smith, C. S., 22% 231 Tulving, E., 50, 81
Smith, M. D., 144, 194 Tuxford, A. W., 85, 137
Snow, C. E., 200, 220, 223, 231 Tyack, D. B., 239, 245, 264, 266, 284
Snyder, A. D., 201, 209, 210, 231 Tyler, S . , 60, 81
Snyder, M., 20, 44
Sokal. M., 263, 267, 284
Soller. E.. 59, 80 U
Solovieva, V. S . , 92, 136
Soragni, E., 86, 137 Udani, P. M., 89, 137
Spelke, E. S., 61, 78 Underwood, B. J . , 59, 76
Spencer, H., 265, 284
Spiro, D., 236, 283
Starbuck, E. D., 261, 284 V
Stein, N. L., 60, 80
Steiner, G. Y., 239, 284 Valaoras, V . , 88, 138
Stepick, C. D., 92, 108, 136 Valentine, C., 209, 212, 215, 222, 231, 232
Stern, C., 210, 211, 231 Vanderberg, €3.. 208, 232
Stern, W., 210, 211, 231 van Dijk, T. A , , 52, 60, 78
Sternberg, R. J., 47, 53, 75, 80 Van Liew, C. C., 260, 284
Sternberg, S., 49, 55, 63, 80 Vaughn, B. E., 236, 284
Stewart, C., 231 Verplanck, F. A., 244, 284
Stone, J. B., 157, 169, 170, 188 Villarejos, V. M., 88, 138
Author Index 295
Vinacke, W . E., 210, 232 Werner, H . , 67, 69, 81, 140, 195
Vivanco, F., 88, 137 White, G . J . , 172, 186, I87
Voss. J. F., 60, 81 White, S . H., 53, 69, 71. 73. 81. 239, 276,
Vygotsky, L. S . , 39, 44, 208, 21 I , 232 277. 283, 285
White, W . T . , Jr., 269, 285
Wilcox, S., 161, 162, 185, 195
W Wildfong, S., 148, 149, 193
Wilkinson, A. C., 64, 81
Waddington. C. H . , 63, 81 Willard, F. W . , 275, 285
Wales, R . J . , 156, 157, 165, 169, 189 Williams, L. A , , 272, 285
Walker, A. R. P., 98, 108, 109, 138 Wilson, L. N . , 259, 260, 285
Walker, B. F . , 98, 108, 109, 138 Windmiller, M . , 156, 164, 195
Wallace, J. G . , 46, 47, 63, 66, 68, 74, 75, 78 Winner, E., 148, 149, 195
Wallin, J . E. W . , 273, 284 Wohlwill, J . F., 72, 78
Wannamacher, J. T., 157, 166, 194 Wolanski. N . , 88. 123, 138
Warden, D. A , , 141, 185, 194 Wolman, R . N . , 147, 195
Washington, D. S . , 156, 164, 195 Woodland, M., 133, 137
Wason, P. C . , 20, 44 Wright, H . F., 239, 281
Watson, J. B . , 247, 284
Watson, R . R , 247, 284
Watt, I . , 235, 282 Y
Webb, P. A . , 141, 195
Webb, R. A., 156, 166, 168, 171, 180, 185, YalGindag, A , , 94, 137
I95 Yamada, K . , 123, I38
Weeks, T. E . , 203, 210, 232 Yoshimura, I . , 117, 138
Weiner, S. L., 157, 167, 195 Youniss, J . , 73, 81
Weir, R. H . , 201, 202. 206, 208, 210, 215,
223, 224. 232
Weisz, J. R., 236, 285 2
Wellman, H . M . , 174, 180, iYI. 195
Welsh, C., 143. 194 Zivin, G . , 207, 232
SUBJECT INDEX
A limb size in, 123-126

trunk size in, 123-126
Abstract properties, word meaning acquisition late
and, 181-183 body weight in, 105-108
Adolescence standing height in, 86-94
chest girth in, 119-123 Child study movement, 233-285
early as academic link to education, 262-264
body weight in, 109-112 child in texts and symbols and, 234-238
standing height in, 94-99 child saving and early social work and,
head size in, 126-130 269-27 1
late establishment of clinical psychology and,
body weight in, 112-114 271-273
standing height in, 99-102 motives and needs for, 276-280
limb size in, 126-130 parent education and, 273-276
trunk size in, 126-130 as scientific pedagogy, 264-269
Asylums, child study movement and, 241-242 as scientific psychology, 249-262
Attention, information processing and cogni- social context of, 238-248
tive development and, 60-62, 63-65 juvenile courts, asylums, reform schools,
and industrial schools, 241-242
leaving workplace and, 243-244
B
milk stations and depots, homes for blind,
Body weight, 83-85 deaf, crippled, diseased, and feeble-
in early adolescence, 109- I I2 minded, 242-243
during 1870-1915, 85-86 orphanages and foster homes, 240-241
public interest and, 239-240
growth rate and, 114-117
school and, 244-248
in late adolescence, 112-1 14
Cognitive development
in late childhood, 105-108
information processing and, 45-8 I
attentional resources and, 60-62, 63-65
L comparison of critical presuppositions
and, 69-73
Chest girth core constructs and, 49-52
in adolescence, 1 19- 123 development of knowledge base and,
in late childhood, 117-1 19 53-60
Childhood knowledge-modification process and,
chest girth in, 117-1 19 65-66
head size in, 123-126 pretheoretical assumptions and, 48-49
297
298 Subject Index
Cognitive development (cont.) I

task specificity and, 73-75
Imitation, in language play, 199-202
transitional system, 66-68
developmental trends in, 209, 212-223
Comprehension, word meaning acquisition
Industrial schools, child study movement and,
and, 142-143
241-242
Conceptual complexity, word meaning acquisi
Inference strategies, 15- 17
tion and, 183-184
Information processing, cognitive development
Conjunctions, logical, meaning acquisition
and, 45-81
and, 171-172
attentional resources and, 60-62, 63-65
Context
comparison of critical presuppositions and,
social
69-73
of child study movement, see Child study
core constructs and, 49-52
movement
development of knowledge base and, 53-60
language play and, 204-209
knowledge-modification process and, 65-66
word meaning acquisition and, 183-184
pretheoretical assumptions and, 48-49
Courts, child study movement and, 241-242
task specificity and, 73-75
transitional system, 66-68
E
Education, child study movement and, J
262-264
Juvenile courts, child study movement and,
Experimentation strategies, 14-15
241-242
F L
Foster homes, child study movement and,
240-24 1 Language play, 197-232
Functional core hypothesis, word meaning ac- aspects of language in, 226
quisition and, nominal words and, behaviors most likely to occur in, 226
145-146 content of, 202-209
aspects of language and, 202-204
social context and, 204-209
G developmental trends in, 209-226. 227
Growth rate imitationhepetition, 209, 212-223
body weight and, 114-1 17 modifications, 210, 223-225
standing height and, 102-105 language practice and, 198-199
research directions in, 227-228
types of, 199-202
H imitationhodification combinations,
Handicapped children, homes for. child study 20 1-202
movement and, 242-243 imitation/repetition, 199-201
Head size, 83-85 modifications, 201
in adolescence, 126- 130 types of behavior constituting, 225
in childhood, 123-126 Limb size, 83-85
Height, 83-85 in adolescence, 126-130
in early adolescence, 94-99 in childhood, 123-126
during 1870-1915, 85-86
growth rate and, 102-105 M
in late adolescence, 99-102
in late childhood, 86-94 Milk stations, child study movement and,
Hypothesis strategies, 12-14 242-243
Subject Index 299
0 Social work, early, child study movement and,

269-27 1
Orphanages, child study movenient and,
Spatial words, meaning acquisition and,
240-24 I
160-165
T
P
Task specificity, information processing and
Parent education, child study movement and,
cognitive development and, 73-75
273-276 Temporal words, meaning acquisition and,
Polysemy, word meaning acquisition and, 185 154-160
Problem-solving strategies, 1-44 Trunk size, 83-85
change and
in adolescence, 126- 130
patterns of, 24-29 in childhood, 123-126
prediction of, 29-31
discussion and conclusions, 36-42
V
invalid
power and persistence of, 18-24 Verbs, meaning acquisition and, 172- 175
recurrence of, 31-32
method for, 4-8 W
initial subjects and, 7
Word meaning acquisition, 139- 195
problem selection and, 4-7
approaches to study of, 142-143
procedure for, 7-8
comprehension and, 142- 143
rationale underlying method and, 2-4
elicited production and, 143
replication and variation and, 32-36
spontaneous production and, 141-142
strategy analysis and, 9- 12
training studies, 143
experimentation strategies, 14- 15
nominal words and, 143-152
hypothesis strategies, 12- 14
empirical tests of predictions, 146- 149
inference strategies, 15-17
functional core hypothesis, 145-146
new paradigm of reference, 150-152
R semantic feature hypothesis, 143- 145
Referential properties, word meaning acquisi- relational and dimensional words and,
tion and, 178-181 153-175
Reform schools, child study movement and, logical conjunctions. 171-172
241-242 similarity relations words, 165- 168
Repetition, in language play, 199-201 size words, 168-171
developmental trends in, 209, 212-223 spatial words, 160- 165
temporal words, 154- 160
s verbs, 172- I75
research directions and, 184- 187
Schools, child study movement and, 244-248 context and frequency of use and,
Semantic feature hypothesis, word meaning 186-187
acquisition and performance factors and, 184- 185
nominal words and, 143-145 variable meanings and. 185
theory and, 175-178 theory and, 175-184
Similarity words, meaning acquisition and, abstract properties and, 181-183
165-168 conceptual complexity, relative frequency,
Size words, meaning acquisition and, 168- 171 and contexts of use and, 183- 184
Social context referential properties and, 178- 181
of child study movement. see Child study semantic feature hypothesis and, 175- 178
movement Workplace, children leaving, child study
language play and, 204-209 movement and, 243-244
Contents of Previous Volumes
Volume I Selected Anatomic Vanables Analyzed for lnterage Re-

lationships of the Size-Size. Size-Gun, and Giun-Gan
Responses of Infants and Children to Complex and Vaneties
Novel Stimulation Howard V Meredith
Gordon N Canfor
Word Associations and Children’s Verbal Behavior AUTHOR INDEXSUBJECT INDEX
David S Palermo
Change in the Stature and Body Weight of North
Amencan Boys dunng the Last 80 Years Volume 3
Howard V Meredith
Discnmination Learning Set in Children Infant Sucking Behavior and Its Modification
Havne W Reese Herbert Kaye
Learning in the First Year of Life The Study of Brain Electncal Activity in Infants
LeWlS P Llpsltl Robert J Ellingson
Some Methodological Contributions from a Functional Selective Auditory Anention in Children
Analysis of Child Development Eleanor E Ma(cob>
Sidne) W BIJOUand Donald M Boer Stimulus Definition and Choice
The Hypothesis of Stimulus Interaction and an Explana- Michael D Zeikr
tion of Stimulus Compounding Experimental Analysis of Inferential Behavior i n Chil-
Charfes C Spiker dren
The Development of “Overconstancy” i n Space Per- T r a o S Kendler and Howard H Kendler
ception Perceptual Integration in Children
Jwchim f‘. Wohlwill Herbert L Pick. Jr . Anne D Pi1 k o d Roberf E
Miniature Expenments i n the Discnmination Learning Klern
of Retardates Component Process Latencies in Reaction Times of
Betty J House and Dovrd Zeamnn Children and Adults
Raymond H Hohle
AUTHOR INDEX-SUBJECT INDEX
Volume 2
Volume 4
The Pared-Associates Method in the Study of Conflict
Alfred Costaneda Developmental Studies of Figurative Perception
Transfer of Stimulus Retraining to Motor Paired- David Elkind
Associate and Discnmination Learning Tasks The Relations of Short-Term Memory to Development
J w n H Canfor and Intelligence
The Role of the Distance Receptors in the Development John M . Belmont and Earl C Burterjield
of Social Responsiveness Leaning, Developmental Research. and Individual
Richard H Walfers and Ross D Parke Differences
Social Reinforcement of Children’s Behavior Frances Degen Horowirz
Harold W Stevenson Psychophysiological Studies in Newborn Infants
Delayed Reinforcement Effects S. 1.Hurt, H . G. L e w d . and H . F . R. Prechd
Glenn Terrell Development of the Sensory Analyzers during Infancy
A Developmental Approach to Learning and Cognition Yvonne Brackbill and Hiram E. Fifzgerald
Eugene S Gollin The h b l c m of Imitation
Evidence for a Hierarchical Arrangement of Learning Justin Aronfieed
Rocesses
Sheldon H White AUTHOR INDEX-SUBJECT INDEX
301
302 Contents of Previous Volumes
Volume 5 Volume 8
The Development of Human Fetal Activity and Its Rela- Elaboration and Learning in Childhood and Adoles-
tion to Postnatal Behavior cence
Tryphena Humphrey William D. Rohwer, Jr.
A r o d Systems and Infant Heart Rate Responses Exploratory Behavior and Human Development
Frances K. Graham and Jan C. Jackson Jwn C. Nwnally and L. Charles Lemond
Specific and Divemive Exploration Operant Conditioning of Infant Behavior: A Review
Corinne Hut Roben C. Hubebus
Developmental Studies of Mediated Memory Birth Order and Parental Experience in Monkeys and
John H. Flavell Man
Development and Choice Behavior in Probabilisticand G. Mitchell and L. Schroers
Problem-Solving Tasks Fear of the Stranger: A Critical Exmination
L. R. Goukt and Kathryn S.Gwhvin Harriet L. Rheingold and Carol 0.Eckerman
Applications of HuU-Spence Theory to the Transfer of
AUTHOR INOEXSUBJECT INDEX Discrimination Learning in Children
Charles C. Spiker and Joan H. Cantor
Volume 6 AUTHOR INDEX-SUBJECT INDEX
Incentives and Learning in Children
Sam L. Witryol
Habituation in the Human Infant Volume 9
Wendell E. Je&y and Leslie B. Cohen
Application of HuU-Spence Theory to the Discrimina- Children's Discrimination Learning Based on Identity
tion Learning of Children or Difference
Charles C. Spiker Betty J . House, Ann L. Brown, and Marcia S.Scott
Growth in Body Size: A Compendium of Findings on Two Aspects of Experience in Ontogeny: Development
Contemporary Children Living in Different Parts of the and Learning
World Hans G. Furth
Howard V . Meredith The Effects of Contextual Changes and Degree of
Imitation and Language Development Component Mastery on Transfer of Training
James A . Sherman Joseph C. Campione and Ann L. Brown
Conditional Responding as a Paradigm for Observa- Psychophysiological Functioning. Arousal. Attention.
tional, Imitative Learning and Vicarious-Reinforcement and Learning during the First Year of Life
Jacob L. Gewirtz Richard Hirschman and Edward S.Katkin
AUTHOR INDEX-SUBJECT INDEX Self-Reinforcement Processes in Children
John C. Masters and Janice R. Mokros
Volume 7 AJTHOR INDEX4UBJECT INDEX
Superstitious Behavior in Children: An Experimental

Analysis Volume 10
Michael D . Zeiler
Learning Strategies in Children from Different
Socioeconomic Levels Current Trends in Developmental Psychology
Jean L. Bresnahan and Manin M. Shapiro Boyd R. McCandless and Mary Fukher Geis
Time and Change in the Development of the Individual The Development of Spatial Representations of Large-
and Society Scale Environments
Klaus F . Riegel Akxander W. Siege1 and Sheldon H. White
The Nature and Development of Early Number Con- Cognitive Perspectives on the Development of Memory
John W . Hagen. Robert H . Jongeward. Jr.. and
cepcs
Roche1 Gelman Roben V . Kail, Jr.
k i n g and Adaptation in Infancy: A Comparison of The Development of Memory: Knowing, Knowing
Models About Knowing, and Knowing How to Know
Arnold J. Sameroff Ann L. Brown
Developmental Trends in Visual Scanning
AUTHOR MDEX-SUBJECI' INDEX Mary Carol Day
Contents of Previous V o l u m e s 303
The Development of Selective Attention: From Percep- Developmental Memory Theories: Baldwin and Piaget
tual Exploration to Logical Search Bruce M. Ross and Stephen M. Kerst
John C . Wright and Alice G . Vlietstra Child Discipline and thc Pursuit of Self: An Historical
Interpretation
AUTHOR INDEX4UBJECT INDEX Howard G d i n
Development of Time Concepts in Chitdren
William J . Friedman
Volume 11
The Hyperactive Child: Characteristics,Tnatment, and
Evaluation of Research Design
Gladys B. Baxky and Judith M. LeBlanc Volume 13
P e r i p h d and Nemhcmical Parallels of Psycho-
Coding of Spatial and Temporal Information in
pathology: A Psychophysiological Model Relating
Autonomic Imbalance to Hyperactivity, Psycho- Episodic Memory
pathy, and Autism Daniel 8 . Berch
A Developmental Model of Human Lesnling
Stephen W . Porges
Constructing Cognitive Operations Linguistically Barry Gholson and Harry Beilin
The Development of Discrimination Laming: A
Harry Beilin
Lcvels-of-Functioning Explanation
Operant Acquisition of Social Behaviors in Infancy:
Tracy S. Kendler
Basic Roblems and Constraints
The Kendler Lcvels-of-FunctioningTheory: Comments
W . Stuart Millar
and an Alternative Schema
Mother-Infant Interaction and Its Study
Charles C . Spiker and Joan H . Cantor
Jacob L . Gewirtz and Elizabeth F . Boyd
Commentary on Kendla's Paper: An Alternative
Symposium on Implications of Life-Span Developmen-
Perspcctive
tal Psychology for Child Development: Introductory
Barry Gholson and Therese Schuepfer
Remarks
Reply to Commentaries
Paul B. Baltes
Tracy S. Kendler
Theory and Method in Life-Span Developmental Psy-
On the Development of Spccch Perception: Mech-
chology: Implications for Child Development
anisms and Analogies
Aletha Huston-Sfein and Paul 8 . Balfes
Perer D . Eimns and Vivien C . Tamer
The Development of Memory: Life-Span Perspectives
The Economics of Infancy: A Review of Conjugate
Hayne W . Reese
Reinforcement
Cognitive Changes during the Adult Years: Implica-
Carolyn Kent Rovee-Collier and Marcy 1. Gekoski
tions for Developmental Theory and Research
Human Facial Expressions in Response to Taste and
Nancy W . Denney and John C . Wright
Smell Stimulation
Social Cognition and Life-Span Approaches to the
Jacob E. Sfeiner
Study of Child Development
Michael 1. Chandler AUTHOR INDEX4UBJECT INDEX
Life-Span Development of the Theory of Oneself Im-
plications for Child Development
Orville G.Brim. Jr. Volume 14
Implications of Life-Span Developmental Psychology Development of Visual Memory in Infants
for Childhood Education John S. Werner and Marion Perlmutter
Leo Montada and Signm-Heide Filipp Sibship-Constellation Effects on Psychosocial De-
AUTHOR INDEX-SUBJECT INDEX velopment, Creativity. and Health
Mazie Earle Wagner. Herman 1. P. Schubert, and
Daniel S. P . Schuben
Volume 12 The Development of Understanding of the Spatial
Terms Front and Back
Rescarch between 1960 and 1970 on the Standing Luuren Juliuc Hamis and Ellen A . Strommen
Height of Young Children in Different Parts of the The Organization and Control of Infant Sucking
World C . K. Crook
Howard V . Meredith Neurological Plasticity, Recovery from Brain Insult,
The Representation of Children's Knowledge and Child Development
David Klahr and Roben S. Siegler Ian St. James-Roberts
Chromatic Vision in Infancy
Marc H . Bornstein AUTHOR INDEX-SUBJECT INDEX
304 Contents of Previous Volumes
Volume 15 Social Baser of Language Development: A

Visual Development in Ontogenesis: Some Reevalua- Reassessment
tions Elirubefh Butes. lnRe Brrrherron. Murjorie BeeRhlv
Jiiri Allik and Juan Valsiner Smith. und Sundru McNew
Binocular Vision in Infants: A Review and a Theoreti- Perceptual Anisotrophies in Infancy: Ontogenetic
cal Framework Origins and Implications of Inequalities in Spatial
Richard N. A s h and Susan T. Dumais Vibion
Validating Theories of Intelligence Marc H . Bornsfrift
Eurl C. Bufferfield, Dennis Siladi, and John M. Bel- Concept Development
mom Murfhu J. Furuh und Strpherr M. K o s s l w
Cognitive Differentiation and Developmental Learning Production and Perception o l Facial Expressions in In-
William Fowler
fmcy and Early Childhood
Children’s Clinical Syndromes and Generalized Expec- Tiffariy M . Field und Tedru A . Wulden
tations of Control Individual Differences in Infant Sociability: Their Ori-
Fred Rofhbaum
gins and Implications for Cognitive Development
Mic,hueI E . Lumh
The Development of Numerical Undersldndings
Volume 16 Roherr S. Siegler ond Mirc~hdlRobinson
The History o l the Boyd R. McCandless Young Scien-

tist Awards: The First Recipients AUTHOR INDEX-SUBJECT INDEX
David S. Palermo

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ADVANCES

United Kingdom Edition published by

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .......... vii

The Development of Problem-Solving Strategies

Information Processing and Cognitive Development

Research between 1950 and 1980 on Urban-Rural Differences in Body

Word Meaning Acquisition in Young Children:

Language Play and Language Acquisition

The Child Study Movement: Early Growth and Development of the

Author Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287

Subject Index ............................................................... 297

Contents of Previous Volumes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 1

'Present address: Program in Developmental Psychology, Teachers College, Columbia Univer-

I . INTRODUCTION AND RATIONALE UNDERLYING THE METHOD 2

111. STRATEGY ANALYSIS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

V REPLlCATlON AND VARIATIONS. 32

VI DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

ADVANCES IN CHILD DEVELOPMENT Copyright 0 1982 by Academic Press. Inc.

I. Introduction and Rationale Underlying the

If observation is to be limited to a single problem-solving situation, consider-

The problem we chose is one of causal attribution, more specifically the

everyday lives. As we experimented with different kinds of problems, however,

elements in the outcome-producing combination in isolation, to assess its indi-

111. Strategy Analysis

As a prerequisite to examining patterns of change over the series of problem-

Hypothesis Experimentation Inference

Pseudohypothesis Pseudoexperimentation Invalid inference

one another. An obvious question, then, is whether it is warranted to define

Hypothesis strategies are summarized in the first column of Table I. Hypoth-

Hypothesis E3 + E2 i Other 6 of all

OE2 in combination with E3, E4, or E5.

H3 was readily differentiated from H5 (not shown in Table I) used by some

Experimentation strategies are summarized in the middle column of Table I.

Inference strategies are summarized in the right-hand column of Table I . A

“Number of sessions is shown in parentheses

A . THE POWER AND PERSISTENCE OF INVALID STRATEGIES

"Subject's sex is shown in parentheses.

The following mixtures were constructed: BC+ and D.

The following mixtures were constructed: CDF+ and BEF+ .

SlO’s insight in session 1 regarding the limitations of her experimentation

The following mixtures were constructed: BEF+, BDF, and ECD+ .

The following mixtures were constructed: F+ , DE, and FDC+.

As Table IV further indicates, however, some subjects did eventually master

instance (S12-5), once the H4-E5-18 pattern appeared, it began to be used

The following mixtures were constructed: CB+ and DB.

Session 5 was as follows:

S5-5 (BCD and DEF, F effective): E and F (?) Just a guess

The following mixtures were constructed: F E + , FD+, DF+ and BE.

The following mixtures were constructed: BEF+, EF+, and DEF+

( . . . find out . . . ?) If D had anything to do with it . . . . ( S adds mixing liq-

53-3 (BCD and DEF. B effective): B, C. and D. . . . It might be B or C that does i t

The following mixture was constructed: BD+

( . . . find out . . . ?) If B or C has anything to do with it. . , . (Sadds mixing liquid) , . . So

The following mixture was constructed: D

As in session 1 , the failure of an advanced experimentation strategy to yield an

Like S3, S9 on one occasion showed the same inappropriate use of E4 to

Occasionally, the I3 strategy was so overpowering that it completely elimi-

S7-3 (BCD and DEF, B effective): B and C, I think.

Session 1-3 reflects the combination of an advanced experimentation and in-

Comparison of SI-3 and SI-4 suggests that the power, or compellingness, of

We come. then, to the question of what, if anything, differentiated the perfor-

D. RECURRENCE OF INVALID STRATEGIES