Patterns of Conservation Acquisition and the Relationship of Conservation to Intelligence for Children of Low Income

The acquisition pattern of conservation tasks of the Concept Assessment Kit—Conservation (Kit) and its relationship to intelligence was determined for 105 children, ages 6 to 8 yr., from low-income backgrounds. The acquisition pattern of these children was similar to that demonstrated by the standardization sample of the Concept Assessment Kit—Conservation. The comparison of interrelationships of tasks, intelligence and age of the subjects and children of middle income indicated less differentiation in task performance between tasks for the low-income sample. Conservation performance correlated significantly and positively with age and with 1Q; for older children only, conservation performance was related within age to IQ.

Conservation and formal thought disorder in schizophrenic and schizotypal children

We studied the conservation scores of 21 schizophrenic and schizotypal children (aged 6;7–12;5 years) and 21 yoked normal mental age matches and their relationship to the Kiddie Formal Thought Disorder Scale measures. Like the normal children, the schizophrenic/schizotypal subjects were able to recognize the invariance of two dimensional space, number, and substance, but not of weight. Unlike the normal children, the schizophrenic/schizotypal children were poor conservers of continuous and discontinuous matter, and this was related to their illogical thinking scores. Age and IQ accounted for the conservation competence of the normal children. The conservation skills of the patients, however, were associated with the severity of their formal thought disorder scores, not with their age or IQ. The developmental approach employed in this study enabled further clarification of the cognitive parameters of formal thought disorder in middle childhood. We discuss the developmental, clinical, and possible information processing implications of these findings.

Development of conservation and academic achievement in learning disabled children

To investigate learning disabled children's development of conservation concepts and its relationship with academic achievement 24 normal and 23 learning disabled children were individually administered the Concept Assessment Kit-Conservation, the Peabody Individual Achievement Test, and the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test. Analysis indicated that learning disabled children showed slower development in acquisition of conservation concepts than their normal peers. Age affected conservation development of learning disabled children. Correlations were moderate to high for conservation concepts with reading and mathematics achievement in learning disabled children. Educational implications of the findings were discussed.

Prediction of later cognitive behavior from early school perceptual-motor, perceptual, and cognitive performances

Multiple regression equations were generated to predict cognitive achievement for 189 young children (ages 57 to 92 mo.) 1 yr. after original administration of a battery of perceptual-motor, perceptual, and cognitive tests. Regression equations generated from maximum R2 improvement techniques indicated that a battery of perceptual and perceptual-motor performances at pre-kindergarten is useful for prediction of cognitive performance 1 yr. later at kindergarten level. This battery included one fine and two gross perceptual-motor tasks, and one visual and two auditory perceptual tasks. Inclusion of original cognitive performances did not improve the optimal prediction equation for this age group. In contrast, cognitive achievement at first grade and, particularly, at second grade levels was best predicted from knowledge of earlier cognitive performances.