MacWhinney (1978) presented a computational model of the acquisition of morphophonology. The present chapter attempts to extend the model presented in that earlier paper to the acquisition of word-order patterns. This extension is supported by an examination of the previous research on syntactic acquisition. In the final section of the chapter, further possible extensions to phonology and semantics are considered. The crucial claim underlying the basic approach to both morphophonology and syntax is that use of a given rule system is governed by a system of alternative strategies. Within such a multileveled model, alternative strategies can be compared in terms of their relative complexity. In the present chapter, these alternative strategies are evaluated through application of the following analytic technique: 1. A relatively simple strategy that can account for at least some of the observed data is presented. 2. It is shown that there are at least some data that are best explained by this strategy. 3. It is shown that, at some point in development, the child produces forms that cannot be explained by this simple strategy alone. 4. A strategy of somewhat greater complexity and power is introduced and it is shown that this strategy can account for at least some of the data not explained by the simpler (and weaker) strategy. This line of argumentation proceeds until evidence has been presented for six alternative strategies in word-order processing.

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People feel they understand complex phenomena with far greater precision, coherence, and depth than they really do; they are subject to an illusion—an illusion of explanatory depth. The illusion is far stronger for explanatory knowledge than many other kinds of knowledge, such as that for facts, procedures or narratives. The illusion for explanatory knowledge is most robust where the environment supports real-time explanations with visible mechanisms. We demonstrate the illusion of depth with explanatory knowledge in Studies 1–6. Then we show differences in overconfidence about knowledge across different knowledge domains in Studies 7–10. Finally, we explore the mechanisms behind the initial confidence and behind overconfidence in Studies 11 and 12, and discuss the implications of our findings for the roles of intuitive theories in concepts and cognition.

The present study explored how students' mental representations of an expository text and the inferences they generate vary as a function of text difficulty and of differences in the task. Ninety-six students from Grades 4, 10, and College were asked to write summaries of an expository text and then to answer orally several probe questions about the content. Reading difficulty was systematically manipulated at the microstructure and macrostructure processing levels. The results supported the prediction of qualitative changes in the way the meaning is represented by different age groups in different text conditions.

This investigation sought to determine the role of cognitive word knowledge in metacognitive development. Subjects were fifth graders, seventh graders, tenth graders, and college undergraduates. Each sub- ject completed a Likert scale self-report that measured the frequency of their metacognitive strategy use and a multiple-choice test that measured their cognitive word knowledge. Achievement percentiles were then collected from the subjects records. Metacognitive strategies representing the production of external strategies were found to decrease with age (e.g., metacognitive strategies representing internal processing increased with age (e.g., Only the metacognitive strategies assessing more internal processing were significantly related to standard&d verbal and quantitative achievement percentiles. Finally, cognitive word knowledge, ex- plained a significant amount of variance in metacognition total for seventh and tenth graders, and undergraduates, but in tenth graders only when metacognition was par- tialled for verbal achievement percentiles. Cognitive words such as think and know are a subdivisionof the internal state lexicon (Hall & Nagy, 1986) and may be central to accessing, monitoring, and transforming our internal states (Scholmck & Hall, 1991). Cognitive words may enable people to understand and interrelate various aspects of their mental functioning (Scholnick & Hall, 1991). Cognitive words may provide a medium that makes it possible to engage in metacognition, that is, to generate goals for reading, communicate the intended meaning of a text, or evaluate one's level of understanding. Similarly, cognitive words may equip the reader with a vehicle by which to evaluate comprehension strategies critically or to consciously reflect...

Two experiments explored the communicative bases of preschoolers ’ object appearance–reality (AR) errors. In Experiment 1, 3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds (N 5 36) completed the AR test (with high- and low-deceptive objects), a control test with the same discourse structure but nondeceptive stimuli, and stimulus naming and memory tests. AR performance correlated positively with control (discourse) and naming test performance. Object deceptiveness had little effect. In Experiment 2, 3- and 4-year-olds (N 5 64) completed AR tests that experimentally varied question phrasing and use of exemplar objects. Children also completed memory, vocabulary, and control tests (of verbal perseveration). AR performance variance was predicted by a composite perseveration score from three non-AR tasks, vocabulary, and exemplars. The results indicate that the discourse structure of the AR test elicits a perseverative tendency that is mediated by children’s verbal knowledge. Adults in modern societies are accustomed to illusion. Our surroundings feature disembodied voices floating from stereo speakers, colored light on TV screens showing fantastic creatures and events, refrigerator magnets resembling juicy victuals or cute animals, and magic tricks that transform ordinary objects. Adults are entertained but not fooled by such phenomena; it is less clear how young children understand them. What are the sources of children’s erroneous answers to questions about apparent and real aspects of deceptive objectsFitems that look like one thing but function like another? Such errors often are assumed to stem from an inability to represent two concepts at once, or an inability to represent one’s own changing beliefs about an object’s identity. We explore an alternative account: Children’s errors might be due to specific communicative and linguistic processes. By this account, mature responses to questions about

The critical thinking movement, it is suggested, has much to gain from conceptualizing its subject matter in a developmental frame-work. Most instructional programs designed to teach critical thinking do not draw on contemporary empirical research in cog-nitive development as a potential resource. The developmental model of critical thinking outlined here derives from contemporary empirical research on directions and processes of intellectual de-velopment in children and adolescents. It identifies three forms of second-order cognition (meta-knowing)--metacognitive, metas-trategic, and epistemological--that constitute an essential part of what develops cognitively to make critical thinking possible. E Educational Researcher, Vol. 28, No. 2, pp. 16-26, 46 nthusiasm for critical thinking as a goal of education shows no signs of waning. Pluralist conceptions of

this report is to present a partial explanation of the failure to detect a contradiction in terms of the Construction-Integration (C-I) model of text comprehension (Kintsch, 1988)

Asking questions is a vital part of information seeking: it begs an answer, it allows for modification in response to findings, it aids in comprehension, it fosters self-regulation, and it invites conversation. The skill of posing questions throughout the information-seeing process is often under-valued and under-taught. To ask quality, higher-level questions requires explicit instruction. Moreover, such instruction needs to take into account age-appropriate developmental processes. This paper examines the questioning behavior of youth, confronts the issue of question locus of control, and offers guidance in helping youth develop effective question strategies for comprehending information and questioning authority. 1

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