A comparison of the geometric reasoning of students attending Israeli ultraorthodox and mainstream schools.

Effects of schooling on a geometric misconception were examined by comparing the performance of Israeli students attending ultraorthodox schools with that of peers attending mainstream schools. These groups were of special interest because both value education highly and send essentially all children to school, but I group receives extensive instruction in mathematics and science and the other receives almost none. Despite the ultraorthodox 12- to 14-year-olds' having received no instruction in geometry, they more often solved the geometric misconception problems than did mainstream peers who had received extensive instruction in the subject. Mainstream 16- to 18-year-olds did somewhat better on the misconception task than did orthodox age peers, but even there, the advantage of the mainstream students was limited to those exposed to the most advanced mathematics curriculum. How mainstream and orthodox schooling may have contributed to these findings is discussed.

Cognitive modifiability of adolescents with schizophrenia: a research note.

It is well documented that schizophrenic patients suffer from numerous cognitive defects. In a preliminary investigation, the Learning Potential Assessment Device was used under controlled conditions to examine the cognitive modifiability of institutionalized adolescent schizophrenics (N = 12) and a contrast group of adolescents with severe conduct disorders (N = 10). Feuerstein's theory of structural cognitive modifiability was thus applied in assessing potential for change. Results are encouraging in that there was evidence of the modifiability of the experimental subgroups of both the schizophrenic and conduct disorder groups.

Development of time quantification: integration and nonintegration of beginnings and endings in comparing durations.

This study investigated how children handle time information when deducing durations of events. In an elaboration of the commonly used choice paradigm to study children's time concepts, pairs of durations were presented in a 4 beginning lags X 4 ending lags design in 2 different problem series. Children's task was to equalize the durations of the 2 events by restarting 1 event for a certain time. The normative rule, quantification of duration differences in beginnings and endings and their integration by addition or subtraction, began to predominate at the age of 10 years and was the only rule employed by 13-year-olds. In contrast, almost all 7-year-olds simplified the task to an ordinal level. 4 different nonalgebraic rules were identified, each placing more importance on endings than on beginnings. Neither young children's tendency to simplify nor older children's capacity to quantify could be detected in previous studies, because they investigated time concepts on an ordinal level only. In light of the present findings, previous notions on the development of time concepts in children have to be reevaluated.