Development without learning?

Investigated A. Karmiloff-Smith's (e.g., 1992) ideas about the cognitive processes underlying the development of the ability to balance beams on a fulcrum. 48 children were pretested to determine if they were at the procedural or metaprocedural phase of understanding balance beam tasks. Then they were given a computer task where they received feedback or feedback was absent, followed by posttests with physical balance beams. The same posttests were given to all Ss 2-6 days later. For Ss at the procedural level of understanding, the mean age in the feedback condition was 4.76 yrs and for the no-feedback condition 4.38 yrs; for Ss at the metaprocedural level, the mean ages were 7.0 yrs and 7.14 yrs, respectively. Karmiloff-Smith suggests that at certain phases of development, children may largely ignore the information from feedback and development will occur due to internal cognitive reorganization. Results provide limited support for this view. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2007 APA, all rights reserved).