1997 Volume 34 Issue 4 Pages 19-30
This study was aimed at examining not only the development of problem-solving via manipulation, looking behavior, and utterances toward an experimenter, but also the development of planning according to the modification or addition of another person as a factor in the Planning System Model (Maruno, 1985), composed of metacognitive, operative, and functional levels. The sample included twenty 2-, 3-, 4-, and 5-year-old children without retardation, and 10 children with retardation matched on MA (CAs 6.5 to 11.9 years). Each child was asked, in the presence of a model, to compose 5 seriated nesting cups under 5 conditions. With increasing age, both groups of children demonstrated strategy choice and looking behavior appropriate to the change of task conditions in problem-solving. The levels of problem-solving were higher in the children with retardation than in the 2- and 3-year-olds without retardation. These results were, however, reversed in the 4- and 5-year-olds. The 2-year-old children without retardation showed the lowest level in planning. In the children without retardation, planning abilities increased remarkably between the ages of 3 and 4. The planning abilities of the children with retardation whose MA was that of a 2-, 3-, or 4-year-old fell into levels between their 3- and 4-year-old counterparts without mental retardation. The children with retardation whose MA was that of a 4- or 5-year-old exhibited lower levels of metacognitive planning than children of that chronological age but without retardation. The modified Maruno's Model with addition of another person as a factor was verified, since the utterances asking for the experimenter's assistance and confirmation appeared at the 3 levels of planning of non-sufficient development.
