Children's Strategies: Contemporary Views of Cognitive Development

by David F. Bjorklund (Editor)

One of the issues central to both classic and contemporary theories of cognitive development is children's goal-directed behavior, which is typically investigated in terms of strategies. This book brings together in one volume the latest research and theory regarding the development of children's strategies for a variety of cognitive tasks.

Opening with a history of strategy development research and concluding with a chapter that integrates the diversity of ideas expressed by the contributors, Children's Strategies offers intervening chapters that examine strategy development for attention, analogical reasoning, mathematics, memory, reading, and problem solving in infancy.

Although there is much common ground shared by the various contributors to this volume, there is no consensus concerning what exactly a strategy is. This mixture of consensus and disagreement reflects both the explosion of research in this area since the late 1960's and the complexity of the issues involved. It also reflects the fact that this is a topic that is very much alive in cognitive circles, one that will continue to stimulate research for years to come.

The papers in this volume describe current research and theory concerning the development of children's strategies for handling a variety of cognitive tasks. After providing a historical view of the concept of strategies in cognitive development, the book highlights many of the issues of concern to contemporary developmental psychologists interested in strategies. The issues discussed include problem solving in infancy, memory, selective attention, mathematics, analogical reasoning, and reading.

Hardcover

First published June 1, 1990

About the author

David F. Bjorklund, Ph.D., is a Professor of Psychology at Florida Atlantic University, where he has taught graduate and undergraduate courses in developmental psychology since 1976. He received a B.A. degree in Psychology from the University of Massachusetts in 1971, an M.A. degree in Psychology from the University of Dayton in 1973, and a Ph.D. degree in Developmental Psychology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1976. He has received numerous teaching and research awards from Florida Atlantic University, and is the recipient of an Alexander von Humboldt Research Award. He served as Associate Editor of Child Development (1997–2001) and is currently serving as Editor of the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology. He has served on the editorial boards of Developmental Psychology, Developmental Review, Cognitive Development, Educational Psychology Review, Evolutionary Psychology, Journal of Comparative Psychology, Journal of Cognition and Development, Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, and School Psychology Quarterly, and has also served as a contributing editor to Parents Magazine. He has published more than 150 scholarly articles on various topics relating to child development and has received financial support for his research from the National Science Foundation, the Spencer Foundation, and the German Research Foundation. His other books include Children’s Thinking: Cognitive Development and Individual Differences, now in its fifth edition; Why Youth Is Not Wasted on the Young; Looking at Children: An Introduction to Child Development (with Barbara Bjorklund); Parents Book of Discipline (with Barbara Bjorklund); Applied Child Study (with Anthony Pellegrini); The Origins of Human Nature: Evolutionary Developmental Psychology (with Anthony Pellegrini); Children’s Strategies: Contemporary Views of Cognitive Development; False Memory Creation in Children and Adults: Theory, Research, and Implications; and Origins of the Social Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and Child Development (edited with Bruce Ellis). His current research interests include children’s cognitive development and evolutionary developmental psychology.

He lives in Jupiter, Florida, with his wife, Barbara, and enjoys traveling, cooking, playing basketball, and kayaking.