et al (1998). Young subjects five, seven, and 10 years of age were presented with a Kiel Locomotor Maze in order to assess spatial memory and orientation (p. 463). Children had to learn to approach baited locations. Task difficulty was equated with respect to the age of the child. Training was given until the children reached the desired criterion. During testing, the maze configuration and response requirements were systematically altered, including response rotation, cue rotation, cue deletion, and response rotation with cue deletion in order to assess the spatial strategies used by the children.
No difference between age groups was noted during training, thus confirming comparable task difficulty across age groups. Age groups differed significantly, however, during testing with regard to the orientation strategy used. The five-year-olds were bound to a cue strategy, orienting towards local proximal cues; the 10-year-olds mastered all tasks, thus displaying a place strategy; and the seven-year-olds were split between the two strategies (p. 478). The results of the study suggest that preschoolers use a cue strategy, that the development of place strategies occurs during primary school age, and that it seems to be completed by the age of 10 years (p. 480).
Development of the ability to understand diverse types of metaphor was examined in terms of play content (symbolic vs. constructive-object play), Piagetian operational level (preoperational vs. concrete-operational), and medium of presentation (picture vs. words) in 40 4-year-olds and 80 six-year-olds (Seitz, 1997). The children were presented with six different types of metaphorical relationships (color, shape, physiognomic, cross-midal, psychological-physical, and taxonomic matches) in both pictures and words in a match-to-sample design (Seitz, 1998, p. 373).
Results indicated that constructive-object play rather than symbolic play facilitated the understand...