SUMMARY. This investigation showed that a concept of volume conservation can be taught to educationally subnormal children and that this understanding of conservation generalises to weight and substance situations. 104 ESN school children were pre-tested for conservation of substance, weight and volume. Then, using a varied teaching method which included three conservation of volume experiences, reasons, and situations, 30 of these children (nonconservers aged 9 to 15 with IQs between 46 and 75) were taught to recognise, generalise and give reasons for conservation. Post-testing after one and two weeks and again after five months revealed that their concept of conservation was durable as well as generalised. The teaching method used was found to be an eifective way, though not necessarily the only or the best way, of developing conservation in children regardless of their prior understanding of conservation.
115 children from an ESN school were pre-tested on Piaget-type conservation tasks involving seven different attributes : number, substance, length, distance, area, weight and volume. 51 of these children, who failed to conserve in relation to two or more attributes, were studied further. Aged 10 to 16 years, IQ 50-77, they were divided into three groups matched for age, IQ and level of initial understanding of conservation. One group was instructed on conservation of a variety of attributes, a second group on conservation of area only ; and the third group was given practice in reading. Post-tested after one week and then two months, 30 of the 34 instructed children consistently recognised, generalised, and gave reasons for conservation on both post-tests. No control child improved in understanding of conservation by the time of the second post-test.
SUMMARY. The question of sequence in hearing impaired and hearing children's development of concepts was investigated and a similar order of acquisition of conservation was found regardless of delay. The 24 partially hearing unit, 28 deaf school and 30 hearing ordinary school children, with individual exceptions, yielded the ordering: conservation of number, substance, length, weight, area, volume. Scalogram analyses supported the order with coefficients of reproducibility of C' = 0.93 (z = 4 . 2 P < 0.0002) for the hearing impaired and C' = 0.96 (z = 4.9 P < 0.0002) for the hearing. Whilst scalogram analyses clarified the preferred ordering, they also indicated that more than one sequence was significant, and that there was no single fixed order of development.
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