It Takes Nine Days to Iron a Shirt: The Development of Cognitive Estimation Skills in School Age Children

Abstract

Data are presented for 315 elementary school-aged children (K-11) who took the Biber Cognitive Estimation Test, a 20-item test with five estimation questions in each of four domains: quantity, time/duration, weight, and distance/length. Performance showed significant development yearly until around the age of nine years, with much slower development subsequently. No gender effects were found. Age and fund of knowledge correlated with overall test performance. Fund of information accounted for a large proportion of the variance in estimation skills for children 8 years and under, but not for children 9 years and older. Since estimation skills require retrieval and manipulation of relevant knowledge and inhibition of impulsive responding and are necessary in many everyday tasks, it was anticipated that this test may provide a useful measure of judgment and estimations and may correlate with other executive skills in school-aged children.

Sex Differences in Cognitive Estimation During Sleep Deprivation: Effects of Stimulant Countermeasures

“…Because previous research suggests that there are no significant gender differences in performance on the BCET (Bullard et al, 2004;Harel, Cillessen, Fein, Bullard, & Aviv, 2007), the present findings suggest that sleep deprivation Scores on the y-axis indicate the total number of items scored within the "normal" range (maximum possible = 20). Females receiving placebo or caffeine showed significantly poorer performance than males in the same conditions (p < .05, Bonferroni corrected).…”

Deconstructing the Cognitive Estimation Task: A Developmental Examination and Intra-Task Contrast

“…Due to its primary function as an assessment tool, research has not taken into account other skills required for CET performance or the possibility that the magnitude based categories require different skills or knowledge, such as units of measurement21113. The absence of units of measurement is particularly significant when examining CET performance in children due to educational factors.…”

“…However, few studies have examined CET performance exclusively in TD children. In one example, CET performance was examined in a large sample of TD children 5–16 years old13. They found rapid development in CET performance between the ages of 5–9, after which the rate of development slowed down.…”

“…Researchers have found deficits in CET performance in Alzheimer’s disease67, Korsakoff’s syndrome8, major depressive disorder9, and schizophrenia10. Few studies have examined CET performance in healthy populations, and even fewer have examined performance among children2111213.…”

The Cognitive Estimation Task is nonunitary: Evidence for multiple magnitude representation mechanisms among normative and ADHD college students

“…EF is an umbrella term for control processes that modulate the operation of cognitive subprocesses including WM, attention, inhibition, self-monitoring, and self-control. It is well known that EF develops during childhood (Zelazo et al, 2003), and, indeed, Harel, Cillessen, Fein, Bullard, and Aviv (2007) found that cognitive estimation abilities improve systematically in normally developing children, with a sharp rise in performance between the ages of 5 to 9 years, and a flatter increase from 9 to 16 years.…”