A follow-up study was made using ten of the experiments described by Inhelder end Piaget in their book The Growth of Logical Thinking. Two hundred subjects, most of whom were between 8 and 18 years of age, were examined, individually, on four experiments. The main stages in the development of logical thinking proposed by the authors are confirmed, although on a number of points there is disagreement. Attention is drawn to the educational implications of this study.

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SUMMARY.In their book, The Child's Conception of Space, Piaget and Inhelder suggest that a child's first spatial concepts are topological ones and that these later lead to projective and euclidean concepts. A number of experiments from five chapters of their book were undertaken with some 140 children of nursery school age. Part of the evidence presented agrees with that of the authors' and some is at variance with theirs. It is suggested that much more experimentation is needed before the main thesis of Piaget and Inhelder is accepted.~.-INTRODUCTION. THE Child's Conception of Space, by J. Piaget and B. Inhelder, is divided into three main sections which deal with Topological* Space, Projective Space, and the transition from Projective to Euclidean Space, respectively. In the opening pages a clear distinction is made between perception on the one hand, and imaginal or representational space on the other. As early as six months of age an ordinary child can distinguish between a circle and a triangle when they are visually presented, but it is much later before he can represent these figures to himseli, that is, before he has the concept of the figures. Almost the whole of the book is devoted to the conception of space, not perception as such. The study reported here deals with experiments described in four of the five chapters devoted to Topological Space and the first of the five chapters on Projective Space.In the opening chapter dealing with Topological Space, the authors deal with ' haptic perception,' or the manner in which the child recognises various objects by touch alone. This is followed by an examination of the drawing of geometrical figures by children, and from the findings, Piaget and Inhelder conclude that in the very early years children construct their space by building up and using certain primitive relationships such as order and enclosure, proximity and separation. These relationships, the authors argue, are topological ones, and they claim that a child's first concepts of space are topological rather than projective or euclidean.To substantiate their hypothesis Piaget and Inhelder then study linear and circular order through the threading of beads on wires (this involves proximity and separation) in chapter 3 of the first section of their book. This is followed by a number of experiments involving a working knowledge of knots, and in these the child is concerned with surroundings and enclosure. Then, in the last chapter devoted to Topological Space, the authors study the problem of continuity through the gradual subdivision of lines and surfaces into small units and ultimately into points. Now topological relationships are independent of changes in size of the figure and they do not conserve distance, angles, straight lines, etc., during changes in shape. Thus, topological space allows that kind of analysis which starts from the position of each figure considered in isolation ; it is not a space * Topology is the science of that group of spatial relations which remain constant in any spatial ...

Almost all the children in a Junior school were tested individually,

A number of experiments of the type suggested by Piaget & Inhelder's book La genèse des structures logiques élémentaires were given to a population of primary and educationally subnormal (E.S.N.) special school children. The findings among the former group generally confirm those of the Geneva school. It has been possible to extend Piaget & Inhelder's findings by giving a number of tests to the same children, and by making a comparative study of primary and E.S.N. school pupils.