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A 5-trial social-conditional reasoning task was administered to 20 children at each of ages 3, 4, 5, and 6 years. The results, based on four convergent measures, indicated that by 4 years of age children are able to reason from a premise to its logical conclusion in reasoning about the probable behavior of others. The results are discussed in terms of a component model of this ability as applied to real-world social situations. By 4 years of age, in relatively simple situations, children demonstrate such abilities as perspective taking (Mossier, Marvin, & Greenberg, 1976), conservation of number (Miller, Heldmeyer, & Miller, 1975), and simple transitive inferences (Riley & Trabasso, 1974). However, there still remains a paucity of data regarding early logical reasoning skills, and there is some controversy in the literature as to the criteria for determining their presence (Riley & Trabasso, 1974). Reese and Shack (1974) convincingly argue for the use of multiple convergent measures as criteria for demonstrating a particular ability. In this study we investigated preschooler's abilities to engage in a simple social-conditional reasoning task—the ability to reason from a premise to its logical conclusion. In this task the child is presented with one characteristic of an experimenter. The child is asked which of two possible activities the experimenter would want to engage in, only one being logically implied by the stated characteristic. This study complies with the methodological suggestion of Reese and Shack (1974) by using four measures of task performance: (a) judgment; (b) verbal justification; (c) latency to response (processing time); and (d) a nonsense trial where the premise does not logically imply either of the choices presented. The nonsense trial was designed to differentiate between children who operate from a premise and those who do not. Children who operate from a premise should take significantly longer to answer the nonsense question than they did for the previous logical questions. In addition, in re

The literature is unclear and controversial as to when children are first able to engage in conceptual perspective taking, that is, to infer another person's thoughts, feelings, or internal states of knowledge (e.g., Borke, 1971; Chandler & Greenspan, 1972). Most studies have found that children younger than 7 years of age are not able to engage in this activity. Flavell, Botkin, Fry, Wright, and Jarvis ("apple-dog story," 1968) arid Chandler and Greenspan (1972) used tasks in which the child had access to information not available to the other person. The child was then required to make an inference about the other's restricted conceptual viewpoint. In both studies it was found that most children under 9 years of age were unable to engage in veridical perspective taking. Using stimuli containing less information and requiring responses with fewer linguistic demands, a few studies have purportedly found evidence of conceptual perspective taking in children as young as 3 or 4 years of age. Borke (1971) had children select a picture to match the affective state of a hypothetical child in a story. She found that children as young as 3 years of age can correctly anticipate the other child's feelings in certain simple contexts. Borke's study has been criticized on the grounds that her task may have been measuring some social skill other than perspective taking. A young child might accurately predict that a person at a birthday party will be happy. Since it is generally shared knowledge that anyone at a birthday party is probably happy, the child need not engage in perspective taking to correctly anticipate the other's feelings. To ensure that perspective taking is required for correct performance, the task must be constructed so that the child's perspective is demonstrably different from that of the other. As Chandler and Greenspan (1972) point out, "Without this important qualification, egocentric and nonegocentric thought result in the same outcome

GREENBERG, MARK T., and MARVIN, ROBERT S. Reactions of Preschool Children to an Adult Stranger: A Behavioral Systems Approach. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1982, 53, 481-490. 16 children at each of ages 2, 3, and 4 years were observed being approached by and interacting with a friendly stranger during their mothers' presence and absence in a standardized situation. Analyses of discrete behaviors yielded results consistent with those of earlier studies. Further analyses, based on a behavioral systems approach, focused on temporal patterns of reactions to the stranger. A number of qualitative patterns of response were identified which represent both age and individual differences, and which lead to conclusions different from those studies based on the analysis of discrete behaviors. The results are discussed in terms of the usefulness of a behavioral systems approach to the study of social development.

Bloom syndrome is a rare autosomal recessive disease character ized by growth failure, sun-sensitive facial telang!ectasia, and defective immunity. Cytogenetically, the syndrome is defined by a high frequency of sister chromatid exchanges? Increased risk of cancer has been recognized as a feature of Bloom syndrome since 1965. 2 In children with this syndrome, acute leukemia and lymphoma have been the predominant cancers, wi th solid tumors in older patients. W e now report three unrela ted children with Bloom syndrome in whom Wilms tumor was diagnosed independent ly at three Canad ian centers from 1981 to 1985. The development of Wilms tumor in three pat ients with Bloom syndrome among just more than 100 pat ients worldwide suggests tha t the incidence of this tumor in these pat ients is markedly increased.

MARVIN, ROBERT S.; GREENBERG, MARK T.; and MOSSLER, DANIEL G. The Early Development of Conceptual Perspective Taking: Distinguishing among Multiple Perspectives. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1976, 47, 511-514. 80 children between 2.5 and 6.5 years of age were administered a task in which they were required to distinguish among multiple conceptual points of view. The task was based on the notion of a secret, involved 3 participants, and was administered in the children's homes. Results indicated that children as young as 4 years of age could conceive of others' conceptual points of view in a non-egocentric fashion. The results were discussed in terms of the nature and context of perspective-taking tasks, and of the development of group interaction.