A variety of claims has been made about the relationship between literacy and intellectual development. Many developmental psychologists hold that skills in reading and writing lead inevitably to major transformations in cognitive capacities. Drawing from their observations of unschooled but literate adults, Sylvia Scribner and Michael Cole have questioned some of the generalizations made about the consequences of literacy. Their research among the Vai of Liberia, a people who have invented a syllabic writing system to represent their own language, provides a unique opportunity to investigate the effects of becoming literate separately from the effects of attending school.

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