Can Dec handle abstract?

[Mark Mitchell]

grappling with some basic concepts.  If
any list members could help me out, I would be much obliged.
My question concerns the degree to which declarative knowledge might handle abstraction (within the context of ACT theory).  In
my experiments with children in a foreign language learning task, I can unravel two modes of learning, one of which appears to
be item-based (direct retrieval) and the other of which the defining characteristic is a  level of abstraction, that is, it can
be applied to novel (albeit similar) stimuli.  In language experiments using adult subjects, others have reported an asymmetry
in learning (production training does not transfer well to comprehension, and vice-versa), and have interpreted this to mean
that the knowledge gained was therefore procedural.   However, I have seen both;  in some tasks, the learned rule or schema
transfers OK, but in others it does not. 
But it seems to me that negative data in this case is essentially NO data.  If I see an asymmetry, I can say that this is
consistent with production learning.  But if I don't see an asymmetry, given the "atomic components " concept, it seems
possible that the two tasks could 'share' many of the newly learned productions, so long as the subgoals match?  Indeed, this
is seems to be what Pinker argues, when he claims that it is more parsimonious for their to be one knowledge base tapped by
many different processes (comprehension, production, grammaticality judgment).  It would also be consistent with
identical-elements theory, no?  
My question again, since the knowledge gained is abstract, is that good evidence that it is NOT declarative?
Since I am dealing with children, they are certainly learning more implicitly than the adults in the previous studies, which
would lead me to believe that declarative learning should be more difficult for them.
Sorry if these q questions are a little naive!

mark mitchell
Mie, Japan