An Observational Technique for Preschool Children

Summary

A method for direct observational study of early peer-social and objectdirect behavior for human subjects was designed to be articulated with techniques widely used in studies of social behavior in infrahuman primates.

Occurrence of behavior fitting the definitions of each of six categories of object behavior and nine categories of social behavior is noted once during each 15-second interval. The number of recorded intervals in a 15-minute session provides the basic scoring unit.

Observer reliabilities were estimated from paired data and four observers. Thirty-eight Negro and white children ages three through five years were observed in three child play groups. Median reliabilities of .95 (range .63 to .98) and .81 (range .69 to .94) were obtained for object and social behavior categories respectively.     

Self-Control and Impulsiveness in Preschool Children

The Psychological Record - Eleven girls and nine boys, aged 41–59 months, chose repeatedly, under controlled laboratory conditions, between one sticker available immediately and three...     

Disjunctive Concept Utilization in Preschool Children

Summary

Twenty-four children, eight each in three age groups, were asked to “play a game” which required them to utilize disjunctive concepts such as “blue or car.” The disjunctive concepts used were the nine which can be formed by combining one value from among three possibilities on the color dimension (green, blue, red) with one value from among three possibilities on the form dimension (car, boat, airplane). The task consisted of 18 five-choice trials with each of the nine disjunctive concepts represented twice—once with the color mentioned first and once with the form mentioned first. Ss were required to pick the positive instance card. All three groups performed significantly better than chance (ps. < .0001) on the task. A significant relation between age and performance on this task was found (Rho = .65, p < .05). There were no sex differences. The results are discussed in relation to task variables and an associative view of cognitive development.     

3～6岁幼儿对攻击性行为的认知评价分析

通过故事评定法分析了3～6岁幼儿对攻击性行为的认知评价,结果表明:①此年龄段的幼儿对攻击性行为的认知已经达到一定的成熟度,开始考虑攻击性行为的条件与方式;②幼儿对攻击性行为的认知评价存在一定的性别差异,主要表现在受到言语侵犯时的攻击性行为;③对攻击性行为的认知评价的年龄差异突出表现在5岁与6岁之间.④采用蒙特梭利教育法的实验班幼儿,对攻击性行为比非实验班幼儿评价得更消极.     

Dyadic Versus Individual Storytelling by Preschool Children

A constructive model of recall and communication (D. Edwards & D. Middleton, 1986) and certain whole-word approaches to learning (C. Pontecorvo & C. Zucchermaglio, 1989) were evaluated in conjunction with an investigation of the benefits of joint storytelling on children's cognitive processes. Preschoolers (N = 36, aged 30-62 months) were prompted to compose a story, working with a classmate (during which they talked together freely and generated a mutual narrative) or individually. Findings revealed that, although dyadically generated stones were longer, containing significantly more words, propositions, and additive conjunctions, stories told by individuals contained proportionally more logically connected statements and greater use of the past tense. Moreover, compared with dyadic stories, individually generated narratives contained fewer alterations of the protagonist.     

Implicit Knowledge of Grammatical Gender in Preschool Children

The study aimed at investigating the role of nominal gender in animal categorization in preschoolers. Given the regularities characterizing gender system, at both syntactical and morphological level, Italian language is suitable to address this issue. In three experiments, participants were asked to classify pictures of animals as male or female. Half stimuli had names of feminine gender and half of masculine gender. In Experiment 1, Italian speaking adults and preschoolers classified animals according to the nominal gender. This effect was not found with English speaking participants (Experiment 2) but confirmed with 3-, 4-, and 5-year-old Italian-speaking children (Experiment 3). These results showed an implicit knowledge of grammatical gender in preschoolers, suggesting that semantic processing may be modulated by linguistic information.     

Factors Associated with Transposition Behavior of Preschool Children

To assess ideas, derived from a contextual paradigm, stressing the influence of adolescents' perceptions of the physical and social components of their school environment on their self-esteems and academic performances, 183 black early adolescents (mean age = 12.1 years, SD = .5 years; 54.6% female) were administered five semantic differential scales. The first provided a measure of self-esteem, while the remaining four provided measures of perceptions of the social environment of the school (i.e., of peers and of teachers) and of the physical environment of the school (i.e., of the classroom and of the school building). There were few systematic sex differences in responses to the scales. As predicted, school environment perceptions were significantly related to self-esteem in both males and females. However, although self-esteem and a report of grade point average, as a measure of academic performance, were significantly related, there was no relation between school environmental perceptions and reported grade point average.     

Dynamic and Static Balancing Ability of Preschool Children

Performance differences in dynamic and static balance ability of 150 preschool Ss aged 3,4, and 5 yr. were studied. Ss performed 4 balance-beam tasks and 2 balance-board tasks. An Age by Sex (3 × 2) factorial, design employing both univariate and multivariate ANOVA techniques were the statistics used. For both dynamic and static balance Age was highly significant, and the use of multivariate ANOVA indicated significant sex differences on the static balance tasks. The appropriateness of multivariate techniques where more than one dependent variable is measured on the same population was discussed, and the need to take into account the relationship between these variables when analyzing the data was noted.     

学龄前儿童握笔姿势的发展性研究

以握笔画圆为测查任务,考察了学龄前儿童握笔姿势的发展趋势及特点.结果表明3.5-5.5岁是儿童握笔姿势的迅速发展期,大部分儿童在5.5岁发展到成熟的握笔姿势,5.5-6.5岁发展相对平缓.学龄前儿童握笔姿势的发展趋势表现为自然阶段和过渡阶段握笔姿势的减少,成熟阶段握笔姿势的不断增多.中美儿童握笔姿势的发展趋势基本一致,但是中国学龄前儿童使用成熟阶段握姿的比率要低于美国儿童.     

Social Cognitive Predictors of Body Image in Preschool Children

To better understand origins of gender differences in body confidence, the present study examines predictors of body image suggested by Social Cognitive Theory (A. Bandura, 1997): models (from mothers, peers), verbal messages (from mothers, peers, teachers), physiological factors (age, body mass, health status), and experience of competence related to body image (social competence, food competence). Variables were gathered from child interviews, mother questionnaires, and teacher questionnaires for 94 preschool children (52 boys, 42 girls; mean age – 54.2 months; 90.2% Caucasian). Body image was measured with seven same-gender silhouettes (M. E. Collins, 1991). No gender differences were found for the body image of preschool children. Messages from the mother to “be bigger” were the most consistent predictor of body image. However, only for boys were mother's messages a valid reflection of the child's actual body mass, which if continued, could produce greater body confusion for girls at later ages.     

幼儿自我调节能力的发展及与气质的关系

本研究主要讨论幼儿自我调节能力的发展及与气质的关系。研究从执行功能的角度入手,采用实验法和问卷法对90名3～5岁的幼儿进行研究,通过创设难度递进的冲突情境来考察儿童在两种不一致规则中的转换能力。结果表明,幼儿自我调节能力的发展随年龄增长而提高,并存在显著的年龄差异;幼儿气质与自我调节能力的发展有着密切的关系,特别是专注性和社会抑制性维度对不同水平的幼儿自我调节能力的方差检验都达到了显著,二者与年龄一起,能够对幼儿自我调节能力进行一定程度的预测。     

汉语学龄前儿童正字法意识的发展

本研究选择北京地区幼儿园3岁、4岁、5岁儿童各31、48、33名, 采用单部件意识测验和部件位置及功能意识测验系统探查了学龄前儿童的正字法意识各个层面的发展状况。单部件意识测验包括部件替换、部件缺失和部件旋转三个部分; 部件位置及功能意识测验分为假字和非字两个部分, 而非字又包括两形非字和形声非字。结果发现单部件意识测验中, 5岁组儿童在部件替换水平上的得分显著高于3岁组儿童, 而3岁组与4岁组、4岁组与5岁组儿童之间无显著差异; 部件缺失和部件旋转水平上, 三个年龄段的儿童的得分表现出明显的增长趋势。部件位置及功能意识测验中, 假字得分在三个年龄段之间无显著差异; 非字得分随年龄增长显著提高。这些结果表明, 单部件意识在学前期处于不断发展的阶段, 其中对部件替换的非字的拒绝能力发展较早, 部件缺失和部件旋转非字的拒绝能力发展较晚; 部件位置及功能意识在学前期已经开始发展, 3岁儿童已经具有假字符合正字法规则的认识, 但对非字违反部件位置合法性和功能完整性的认识直到4岁左右才开始萌芽, 5岁还未成熟。