Behavioral similarity as a reinforcer for preschool children

Three experiments evaluated whether behavioral similarity provided by an adult could serve as a reinforcer for the modelling behavior of four preschoolers. In each experiment, sessions consisted of two kinds of trials: (1) experimenter-modelled trials, when the child's imitation of modelled motor responses was reinforced with praise and tokens, and (2) child-modelled trials when experimenter imitation of child-modelled responses was contingent upon the child's modelling one of three alternative responses: operation of a ball, horn, or clicker. Experiment I showed that the children consistently modelled whichever responses the experimenter imitated. Experiment II determined whether that performance was due to differences in the amount of experimenter behavior following imitated versus nonimitated child models or to experimenter imitation. Neither reducing nor increasing the amount of experimenter behavior following the children's nonimitated models altered their modelling of imitated responses. Experiment III evaluated whether experimenter imitation of child models was a reinforcer because the child's imitative responses were reinforced on experimenter-modelled trials. In Experiment III, the children's nonimitation of experimenter-models was reinforced with praise and tokens on a schedule of differential reinforcement of other behavior, yet they continued to model experimenter-imitated responses on child-modelled trials. These results indicate behavioral similarity was reinforcing, though no conditioning history through which it acquired that function was demonstrated.     

Heart electrophysiology as a dependent measure in children

This study extends the cardiac component analysis technique, reported by Eddy and his coworkers (Eddy, McKendree, McKenzie, & Bremner, 1982; McKendree, 1982), to children. Three male children between the ages of 8 and 10 years served as subjects and were tested on several days. In particular, the children were taught a simple relaxation task and a simple cognitive task. The cardiac electrophysiology of these children was statistically tested to determine whether there was a reliable difference between psychological tasks but only minimal variance within psychological tasks. The results of testing the ST component of the cardiac electrophysiology confirmed our hypothesis that there is a statistical difference between tasks (p < .001) but not within tasks when tested over time.     

A self-concept measure for preschool and early primary grade children

The article describes the development of the Preschool and Primary Self-Concept scale. Subjects of the standardization sample were 109 boys and 127 girls, ages 4 to 9, enrolled in preschool and primary educational programs. Boys described themselves as significantly stronger O and bigger than girls. Girls described themselves as significantly more go d than boys. Older children described themselves as significantly more active than younger children. Factor analysis of the scale revealed an evaluative and gender dimension. Subjects of the validation study were 46 first graders. Satisfactory convergent and discriminant validity were demonstrated with the multitrait-multimethod technique.     

Incidental learning in preschool children as a function of level of cognitive analysis

Preschool children's recall and clustering of organized lists of pictures were examined under deliberate instructions to remember or in incidental learning situations. The incidental tasks either required comprehension (categorization, or a rating of pleasantness-unpleasantness) or were formal orienting tasks involving processing in terms of physical features.Explicit instruction to remember and formal incidental instructions did not differ, and both lead to poorer performance than the comprehension activities. Categorization, whether accompanied by explicit instructions to recall, or occurring in the context of a meaningful activity, was no more efficient than categorization in and for itself. With children as with adults, it is the activity of the children which determines depth of processing and subsequent retention, not the intent to remember per se.     

Spatial reversal as a measure of executive functioning in children with autism

The purpose of this experiment was to compare the executive functioning performance of children with autism with chronological- and verbal-matched controls in a spatial-reversal task. Three groups of children participated in this experiment. One group was identified as having autism (7 boys), the 2nd group contained 7 typically developing children (6 boys, 1 girl) who were matched to the 1st group based on their verbal performance, and the 3rd group contained 7 typically functioning children (6 boys, 1 girl) matched to the 1st group based on chronological age. Each group was given a spatial-reversal task containing 2 problems. In the 1st problem, children selected a toy on a particular side in a pair. In the 2nd problem, the contingencies were reversed such that children were to choose the toy on the opposite side. Children with autism generally performed worse than comparison groups as indicated by their overall higher rate of errors. However, these results must be qualified by considering the performance for each problem: Errors for the children with autism were infrequent during the 1st problem but increased in the 2nd, whereas errors for comparison children showed the opposite pattern. When these results from the spatial-reversal task were interpreted from the perspective of hypothesis-testing theory, the executive functioning deficiency of children with autism was found to involve the selection and testing of stereotypic response sets that were not likely to be revised or changed flexibly according to feedback from the environment or the demands of the task.     

Interpersonal problem solving as a mediator of behavioral adjustment in preschool and kindergarten children

An experimental model tested the mediating function of interpersonal cognitive problem solving skills on behavioral adjustment in preschool and kindergarten children. Relative to controls, nursery-trained youngsters improved in three such skills, kindergarten-trained in two. In both the nursery- and kindergarten-trained groups, increased ability to conceptualize alternative solutions to interpersonal problems significantly related to improved social adjustment. Consequential thinking also emerged as a clear behavioral mediator, especially among kindergarten-aged youngsters. Improvement in behavior could not, however, be attributed to change in causal thinking skills. Having identified two significant behavioral mediators in young children, a beginning has been made to isolate specific thinking skills, which, if enhanced, can contribute to healthy social adjustment and interpersonal competence at an early age.     

Establishing books as conditioned reinforcers for preschool children as a function of an observational intervention

We tested the effects of an observational intervention (Greer & Singer-Dudek, 2008) on establishing children's books as conditioned reinforcers using a delayed multiple baseline design. Three preschool students with mild language and developmental delays served as the participants. Prior to the intervention, books did not function as reinforcers for any of the participants. The observational intervention consisted of a situation in which the participant observed a confederate being presented with access to books contingent on correct responses and the participant received nothing for correct responses. After several sessions of this treatment, the previously neutral books acquired reinforcing properties for maintenance and acquisition responses for all three participants.     

不同熟练双语儿童注意定向中的抑制控制

研究目的：探讨不同熟练双语儿童“注意定向”成分中抑制控制的差异,及这一差异是否依赖于双语儿童第二语言的熟练程度。方法：采用IOR范式的行为实验。被试为平衡、未平衡双语儿童和单语儿童。结果：SOA600ms时,三组被试均出现了IOR,平衡双语儿童与单语儿童的IOR效应量差异显著,其余被试间差异均不显著。结论：（1）双语学习促进了平衡双语儿童抑制控制能力的发展。（2）双语学习对抑制控制能力的促进作用依赖于双语儿童第二语言的熟练程度。     

Recall in preschool children

Free recall, cued recall, color recall, organization in recall, and sorting of 3- and 4-year-olds was assessed on 9-item lists of objects that were orthogonally varied on color and category dimensions. Half of the children in each age group were presented items successively, and the other half simultaneously. Older children recalled more items than younger children in both free and cued recall, and also organized their recall more. Moreover, simultaneous presentation benefited the older, but not younger children. Clustering and sorting data suggested a decreasing reliance on perceptual information, and increasing utilization of conceptual information, over the preschool years. The results were discussed in terms of the importance of concrete, external stimulus support at both time of encoding and retrieval.     

Symbolic functioning in preschool children

An important goal of parents and preschool educators alike is to introduce young children to a variety of symbol systems, and to help children begin to master some of these crucial cultural tools. Our research indicates that, in spite of the importance that adults place on symbolization, adult intuitions about the acquisition of symbolic functioning and how to facilitate it are often poor. In this article we summarize research on toddlers' understanding of two kinds of symbols—models and pictures. We show that the initial insight that something is a symbol or representation of something else is extremely challenging for young children, and it is an insight that must be achieved with each symbol system they encounter. Two factors that contribute to the difficulty children have appreciating symbolic relations are discussed: dual representation (the ability to think about something in two different ways at the same time; specifically, the ability to think of something both as an object itself and a symbol for something else) and representational specificity (understanding that a symbol can stand for a specific reality). Implications of these factors for preschool practice are considered.     

Closing-in behaviour in preschool children

Many pre-school children show closing-in behaviour (CIB) in graphic copying tasks: a tendency to place their copy abnormally close to or even on top of the model. Similar phenomena have been studied in patients with dementia, though it is unclear whether the superficial similarities between CIB in development and dementia reflect common underlying cognitive mechanisms. The aim of the present study was to investigate the cognitive functions involved in CIB in pre-school children. Forty-one children (3–5 years) were assessed for CIB, and completed a neuropsychological battery targeting visuospatial abilities, short term memory (verbal and spatial) and attention (sustained attention, selective attention and attention switching). Binary logistic regression found that performance on the attention subtests was the best unique predictor of CIB. A second analysis, in which the three attention subtests were entered as separate predictors, suggested that attention switching ability was most strongly related to CIB. These results support the view that CIB in children reflects inadequate attentional control. The convergence of these results with similar observations in patients with dementia further suggests that similar cognitive factors underlie CIB in these two populations.     

Planning processes in preschool children

This study investigated different types of planning skills in 4- and 5-year-olds. The planning tasks consisted of three search tasks and two clustering tasks. Each task was measured in three ways: by a planning score, the Bronson task attack strategy measure of ongoing behaviors, and by self-report. A varimax rotation of the scores in a factor analysis produced the same two factors for both the planning scores and the Bronson task attack strategy scores. One factor was formed by tasks that allowed for a variety of open-ended solutions, but also had heavy information-processing demands. Tasks that allowed for only one task-imposed solution, but with lighter information-processing demands, formed the second factor. Two of the primary planning tasks used in prior research with preschoolers did not load on the same factor, the grocery store search task (Gauvain & Rogoff, 1989) and the Wellman search task (Wellman, Fabricus, & Sophian, 1985), which suggests that these tasks measure different types of planful search. Self-report data indicated that children were not able to adequately describe their plans. In addition, the one task that required semantic clustering was too difficult for the majority of the preschoolers. Taken together, this suggests that language-based planning measures will underestimate preschoolers' actual planning capacity.     

Numerosity discrimination in preschool children

We used a numerical bisection procedure to examine preschool children's sensitivity to the numerical attributes of stimuli. In Experiment 1 children performed two tasks. In the Cups Task they earned coins for choosing a green cup after two drumbeats and a blue cup after eight drumbeats. In the Gloves Task they earned coins for raising a red glove on their left hand after two drumbeats and a yellow glove on their right hand after eight drumbeats. Then in each task a psychometric function was obtained by presenting intermediate numerosities and recording the percentage of trials in which children chose the "many" option. In Experiment 2 children's performance in a '2 vs. 8' discrimination was compared with their performance in a "4 vs. 16" discrimination. Results showed that the individual psychometric functions were of two types, one in which the percentage of "many" choices increased gradually with stimulus numerosity and another in which it increased abruptly, in a step-like manner. Although the average point of subjective equality was close to the geometric mean of the anchor numerosities and the average functions for "2 vs. 8" and "4 vs. 16" superimposed when plotted on a common scale (the scalar property), the individual data were highly variable both across tasks (Cups and Gloves) and numerosity ranges ('2 vs. 8' and '4 vs. 16'). It is suggested that between- and within-subjects variability in the psychometric function is related to children's verbalizations about the sample stimulus.