Young Children's Learning of Size Comparison Strategies: Effect of Origami Exercises

The authors examined the process of change in size comparison strategies among preschool-age children. Twelve 5- and 6-year-old children were provided with origami exercises and size comparison tasks for 5 days consecutively, and another twelve 5- and 6-year-old children received size comparison tasks only. Children's strategies for the size comparison tasks were analyzed in terms of placement and adjustment. In contrast with the children in the control condition, the children who were provided with exercises in origami increased their use of superimposition and adjustment strategies by 2 dimensions across the 5 days. The authors argue that origami exercises helped the children connect their implicit understanding of relative size with the use of more effective strategies for size comparison.     

Young children's change in strategies of size comparison: Effects of task repetition and strategy evaluation

This study examined how young children change their strategies for size comparison. Twenty-two 5 and 6-year-old children were asked to compare the sizes of geometric figures and their strategies were observed once a week over three weeks. Half of the children were also asked to evaluate presented strategies for comparing geometric figures. It was found that over three weeks not only children who evaluated the strategies but also children who did not increased correct responses, the strategy of placing one figure on another, and the strategy of adjusting two figures by two dimensions. Although more children became aware of the effectiveness of those strategies, there was no relationship between the evaluation and use of strategies.     

Development of size constancy in children: a test of the proximal mode sensitivity hypothesis

In two experiments, we attempted to replicate Shallo and Rock's (1988) finding that 5- and 6-year-old children exhibit size constancy for a distant object when tested with comparison objects that are matched for visual angle. Experiment 1 (N = 80) included four age groups: 5-, 6-, and 9-year-olds and adults. Participants viewed one standard object from 61 m and indicated which of nine nearby comparison objects matched the standard object in size. The comparison objects subtended equal visual angles in one condition and different visual angles in another. In both conditions, the 5- and 6-year-old children underestimated the size of the standard object, whereas the 9-year-old children and adults made nearly accurate size estimates. In Experiment 2 (N = 32), we replicated the finding that 6-year-old children underestimate size when tested with comparison objects that subtend equal visual angles. Our results conflict with those of Shallo and Rock and support earlier findings that young children do not exhibit size constancy for distant objects.     

Interpersonal problem solving in preschool children: A comparison of assessment procedures using two-dimensional versus three-dimensional stimuli

Two procedures for assessing the social problem-solving strategies of young children were compared: a traditional measure using pictorial stimuli and an alternative measure in which problems were presented using three-dimensional props. Subjects were 48 preschool children ages 3, 4 and 5. Using a counterbalanced, repeated measures design, the two tasks were presented to the children on consecutive days. Children also received the PPVT, and teacher ratings of behavioral adjustment were completed. Children gave more responses and suggested a greater variety of problem-solving strategies when tested with props than when tested with pictures. Response differences to the two testing procedures were greatest for children who were rated by their teachers as impulsive. Results are discussed in terms of the representational competence of the preschool child. Implications of the findings for intervention strategies also are discussed.     

Age- and task-related differences in the use of category-size information for the retrieval of categorized items

Both the accuracy of category-size information and its use during the retrieval of categorized materials were investigated among kindergarten (5-year-old) and third-grade (8-year-old) children. Subjects were asked for free recall of a 34-item, categorized list wherein eight categories contained varying numbers of items. Subjects recalled items under either limited-time or unlimited-time conditions. Additionally, subjects were tested under one of three instructions: they were provided with the size of each category (Informed group), they were asked to estimate the size of each category (Estimation group), or they were given standard free recall instructions. Analysis of both the amount recalled and intercategory pause times indicated that third-graders' use of category size information was spontaneous, while kindergartners used the size information only when explicitly provided with it or asked for size estimates. Also, kindergartners' estimates of category size were much more in error than those of third-graders, although both groups erred on the side of underestimation. Importantly, when recall time limitations made the use of exhaustive category search less appropriate, third-graders were more apt to modify their search strategies.     

Visual scanning during pattern recognition in children and adults

Eye movement and fixation responses of 3- to 6-year-old children and adults were recorded during a pattern recognition task. During familiarization, fixations were more repetitive and less extensive for older subjects. The fixation patterns of older children who were consistently able to solve the recognition problems were like those of the adults. Unsuccessful 4- to 6-year-olds spent more time fixating the modified area of the nonstandard pattern presented in paired comparison with the standard, even though their final decision was false. Thus, preschool children were able to locate relevant visual information even when they did not use this information to solve tasks. The results suggest that visual fixations do not always reflect active attention, and that direct fixations of visual information are clearly not sufficient and may not be necessary for problem solving.     

Mother-Child Conversation Styles and Children's Laboratory Memory for Narrative and Nonnarrative Materials

The study reported here was designed to examine influences of mothers' early conversational styles on children's episodic memory for events experienced outside of the mother-child relationship. Fifty-three 3-, 4-, 5-, and 6-year-old children participated in picture-book interaction tasks with their mothers and with an unfamiliar investigator. Conversational messages were coded for their narrative and paradigmatic content. The children were also administered cued- and free-recall laboratory tasks for object names, object locations, animal facts, and story narratives. Reliable correlations were found between mothers' and children's levels of narrative talk in the mother-child picture-book task and between children's levels of narrative talk with mother and with an unfamiliar investigator. Recall analyses showed that the younger children's levels of narrative talk during picture-book tasks with mothers were positively related to the children's laboratory recall for story materials, unrelated to laboratory recall of object names and animal facts, and negatively related to laboratory recall for the spatial locations of objects. Connections between conversation styles and recall proficiency were less apparent and not reliable for the 5- and 6-year-old children in the sample. Differences between these age effects and those found in research on children's autobiographical memory are discussed.     

Children's understanding of the relation between addition and subtraction: inversion, identity, and decomposition.

In order to understand addition and subtraction fully, children have to know about the relation between these two operations. We looked at this knowledge in two studies. In one we asked whether 5- and 6-year-old children understand that addition and subtraction cancel each other out and whether this understanding is based on the identity of the addend and subtrahend or on their quantity. We showed that children at this age use the inversion principle even when the addend and subtrahend are the same in quantity but involve different material. In our second study we showed that 6- to 8-year-old children also use the inversion in combination with decomposition to solve a + b - (b + 1) problems. In both studies, factor analyses suggested that the children were using different strategies in the control problems, which require computation, than in the inversion problems, which do not. We conclude that young children understand the relations between addition and subtraction and that this understanding may not be based on their computational skills.     

Collaboration promotes proportional reasoning about resource distribution in young children

The authors investigated how children and adults evaluate the "niceness" of individuals who engage in resource distribution, with a focus on their sensitivity to the proportion of resources given. Across 3 experiments, subjects evaluated the niceness of a child who gave a quantity of pennies to another child. In Study 1 (N = 30), adults showed sensitivity to the proportion given, whereas 5- and 7-year-old children did not. In Study 2 (N = 74), both younger (3- to 5-year-old) and older (6- to 8-year-old) children were sensitive to proportion only when resources were earned by a giver in collaboration with the recipient rather than by the giver alone. Adults, however, were sensitive to proportion in both cases. In Study 3 (N = 44), the authors tested 5- and 6-year-olds and their parents to be sure that socioeconomic and ethnic differences between samples did not drive results and replicated key findings from Studies 1 and 2. Together, these findings indicate that children favor proportional resource distribution in situations that invoke intuitions about equity. The authors suggest that these intuitions may form the basis for adult notions of fairness and generosity.     

不同任务情境中5~6岁儿童卡通面孔加工的眼动研究

以卡通面孔图片为刺激材料,赋予5~6岁儿童三种不同的加工任务,包括卡通面孔识别、分类和吸引力评价,旨在比较其在不同任务情境中的眼动差异。结果表明:(1)任务情境会影响儿童对卡通面孔的加工。在不同的面孔加工任务中,儿童的反应时、正确率、注视时间和次数等存在差异;(2)随着三种任务难度的逐渐加大,儿童的加工程度也相应地加深;(3)儿童在三种任务中的加工方式一致,对面部不同部位的关注程度不同:加工初期特别关注鼻子,而后眼睛部位耗费最多的注意资源,其次是鼻子、嘴巴、前额和脸颊,极少关注下巴;(4)男女童在卡通面孔分类任务中表现出较显著的性别差异,女童具有速度方面的优势,而男童对于关键信息的搜索则更为积极主动。     

The development of context sensitivity in children's graphic copying strategies

The authors report on a series of 5 experiments in which 462 5- to 10-year-old children and 109 adults were required to copy geometric figures either with no constraints or following prior exposure to primes consisting of different parsings of the figures. The analysis focused on the graphic strategies adopted by the participants to copy the models. Three developmental steps were revealed in the baseline copying condition. Priming experiments demonstrated that the age-developmental step correspondence varied as a function of the type of prime used. However, the impact of priming differed according to age. It was limited at 6 years, whereas its size was noticeable at the other ages. These results are discussed in the light of developmental models that hypothesize a major role either for endogeneous factors in cognitive development or for exogeneous and contextual factors.     

Remembering and constructing an order

The purpose of this study was to determine whether children who could recognize a linear order would be able to use this recognition to answer new questions about the linear order. Three-, 4-, 5-, and 6-year-old children were trained to choose a series over a nonseries, a series over a series ordered in the opposite direction, or one nonseries over another nonseries. They were also given a standard seriation task. Children could recognize a series before being able to construct one, but recognition of a series was not correlated with construction of a series. Although children did not use the linear order to construct a series, they could use it to make choices between two similar stimuli, only one of which contained a feature identical to the linear order. The comparison between seriation and recognition of one nonseries over another revealed that performance on these two tasks was correlated and that one common feature between them was systematicity, which occurred either in searching for relationships or constructing them.     

Optimism,appraisals, and coping in the adjustment of mothers and their children with spina bifida

Families of children with physical disabilities show substantial differences in the levels of adjustment of both the children and their parents. These differences result, in part, from the complex interplay of family and child adaptation resources, such as coping and social support. In order to identify factors which may differentiate levels of adjustment among families with children with physical disabilities, this study examined relationships among optimism, primary and secondary appraisals of and coping with child-related stressors, maternal psychological adjustment, and child adjustment in 29 families with a child with spina bifida without mental retardation and 28 comparison families with a nondisabled child. For the spina bifida group, primary appraisals were related to the use of avoidant coping strategies, and these coping strategies were related to maternal psychological adjustment and child internalizing behavior problems. No significant differences between the groups in terms of the nature of the relationships or in the levels of the variables were found with the exception that mothers of children with spina bifida were less optimistic than comparison mothers. These data support the importance of coping in understanding the psychological adjustment of mothers faced with a chronic stressor in the family.     

Developmental and intellectual differences in self-report and strategy use.

The veridicality and reactivity of children's self-report of covert and overt memory strategies were investigated in a task allowing a direct comparison of self-report and the strategy observed. External memory strategies (e.g., moving objects) were investigated with 7-, 9-, 11-, and 17-year-old typical children and 11- and 17-year-old children with mild mental retardation. Participants placed objects in specified spatial locations after hearing sequences of tape-recorded sentences. After each trial, half of the children immediately reported the strategy used. There were strong positive correlations between the frequency of reported strategy use and observed strategy use. Self-reports were accurate but not always complete. There was no effect of the self-reporting procedure on measures of verbal strategies, external memory strategies, and accuracy of recall. Children were less likely to report strategies not related to recall; these results are compatible with a "goal-sketch" mechanism.     

Mild memory deficits differentially affect 6-year changes in compensatory strategy use

The authors examined memory compensation techniques used by older adults from 2 memory status groups, not impaired control (NIC) and mild memory deficit (MMD), both at baseline and across a 6-year (3-wave) interval. The groups were derived from a parent sample of 55- to 85-year-old adults from the Victoria Longitudinal Study (NIC baseline, n = 276; memory > parent sample mean; MMD baseline, n = 79; memory > 1 standard deviation below parent sample mean). Multilevel modeling was used to test 3 research questions concerning differences in initial use of, and 6-year changes and variability in, memory compensation. Initial group differences were observed for both a memory compensation technique and a general compensation indicator. Significant differences in 6-year change patterns were observed for 2 memory compensation techniques (recruitment of human memory assistance, investment of extra effort in memory tasks). Interactions of group status and wave showed that older adults with MMD declined in their use of memory compensation strategies, whereas initially NIC older adults increased their use of compensatory techniques over the 6 years.     

Microcomputers in schools: Impact on the social life of elementary classrooms

Microcomputers are becoming increasingly available to schools, but little research is available concerning the impact of this technology for children. Two studies were conducted to examine some possible social effects of the use of microcomputers in elementary school classrooms where children are learning to program in LOGO. First, the task-related interaction that children engaged in with each other was observed and recorded in two classrooms (8- to 9-year-old s, and 10- to 11-year-olds) as the children worked on both computer and non-computer tasks. The children in both classrooms were significantly more likely to collaborate with each other when they worked with the computers, when compared with their interaction over other classroom tasks. The second study examined children's perceptions of their peers as resources for help with a variety of classroom tasks. When compared with other work, the computer context was the one where children more consistently identified certain of their peers as resources for help.     

Challenging behaviors in young children: the father's role

In this study, the authors examined the parenting practices, developmental expectations, and stress levels of 136 fathers and the challenging and prosocial behaviors of their 1- to 5-year-old children. In addition, the authors systematically addressed fathers' qualitative concerns about their parenting. The authors divided the participants into 4 groups and controlled for family socioeconomic status (SES) and the focus child's gender. Results showed a significantly higher use of corporal and verbal punishment and parenting stress among lower income fathers. Secondary analyses demonstrated a significant effect of paternal disciplinary practices that emphasized the frequent use of corporal and verbal punishment on child behavior problems, regardless of SES level. On a positive note, fathers from both lower and higher SES groups had reasonable developmental expectations for their boys and girls, and they reported similar frequencies of their children's prosocial behavior. The authors discuss the need for early parent education programs that include fathers and that teach specific strategies to address child behavior problems.     

The selective impact of question form and input mode on the symbolic distance effect in children

Five experiments are reported on the symbolic distance effect (SDE) and related phenomena with 6- and 9-year-old children. In the first of these, children were asked to judge the relative sizes of animals in verbal and pictorial tests featuring the comparatives "bigger" and "smaller." A perceptual condition with actual objects was included by way of comparison. A Symbolic Distance Effect was obtained for both lexical and pictorial input. Mode differences were also observed. Pictures produced faster responses than words, and congruity effects occurred only in the pictorial condition. Although performance was similar in tests with either comparative, our subsequent experiments on both 6- and 9-year-olds reveal a significant asymmetry in the child's capacity to verify statements of relation as a function of the direction along the (size) continuum implied by the question. However, important differences between age groups also apparent in the data lead us to conclude that the older subjects develop strategies to overcome this asymmetry by translating certain statements of relation into a form more congruent with their natural modes of encoding.     

Interpreting inclusion: A contribution to the study of the child's cognitive and linguistic development

Six experiments are reported which examine the young child's ability to compare included and nonincluded sets. Results indicate that with certain forms of task presentation most 3- to 5-year-old children can compare part with whole. Further, errors which occur in inclusion tasks are similar to errors which occur in tasks involving comparison of nonincluded sets. Thus young children can solve inclusion problems, and their customary failure to do so does not arise because the problem requires comparison of a whole with an included part. Employing a distinction between intended tasks (those which the adult wishes the child to complete) and received tasks (those which the child, in fact, completes) the studies indicate how linguistic and perceptual aspects of the presented information may interact with the child's assumptions about the nature of the task to be completed.     

Perceptual-motor contributions to static and dynamic balance control in children

The authors addressed balance control in children from the perspective of skill development and examined the relationship between specific perceptual and motor skills and static and dynamic balance performance. Fifty 11- to 13-year-old children performed a series of 1-legged balance tasks while standing on a force platform. Postural control was reflected in the maximum displacement of the center of mass in anterior-posterior and mediolateral directions. Simple visual, discrimination, and choice reaction times; sustained attention; visuomotor coordination; kinesthesis; and depth perception were also assessed in a series of perceptual and motor tests. The correlation analysis revealed that balancing under static conditions was strongly associated with the ability to perceive and process visual information, which is important for feedback-based control of balance. On the other hand, when greater task demands were imposed on the system under dynamic balancing conditions, the ability to respond to the destabilizing hip abductions-adductions in order to maintain equilibrium was associated with motor response speed, suggesting the use of a descending, feedforward control strategy. Therefore, like adults, 11- to 13-year-old children have the ability to select varying balance strategies (feedback, feedforward, or both), depending on the constraints of a particular task.