Assessing early arithmetic abilities: Effects of verbal and nonverbal response types on the calculation performance of middle-and low-income children

In two studies, we compared young children's performance on three variations of a nonverbally presented calculation task. The experimental tasks used the same nonverbal mode of presentation but were varied according to response type: (1) putting out disks (nonverbal production); (2) choosing the correct number of disks from a multiple-choice array (nonverbal recognition); and (3) giving a number word (verbal production). The verbal production task required children to map numerosities onto the conventional number system while the nonverbal production and nonverbal recognition tasks did not. Study 1 showed that the performance of 3-, 4- and 5-year-old middle-income children (N = 72) did not vary with the type of response required. Children's answers to nonverbally presented addition and subtraction problems were available in both verbal and nonverbal forms. In contrast. Study 2 showed that low-income children (3- and 4-year-olds; N = 48) performed significantly better on both nonverbal response type tasks than on the verbal response type task. Analysis of individual data indicated that a number of the low-income children were successful on the completely nonverbal calculation tasks, even though they had difficulty with verbal counting (i.e., set enumeration and cardinality). The findings suggest that the ability to calculate does not depend on mastery of conventional symbols of arithmetic.     

Theory of mind development in deaf children: a nonverbal test of false-belief understanding

Our aim in this study was to investigate whether previous findings pointing to a delay in deaf children's theory of mind development are replicated when linguistic demands placed on the deaf child are minimized in a nonverbal version of standard false-belief tasks. Twenty-four prelingually deaf, orally trained children born of hearing parents were tested with both a verbal and a nonverbal version of a false-belief task. Neither the younger (range: 4 years 7 months-6 years 5 months) nor the older (range: 6 years 9 months-11 years 11 months) children of the final sample of 21 children performed above chance in the verbal task. The nonverbal task significantly facilitated performance in children of all ages. Despite this facilitation, we observed a developmental delay: only the older group performed significantly above chance in the nonverbal false-belief task, even though the younger children were at the average age when hearing children normally pass standard false-belief tests. We discuss these findings in light of the hypothesis that language development and conversational competence are crucial to the acquisition of a theory of mind.     

Self‐paced segmentation of written words on a touchscreen tablet promotes the oral production of nonverbal and minimally verbal children with autism

We investigated in a pilot study the effects of various types of visual mediation (photos, written words and self‐paced syllabic segmentation of written words displayed on a touchscreen tablet) that are thought to facilitate the oral production of nonverbal and minimally verbal children with autism, according to the participants’ level of oral language development and, more specifically, their ability to produce delayed echolalia. We also sought to identify the cognitive characteristics that need to be taken into account when seeking to develop the oral production of nonverbal children with autism. Results showed that the nonverbal and minimally verbal children with autism were able of using written words to produce them orally. Their performance was largely dependent on their level of language development. Tasks combining written and oral modalities prompted some of them to engage in oral production for the first time (isolated syllables for nonverbal children) and allowed others to produce non‐random strings of syllables (minimally verbal children).     

“GAME” VERSUS “TEST” INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE WISC1

“Game” or “test” instructions on either verbal or nonverbal WISC scales were given to 160 third- and sixth-grade children. Ss in one condition were told they were going to take several tests, while Ss in the other condition were told they were going to play several games. Significant differences in performance due to task definition were found only on verbal tasks at the sixth-grade level with test instructions yielding superior performance. Results at the third-grade level failed to replicate previous results which suggested game instructions produce superior performance on nonverbal tasks.     

Children's use of a verbal-nonverbal consistency principle to infer truth and lying

Children's use of a verbal-nonverbal consistency principle to infer truth and lying was investigated in 2 experiments. In Experiment 1, kindergarten (5-year-olds), second- (7-year-olds), and fourth-grade (9-year-olds) children judged the truthfulness of stimulus persons whose verbal communication and nonverbal communication varied in valence (positive, neutral, and negative). In Experiment 2, children from the same 3 grades were presented part of the verbal communications on audiotape and a similar set of general verbal communications. They were asked to predict what facial expression the speaker would show if he or she was telling the truth or lying. The findings yielded by both experiments indicated that the use of the verbal-nonverbal consistency principle increased with age. Use of that principle was demonstrated by fourth grade children who judged that telling the truth, as opposed to lying, was shown by a consistency between the affective valence of the verbal and the nonverbal communications.     

Longitudinal genetic study of verbal and nonverbal IQ from early childhood to young adulthood

In a longitudinal genetic study we explored which factors underlie stability in verbal and nonverbal abilities, and the extent to which the association between these abilities becomes stronger as children grow older. Measures of verbal and nonverbal IQ were collected in Dutch twin pairs at age 5, 7, 10, 12 and 18 years. The stability of both verbal and nonverbal abilities was high, with correlations over time varying from .47 for the 13-year time interval up to .80 for shorter time intervals. Structural equation modeling showed increasing heritability with age, from 48% (verbal) and 64% (nonverbal) at age 5 to 84% and 74% at age 18. Genetic influences seemed to be the driving force behind stability. Stability in nonverbal ability was entirely explained by genes. Continuity in verbal abilities was explained by genetic and shared environmental effects. The overlap between verbal and nonverbal abilities was fully accounted for by genes influencing both abilities. The genetic correlation between verbal and nonverbal IQ increased from .62 in early childhood to .73 in young adulthood.     

A nonverbal false belief task: the performance of children and great apes

A nonverbal task of false belief understanding was given to 4- and 5-year-old children (N = 28) and to two species of great ape: chimpanzees and orangutans (N = 7). The task was embedded in a series of finding games in which an adult (the hider) hid a reward in one of two identical containers, and another adult (the communicator) observed the hiding process and attempted to help the participant by placing a marker on the container that she believed to hold the reward. An initial series of control trials ensured that participants were able to use the marker to locate the reward, follow the reward in both visible and invisible displacements, and ignore the marker when they knew it to be incorrect. In the crucial false belief trials, the communicator watched the hiding process and then left the area, at which time the hider switched the locations of the containers. When the communicator returned, she marked the container at the location where she had seen the reward hidden, which was incorrect. The hider then gave the subject the opportunity to find the sticker. Successful performance required participants to reason as follows: the communicator placed the marker where she saw the reward hidden; the container that was at that location is now at the other location; so the reward is at the other location. Children were also given a verbal false belief task in the context of this same hiding game. The two main results of the study were: (1) children's performance on the verbal and nonverbal false belief tasks were highly correlated (and both fit very closely with age norms from previous studies), and (2) no ape succeeded in the nonverbal false belief task even though they succeeded in all of the control trials indicating mastery of the general task demands.     

Visual processing of verbal and nonverbal stimuli in adolescents with reading disabilities

This study investigated whether a group of children with reading disabilities (RD) were slower at processing visual information in general (compared to a group of children of comparable age and a group of children of comparable reading level), or whether their deficit was specific to the written word. Computerized backward masking and temporal integration tasks were used to assess the speed of visual information processing. Stimulus complexity (simple, complex) and type (verbal, nonverbal) were varied, creating a 2 x 2 matrix of stimulus conditions: simple nonverbal, complex nonverbal, simple verbal, and complex verbal. Adolescents with RD demonstrated difficulties in processing rapidly presented verbal and nonverbal visual stimuli, although the effect was magnified when they were processing verbal stimuli. Thus, the results of this study suggest that some youth with reading disabilities have visual temporal processing deficits that compound difficulties in processing verbal information during reading.     

When does gender matter?: Interactions during computer-based problem solving

Children worked in pairs or as individuals on a computer-based language problem-solving task, and their keyboard activities were monitored along with their discussions of the task. A total of 60 children worked in either single-gender or mixed-gender pairings and a further 21 children worked individually. Previous investigations have indicated that suggestions and evaluations by the children are associated with improved task performance, and that the gender composition of the pairs has also been found to influence performance. In the present cloze task boy–girl pairs showed lower levels of verbal interaction and less keyboard co-operation, but few differences in task performance in comparison with single-gender pairs. All children working in pairs out-performed children working individually.     

Assessing differences in children with learning disabilities and normally achieving students with a new measure of creativity

This study investigates the creative abilities of children with learning disabilities by employing a new measure designed to assess creativity without the use of verbal or analytic skills. Sixteen normally performing and 16 children with learning disabilities were administered this task and a control task of verbal fluency. The children with learning disabilities scored significantly higher on the nonverbal but not the verbal control task.     

Comparison of visual-spatial performance strategy training in children with Turner syndrome and learning disabilities.

This study examined the effects of a verbal mediation strategy on three groups of subjects who had visual-spatial deficits. Thirteen females with Turner syndrome, 13 females with nonverbal learning disabilities, and 14 males with nonverbal learning disabilities, who ranged in age from 7 to 14 years, were taught via a cognitive behavioral modification approach to verbally mediate a spatial matching task. Pretest and posttest performance differences on parallel forms of a visual-spatial orientation task were examined. All three groups showed significant improvement in visual-spatial task performance after the training. There were no significant differences in the degree of improvement among the three groups. The results suggest that children with Turner syndrome may benefit from problem-solving strategy training in a manner similar to children with nonverbal learning disabilities.     

不同语言能力幼儿在三种错误信念任务中的表现

本研究采用了实验的方法,以言语、非言语性任务,意外转移与表征变化任务为变量,考察了不同语言能力的88名3-4岁幼儿的错误信念理解能力。研究结果发现,降低错误信念任务对语言能力的要求并不能改变幼儿在错误信念理解上的年龄特征;在3岁和4岁两个年龄组中,语言能力超常的幼儿在各项实验任务上的表现均好于语言能力一般的幼儿。     

The impact of verbal capacity on theory of mind in deaf and hard of hearing children

Even when they have good language skills, many children with hearing loss lag several years behind hearing children in the ability to grasp beliefs of others. The researchers sought to determine whether this lag results from difficulty with the verbal demands of tasks or from conceptual delays. The researchers related children's performance on a nonverbal theory of mind task to their scores on verbal aptitude tests. Twelve French children (average age about 10 years) with severe to profound hearing loss and 12 French hearing children (average about 7 years) were evaluated. The children with hearing loss showed persistent difficulty with theory of mind tasks, even a nonverbal task, presenting results similar to those of hearing 6-year-olds. Also, the children with hearing loss showed a correlation between language level (lexical and morphosyntactic) and understanding of false beliefs. No such correlation was found in the hearing children.     

Preschool Verbal and Nonverbal Ability Mediate the Association Between Socioeconomic Status and School Performance

We compared the extent to which the long-term influence of family socioeconomic status (SES) on children's school performance from age 7 through 16 years was mediated by their preschool verbal and nonverbal ability. In 661 British children, who completed 17 researcher-administered ability tests at age 4.5 years, SES correlated more strongly with verbal than nonverbal ability (.39 vs. .26). Verbal ability mediated about half of the association between SES and school performance at age 7, while nonverbal ability accounted for a third of the link. Only SES, but not verbal or nonverbal ability, was associated with changes in school performance from age 7 to 16. We found that SES-related differences in school performance are only partly transmitted through children's preschool verbal abilities.     

Teaching Through Collaboration: Flexibility and Diversity in Caregiver–Child Interaction Across Cultures

Teaching supports the high-fidelity transmission of knowledge and skills. This study examined similarities and differences in caregiver teaching practices in the United States and Vanuatu (N = 125 caregiver and 3- to 8-year-old child pairs) during a collaborative problem-solving task. Caregivers used diverse verbal and nonverbal teaching practices and adjusted their behaviors in response to task difficulty and child age in both populations. U.S. caregivers used practices consistent with a direct active teaching style typical of formal education, including guiding children’s participation, frequent praise, and facilitation. In contrast, Ni-Vanuatu caregivers used practices associated with informal education and divided tasks with children based on difficulty. The implications of these findings for claims about the universality and diversity of caregiver teaching are discussed.     

Bilingual effects on cognitive and linguistic development: role of language, cultural background, and education

A total of 104 six-year-old children belonging to 4 groups (English monolinguals, Chinese-English bilinguals, French-English bilinguals, Spanish-English bilinguals) were compared on 3 verbal tasks and 1 nonverbal executive control task to examine the generality of the bilingual effects on development. Bilingual groups differed in degree of similarity between languages, cultural background, and language of schooling. On the executive control task, all bilingual groups performed similarly and exceeded monolinguals; on the language tasks the best performance was achieved by bilingual children whose language of instruction was the same as the language of testing and whose languages had more overlap. Thus, executive control outcomes for bilingual children are general but performance on verbal tasks is specific to factors in the bilingual experience.     

Young Children's Projective Abilities: what can a monster see?

Abstract A series of four tasks was presented to 3‐7 year‐old children in order to investigate their understanding of the way in which an obstruction restricts a person's view of an array. The results indicated that children's ability to predict another person's line of sight and field of view develops significantly during this period. The responses of most 4‐7 year‐olds in a nonverbal hiding game were consistent with their verbal judgments about what another person could see, but 3‐year‐olds’ responses in the hiding game were much more sophisticated than could be expected from their performance on the verbal tasks. The possibility is raised that satisfactory performance in hiding games may not always depend on a child's first working out what a seeker can see.     

ADULT AGE DIFFERENCES IN SPEED AND ACCURACY OF MATCHING VERBAL AND PICTORIAL SIGNS

Young (mean age of 19 years) and older (mean age of 69 years) adults participated in a two‐choice, matching‐to‐sample reaction time experiment. Young adults responded more quickly than older adults; all subjects responded more quickly to a verbal standard sign than to a pictorial standard. However, there was an age difference in speed of performance only for those subjects in the stimulus order condition receiving first pictorial standards and then verbal standards. These data are interpreted within a model of dual memory processing systems (verbal and nonverbal). During adulthood there is an increasing tendency for verbal codes to elicit more general associations of both a verbal and a pictorial symbolic nature, while a pictorial code continues to activate only other pictorial stimuli. More generally, the implications of such a model for understanding aging and educational gerontology are discussed.     

Fluid/spatial and crystallized intelligence in relation to domain-specific working memory: A latent-variable approach

Fluid/spatial intelligence, crystallized intelligence and their relationships to verbal and visuospatial working memory (WM) were studied. A total of 120 Finnish Air Force recruits participated in this study. Fluid/spatial intelligence was assessed using four different tasks, while crystallized intelligence was defined with the help of test scores of Finnish upper secondary school National Matriculation Tests in three different academic subjects and one additional Verbal Relations task. Complex WM span tasks were used to measure visuospatial and verbal WM capacities. Structural equation modeling indicated that verbal WM was related to crystallized intelligence when both WM tasks were included in the model, whereas performance on the visuospatial WM task was related to fluid/spatial intelligence, but not to crystallized intelligence. Verbal WM was not related to fluid intelligence when used as a single WM predictor. The results indicate that verbal WM might be related to verbal ability and learning at school, while visuospatial WM is relatively strongly related to nonverbal reasoning and spatial visualization. The current results further suggest that WM capacity is not a unitary system.     

Verbal memory and phonological processing in dyslexia

This study examines whether two frequently reported causes of dyslexia, phonological processing problems and verbal memory impairments, represent a double‐deficit or whether they are two expressions of the same deficit. Two‐hundred‐and‐sixty‐seven Dutch children aged 10–14 with dyslexia completed a list‐learning task and several phonological tasks, together with a number of reading and spelling tests. The results indicate that phonological deficits and verbal memory impairments in dyslexia stem from the same root, which seemingly reflects an inaccurate encoding of the phonological characteristics of verbal information. This phonological encoding deficit is a negative predictor for both the reading and spelling skills of dyslexic children.