Young Children's Comprehension of Pretend Episodes: The Integration of Successive Actions

In 3 experiments, children's comprehension of successive pretend actions was examined. In Experiment 1, children (25–38 months) watched 2 linked actions (e.g., a puppet poured pretend cereal or powder into a bowl, and then pretended to feed the contents of the bowl to a toy animal). Children realized that the pretend substance was incorporated into the second action. In Experiment 2, children (24–39 months) again watched 2 linked actions (e.g., a puppet poured pretend milk or powder into a container, and then pretended to tip the contents of the container over a toy animal). They realized that the animal would become "milky" or "powdery." In Experiment 3, children (25–36 months) drew similar conclusions regarding a substitute rather than an imaginary entity. The results are discussed with reference to children's causal understanding, their capacity for talking about objects and events in terms of their make-believe and real status, and the processes underlying pretense comprehension.     

Children's Memory and Comprehension of Two Science Programmes

A total of 111 children, 55 aged 8 to 9 years and 56 aged 14 to 15 years of age, watched one of two single‐topic prime‐time science programmes. Recall and comprehension scores following the viewing of the programmes were assessed. In addition, a number of demographic factors including age, sex, linguistic fluency, prior television viewing and reading habits were investigated as possible predictors of learning from television. It was found that age was a significant factor in both recall and comprehension, but even more important was general knowledge. Sex and linguistic fluency was neither systematically nor frequently associated with good performance. Prior viewing habits concerning science programmes on television and reading behaviour were found to have particular effects but were not major predictors of performance. Knowledge growth (defined as differences in performance between pre‐ and post‐test performance on key, repeated, items specifically addressed by the viewed programme) was consistently observed. This major finding indicated clearly that children can learn prime‐time television science information.     

家庭关系对儿童心理发展的影响

家庭是由婚姻、亲子和兄弟姐妹等子系统组成的生态系统,是一个小群体,是社会的细胞,是社会生活的基本单位,是儿童早期社会化的重要场所。在一个家庭里,家庭中的关系主要表现为夫妻关系和亲子关系,这是目前中国最常见的家庭关系,这两种人际关系对儿童心理发展的影响是最重要和最深远的。     

Young Children's Emotion Comprehension and Theory of Mind Understanding

Research Findings: The present study investigated the relation between theory of mind (ToM) and emotion understanding among 78 children 4½ to 6½ years old (35 boys, 43 girls). ToM understanding was assessed using ignorance and false belief questions within an emotion-understanding task that evaluated children's abilities to recognize facial expressions and identify the external causes of emotions (happy, sad, angry, scared, and surprised), understand the role of beliefs and desires in emotion, and comprehend felt versus expressed emotions. Results indicated that children's understanding of the external causes of emotion, hidden emotions, and a reminder's influence on emotions improved with age and that children's understanding of the external causes of emotion related to ToM understanding. Practice or Policy: Findings suggest that programs that seek to promote children's socioemotional awareness could benefit from encouraging the development of children's understanding of the external causes of emotions to improve overall social cognition.     

Understanding Children's Comprehension of Visual Displays of Complex Information

Developing students' ability to interpret the vast amount of quantitative data they encounter on a daily basis has become a major task for today's educators. However, very little attention has been given to students' strategies of analyzing multivariate data. This study investigated how students interpret and analyze multivariate data organized in tables and the nature of external visual displays that they tend to create and use for this purpose. Ten middle school students were asked to think aloud while solving five problems demanding an analysis of data organized in tables. The students were then interviewed. Results indicated that (1) students based their conclusions on only part of the data; (2) students did not use either efficient or sufficient visual representations; (3) students did not apply mathematical operations efficiently; and (4) students referred to or built a context to the problem. The results of the current research may assist educators to design efficient curricula while being aware of and taking into account (1) students' difficulties in employing previously learned mathematical devices to analyze data, (2) students' skills in choosing appropriate and efficient visual representations to present and interpret the data, and (3) strategies employed by students in analyzing multivariate data.     

The Influence of Several Factors on Reliability for Complex Reading Comprehension Tests

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of items, passages, contents, themes, and types of passages on the reliability and standard errors of measurement for complex reading comprehension tests. Seven different generalizability theory models were used in the analyses. Results indicated that generalizability coefficients estimated using multivariate models incorporating content strata and types of passages were similar in size to reliability estimates based upon a model that did not include these factors. In contrast, incorporating passages and themes within univariate generalizability theory models produced non-negligible differences in the reliability estimates. This suggested that passages and themes be taken into account when evaluating the reliability of test scores for complex reading comprehension tests.     

Young Children's Understanding of a Biological Basis for Parent-Offspring Relations

2 experiments evaluated whether young children understand that kinship implies, but does not guarantee, physical resemblance among family members. In Experiment 1, preschoolers expected adopted babies to share physical properties, but not beliefs and preferences, with their biological parents rather than with their adoptive ones. However, preschoolers in Experiment 2 recognized that shared properties per se do not guarantee kinship: a baby who looks like and lives with a woman is not her biological baby if he or she initially grew inside someone else, whereas a baby may neither resemble nor live with its biological parents. Overall, the results suggest that children expect parents and offspring to share physical properties, but understand that shared properties do not necessarily entail kinship. In both experiments, the extent of this understanding increased with age. However, preschoolers' overall performance supports the claim that some children at this age have a naive theory of biology. The results further suggest that the critical development in an understanding of kinship is acquisition of factual knowledge rather than structural change.     

汉语空间关系复杂句心理表征项目互换效应

采用句子一图画验证任务(sentence-picture verification task)探讨了抽象图形汉语空间关系复杂句的心理表征项目互换效应问题.结果表明,句子项目为抽象图形汉语空间关系复杂句的项目表达顺序为“目标物→参考物(目标物)→参考物“时,心理表征中项目发生互换.本研究结果初步表明,读者理解汉语空间关系复杂句是一个按照“参考物→目标物“固定方向进行的系列认知加工过程.     

国学对少年儿童教育影响的调查分析报告

本文以调查问卷的形式,对南京三所小学参加暑期国学启蒙班的学生家长进行了一次调查。调查结果显示,当今诸多因素限制了少年儿童对国学的学习,阻碍了孩子们对国学的接触与了解。因此需协调全社会的力量,共同为少年儿童营造一个良好的学习国学的氛围,使国学更好地在少年儿童当中普及。     

家庭教育对幼儿英语教育的影响及促进策略

针对家庭教育对幼儿英语教育的影响,首先分析了家长与幼儿一同说英语有助于激发幼儿学习的兴趣,利用家庭进行英语教育有利于对幼儿进行个别细致的辅导,有利于弥补幼儿园教学条件的不足等。然后提出家庭教育对幼儿英语教育的促进策略,即家长应树立正确的教育观,提高自身的英语素质,积极参与幼儿园的英语教育活动,掌握科学的英语教育方法,以便有效地对幼儿进行教育。     

浅论《老乞大》中的复句

《老乞大》是历史上朝鲜人学习汉语的教科书,反映了元明时期北方话的口语面貌。本文通过整理,分类列举《老乞大》谚解本中的复句,以期和现代汉语相印证,揭示出复句发展的轨迹。     

语言学习中的句子理解和记忆

根据心理语言学理论，在语言的理解和表达过程中，句子起着十分重要的作用。因此，在语言学习中，重视对句子的理解和记忆具有重要意义。     

Canine Visitors: The Influence of Therapy Dogs on Young Children's Learning and Well-Being in Classrooms and Hospitals

Trained therapy dogs are becoming an increasingly common sight in many educational and health care settings. This article, coauthored by a college professor, a Therapy Dogs International, Inc., Evaluator and local program director, and a registered nurse reviews the research on using registered therapy dogs as adjuncts in school programs and health care treatment plans for children ages 5–8. It addresses to the most commonly raised objections to allowing dogs in classrooms and patient rooms and offers practical guidelines for maximizing the positive outcomes of animal-assisted activities and therapy (AAA/T).     

儿童身体隐喻理解发展特征

研究了小学儿童身体隐喻理解发展特征.采用自制隐喻理解成绩量表,以某县城小学二、四、六年级共168名学生为被试,考察儿童身体隐喻和非身体隐喻解释成绩.结果表明,小学儿童非身体隐喻的理解成绩优于身体隐喻的理解成绩,对源域不熟悉的隐喻的理解水平高于对源域较为熟悉的隐喻的理解水平;儿童中年级开始理解隐喻,中年级隐喻理解受是否熟悉源域具体特征的影响最大;随着年龄增长,儿童非身体隐喻和身体隐喻的理解不断发展但发展的速度不一样.     

让步复句的量化表达和几种非典型让步复句的判定

根据原型让步复句"虽然…但是…"类和"即使…也…"类总结出让步复句成立的条件,对让步复句进行量化表达。把"无论…都…"类、"宁可…也…"类、"P倒P…就是…"类、"P倒不/没P…只是…"类、"任凭…都…"类和"…是│…,但…"类句式代入这些条件进行验证,认定他们也属于让步复句。     

The Effects of Text Elaboration on Children's Aural Language Comprehension

For the present study it was hypothesised that there would be an effect of media on hierarchical aural comprehension and that older children would. possess the cognitive structures to take advantage of the symbols presented by different media. Eighty kindergarten and third grade children were randomly selected and assigned to three media treatments of a story (text and illustrations; text and flannel board figures; text and animated film) and a control (text alone). The subjects were tested for comprehension of the story using twenty questions which were derived from modifications of the Barrett and Pearson & Johnson taxonomies (10 questions for each of two hierarchical levels). A treatment by age MANOVA was used to analyse the data. Significant main effects were found for both treatment and age. Age accounted for more variance in the higher order questions than in the lower order questions. It is believed that the older children had the cognitive structures to take advantage of the appropriate symbols.

     

儿童文学对低龄儿童焦虑心理的干预

在很多人的心目中,童年是纯真美好的,但是目前我国儿童焦虑心理普遍存在并呈现低龄化发展趋势。不少儿童文学作品已经开始尝试去反映儿童的焦虑心理,对低龄儿童存在的压力进行了或多或少的释放。研究这一部分作品,对于我们拓宽儿童文学领域、深化儿童文学内涵、更新儿童文学认知具有重要的参考价值。     

让步复句的预设研究

让步复句是主观性较强的复句，故它的语用性也较强。可以利用预设的投射和预设触发语的知识，分别考察两种典型让步复句——“即使”类让步复句和“虽然”类让步复句的预设，最终判断出让步复句的预设并不一定等于各分句预设之和，这要根据具体情况作具体考察。     

日语复句中的陈述方式刍议

我国日语研究对日语句子结构的分析大致有两种观点，一种是题述论，一种是成分论。这两种观点似乎都没有很好地解决陈述方式的问题，从而也没有从本质上把日语的句子结构解释清楚。如果从陈述方式的语法意义与结构意义入手，试分析并列复句，主从复句及包孕复句的陈述方式，对确把握日语句子的结构，透彻理解日语句子所表达思想内容会起重要作用。     

Children's Difficulties in Text Comprehension: Assessing Causal Issues

In this article we consider the difficulties of children who have a specific reading comprehension problem. Our earlier work has shown that good and poor comprehenders differ, in particular, in their ability to make inferences, integrate information in text, understand story structure, and monitor their understanding. We outline some studies that illustrate the poor comprehenders' problems and present two studies that use a comprehension-age match design to explore the direction of causality between comprehension skill and other abilities. We also present data from the first and second stages of a longitudinal study, when the children were 7 to 8 and 8 to 9 years old. Multiple regression analyses show that a number of factors predict significant variance in comprehension skill even after "general ability" factors such as IQ and vocabulary have been taken into account. These findings suggest that, not only can children have comprehension problems in the absence of word recognition problems, but that distinctly different skills predict variance in word recognition and variance in comprehension. The data support the view that single-word reading skills and the ability to build integrated text representations make independent contributions to overall reading ability. We discuss the implications of these findings for our understanding of children's problems in text comprehension, for deaf readers, and for remediation.