More Than Meets the Eye: Parental and Infant Contributors to Maternal and Paternal Reports of Early Infant Difficultness

Objectives. This study examined correspondences among maternal and paternal ratings of infant temperament, parental psychological functioning, and infant behavior. Design. Participants included 120 families. When infants were 6 weeks old, mothers and fathers completed the Infant Characteristics Questionnaire (ICQ); reported on their own levels of anxiety, depressive symptoms, and parenting stress; and completed a 3-day diary of their infants' behavior. Infant irritability was assessed in a laboratory situation. Results. Fathers rated their infants' temperament somewhat more negatively, but there was significant correspondence between maternal and paternal ratings on the temperament factors of fussiness, unadaptability, dullness, and a difficultness composite. Higher infant difficultness was consistently associated with parenting stress. Infant behavioral fussiness, as measured by 3-day diaries, was significantly correlated with temperament ratings by both parents and with irritability observed in the laboratory setting. Maternal psychological distress was weakly predictive of ratings of infant difficultness; infant behaviors (diary and laboratory-based irritability) accounted for 15 to 17% of the variance. Paternal psychological distress and infant behaviors contributed equally to difficultness ratings. Conclusions. Mothers and fathers are influenced by somewhat different factors in perceiving their babies' temperament, but both maternal and paternal reports have a basis in laboratory- and diary-based behaviors. Results indicate the strong contributing influence of infant irritability to the perception of difficult temperament and support the validity of parental reports of infant irritability in the first 6 weeks of life.     

大班幼儿对无字绘本细节的观察与解读

无字绘本中的细节有助于幼儿理解故事情节、享受阅读的乐趣。研究选取9名大班幼儿作为调查对象,以《灰袍奶奶和草莓盗贼》这一无字绘本为阅读材料,采用观察和访谈等方法对幼儿如何观察和解读该绘本的细节进行研究和统计分析。研究结果显示:幼儿观察的细节数量有差异,更易发现熟悉的细节;处于不同阅读阶段的幼儿,均可能善于发现细节;幼儿乐于发现细节,却鲜少理解细节的功能。根据这些特点,应进一步培养和提升幼儿解读、品味无字绘本细节的能力。     

Young Children's Understanding of the Mind-Body Distinction

4 experiments investigated children's understanding of the mind-body distinction. Children of ages 4 and 5 recognized not only the differential modifiability of changeable versus unchangeable human properties and bodily versus mental properties, but also the independence of activities of bodily organs from a person's intention (Experiment 1). When presented 3 types of causal explanations (i.e., intentional, vitalistic, mechanical), 6-year-olds chose most often as most plausible for bodily functions vitalistic explanations (i.e., those ascribing the phenomena to a relevant bodily organ's initiative and effortful engagement in activity); 8-year-olds chose the vitalistic explanations second most often, following mechanical ones (Experiment 2). However, 6-year-olds, as well as 8-year-olds and adults, did not always choose vitalistic explanations over intentional explanations (Experiment 3); whereas they tended to prefer vitalistic explanations for biological phenomena, they predominantly accepted intentional ones for psychological phenomena (Experiment 3A). These results suggest that children as young as 6 years of age have acquired a form of biology as an autonomous domain which is separate from that of psychology.     

Young Children's Interpretation of Multidigit Number Names: From Emerging Competence to Mastery

This study assessed whether a sample of two hundred seven 3‐ to 7‐year‐olds could interpret multidigit numerals using simple identification and comparison tasks. Contrary to the view that young children do not understand place value, even 3‐year‐olds demonstrated some competence on these tasks. Ceiling was reached by first grade. When training was provided, there were significant gains, suggesting that children can improve their partial understandings with input. Findings add to what is known about the processes of symbolic development and the incidental learning that occurs prior to schooling, as well as specifying more precisely what place value misconceptions remain as children enter the educational system.     

Revisiting Young Children's Understanding of the Psychological Causes of Behavior

In 1989, Miller and Aloise challenged the prevailing belief that preschoolers tend to explain others' behavior in terms of external events or a person's physical attributes and have little understanding of psychological causes. That review documented preschoolers' understanding of, and even preference for, psychological causes as part of an emerging renaissance in developmental social‐cognitive research. The present, updated review (97 articles, participant ages 3 months to 6 years) suggests the emergence of a transformative new perspective in which social‐cognition is balanced between social and cognitive aspects rather than tilted toward cognition. Recent research on infants' awareness of mental states, young children's understanding of social categories and their judgments of the trustworthiness of informants, and cultural context reveals various ways in which preschoolers' social‐causal reasoning is social.     

Young Children's Understanding of the Causes of Anger and Sadness

This study investigated kindergarten children's understanding of the causes of anger and sadness. Previous research has shown that before 6 or 7 years of age, children have difficulty distinguishing hypothetical situations designed to evoke anger from those designed to evoke sadness. In this project, 80 kindergarten children (ages 5-1 to 6-5, M = 5-10) predicted and explained protagonists' emotional responses to a variety of hypothetical events. The results showed that intentional harm was not the feature young children used to distinguish anger from sadness. Children predicted anger most often when they believed that protagonists could change undesirable situations and reinstate their goals and when children focused on the person or conditions that brought about undesirable situations. Children predicted sadness most often when they believed that goal reinstatement was impossible and focused on the losses that would ensue as a result.     

Parochial Compliance: Young Children's Biased Consideration of Authorities’ Preferences Regarding Intergroup Interactions

Prosocial behavior is arguably influenced by an interaction between intrinsic dispositions (e.g., group bias) and extrinsic factors (e.g., institutional regulations). The current study investigated this interaction developmentally. Preschoolers (3‐ to 4‐year‐olds) and kindergarteners (5‐ to 6‐year‐olds; N = 111) participated in a resource distribution task in which they had to consider both the recipients’ group membership (minimal color‐based groups), and their own teachers’ preferences regarding how to distribute (give “all” or “none”). The results revealed that only kindergarteners were influenced by the experimental factors and differently across genders. Specifically, when the recommendation was to give “none,” girls followed it indiscriminately toward in‐ and out‐group recipients, but boys did so only toward out‐group recipients. Thus, boys exploited an authority's legitimization to act antisocially, according to a parochial bias.     

Origin and Truth: Young Children's Understanding of Imaginary Mental Representations

In 2 studies, we address young children's understanding of the origin and representational relations of imagination, a fictional mental state, and contrast this with their understanding of knowledge, an epistemic mental state. In the first study, 54 3- and 4-year-old children received 2 tasks to assess their understanding of origins, and 4 stories to assess their understanding of representational relations. Children of both ages understood that, whereas perception is necessary for knowledge, it is irrelevant for imagination. Results for children's understanding of representational relations revealed intriguing developmental differences. Although children understood that knowledge represents reality more truthfully than imagination, 3-year-olds often claimed that imagination reflected reality. The second study provided additional evidence that younger 3-year-olds judge that imaginary representations truthfully reflect reality. We propose that children's responses indicate an early understanding of the distinction between mental states and the world, but also a confusion regarding the extent to which mental contents represent the physical world.     

通往广场的路不止一条

当时我们正站在一个教堂塔楼的顶上．是父亲把我从罗马的家里带到这个离家不远的意大利小镇楼顶上来的，我不明白这是为什么。[第一段]     

More Similar Than Different: Gender Differences in Children's Basic Numerical Skills Are the Exception Not the Rule

This study investigates gender differences in basic numerical skills that are predictive of math achievement. Previous research in this area is inconsistent and has relied upon traditional hypothesis testing, which does not allow for assertive conclusions to be made regarding nonsignificant findings. This study is the first to compare male and female performance (N = 1,391; ages 6–13) on many basic numerical tasks using both Bayesian and frequentist analyses. The results provide strong evidence of gender similarities on the majority of basic numerical tasks measured, suggesting that a male advantage in foundational numerical skills is the exception rather than the rule.     

Young Children's Understanding of Fictional versus Epistemic Mental Representations: Imagination and Belief

In 2 studies, 3- and 4-year-old children's ability to reason about the relation between mental representations and reality was examined. In the first study, children received parallel false belief and "false" imagination tasks. Results revealed that children performed better on imagination tasks than on belief tasks. The second study demonstrated that, when various alternative explanations for better performance on the imagination task were controlled for, children still performed significantly better when reasoning about another person's imagination than when reasoning about another person's belief. These findings suggest that children's understanding that mental representations can differ from reality may emerge first with respect to representations that do not purport to represent reality truthfully.     

不同阅读方式下学前儿童在图画书阅读中对文字的关注

分享阅读被认为可以有效提高儿童的文字意识,因为它可以使儿童获得更多与文字接触的机会。为了验证以上观点,本研究以SMI眼动仪为工具,对71名3~6岁幼儿在自主阅读和分享阅读方式下阅读图画书的特点进行考察。结果发现:分享阅读不能提高学前儿童对文字的关注程度,自读方式则可以增加儿童与文字接触的机会;儿童对文字的关注程度随着年龄班的增长而提高,且在小班与中班之间变化最为明显;阅读方式不影响儿童对主人公的关注程度;分享阅读提高了儿童信息加工的速度,且该效应在小班最明显;儿童对图画书中隐藏细节信息的关注程度随着年龄班的增长而降低。     

高职院校:"办特色"比"创一流"更重要--一个批判的视角

当前,"办特色"与"创一流"问题在高职院校中相当流行,尤其是"创一流"已经成为众多学校提出的口号,但社会上关于"特色"与"一流"的理解仍然存在分歧.对高职院校而言,如果两者的概念不能明确,"创一流"就很容易走入误区.因而,需要从现实出发,剖析两者的概念及关系,并就高职院校的"特色"与"一流"给予相应的阐释.在此基础上,再从多角度批判地指出高职院校"办特色"比"创一流"更重要.     

理解儿童的理解——从哲学解释学的角度分析

后现代哲学解释学认为理解是人存在的方式.人自从呱呱落"地"以后,就不断理解着世界,体现生命和生存的意义,那些看上去很"浅薄的"哲学和科学思想,以及"简单"的艺术手法,无不体现儿童对世界的理解.但在现实社会中,成人往往无法正确理解儿童,容易把成人的意识强加给儿童.我们要通过"澄明""阐亮"和"平等对话"来改变这种现状,还儿童一片新的世界.     

Young Children's Exposure to Mathematics: The Child Care Context

Four preschool teachers from two preschool settings were observed to explore the contribution of child care experiences on the development of young children's understanding of mathematics. Teachers were also interviewed regarding their attitudes and beliefs about the importance of early education, children's understanding of mathematics prior to formal schooling, and their role in facilitating mathematical knowledge. Although the programs and teachers differed in terms of program orientation, teaching style, student participation, and interactions with students, the programs did not differ in terms of the amount or content of mathematics presented to children. During the classroom observations that were conducted, very little mathematics was presented in any of the classrooms either directly or indirectly to students. In contrast, teachers said that they believed that mathematics was important and that they engaged in mathematical discussions in their classroom interactions. Discussion of the lack of math presented in the classroom and the discrepancy of teachers' beliefs and teaching behaviors are discussed.     

Two Roads Diverged: Young Children's Ability to Judge Distance

In the present studies, we investigated 4- and 5- to 6-year-olds' ability to compare the distances covered by a direct route to a location and an indirect route to the same location. The distances ranged between 16 and 22 feet. The routes were visible from a single vantage point, and objects serving as landmarks were sometimes located along the routes. We found clear demonstrations of the two classic Piagetian distance errors—the direct-indirect error , in which children judge that a direct route and an indirect route cover the same distance, and the interposed object error , in which children judge that a route is shorter when it is segmented by an object located somewhere along the route. The interposed object error occurred because children focused on only one segment of the route, which was consistent with Piaget's explanation of the error. However, in contrast to Piaget, we found that about 40% of 4-year-olds could successfully avoid the direct-indirect error, and in addition, when the routes were visually displayed, they could also avoid the interposed object error. It is important that they also gave correct explanations for why the indirect route was longer, by referring to the fact that it was not straight. For these children at least, the interposed object error was due to difficulty they had representing routes, rather than to a misconception of distance. We suggest that future research should examine whether that may also be true for younger children.