Boys Will Be Boys; Cows Will Be Cows: Children's Essentialist Reasoning About Gender Categories and Animal Species

Two studies ( N =  456) compared the development of concepts of animal species and human gender, using a switched-at-birth reasoning task. Younger children (5- and 6-year-olds) treated animal species and human gender as equivalent; they made similar levels of category-based inferences and endorsed similar explanations for development in these 2 domains. In contrast, 10-year-olds and adults treated gender and species concepts as distinct from one another. They viewed gender-linked behavioral properties as open to environmental influence and endorsed environment-based mechanisms to explain gender development. At all ages, children demonstrated differentiated reasoning about physical and behavioral properties, although this differentiation became more stable with age. The role of psychological essentialism in guiding conceptual development is discussed.     

Hearing-impaired children under age 6: a demographic analysis

This paper presents information about hearing-impaired children under the age of 6 who are receiving special educational services in the United States and have been reported to the Annual Survey of Hearing-Impaired Children and Youth conducted by Gallaudet University's Center for Assessment and Demographic Studies. Results indicate an increase in the number of hearing-impaired children under age 6 reported to the survey over the last 10 years, especially children from minority backgrounds. The second section of the analysis focuses on students from schools participating in a model state project that encourages early identification and provision of services to hearing-impaired students and their families. The data pertain only to those children who are receiving services through established programs reporting to the Annual Survey; thus, inferences about the overall prevalence of hearing impairment among this age group should not be drawn.     

幼儿性别角色与攻击行为关系的特质推理研究

通过设计故事与被试访谈法,以124名3-6岁儿童的心理特质为中介,探究其对性别角色与攻击行为关系作出推理的能力。得出：特质推理现象存在于3-6周岁儿童对于性别角色与攻击行为关系的认知过程中;随着年龄增长,3-6岁儿童在该方面的特质推理能力发展趋于稳定。     

Inference generation, story comprehension, and language skills in the preschool years

Several researchers have shown that children’s ability to make inferences is related to their reading comprehension. The majority of research on this topic has been conducted on older children. However, given the recent focus on the importance of narrative comprehension in prereaders, the current study examined the relationship between inference making and story comprehension in 4- to 5-year-olds. We examined children’s online inferences while narrating a wordless book as well as children’s story comprehension of a different storybook. We found that children’s total number of inferences was significantly related to their story comprehension. Three types of inferences were significantly related to story comprehension—characters goals, actions that achieved those goals, and character states. In a hierarchical regression controlling for children’s age and expressive vocabulary, a composite of these three inference types significantly predicted children’s story comprehension.     

Oral traditions: a contextual framework for complex science concepts—laying the foundation for a paradigm of promise in rural science education

The overarching goal of this paper is to bring a diverse educational context—rural sayings and oral traditions situated in ecological habitats—to light and emphasize that they need to be taken into consideration regarding twenty-first century science education. The rural sayings or tenets presented here are also considered alternative ways of learning and knowing that rural people (elders and children) acquire outside of school in rural places of home and habitat. Throughout this paper we explore the complex nature of rural sayings or tenets that have been shared by community elders and examine their historic scientific roots. In so doing, we uncover a wealth of information regarding the diverse rural sociocultural and ecological connections and the situated macro and micro-contexts from which these tenets arise. We argue for a preservation and educational revitalization of these tenets for current and future generations. We show how this knowledge both augments and differs from traditional western science and science curricula by illuminating the ways in which oral traditions are embedded in place, people, memory and culture. We close by presenting an alternative paradigm for science education that incorporates pluralism as a means to enrich current place-based pedagogies and practices. We suggest that in order to tackle the complex problems in this new age of the Anthropocene, revitalizing elders' wisdom as well as valuing rural children’s diverse knowledge and the inherent connectivity to their habitats needs be cultivated and not expunged by the current trends that standardize learning. As stated in the call for this special issue, “rurality has a real positionality” and much can be learned from individual and unique rural contexts.     

Two levels of inferential behavior in young children.

5- and 6-year-old children made inferences about the spatial locations of animals and people in a series of 3 experiments. The tasks employed manipulable models to represent the spatial relations involved and were made as simple as possible. 2 levels of inferential behavior were found. The first constituted the ability to draw an inference consistent with information given, but with minimal understanding of the way in which inferences can assist in decisions between alternative outcomes. At the second level, children succeeded in discriminating inferences which were logically necessary from those which were merely consistent with the premises. Most 5-year-olds were at the first level, most 6-year-olds at the second level. 2 criteria for the identification of young children's behavior as inferential were established, and the results of the present study were discussed in terms of recent related work with both younger and older children.     

Online emotional inferences in written and auditory texts: a study with children and adults

Emotional inferences are conclusions that a reader draws about the emotional state of a story’s protagonist. In this study, we examined whether children and adults draw emotional inferences while reading short stories or listening to an aural presentation of short stories. We used an online method that assesses inferences during reading with a reaction time paradigm. Children aged 8 and 10 years and adults took part. We varied whether the short stories emphasized a certain goal of the protagonist in order to proof our assumption that protagonist-goals in stories help readers to build emotional inferences. Additionally, we assessed the updating capacity of our participants’ working memories assuming a positive influence. Results reveal that participants of all age groups drew emotional inferences. Type of text presentation, goal-emphasis, and updating capacity influence whether emotional inferences are built and how precise these inferences are. The way in which these variables influenced emotional inferences was moderated by the age of the participants.     

Generation Conservation: Children’s Developing Folkbiological and Moral Conceptions of Protecting Endangered Species

Research Findings: This study investigated folkbiological concepts that structure children’s moral reasoning regarding conservation. Participants (N = 52; 7- and 10-year-olds, gender balanced) were interviewed regarding their values, moral obligations, and rights concerns for endangered and extinct animals. Across the 2 ages, children drew on the animal’s living status and teleology, as well as ecological relations, to ground their moral reasoning. Developmentally speaking, the younger children employed both nature-centered and human-centered moral reasoning, whereas the older children employed a complex form of moral reasoning that integrated human models of moral thinking with distinct biological understanding. Practice or Policy: The findings can improve education and policy that supports the next generation of conservationists. Educators can draw on these findings to develop class material and activities that teach children about ecological relations—knowledge children can employ to construct their moral arguments for conservation and protecting the environment. The findings revealed that children think about and value endangered animals in deep and beautiful ways. Policymakers can draw on the findings to frame their decision making—drawing more deeply on children’s values of the natural world to inform policy decisions. Drawing on children’s values in the development of environmental policy engages them in the policy process.     

Training for Environmental Aides

Abstract

This paper reviews the results of a study of 267 children in the second, fifth, eighth and eleventh grades. A battery of tests was used to examine children's knowledge and attitudes toward animals, and behavioral contacts with animals. A typology of basic attitudes toward animals and appropriate scales were employed. Children's knowledge and attitudes toward animals were also compared to adults eighteen years of age and over. Major differences occurred among children distinguished by age, sex, ethnicity, and urban/rural residence. Additionally, significant knowledge and attitude variations occurred among diverse animal-related activity groups (e.g., among children who hunted, birdwatched, learned about animals in school). Perhaps the most important finding was the identification of three stages in the development of children's perceptions of animals. The transition from six to nine years of age primarily involved major changes in affective, emotional relationships to animals. The change from ten to thirteen years of age was marked by a major increase in cognitive, factual understanding, and knowledge of animals. The shift from thirteen to sixteen years of age witnessed a dramatic broadening in ethical concern and ecological appreciation of animals and the natural environment.     

Causal reasoning and inference making in judging the importance of story statements

The present study investigated the development of the ability to judge the importance of story statements on the basis of their causal properties. Key statements were varied with respect to 2 factors: in terms of the number of their causal relations, and in terms of the kinds of relations they had. Relations were either intraepisodic, that is, connecting statements in the same episode, or interepisodic, that is, connecting statements in different episodes. Children 8, 11, 14, and 18 years of age judged the importance of the statements. Children in all 4 age groups judged statements with many intraepisodic causal relations as more important than statements with few such relations. Only children 11 years and older judged statements as more important when they had interepisodic relations than when they did not. Thus, although young children may be sensitive to quantitative aspects of a statement's relational role within an episode, they may not be as aware of qualitative, that is, structural, differences between kinds of relations. Answers to why questions confirmed these patterns. Older children more often gave answers that crossed episodic boundaries than did the younger children. These findings may reflect age-related differences in children's ability to infer relations between statements and to integrate the information contained in stories. They also attest to the central role that causal inferences play in the interpretation of what is important information in stories.     

Shyness-Sensitivity and Social, School, and Psychological Adjustment in Rural Migrant and Urban Children in China

The purpose of this study was to examine relations between shyness-sensitivity and social competence, school performance, and psychological well-being in Chinese children with rural and urban backgrounds. Participants were students in rural migrant children schools and city schools in China ( N s = 411 and 518, respectively; M age = 10 years). Data were obtained from peer evaluations, teacher ratings, self-reports, and school records. It was found that shyness was associated with social and school problems and depression in urban children. However, shyness was generally associated with indexes of adjustment such as leadership, teacher-rated competence, and academic achievement in rural migrant children. The results indicate the role of context in defining the functional meaning of social behavior in children's adjustment.     

Acquiring a Naive Theory of Kinship through Inference

The present study focused on how children acquire a naive theory of kinship. Young children appear to have theoretical beliefs about the biological meaning of kinship relations. It was argued here that these beliefs reflect inductive inferences from simple facts about prenatal growth (e.g, where babies grow). An informal model of the inferences linking facts to theory was proposed and tested. In Experiment 1, 4–7-year-olds who knew the basic facts of prenatal growth were most likely to also express the naive theory of kinship. Virtually none of the children who expressed the theory were unaware of the basic facts. In Experiment 2, teaching the facts to a sample of preschoolers led to some increase in their acceptance of the kinship theory. Overall, the results implicate a type of theory building that involves inferences from preexisting knowledge rather than structural change, use of analogy, or acquisition of new knowledge.     

Time Spent Gaming and Social Competence in Children: Reciprocal Effects Across Childhood

Electronic games are popular and many children spend much time on this activity. Here we investigate whether the quantity of time children spend on gaming is related to their social development, making this the first study to examine this relationship in children. We examine prospective relations between time spent gaming and social competence in a community sample of Norwegian 6 year olds (n = 873) followed up at ages 8, 10, and 12, controlling for socioeconomic status, body mass index, and time spent gaming together with friends. Results revealed that greater social competence at both 8 and 10 years predicted less gaming 2 years later and that more age-10 gaming predicted less social competence at age 12 but only among girls.     

Social effects of collaborative learning in primary schools

There is conflicting evidence on whether collaborative group work leads to improved classroom relations, and if so how. A before and after design was used to measure the impact on work and play relations of a collaborative learning programme involving 575 students 9–12 years old in single- and mixed-age classes across urban and rural schools. Data were also collected on student interactions and teacher ratings of their group-work skills. Analysis of variance revealed significant gains for both types of relation. Multilevel modelling indicated that better work relations were the product of improving group skills, which offset tensions produced by transactive dialogue, and this effect fed through in turn to play relations. Although before intervention rural children were familiar with each other neither this nor age mix affected outcomes. The results suggest the social benefits of collaborative learning are a separate outcome of group work, rather than being either a pre-condition for, or a direct consequence of successful activity, but that initial training in group skills may serve to enhance these benefits.     

Effects of alternative testing procedures on two subtests of the Woodcock-Johnson Psycho-Educational Battery

The purpose of this study was determine whether or not the method of presentation chosen by the examiner (live voice vs. taped) affects a child's score on both the Blending and Memory for Sentences subtests of the Woodcock-Johnson Psycho-Educational Battery. Subjects were 60 young children (mean age=8-3) and 60 older children (mean age=13-4) from a rural county school population. There were 30 black and 30 white children within each age group, and 15 children from each age and racial group were randomly assigned to one of two experimental conditions (live voice vs. taped presentation of subtests). For both subtests, there were significant main effects for presentation condition, racial group, and age level. There were no significant interactions. The overall pattern of results indicated that live voice presentation benefitted black and white children of both age levels in their scores on both subtests.     

Peer interaction in Andalusia and Holland: A comparative study

Abstract

The relative scarcity of studies of cultural variations in peer interaction served as impetus for the present study. In this investigation, differences in peer interaction (child age: about 5 years) in Andalusia and Holland were examined both in an urban and a rural settings. Observational data were analysed with special interest on the collectivism-individualism dimension. Results showed that Andalusian children displayed a stronger tendency than Dutch children to function as part of a social group. However, this tendency was more clearly present in the Andalusian rural than in the urban setting. No cultural differences were found with respect to sociometric ratings. Results were discussed in terms of ecological factors in cross-cultural research.     

Turning frogs into princes: can children make inferences from fairy tales?

Background This study investigates children’s ability to generate inferences from narratives containing counterfactual information. Methods 39 typically developing readers (mean age 10; 05) completed an on-line task in which they were asked to read short passages, followed by sentences which they had to judge as true or false. The sentences pertained to either a causal inference or a static inference that could have been made during the reading of the passage. The passages and corresponding sentences were either true in terms of real world knowledge, or were presented as fairy tales. Results Results indicated that overall children responded faster and more accurately to sentences related to causal inferences than to static inferences. Responses to both types of inferences were slower in the ‘fairy story’ condition. Conclusions Children’s pattern of inference generation appears to be the same irrespective of the factual basis of the passage. However, responses to sentences based on inferences in the preceding passage are slower in fairy stories.     

All Other Things Being Equal: Acquisition and Transfer of the Control of Variables Strategy

The ability to design unconfounded experiments and make valid inferences from their outcomes is an essential skill in scientific reasoning. The present study addressed an important issue in scientific reasoning and cognitive development: how children acquire a domain-general processing strategy (Control of Variables Strategy or CVS) and generalize it across various contexts. Seven- to 10-year-olds (N = 87) designed and evaluated experiments and made inferences from the experimental outcomes. When provided with explicit training within domains, combined with probe questions, children were able to learn and transfer the basic strategy for designing unconfounded experiments. Providing probes without direct instruction, however, did not improve children's ability to design unconfounded experiments and make valid inferences. Direct instruction on CVS not only improved the use of CVS, but also facilitated conceptual change in the domain because the application of CVS led to unconfounded, informative tests of domain-specific concepts. With age, children increasingly improved their ability to transfer learned strategies to remote situations. A trial-by-trial assessment of children's strategy use also allowed the examination of the source, rate, path, and breadth of strategy change.     

Developmental and individual differences in conditional reasoning: effects of logic instructions and alternative antecedents

In Study 1, 10-, 13-, and 16-year-olds were assigned to conditions in which they were instructed to think logically and provided alternative antecedents to the consequents of conditional statements. Providing alternatives improved reasoning on two uncertain logical forms, but decreased logical responding on two certain forms; logic instructions improved reasoning among adolescents. Correlations among inferences and verbal ability were found primarily when task conditions created conflict between automatic and controlled inferences. In Study 2, when the cognitive demands of the logic instructions were reduced, 10-year-olds made more logically correct inferences, but only when a conditional's consequents were strongly associated with alternative antecedents. Discussion focuses on the ability to inhibit invited inferences and the role of automatically activated memories.     

Perceptual,thematic and taxonomic relations in children’s mental representations: Responses to triads

Recent research into children’s conceptual representation-much of it based on the so-called ‘triads’ task-has created a number of issues such as the age at which children become capable of representation at the superordinate level; the relative prominence of taxonomic, perceptual or thematic relations as the basis of representation; and the range of categories to which these different representations apply at different ages. In the study reported in this paper we presented children of three different ages with three types of triads designed to assess children’s sensitivity to these different relations separately across ten common superordinate categories. The approach which allowed us to track preferences for perceptual, thematic and taxonomic relations simultaneously across the three age groups showed an increase in sensitivity to both thematic and taxonomic relations with age. We conclude by suggesting that these relations are part of a common representation based on patterns of covariation within (static taxonomic relations) and across (event relations) time.