The Facilitation of Thinking Skills in Preschool Children using Computer Presented Activities

Summary Thirty six four‐year‐old children were given the Raven's Coloured Progressive Matrices and were then randomly divided within sexes into two groups. A treatment group worked through sixteen computer presented problem‐solving activities while the second was a controlled group and did not do the activities. All the children were then re‐tested on Raven's Matrices. The results showed a significantly greater improvement between the pre‐ and post‐test for the treatment group than for the control group. The results are discussed in terms of the development of thinking skills.     

Promoting Social Skills in Young Children

The literature reflects that numerous factors impact a young child's ability to have playmates and develop friendships. This in turn can influence health, happiness, and stability throughout life. Social relationships may be enhanced through a youngster's efforts and those of caring adults, especially teachers, parents, and other caregivers. Two checklists are provided, one to assist when observing and recording a child's personal behaviors and another to aid adults with the self-assessment of their child guidance techniques. These results are beneficial to those who teach, guide, train, and provide other essential experiences for children.     

思维技巧与计算机检索质量分析

面对现代纷繁复杂的信息资源，如何能快捷、准确地利用计算机检索方法找到所需信息是广大读者极其关心的问题。计算机检索策略式的制定、检索语言的选择及检索技巧直接影响着检索的效果，能在查全率和查准率之间找到一个平衡点是保证检索质量的关键。在检索过程中有意识地运用辩证逻辑思维技巧，可以准确地提炼主题、解决漏检及误差率等难题，使计算机检索方法提高到一个新的高度，能帮助读者取得满意的检索效果。     

蒙台梭利日常生活技能教育对幼儿生活技能教育的启示

蒙台梭利日常生活教育对幼儿生活技能教育改革具有借鉴意义。为了更好地借鉴蒙台梭利日常生活教育的相关理论,必须了解幼儿生活技能的定义和种类。在具体的幼儿生活技能教育实施过程中,首先要在理论层面上促进蒙台梭利生活教育理论的本土化;其次要充分利用蒙台梭利教具对幼儿进行生活技能教育;第三,要对幼儿教育师资进行蒙台梭利生活技能教育理论的培养和培训。     

Thinking with a Theory: Theory-prediction Consistency and Young Children’s Identification of Causality

Theory-testing can only inform scientific inquiry when the prediction of test outcome is based upon the current theory (theory-prediction consistency). This investigation explores children’s theory-prediction consistency in a computer-mediated task in which multiple opportunities were provided to predict outcomes and review theories. An initial correlation study revealed that theory-prediction consistency was associated with children’s success when attempting to identify causation. The second study investigated the effect of goal and a simple intervention upon children’s theory-prediction consistency. The type of goal appeared to have no effect but the intervention, which encouraged the children to use their theory to make predictions, significantly improved their ability to identify cause. Interestingly, it also improved other aspects of their performance – such as encouraging more reflection upon the outcomes of tests. The results imply that poor theory-prediction consistency may be related to difficulties in identifying the type of problem being presented.     

The Effectiveness of an Instructional Videotape and Computer Presented Activities on Pre‐reading Skills with Three‐year‐old Children

An instructional videotape designed to improve visual discrimination in three‐year‐old children was produced to be used in conjunction with computer‐presented reading‐readiness activities. The videotape comprised four instructional sequences: discrimination of simple geometric shapes, pairs of houses, matchstick‐men, and biscuits baked in the shape of a man and a dog. There were three treatment conditions: (1) the computer activities alone, (2) video presentation without discussion and the computer activities, and (3) video presentation with group discussion of the contents and the computer‐presented activities. The performance of all groups was measured in terms of their scores on the 50 computer‐presented activities. The effectiveness of the instructional videotape was evaluated in terms of its ability to increase the performance of children on the computer‐presented activities. The results indicated that the performance increased from conditions one to three and hence that an instructional videotape can be effectively used with young children     

Name Writing: A Window into the Emergent Literacy Skills of Young Children

This article discusses the potential significance of name writing skills in addressing many important questions about the development of early literacy skills. Young children are inherently interested in producing their own names in print. Furthermore, young children appear to construct their understandings of name writing skills in a predictable, sequential pattern. Questions raised include whether the development of name writing skills mirrors the development of other important cognitive skills, the potential of name writing skills to offer insight as to how young children learn important literacy concepts, the use of name writing as a developmental indicator for children that may be at risk for reading difficulties, and the potential for structured activities using name writing to facilitate the development of emergent literacy skills.     

Language Intervention: Computer Training for Young Children with Special Needs

Three studies that explore the usefulness and effectiveness of computers for training language skills of young children with communication disabilities are reviewed. A study of eight toddlers with Down syndrome compared traditional individual language intervention with computer-based instruction for developing comprehension of vocabulary and early grammatical patterns over a period of three months. Both approaches showed a similar, highly significant effect, indicating that computer-based intervention was as successful as traditional one-to-one language therapy.
A second study used 52 children (ages 4–10) who were enrolled in special education classes for children with severe language, learning and behavioral disabilities. The effectiveness of adding twice a week, 30-minute interactive computer language training sessions to the regular classsroom language curriculum was examined. Children showed significantly more progress in vocabulary, general language ability and social communication during the 10 week period they were receiving the computer training.
Lastly, the effectiveness of using a parent volunteer to work with toddlers on computer-based language tasks was compared with language progress when these children worked with a professional speech language pathologist. Four out of five of the children showed more progress when working with the parent volunteer.
The article concludes with a discussion of educational considerations for planning computer-based language intervention and includes a sample language lesson for the computer as well as software evaluation guidelines.     

Using ICT to Foster (Pre) Reading and Writing Skills in Young Children

ABSTRACT

This study examines how technology can support the development of emergent reading and writing skills in four- to five-year-old children. The research was conducted with PictoPal, an intervention which features a software package that uses images and text in three main activity areas: reading, writing, and authentic applications. This article reports on the effects of the PictoPal intervention on pupil literacy and communication skills. Two small-scale studies were conducted. Observation results from the first study showed that children are able to work independently with the program after a few instruction sessions. The second study showed a statistically significant learning effect of experimental versus control group scores after two months of using PictoPal in the classroom under the guidance of a parent volunteer. Further research is needed to arrive at a better understanding of these learning gains with a larger group of pupils.     

The Effect of Computer Games Practice on the Development of Visual Perception Skills in Kindergarten Children

No abstract available for this article.     

Teaching Community Skills to Two Young Children with Autism Using a Digital Self-Managed Activity Schedule

The current study investigated the efficacy of a self-managed activity schedule to teach 2 participants how to effectively order food items from a local community bakery. 2 participants who were on the autism spectrum were taught to follow a task analysis that was displayed on an iPhone. We used a multiple baseline design across participants to evaluate the effectiveness of the teaching procedure. Results showed that the participants were able to order items, and this skill generalized to a novel bakery. The task analysis and iPhone were immediately withdrawn at a 2 to 5 week follow-up, and both participants were still able to effectively perform the steps of the task analysis without the use of prompts.     

Type of Feedback and Young Children's Performance on Computer Presented Reading Readiness Activities

Summary Forty children, between the ages of three years ten months and four years six months and with a mean age of four years three months, did computer‐presented reading‐readiness activities under different pre‐activity and feedback conditions. The children were randomly allocated within sexes to four groups. Group 1 listened to a story which involved a teddy bear character called BJ Bear and then did reading‐readiness activities such that the smiling face of the bear appeared on the screen and a tune played when they responded correctly, and the sad face of the bear when they were incorrect. Group 2 listened to the story and then did the activities with the smiling face of the bear and a tune when correct, but with nothing when they were wrong. Group 3 did not receive the story, but did the activities with both the smiling face of the bear and a tune when correct, and the sad face of the bear when incorrect. Group 4 also did not receive the story and did the activities with the smiling face of the bear and a tune when correct, but with nothing when they were wrong. Overall it was found that children did significantly better if given the story about BJ before the activities. There was also a significant interaction between the story condition, feedback for incorrect responses and sex such that performance was better for all with‐story groups except in the case of boys with no feedback.     

Individual Differences in Theory of Mind, Aggressive Behavior, and Social Skills In Young Children

Research Findings. The present study examined relations between social-cognitive skills, aggression, and social competence using teacher questionnaires and tabletop tasks with preschool and kindergarten children. It was hypothesized that the acquisition of a theory of “mind”, as indexed by an understanding of false beliefs, might be related to social behavior for this age group. Overall, results indicated that both generation of forceful solutions in a traditional social-problem solving task and performance on the false belief tasks were significantly related to social competence, after controlling for the effects of age, language comprehension, and teacher ratings of aggression. In addition, theory of mind understanding was a better predictor of social competence than performance on a more traditional social information-processing task that involved the generation of alternative solutions to interpersonal problems. Practice. The implications of these findings for preschool and kindergarten peer relations and their potential relevance to treatment of deficits in social skills are discussed. Specifically, training in an understanding of counterfactual thinking (e.g., through increased and structured opportunities to engage in pretend play and storytelling) may enhance preschooler social skills.     

儿童假扮游戏中的认知技能发展

假扮游戏的出现、发展到成熟伴随儿童的认知发展．儿童需要具备必要的认知技能才能参与假扮游戏,与假扮游戏有关的认知技能主要包括:社会参照、解读意图、分离、符号化假扮、角色扮演等．假扮游戏与儿童认知发展是一个交互作用的过程,作用的起点是假扮行为的出现．     

Developmentally Appropriate Emergent Literacy Activities for Young Children: Adapting the Early Literacy and Learning Model

Whether it be leaping, resisting, or being gently shoved, the field of early childhood education continues moving into the age of accountability. Young children are expected to exhibit many requisite skills prior to kindergarten. Thus, the advancement of pre-reading and writing skills development become one of the many areas of focus for early childhood teachers. This study focused on the advancement of young children’s emergent literacy and letter recognition skills through developmentally appropriate instruction and need based adapted activities using the Early Literacy and Learning Model (ELLM) curriculum. The results suggest that mindfully adapting activities to children’s needs advances children’s emergent literacy development.