Mechanism-based causal reasoning in young children

The hypothesis that children develop an understanding of causal mechanisms was tested across 3 experiments. In Experiment 1 (N = 48), preschoolers had to choose as efficacious either a cause that had worked in the past, but was now disconnected from its effect, or a cause that had failed to work previously, but was now connected. Four-year-olds chose the now-connected cause more often than 3-year-olds. Experiment 2 (N = 16) showed 4-year-olds responded appropriately to an irrelevant modification in the same causal system. Experiment 3 (N = 24) demonstrated when the mechanism was batteries rather than connection, 3-year-olds could properly distinguish between relevant and irrelevant modifications. Together, these data suggest that understanding of specific causal mechanisms develops at different ages.     

Some family matters that affect young children

I recall a teacher who helped an apprehensive boy become adjusted to his classroom without his mother. His teacher enumerated the various body parts that he had brought to school that day—“his arms, legs, eyes, ears” and so on. He watched with anticipation for a while, then looked up wearily at her and said, “I know I'm all here. Butwhy am I here?”     

The performance of young deaf children in spatial and temporal number tasks

Deaf children tend to fall behind in mathematics at school. This problem may be a direct result of particular experiences in the classroom; for example, deaf children may find it hard to follow teachers' presentations of basic, but nevertheless quite abstract, mathematical ideas. Another possibility is that the problem starts before school: They may either be worse than hearing children at early, nonlinguistic number representations, they may be behind in learning the culturally transmitted number string, or both. This may result in deaf children failing to develop informal problem-solving strategies, which prepare most children for the more formal learning of number and arithmetic that they will have to do at school. We compared 3- and 4-year-old deaf and hearing children's ability to remember and to reproduce the number of items in a set of objects. In one condition, we presented all the items together in a spatial array; in another, we presented them one at a time in a temporal sequence. Deaf children performed as well as the hearing children in the temporal tasks, but outperformed their hearing counterparts in the spatial task. These results suggest that preschool deaf children's number representation is at least as advanced as that of hearing children, and that they are actually better than hearing children at representing the number of objects in spatial arrays. We conclude that deaf children's difficulties with mathematical learning are not a consequence of a delay in number representation. We also conclude that deaf children should benefit from mathematical instruction that emphasizes spatial representation.     

Coordination of size standards by young children

"Big" and "little" are inherently relational terms: whether an object is considered big or little changes as the standard of comparison changes. The present studies examined how 2-, 3-, and 4-year-old children use and coordinate 2 different kinds of standards: perceptual (object is compared to another physically present object) and normative (object is compared to a class standard stored in memory). Even the youngest children were capable of using both normative and perceptual standards. When children avoided a perceptual interpretation it was because they chose a conflicting normative interpretation instead. Thus, very young children can apply different standards of comparison when judging size.     

Some aspects of convexity

Conclusion In conclusion, we find that the Krein-Milman theorem is a simply stated and geometrically pleasing fact, which has manifold applications. It is also a powerful theoretical result, and to see its full strength, it should be stated as a result about compact convex sets in a general (possibly infinite-dimensional)locally convex topological space. The interested reader is directed to such standard texts as [2] for further details.     

Talking for reasoning among Mexican primary school children

We analysed the development and promotion of ‘exploratory talk’ as a discursive tool to facilitate collective and individual reasoning in Mexican primary school children, following Mercer et al. (Br. Educ. Res. J. 25 (1999) 95) in the UK equivalent experimental and control groups of primary school children were administered a group and an individual problem-solving test before and after training. Teachers of the experimental groups trained their respective students to use competently exploratory talk to make their reasoning visible to others for solving diverse problems. In contrast with control children, experimental ones used significantly more exploratory talk, and this gain was accompanied by a substantial improvement in group and individual problem-solving. Results confirm sociocultural claims that language can function as a powerful tool to facilitate reasoning in social contexts, confirming previous UK findings.     

Some temporal factors affecting conditional discrimination

Pigeons acquired a serial conditional discrimination in which the onset of one of two colors (the instructional cue) on the center key preceded the onset of a white light (the trial cue) on one of two side keys. An autoshaping preparation was employed, in which food was delivered depending upon the color-side combination. Five groups of birds were studied at instructional cue durations of either 30 or 60 sec, and trial cue durations of 3, 6, or 12 sec. These temporal parameters allowed for different ratios of the instructional stimulus duration (I) to the trial stimulus duration (T), while keeping the absolute duration of the instructional stimulus constant, and for different absolute durations of the instructional stimulus, while keeping the I/T ratio constant. These manipulations were studied with either a 30 or a 60-sec cycle (the interval between the onset of the intertriai interval and the offset of the trial cue), thus permitting examination of the cycle duration to trial duration ratios as well. The results showed that the larger the value of I relative to that of T, the greater the final level of accuracy; this implicates the I/T ratio as a controlling variable. In contrast, the larger the cycle duration (C) relative to T, the greater the rate of responding to the trial stimulus, which is consistent with previous findings in autoshaping studies. These results suggest that whereas the C/T ratio directly influences response rate, the I/T ratio affects accuracy in a serial conditional discrimination.     

Some psychological aspects of multilingual education

After pointing out the formative aims of multilingual education and the differences and similarities between the acquisition of the first (native) language and of the second language, the author examines cognitive development through the first and the second language in a bilingual programme. A summary of recent investigations on the subject is presented.However, the central concern of the paper lies in the proposal of a theoretical explanation of the facts. The Glossodynamic Model of language learning developed by R. Titone in the early Seventies is called for as a basis for explaining how the child's cognitive and affective development is enhanced by bilingual stimulation. The core of the Glossodynamic Model is constituted by the emphasis on the integrating, unifying, and propulsive power of the individual learner's conscious Ego, in a very general and deep meaning, not in the psycho-analytic sense only.Bilingualism appears as a sum of personalized stimulations. There is no doubt that the personality of the bilingual child not only does not suffer from the impact between L1 and L2, but rather widens its horizons and strengthens its power of adaptation to the world. A sufficient body of data supplies this conviction with a high degree of probability.

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Zusammenfassung Nach Herausarbeiten der Bildungsziele mehrsprachiger Erziehung und der Unterschiede und Ähnlichkeiten zwischen der Aneignung der ersten (Mutter-) Sprache und der Zweitsprache, überprüft der Autor die kognitive Entwicklung durch die erste und die Zweitsprache in einem zweisprachigen Programm. Dann folgt ein Überblick über kürzlich durchgeführte Untersuchungen dieses Gegenstandes.Das Hauptanliegen des Aufsatzes ist jedoch eine theoretische Erklärung der Tatsachen. Das von R. Titone zu Beginn der siebziger Jahre entwickelte Glossodynamic Model (sprachdynamische Modell) wird als Grundlage herangezogen, um zu erklären, wie des Kindes kognitive und affektive Entwicklung durch zweisprachige Anregung gefördert wird. Den Kern dieses Modells bildet das Schwergewicht auf der integrierenden, vereinheitlichenden und antreibenden Macht des bewussten Ichs des einzelnen Lernenden in einem sehr allgemeinen und tiefen Sinn, nicht allein im psychoanalytischen.Zweisprachigkeit erscheint als eine Summe personifizierter Anregungen. Kein Zweifel besteht, dass die Persönlichkeit des zweisprachigen Kindes nicht nur nicht unter dem Zusammenprall der ersten Sprache mit der Zweitsprache leidet, sondern vielmehr seinen Horizont erweitert und eine bessere Anpassungsfähigkeit an die Welt gewinnt. Eine genügende Anzahl an Daten schenkt dieser Überzeugung ein grosses Mass an Wahrscheinlichkeit.

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Résumé Cet article traite de quelques aspects psychologiques de l'éducation plurilingue. Il est axé sur la relation existant entre l'éducation bilingue précoce et le développement de la cognition.Après avoir attiré l'attention du lecteur sur l'intention formative de l'éducation plurilingue, puis montré les différences et les analogies entre l'acquisition de la première langue (maternelle) et celle de la seconde langue, l'auteur examine le développement de la cognition en L1 et L2 dans un programme bilingue. Il présente ensuite un résumé des récentes investigations sur ce sujet.Toutefois l'intérêt essentiel de l'article réside dans la théorie avancée par l'auteur pour expliquer les faits. Titone se réfère au Modèle glossodynamique d'étude des langues, qu'il a conçu au début des années 70 pour démontrer comment la stimulation bilingue accroît le développement affectif et cognitif de l'enfant. Le trait caractéristique du Modèle glossodynamique consiste dans l'accent mis sur le pouvoir moteur, unificateur et intégrateur de l'Ego conscient de chaque débutant; ce terme étant pris dans un sens très large et pas seulement psychanalytique.Le bilinguisme apparaît comme une somme de stimulations personnalisées. Il ne fait aucun doute que la personnalité de l'enfant bilingue, non seulement ne souffre pas de l'impact entre L1 et L2 mais qu'au contraire son horizon s'en trouve élargi et son pouvoir d'adaptation au monde environmant fortifié.Le faisceau des données fournies à l'appui de cette thèse lui confèrent un maximum de crédibilité.