Children's Internal Representations Research Articles

Representing and Solving Arithmetic Word Problems: A Study of Developmental Interaction

This study investigated the developmental relationship between children's mental representations of the arithmetic change problem structure (the change problem schema) and their use of part-whole strategies to solve change problems. Two hypotheses were contrasted. The first suggests that part-whole knowledge is a prerequisite for the development of the change problem schema. The second suggests that the change problem schema provides a framework for the development of part-whole knowledge. Part-whole knowledge was inferred from children's abilities to solve the most difficult type of change problem, that with start set unknown. The change problem schema was inferred from children's abilities to anticipate completion of the how many? question when given all information about the problem except the question. Only children who used part-whole strategies performed at greater than chance levels on the question generation measure. Part-whole knowledge, therefore, was seen as a prerequisite for the change prob...

Mental Imagery in Congenitally Blind Children

Ten totally and congenitally blind children, aged 3–9, and a matching group of 10 sighted children were asked to describe, first from memory and then through tactual exploration, selected common objects. The aim was to examine the children's mental representation of the objects. Through a statistical and qualitative analysis of the number and types of attributes that the children assigned to the objects, the author was able to compare the similarities and differences between the blind children's tactually based conceptualization of objects and the sighted children's visually guided conceptualization. The findings led to conclusions about the nature and development of language in blind children, the educational needs of congenitally blind children, and the common linguistic experiences of blind and sighted children.

The internal representation of word-final phonemes in phonologically disordered children.

AbstractThis study investigates the pluralisation of words in three phonologically disordered children to determine whether they select plural endings on the basis of their own erroneous surface forms of word‐stems or on the basis of internal representations which are closer to the adult forms than the surface forms suggest.Results suggest that:a) The procedure used can provide valuable information about children's internal phonological representations and could be of clinical value.b) In the subjects tested there are instances where internal representations of words are shown to be closer to the adult forms than the children's surface forms would imply. However there is evidence that their internal representations are not always exactly equivalent to the adult forms.

Children's spatial representation of their neighbourhood: A step towards a general spatial competence

The ability of six-year-old children to combine perspectives of spatial layouts in their own neighbourhood was assessed. The children were asked to imagine themselves as being at a particular reference site and to decide which of two landmarks was closer to the site. From a theoretical point of view, one should not expect six-year-olds to have acquired projective and Euclidian concepts. Nevertheless, the judgements were internally consistent and tended to be veridical. This sensitiveness to relative and absolute accuracy was interpreted as a step towards a general cognitive capacity, governing the representation of spatial relations. Distances to the home were underestimated relative distances to other landmarks. Also estimations from the home tended to be more accurate than estimations from other reference sites. These results suggest that the home acts as a central reference point in children's mental representation of the environment.

Children's visual descriptions

The aim of the experiments described below was to elucidate aspects of children's mental representations of what they see, through studying their drawings of simple geometric forms when copying from standard models. Two specific questions were studied: (a) Do children produce symbolic representations based, as in machine perception, on decomposition of the visual object into features or properties, subsequently reaggregated to a greater or lesser degree, rather than attempts to copy the visual appearance of the model? The answer was affirmative, though the phenomenon is relatively rare, (b) Does a child's drawings of simple geometric drawings improve if he can watch an adult do the same drawings first? This has been asserted in the literature and bears on the question of static versus procedural representation. In a sample of 499 drawings made by children aged from 2½ to 5 years we showed that such an effect is absent or very small.

Children's Visual Descriptions

The aim of the experiments described below was to elucidate aspects of children's mental representations of what they see, through studying their drawings of simple geometric forms when copying from standard models. Two specific questions were studied: (a) Do children produce symbolic representations based, as in machine perception, on decomposition of the visual object into features or properties, subsequently reaggregated to a greater or lesser degree, rather than attempts to copy the visual appearance of the model? The answer was affirmative, though the phenomenon is relatively rare, (b) Does a child's drawings of simple geometric drawings improve if he can watch an adult do the same drawings first? This has been asserted in the literature and bears on the question of static versus procedural representation. In a sample of 499 drawings made by children aged from 2½ to 5 years we showed that such an effect is absent or very small.

A Question of More or Less

PIKE, RUTH, and OLSON, DAVID R. A Question of More or Less. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1977, 48, 579-586. Developmental changes in 5-7-year-old children's mental representation of addition and subtraction events were examined by means of the response times required to answer more or less questions. Although all children could answer both types of questions correctly following both addition and subtraction operations, the latency patterns for more mature children suggest that they represent additions and subtractions in terms that are more compatible with more and less questions, respectively. The less mature children represent both operations in terms that are more compatible with more questions. A second study showed that when this latter group of children was induced to form representations similar to those of the more mature group, then both groups performed in much the same way. It was concluded that performance differences were attributable to differences in the mental representations assigned to events, not in the procedures employed in comparing the representations. The representations appear to differ both in lexical content and in the referential features of the words in that the younger children's meanings are specified in terms of perceptual features in the display whereas older children's meanings are specified in terms of other concepts or representations in the system, for example, more/less/same.

The Development of Young Children's Spatial Representations of Their Classrooms

SIEGEL, ALEXANDER, W., and SCHADLER, MARGARET. The Development of Young Children's Spatial Representations of Their Classrooms. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1977, 48, 388-394. In an attempt to assess the development of young children's internal representations of large-scale space, 15 boys and 15 girls were asked to construct a 3-dimensional model of their kindergarten classroom. 3 groups of 10 children were tested, 2 in the spring and 1 in the following fall. 1 of the groups of children tested in the spring was given 4 accurately laced landmarks prior to their model construction. Constructions were scored on the bases of absolute accuracy (the accuracy with which items were placed relative to their absolute position in the classroom), local relational accuracy (accuracy of item placement relative to items adjacent to it), and global relational accuracy (accuracy with which clusters of items were placed relative to other clusters). On all 3 measures, the accuracy of the boys was greater than that of the girls. Increased experience in the classroom significantly increased the children's absolute accuracy but had relatively little effect on their local relational and global relational accuracy. The provision of landmarks enhanced the children's local relational and global relational accuracy but had no effect on absolute accuracy. These effects were found to be independent of maturational factors alone. Results are discussed in the context of current theories of spatial representation.