Children Turn Research Articles

Child participation during outpatient consultations: a mixed methods study

Although children wish to be included in their own healthcare, they recognize a gap between their right to be heard and their ability to become involved. Despite adaptation of medical consultation styles which suit a more patient-centered approach, data on the current state of child participation in clinical encounters are missing. We aimed to assess actual child participation in a Dutch pediatric clinic. Children aged 4–18 years visiting a pediatric outpatient clinic for consultation after general practitioner’s referral were included. Sixteen consultations of six pediatricians were recorded and transcribed verbatim. Quantitative measurement included word count and speech turn; conversation analysis with qualitative appraisal provided data on participatory behavior. Quantitative child participation equaled parent participation in turns (28% vs 29%, respectively), but remained limited in words (relative contribution 11% for child, 23% for parent and 66% for pediatrician). Children spoke on average six words per speech turn. Child age correlated positively with participation in words (p = 0.022, r = 0.566) and turns (p = < 0.001, r = 0.746). Children were mostly involved during social history taking, introduction, and physical examination but did not actively speak during the decision-making process. Children took an active role by instigating talks. Qualitative facilitators included appropriate language and verbal or non-verbal child allocated turns. Adults involved children by asking them questions and verifying their opinions or plans with the child. Teenagers participated most during the entire consultation, while younger children were more likely to lose their focus by the end of the conversation.Conclusion: Despite increased turn taking, children’s verbal participation remains low in pediatric consultations. If pediatricians and parents maintain a triadic conversation style throughout every stage of the medical encounter, child participation may increase.What is Known:• Verbal child participation varies between 4 and 17%, measured in turns, words, speech time, or utterances.• Child participation is limited to social talk, laughter, and providing medical information.What is New:• Child speech turns equal parental speech turns (28%), but average relative word count remains low (11%).• Three percent of the children’s turns are defined a “contributing in decision making, giving their opinion or give consent,” which equals three turns per consultation.

ДЖУДИТ РИЧ ХАРРИС И ЕЕ КОНЦЕПЦИЯ СОЦИАЛИЗАЦИИ: КРИТИЧЕСКИЕ АСПЕКТЫ

The concept of socialization and the child’s personality development by Judith Rich Harris, a specialist in the field of developmental psychology, is discussed. Her innovative work at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries contributed to the revision of ideas about the role of the environment and heredity in human development. J.R. Harris is best known as the author of the controversial books The Nurture Assumption: Why Children Turn Out the Way They Do (1998) and No Two Alike: Human Nature and Human Individuality (2006). She criticized the common view that parents and parenting styles in the family serve as determining factors in the development of children’s personality. The main idea of Judith Harris’s work is that a child’s personality is shaped more by his immediate social environment and heredity than by the deliberate efforts of parents and teachers. She argues that contextual sensitivity underlies human social adaptation. The child’s behavior is specific to the situation in which it was formed, and such behavior is spontaneously restructured when entering a different social environment, taking into account the requirements of the new situation. J.R. Harris argues that the upbringing that children receive in the family has no lasting effects on the personality development, unlike the behaviors that are formed by children outside the home. Children are socialized primarily through interactions with peers, and their personalities are developed through experiences growing up outside the family circle. Developmental psychology in general and socialization research in particular at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries received incentives to revise established perceptions thanks to the successes of biological sciences, behavioral genetics and deciphering the human genome. Observations by linguists, ethnographers, biologists, and anthropologists also encourage modern psychologists to reconsider conventional concepts.

Sequence organization of autistic children's play with caregivers: Rethinking follow-in directives.

In this article we use a qualitative method, conversation analysis, to examine videos of caregivers interacting with their young autistic children who are in the early phases of language learning. Conversation analysis involves preparation of detailed transcripts of video data, which are then analyzed together to understand how interactional moves (e.g. talk, gestures, and physical conduct) are linked with prior and subsequent interactional moves. We analyzed data from 15 participants, and focused on instances when caregivers made a proposal about something the child was playing with. In previous research, similar instances have been referred to as "follow-in directives." We found that these proposals were embedded in sequences that had a similar structure, and were prefaced with a 'pre-proposal'; where the caregiver established the child's interest in a joint activity and signaled the upcoming proposal. The caregiver's talk was also provided in such a way that there was a clear "slot" for the child's turn, which made it easy for the child's actions to become part of an interactional sequence. In addition, proposal sequences were very negotiable-the caregivers do not usually insist that the child follow through on the proposal, only that they produce an action that could be taken as a response. Finally, there were some instances where the child's turn was very precisely timed to occur right at the end of a caregiver's proposal; this precise timing could signal the child's understanding of how interactional turn-taking works. We suggest that this method of examining caregiver-child interactions provides new insights into how interactions proceed, which could be useful for future intervention research.

Judith Rich Harris (1938–2019).

Presents an obituary of Judith Rich Harris (1938-2019). Judith Rich was born in Brooklyn on February 10, 1938, the daughter of Sam and Fran Lichtman Rich. After a freshman year at the University of Arizona, she earned a bachelor's degree in psychology at Brandeis in 1959. She earned a master's degree from Harvard in 1961 and later that year married her fellow graduate student Charles Harris, who became a researcher in visual perception at AT&T Bell Labs. From the 1960s through the 1980s, she published experimental papers in perception and visual search, including one with S. S. Stevens, a pioneer in modern psychophysics, and another with John A. Swets, who first adapted signal detection theory to psychology. She gave birth to one daughter, Nomi Harris, and adopted another, Elaine Valk. Harris expanded her insight into a radical new theory of socialization-that children's personalities are shaped by genes and peers, not parents-which she laid out in a 1995 article in Psychological Review ("Where Is the Child's Environment? A Group Socialization Theory of Development") and her 1998 bestseller, The Nurture Assumption: Why Children Turn Out the Way They Do. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

“Unmapping” the Ural Playscapes: An Analysis of Playgrounds and Child Play under the Post-Soviet Urban Transition of Yekaterinburg, Russia

This study examines playgrounds as lenses on urban transitions to explain the link between urban transformations and changes in the discourse of play and childhood. Specifically, it compares Soviet public playgrounds and post-Soviet privatized playscapes in the city of Yekaterinburg, Russia, through primary observation and secondary data analysis. Using the framework of social reproduction developed by Cindy Katz and Saskia Sassen to explain how the local forces affect cities, my analysis shows that the shift in the discourse of play and childhood in the post-Soviet period is hinged on global influences combined with local transformations, from the abandonment of Soviet ideals of communal play spaces to the embracement of today’s consumerist play places. Whereas the old Soviet playgrounds have uncertain purposes, in contemporary Yekaterinburg private playgrounds offer a narrative of play in terms of leisure, love, and convenience for parents. Children turn into consumers of private play, leaving most of the Soviet playgrounds as idle spaces in the city. This article argues that Yekaterinburg’s shift toward participating in the globalized economy combined with its transition from the Soviet ideals maintains social relations and reproduces social inequalities in childhood, as this condition favors consumerist narratives of play. I conclude that the playgrounds in Yekaterinburg are bystanders of new global ecologies whereby social, political, and economic transformations become an impetus to reproduce new ways of seeing the social importance and meaning of play and playgrounds. Article in English DOI: 10.25285/2078-1938-2019-11-1-5-30

Children's responses to questions in peer interaction: A window into the ontogenesis of interactional competence

What is it about children's interactions that is distinctive from adults’ interactions? This article relies on a conversation analytically informed quantitative analysis of video recordings of child–child interaction to address this question. We examined 2000 questions and their responses in spontaneous conversation among three-party groups of same age children between 4–8 years of age to investigate the frequency and distributional patterns related to norms governing question–response sequences. We show that school-age children exhibit similar frequency distributions to adults but respond to questions less often and are slower than adults, with minimal age-related differences. Still more important, we argue, is that children's responses show a lack of reflexive awareness of the underlying norms. We propose that it is children's turn designs that lead child interaction to feel distinctive because children at these ages are not differentiating their norm-following from norm-departing responses.

ADOLESCENTS’ HEALTH BEHAVIOUR ACCORDING TO SPORT AND FAMILY STRUCTURE

Health awareness plays an important role in our life. It’s important to live an appropriate lifestyle because an adequate way of life helps to conserve the optimal health status and to prevent chronic diseases (Conner, 2005). The role of the family and parents is still significant. Children turn toward their peers but the family stands in the background as a supporting basis (Kovács &amp; Pikó, 2009). However this function cannot be fulfilled with the crisis and disintegration of family structure which can mean a serious stressor, so it can increase the appearance and in serious cases the long-lasting subsistence of harmful health behavior (Bramlett &amp; Blumber, 2007). The aim of the study is to measure the appearance of smoking, getting drunk, and substance use depending on the sport and family structure in three counties on the basis of FASCES 2015. According to the results only pursuing sport does not influence the testing rate but it can be seen as a protective factor. Family structure considered on its own is not a significant influencing factor but the mediating role of social factors are well perceptible in case of smoking, getting drunk, and using weed.

Save the Children, the humanitarian project, and the politics of solidarity: reviving Dorothy Buxton's vision.

This paper reflects on the foundational years of Save the Children, one of the oldest and largest Western humanitarian agencies and a mainstay of the humanitarian project. In doing so, it considers how and why, at an early stage, the organisation depoliticised its activities, centring its narrative on the innocent, pre-political child-the image of unsullied humanity. In addition, it seeks to recover the internationalist vision of Save the Children's 'forgotten founder', Dorothy Buxton. Save the Children's turn to non-politics is indicative of the broader depoliticisation of Western humanitarian action. Given the intensely contested spaces in which Western humanitarian non-governmental organisations (NGOs) operate, these entities cannot escape politics. This paper argues that Buxton's efforts to build an international solidarity network through humanitarian action after the end of the First World War in 1918 provide an instructive basis on which these NGOs can pursue a politics of solidarity in the present day.

Offering alternatives as a way of issuing directives to children: Putting the worse option last

In a corpus of c. 250h of recorded interactions between young children and adults in USA and UK households, we found that children could be directed to change their course of action by three syntactic formats that offered alternatives: an imperative, or a modal declarative, plus a consequential alternative to non-compliance (e.g. come down at once or I shall send you straight to bed; you’ve got to stand here with it or it goes back in the cupboard), or an interrogative requiring a preference (e.g. do you want to put them neatly in the corner for mummy please or do you wanna go to bed). Formatted syntactically as or-alternatives, these can perform the actions both of warning and threatening. But they make a ‘bad’ course of action contiguous to the child's turn. We argue that adults choose this format because the interactional preference for contiguity makes the negative alternative the more salient one. This implies that adults attribute to children the ability to appreciate the flouting of preference organisation for deontic effect.

"She came out of mum's tummy the wrong way". (Mis)conceptions among siblings of children with rare disorders.

Misconceptions or uncertainty about the rare disorder of a sibling may cause adjustment problems among children. New knowledge about their misconceptions may enable genetic counselors to provide targeted information and increase siblings' knowledge. This study aims to describe misconceptions and uncertainties of siblings of children with rare disorders. Content analysis was applied to videotapes of 11 support group sessions with 56 children aged 6 to 17. First, children's statements about the disorder (turns) were categorized into the categories "identity," "cause," "cure," "timeline," and "consequences" and then coded as medically "correct," "misunderstood," or "uncertain." Next, turns categorized as "misunderstood" or "uncertain" were analyzed to explore prominent trends. Associations between sibling age, type of disorder, and frequency of misconceptions or uncertainties were analyzed statistically. Approximately 16% of the children's turns were found to involve misconceptions or uncertainty about the disorder, most commonly about the identity or cause of the disorder. Misconceptions seemed to originate from information available in everyday family life, generalization of lay beliefs, or through difficulties understanding abstract medical concepts. Children expressed uncertainty about the reasons for everyday experiences (e.g. the abnormal behavior they observed). A lack of available information was described as causing uncertainty. Misconceptions and uncertainties were unrelated to child age or type of disorder. The information needs of siblings should always be addressed during genetic counseling, and advice and support offered to parents when needed. Information provided to siblings should be based on an exploration of their daily experiences and thoughts about the rare disorder.

Kids a Source of Joy?! (Kinder - Ein Quell Der Freude?! - German Paper)

It is well known, that the presences of children lower parental happiness. That is based on psychological and economical reasons. The effect holds on for micro data of the GSOEP. The number of children affects an inverse u-shaped curve on happiness. Even an enlargement of the dataset with macroeconomic variables offers the same results. The effect disappears only after generating terms of interaction for catching some effects of macroeconomic uncertainty. Children turn to be positive. This result could be interpreted as consumption utility of children. Considering these factors, children might be a source of joy.

Interactions between a deaf child for whom English is an additional language and his specialist teacher in the first year at school: Combining words and gestures

This paper provides a description of the interactions between a nursery‐aged prelingually deaf child and his specialist teacher recorded at four consecutive time points during the first year at school. The child comes from a hearing, Somali‐speaking family where English is an additional language (EAL). Using Conversation Analysis procedures, findings show how, with the teacher's support, the deaf child accomplishes ‘multi‐element’ turns (that is, turns in which semantic referents are combined using words and gestures—‘elements’) within and across time points. Gestures remain an essential feature of the child's communication at all times. The teacher's prior and next turns create and support language learning opportunities for the child, and this support is continually adjusted in response to the child's turns. It is suggested that these sequences of talk are an important mechanism driving the child's learning of spoken English.

Practices of Other-Initiated Repair in the Classrooms of Children with Specific Speech and Language Difficulties

Repair practices used by teachers who work with children with specific speech and language difficulties (SSLDs) have hitherto remained largely unexplored. Such classrooms therefore offer a new context for researching repairs and considering how they compare with non-SSLD interactions. Repair trajectories are of interest because they are dialogic sites where the child's meaning is being negotiated and, therefore, where adults might create opportunities for language learning. The interactions take place during activities, such as story writing, where teachers elicit children's ideas and orient to their lack of clarity. From a data set of 78 cases, four significant patterns of teacher repair initiation emerged. First, non-specific repair initiators (RIs), such as ‘say that again’, target any aspect of the prior turn and reveal the adult's lack of grasp of its content. Next, specific RIs (‘she has’) that are constructed with minimal components of the child's turn, pinpoint the location of the trouble but provide no new lexical information. In contrast, specific RIs that are constructed as ‘wh’ questions (‘down where’), target the nature of the trouble and elicit further information. Finally, offers of candidates (‘do you mean X’) do provide new models of lexis but do not elicit repetition from the child.

Social class and access to higher education in Greece: supportive preparation lessons and success in national exams

Participation in the national exams is a very difficult task for Greek lyceum students as their access to higher education is highly dependent on their performance in them. This paper focuses on the students' preparation for the national exams and especially their resort to out‐of‐school supportive lessons in relation to their socio‐economic background. The study examines whether the widening of participation reduces social inequalities or not. It also examines the possibility of their resort to different forms of out‐of‐school support and the cost of it in relation to their families' socio‐economic background and their performance. The findings give evidence that there is a close relationship between parents' socio‐economic state and the form of out‐of‐school support as well as the students' performance in the national exams. High social class parents increase the possibilities of their children's turn to the out‐of‐school support and especially to the most expensive and effective forms of it, as it can ensure high performance and access to high academic status departments. It has become a means for high social class parents to help their children face competition and ensure the reproduction of their social privileges. All this leads to the conclusion that in spite of the fact that the vast majority of the Greek students attend public lyceums, the out‐of‐school support has led to the commercialization of education and the public character of education tends to be dismissed.

Exotropia and Face Turn in Children With Homonymous Hemianopia

Four children developed homonymous hemianopia, exotropia with the deviating eye pointing in the direction of the field defect, and a face turn toward the side of the defect following complete third cranial nerve palsy after brain tumor resection, an in utero middle cerebral artery infarction, nonaccidental head trauma, and a hemispherectomy for an intractable seizure disorder. We present evidence that the exotropia and face turn are part of an adaptive mechanism to increase the useful visual field.

Judith Rich Harris: The Miss Marple of Developmental Psychology

This paper contributes to inquiries into scientific personae by employing a rhetorical approach. It analyzes the persuasive strategies of Judith Rich Harris in The Nurture Assumption: Why Children Turn Out the Way They Do (1998). Rhetorical analysis of Harris' self-fashioning in this remarkable best-seller and the reactions of the press to her persona demonstrates the resilience of specific archaic cultural repertoires for constructing scientific identities. While historical studies investigate how repertoires for scientific self-fashioning evolve through time, rhetoric reveals how identity models from an earlier age may be appropriated in the present.

The Nurture Assumption: Why Children Turn Out the Way They Do

The Nurture Assumption: Why Children Turn Out the Way They Do

The Nurture Assumption: Why Children Turn Out the Way they Do

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOKHow much credit do parents deserve when their children turn out welt? How much blame when they turn out badly? Judith Rich Harris has a message that will change parents' lives: The nurture assumption -- the belief that what makes children turn out the way they do, aside from their genes, is the way their parents bring them up -- is nothing more than a cultural myth. This electrifying book explodes some of our unquestioned beliefs about children and parents and gives us a radically new view of childhood.Harris looks with a fresh eye at the real lives of real children to show that it is what they experience outside the home, in the company of their peers, that matters most, Parents don't socialize children; children socialize children. With eloquence and humor, Judith Harris explains why parents have little power to determine the sort of people their children will become.The Nurture Assumption is an important and entertaining work that brings together insights from psychology, sociology, anthropology, primatology, and evolutionary biology to offer a startling new view of who we are and how we got that way.

Maternal Communication Style With Developmentally Delayed Preschoolers

Videotaped interactions of 98 mother-child dyads (40 with Down syndrome, 23 with neurological problems, and 35 with delays of unknown etiology)were examined for mothers' language facilitation strategies (modeling or eliciting)in two situations (play and teaching). Mothers emphasized modeling strategies more than eliciting techniques. This discrepancy increased in the teaching task. Mothers' level of communication was responsive to the child's ability level. Thus mothers' speech to delayed children takes account of their childrens' linguistic skills. However mothers appear to focus on child “performance”, rather than eliciting speech, and this is more evident during “teaching” activities. Being more specific about the child's turn to talk may be an enhancing addition to the language repertoire of mothers of children with delayed language and may be a useful focus for interventions with families.

The embodied mind: Toward a relational perspective

Throughout his working life Freud rejected the dualism of mind and body, which suggests that we can study people's thoughts, feelings, and relationships without taking into account the bodily contexts in which people live their lives. In his conception of the bodily origins of mental functioning, however, children are seen to be oblivious to their environments for a significant period in their early lives (the first 18–24 months). This conception is increasingly found to be untenable: current perspectives and observations both within and outside psychoanalytic psychology suggest that infants interact with their environments from birth. This paper attempts a model for an interactive perspective on the bodily origins of the mind. It proposes that from the beginning of life infant experience occurs in interactions. Because the mental and physical aspects of infant's experience are initially not differentiated, these interactions are absolutely body‐bound. That nondifferentiation also results directly in the primitive experience modes Freud described as the primary processes. Development occurs by integration and differentiation. It leads to the transition, at 18–24 months, that Freud ascribed to the child's turn to the external world and to the testing of reality, the beginning of psychic conflict, and the relegation to the unconscious of unacceptable ideas, which in his view accompany it.