Child's Conception Research Articles

Subdivision processes in mathematics and science

AbstractIn the course of a research project now in progress, three successive division problems were presented to students in Grades 7–12. The first problem concerned a geometrical line segment, while the other two dealt with material substances (copper wire and water). All three problems involved the same process: successive division. Two of the problems (line segment and copper wire) were also figurally similar. Our data indicate that the similarity in the process had a profound effect on students' responses. The effect of the similarity in process suggests that the repeated process of division has a coercive effect, imposing itself on students' responses and encouraging then to view successive division processes as finite or infinite regardless of the content of the problem.It is possible to trace out, step by step, a more or less parallel process of development for the ideas of points and continuity and those dealing with atoms and physical objects in the child's conception of the ideal world. The only difference between these two processes is that to the child's way of thinking physical points or atoms still possess surface and volume, whereas mathematical points tend to lose all extension (though during the stages of development which concerns us here, this remains only a tendency.) (Piaget & Inhelder, 1948, pp. 126).Our first naive impression of nature and matter is that of continuity. Be it a piece of matter or a volume of liquid we invariably conceive it as divisible into infinity, and even so small a part of it appears to us to possess the same properties as the whole. (Hilbert, 1925, pp. 162).

Investigating Childhood Leukaemia Rates around the Sellafield Nuclear Plant

Summary At this stage the perspective has changed from that of a suggested childhood leukaemia excess in Seascale which was possibly related to environmental radiation contamination (as originally reported by the Yorkshire television programme) to a confirmed childhood leukaemia excess in the village which is statistically related to father's external radiation exposure during work at Sellafield before his child's conception. The evidence has been developed from anecdote by the sequential use of standard statistical and epidemiological methods-geographical, cohort and case-control studies. This finding clearly needs and is receiving more attention and detail to try to understand whether it is truly radiation related and, if so, quite how it might operate.

Nutrition and Mental Development

understanding of the relation between mental states and the physical world, unpublished manuscript, University of Texas at Austin (1992). 3. J.H. Flavell, F.L. Green, and E.R. Flavell, Young children's knowledge about thinking, unpub lished manuscript, Stanford University, Stanford, CA (1992). 4. S.L. Rosenkrantz, Children's recognition of the facial expressions associated with cognitive I states, unpublished manuscript, Stanford University, Stanford, CA(1991). 5. For results similar to those of Rosenkrantz, see S. Baron-Cohen and P. Cross, Reading the eyes: Evidence for the role of perception in the develop ment of a theory of mind, Mind and Language, 7, I 172-186(1992). I 6. J. Piaget, The Child's Conception of the World (Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1929).

Repression in the child's conception of the world: A phenomenological reading of Piaget

Abstract The present article undertakes a psychological reading of The Child's Conception of the World as a cultural artifact in which genetic psychology's naturalistic and positivistic assumptions reflect an Enlightenment model of science, and Piaget figures as an agent of technological rationality. A phenomenological analysis of the text reveals how Piaget's research engages in an active repression of specific dimensions of childhood experience. Young children's ‘adualistic’ conceptions of thought, self and language are deemed ‘confused’, and thereby discounted, by virtue of the fact such children do not ‘correctly’ dichotomize experience in accord with the cultural norm of mechanistic rationality. Piaget's numerous associations of the child's ‘primitive’ views and the (childish) thought of the pre‐Socratics are briefly explored.

Now you see it, now you don't: The preschool child's conception of invisible particles in the context of dissolving.

Preschool children, ages 3, 4, and 5, were asked to make judgments about the presence of material substances (e.g., sugar particles) and their properties (e.g., sweet taste) for solutions in which various powders were dissolved. Results indicated a substantial degree of recognition of the nature of matter in the context of dissolving. Ss distinguished visual appearance from underlying reality; recognized the conservation of taste, smell, and dangerous properties of substances; and by the age of 5, recognized that matter can be decomposed into tiny pieces, each too tiny to be seen by the naked eye. Overall performance improved in the 3-5 age range, with the major advance between the 3- and 4-year-olds

Now you see it, now you don't: The preschool child's conception of invisible particles in the context of dissolving.

Now you see it, now you don't: The preschool child's conception of invisible particles in the context of dissolving.

Father's occupational exposure to radiation and the raised level of childhood leukemia near the Sellafield nuclear plant.

The first indications that childhood leukemia rates may be raised near the Sellafield nuclear plant in West Cumbria, England, came from largely anecdotal evidence in a television program "Windscale: The Nuclear Laundry" shown during 1983. During subsequent years, various epidemiological studies have investigated the claim in more detail. Geographical analyses of childhood leukemia incidence in the northern region and mortality in England and Wales using routinely available data made the first contribution. As a result, it was confirmed that leukemia rates in the area, particularly the neighboring village of Seascale, were high compared to other districts, although not totally extreme. Cohort studies of children born in Seascale or attending schools in Seascale were carried out to resolve some of the difficulties of interpretation of geographical analysis. Cohort studies indicated that the excess of leukemia was concentrated among children born in Seascale and was not found among those moving in after birth and suggested that any causal factors may be acting before birth or very early in life. A case-control study of leukemia (and lymphoma) among young people in West Cumbria has examined potentially important individual factors in detail. The study demonstrated a relationship between the raised incidence of leukemia in children and father's recorded external radiation dose during work at Sellafield before his child's conception. The association can effectively explain statistically the observed geographical excess.

Childhood cancer and nuclear installations

So where are we now? I think the first thing to say is that there is a well-established excess around Sellafield of childhood leukaemia, although excesses around other nuclear sites are of a lower magnitude. The excess near Sellafield is strongly associated with fathers having high exposure to external whole-body penetrating radiation while working at the installation before their child's conception. But is this association pointing towards a causal mechanism? One possibility is genetic damage, but most geneticists and radiobiologists would consider that the levels of occupational exposure, even at Sellafield, are too low for this to be a plausible pathway on current knowledge. This is based to some extent on the lack of any similar effect among children born subsequently to Japanese survivors of the atomic bombs--however, the scenario is somewhat different contrasting a high short-term exposure with a lower long-term exposure. As well, some workers at Sellafield will also be exposed to radionuclides, such as plutonium, which we have not yet been able to analyse for. In addition, there are other exposures in a complex environment which may or may not be relevant. One experimental study in the laboratory using animals supports the idea that a pathway through irradiation of the parents is plausible, although this one result needs replication. Other causes have been suggested for the excess childhood leukaemia levels in particular around nuclear establishments--these include population movement, implicating viruses that have long been considered to be associated with childhood leukaemia, high rates in isolated communities, and also selection of areas for nuclear sites that have a natural propensity to high rates.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

The Dynamics of Collective Interaction and Its Role in the Development of Understanding in Children

Vygotsky's postulate that a child's mental development is determined by social forms of communication [1,2] is very important for study of thought in the child. Collective action displays capabilities that are substantially different from those of its individual participants and has its own content and special form. How does cooperation or an integrally organized group action develop a child's higher mental functions? In our investigation, focusing on study of the dynamics of collective interaction and its role in the development of a child's conception of the content of the relations of multiplication, we were guided by the precept that cooperation in a child's actions with a partner in some joint task serves as the foundation for the development of understanding.

Results of case-control study of leukaemia and lymphoma among young people near Sellafield nuclear plant in West Cumbria.

To examine whether the observed excess of childhood leukaemia and lymphoma near the Sellafield nuclear plant is associated with established risk factors or with factors related to the plant. A case-control study. West Cumbria health district. 52 Cases of leukaemia, 22 of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, and 23 of Hodgkin's disease occurring in people born in the area and diagnosed there in 1950-85 under the age of 25 and 1001 controls matched for sex and date of birth taken from the same birth registers as the cases. Antenatal abdominal x ray examinations, viral infections, habit factors, proximity to and employment characteristics of parents at Sellafield. Expected associations with prenatal exposure to x rays were found, but little information was available on viral illnesses. Relative risks for leukaemia and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma were higher in children born near Sellafield and in children of fathers employed at the plant, particularly those with high radiation dose recordings before their child's conception. For example, the relative risks compared with area controls were 0.17 (95% confidence interval 0.05 to 0.53) for being born further than 5 km from Sellafield 2.44 (1.04 to 5.71) for children of fathers employed at Sellafield at their conception, and 6.42 (1.57 to 26.3) for children of fathers receiving a total preconceptual ionising radiation dose of 100 mSv or more. Other factors, including exposure to x rays, maternal age, employment elsewhere, eating seafood, and playing on the beach did not explain these relationships. Focusing on Seascale, where the excess incidence has predominantly been reported, showed for the four out of five cases of leukaemia and one case of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma whose fathers were employed at Sellafield and for whom dose information was obtained that the fathers of each case had higher radiation doses before their child's conception than all their matched control fathers; the father of the other Seascale case (non-Hodgkin's lymphoma) was not employed at the plant. These results seem to explain statistically the geographical association. For Hodgkin's disease neither geographical nor employment associations with Sellafield were found. The raised incidence of leukaemia, particularly, and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma among children near Sellafield was associated with paternal employment and recorded external dose of whole body penetrating radiation during work at the plant before conception. The association can explain statistically the observed geographical excess. This result suggests an effect of ionising radiation on fathers that may be leukaemogenic in their offspring, though other, less likely, explanations are possible. There are important potential implications for radiobiology and for protection of radiation workers and their children.

A critique of pregnancy contracts: comments on articles by Hill, Merrick, Shevory, and Woliver.

As Laura Woliver spells out clearly at the beginning of her paper, commercial surrogacy, like other new reproductive arrangements and techniques, is increasingly in conflict with old legal precedents and assumptions...In the meantime disputes arising from new reproductive technologies are forced to fit old legal codes of paternity, maternity, baby-selling, adoption, and contracts. Each of the papers in this volume confronts some of the difficulties raised by this recent and controversial practice, which I shall call pregnancy,1 and each contributes to their clarification. The authors come to widely disparate conclusions about contract pregnancy: that it should be prohibited (Merrick); that the realities of many women's lives should make us at least extremely wary of condoning it (Woliver); that if families were less rigidly demarcated from each other it could be benign and might even help to connect us with each other (Shevory); that it fulfills so valuable and needed a social function that such contracts should be not only legal but enforced by the state (Hill). I shall first summarize the reasons for the policy alternative advocated by each of these authors, relating their alternatives to particular concerns voiced by them, and indicating what I consider to be of special note in each paper. I shall conclude by focusing briefly on two arguments which, in my view, are not sufficiently stressed in any of the papers: first, that the commodification of children inherent in the practice is likely to affect adversely any existing or subsequent children of the birthmother, not only the child born as a result of the contract; and second, that a contract to conceive and bear a child and then surrender it should not be binding in a liberal society for reasons similar to those given for the impermissibility of selling oneself into slavery. A significant issue regarding contract pregnancy is whether free and informed consent to abdicate her parental rights can be given by a mother prior to the child's conception or birth.

The autistic child's impaired conception of mental states

AbstractI argue that Mundy and Sigman (1989) are right to question Leslie's (1987) explanation of the autistic syndrome, but that they do so for the wrong reasons. They assert that there is a lag between the emergence of joint-attention and pretence. However, evidence for the lag is equivocal because it depends on the behavioral criteria for each skill. Moreover, even if there were a lag, it could be argued that the relatively early appearance of joint-attention simply shows that a decoupling device is available before its recruitment for pretence. More problematic, with regard to Leslie's theory, is the finding that autistic children can engage in certain forms of pretence. This result suggests that autistic children suffer not from a general incapacity to conjure up imaginary entities or properties, but from a more specific impairment in the ability to imagine mental states that they are not currently experiencing.

Piaget's construction of the child's reality

Acknowledgments Abbreviations for citation of Piaget's books Introduction 1. The child's conception of the world 2. The language and thought of the child 3. The moral judgment of the child 4. The child's conception of number 5. Infancy 6. The later Piaget References Index.

The child's conception of the conservation task

Sixteen conservers and 16 non‐conservers were asked to describe a conservation of liquid task that had been administered to each of them. The children were requested to provide a general description of the task and were then asked specific questions relating to the various aspects of the task (e.g. the initial equality, the transformation, the post‐transformation judgement). Analysis of children's general descriptions revealed that both groups made reference to the salient aspects of the task and that the main difference between the groups was in the content of the answers concerning the relative quantities of liquid following the transformation. In response to the specific questions, there was a greater tendency amongst the conservers to indicate awareness of the purpose of the task (i.e. to refer to the assessment of their knowledge) and to accept that others may make a different judgement following the transformation. The results suggest that there may be an important link between performance on these tasks and the development of meta‐representational ability in children.

A Digest of Selected Judgments of The Supreme Court of Israel

The following is a survey of major judgments of the Supreme Court of Israel published in (1986) 40Piskei Din, vols. (i) and (ii), directly following upon our last digest, which appeared in (1987) 22 Is.L.R. 219.One central decision published in the volumes presently reviewed, that ofZeitsovv.Katz(1986) 40(ii)P.D.85, has not been included in this survey. The decision concerns the suit of a child born with a genetic disease, against a doctor whose allegedly negligent diagnosis led to the child's conception. This case has been discussed at length in an article which appeared previously in the Israel Law Review, and to which our readers are referred.

The Construction of Perspectives: Piaget's Alternative to Spatial Egocentrism

This paper explores longstanding inconsistencies in Piaget's account of the development of spatial representation and perspective-taking. It is argued that Piaget effectively develops an "alternative" theoretical position alongside but quite incompatible with the well-known theory of spatial egocentrism. This alternative theory focuses on the general differentiation of perspectives as such. The origins of both accounts are traced in Piaget's early writings, and detailed consideration is given to the findings of the original "three mountains" experiment. The place of both theories in The child's conception of space (Piaget & Inhelder, 1948/1956) is explored. Contemporary theory and research are discussed against this background, and it is concluded that Piaget's alternative theory is both compatible with contemporary thinking and important as a contributory source for future theorisation.

The Dimenssion Of Time In Industrial Work Organization Part II

The Dimenssion Of Time In Industrial Work Organization Part II

A Child's Conception of the Relationship between Bodily and Mental Phenomena

One of the most important tasks of child psychology is study of the genesis and structure of a child's conception of various phenomena in reality. In Soviet psychology, L. S. Vygotsky, L. S. Rubinshtein, A. V. Zaporozhets, G. D. Lukov, D. B. El'konin, L. F. Obukhova, A. A. Venger, V. S. Mukhina, and other scholars have made important contributions in this area. The classic works in foreign psychology on this subject are those of Jean Piaget (Fleivell, 1967) and his numerous followers. With all due respect for the value and originality of all these efforts, it must be noted that a number of problems important for understanding the genesis of a child's consciousness have not yet been adequately studied.

The child's conception of food: Differentiation of categories of rejected substances in the 16 months to 5 year age range

Children (N = 54) ranging in age from one year four months to five years were offered over 30 items to eat. The items included normal adult foods and exemplars of different adult rejection categories: disgust (e.g. grasshopper, hair), danger (liquid dish soap), inappropriate (e.g. paper, leaf) and unacceptable combinations (e.g. ketchup and cookie). We report a high to moderate level of acceptance (item put into mouth) of substances from all of these categories in the youngest children. Acceptance of disgusting and dangerous substances decreases with increasing age, while acceptance of inappropriate substances remains at moderate levels across the age range studied. Although the youngest children accepted more disgust items, the majority rejected most of the disgust choices. Almost all children at all ages tested accept combinations of foods which, although individually accepted by adults, are rejected in combination. No significant differences were observed between 'normal' children and those with a history of toxin ingestion, although there was a tendency of ingesters to accept more inedible items. In general, the results suggest that a major feature of the development of food selection is learning what not to eat.

The child's conception of food: The development of categories of acceptable and rejected substances

Children ranging in age from 3 years and 6 months to 12 years and 5 months and young adults sorted 23 pictures of a variety of edible and inedible items (e.g., milk, aspirin, sand, and grasshopper) according to 13 different attributes (e.g., “tastes good,” “will help you grow”). These results were used to determine the degree to which the children understood adult motivations for acceptance and rejection of food. Four-year-olds made most of the same edible-inedible distinctions that adults made. However, younger children believed that: 1) if something is edible, it can be safely consumed in any amount and will support growth; 2) if 2 foods are acceptable (e.g., spaghetti and banana), then the combination is acceptable; and 3) contact of an acceptable food with a disgusting (e.g., grasshopper) or dangerous (e.g., paint) substance does not render the acceptable food inedible (lack of contamination sensitivity).