Young Children's Representations Research Articles

Representation of Young Children And Preschoolers on Their Parents’ Instagram Profiles

Representation of Young Children And Preschoolers on Their Parents’ Instagram Profiles

Spatial order relates to the exact numerical magnitude of digits in young children

Spatial representation of numbers has been repeatedly associated with the development of numerical and mathematical skills. However, few studies have explored the contribution of spatial mapping to exact number representation in young children. Here we designed a novel task that allows a detailed analysis of direction, ordinality, and accuracy of spatial mapping. Preschool children, who were classified as competent counters (cardinal principle knowers), placed triplets of sequentially presented digits on the visual line. The ability to correctly order triplets tended to decrease with the larger digits. When triplets were correctly ordered, the direction of spatial mapping was predominantly oriented from left to right and the positioning of the target digits was characterized by a pattern of underestimation with no evidence of logarithmic compression. Crucially, only ordinality was associated with performance in a digit comparison task. Our results suggest that the spatial (ordinal) arrangement of digits is a powerful source of information that young children can use to construct the representation of exact numbers. Therefore, digits may acquire numerical meaning based on their spatial order on the number line.

Psychometric properties of a caregiver illness perception measure for caries in children under 6 years old

ObjectiveBased on the Common-Sense Model of Self-Regulation (CSM), the Revised Illness Perception Questionnaire (IPQ-R) was developed to measure patients' perceptions of their chronic medical illness. Such a measure does not exist for dental conditions. This study describes psychometric properties of the IPQ-R for Dental (IPQ-RD) for parent/caregivers of children under 6years of age. MethodsParent/caregivers (n=160) of children aged <6years attending a pediatric dental clinic completed the IPQ-RD and a questionnaire assessing their socio-demographics, dental anxiety, oral health self-efficacy, and child's preventive dental visits. Dental charts were abstracted for child's decayed, missing, filled teeth (dmft) information. The 33-item IPQ-RD was tested for internal (construct, discriminant) and external validity (concurrent, convergent, discriminant) and reliability (internal consistency). ResultsConfirmatory factor analysis demonstrated that the eight-factor model in accordance with the CSM framework (identity, consequences–child, consequences–caregiver, control–child, control–caregiver, timeline, illness coherence, emotional representations) had good construct validity based on significant factor loadings and acceptable to excellent model fit (RMSEA=0.078, CFI=0.951). Concurrent validity was demonstrated by significant negative correlations and higher mean factor scores for five constructs for children without dental visits indicating inaccurate caregiver perception of cavities. Discriminant validity was suggested by non-relationship with external measures (dental anxiety, self-efficacy). Internal consistency of six IPQ-RD constructs was excellent (Cronbach's alpha >0.74). ConclusionThe IPQ-RD is a valid and reliable measure to assess parent/caregivers' representation of young children's cavities with potential to be a valuable risk assessment tool for oral health behavioral research.

A preliminary report of the narrative abilities and verb production among Mandarin-speaking individuals with traumatic brain injury

A preliminary report of the narrative abilities and verb production among Mandarin-speaking individuals with traumatic brain injury

Building phonological lexical representations

This paper contributes to the ongoing debate on how much detail young children's word representations contain. We investigate early representations of place of articulation and voicing contrasts, inspired by previously attested asymmetrical patterns in children's early word productions. We tested Dutch-learning 20- and 24-month-olds’ perception of these fundamentally different contrasts in a mispronunciation-detection paradigm. Our results show that different kinds and directions of phonological changes yield different effects. Both 20- and 24-month-olds noticed coronal mispronunciations of labials, but not vice versa. The 24-month-olds noticed voiced mispronunciations of voiceless stops, but not vice versa, while the 20-month-olds failed to notice any voicing mispronunciations. We argue that early lexical representations are specified in very systematic ways, that not all phonological contrasts are encoded at the same time and that the phonological system of a language determines which contrasts are specified first in the representations of early words.

Do Young Children's Representations of Discipline and Empathy Moderate the Effects of Punishment on Emotion Regulation?

AbstractThis study examined whether children's representations of parenting (perceptions of authoritative discipline and empathy) moderated the association between harsh punishment—including corporal punishment (CP) and verbal punishment (VP)—and children's emotion regulation at the age of five years. Participants were 559 low‐income mother‐child dyads. Maternal self‐reports and home observations were used to measure punishment. Children's representations were assessed using the MacArthur Story Stem Battery. Children's emotion regulation was assessed by observer rating via the Leiter International Performance Scale–Revised. Hierarchical multiple regressions revealed that children's authoritative disciplinary representations moderated the effects of both VP and CP on children's emotion regulation. Empathic representations moderated the effects of VP only on children's emotion regulation. The current findings highlight the role of children's internal representations as potential protective factors in the context of harsher forms of punishment.

Using Children's Representations to Investigate Meaning-Making in Mathematics

THIS ARTICLE EXPLORES HOW YOUNG children's representations can reveal the ways in which children make meaning in mathematics. It has been suggested by Kendrick and McKay (2004) that as educators seek to acknowledge children's diverse experiences, they must also embrace children's multifaceted ways of knowing. As such, educators' major pedagogical challenge is to help children transform what they know into modes of representation. Building on ideas published elsewhere (see Smith &amp; MacDonald, 2009), this article presents examples of children's mathematical meaning-making collected during a three-year study focusing on children's representations of their mathematical experiences and understandings. The representations presented include drawings and narratives produced by children aged four to six years from two Australian primary schools. This article suggests that by asking children to create representations we are offered an insight into the ways in which children construct meaningful understandings of mathematics.

Spatial representation of young children by spatial relations between the spatial product and the reference space

Spatial representation of young children by spatial relations between the spatial product and the reference space

Giving the giggles: prediction, intervention, and young children's representation of psychological events.

Adults recognize that if event A predicts event B, intervening on A might generate B. Research suggests that young children have difficulty making this inference unless the events are initiated by goal-directed actions [1]. The current study tested the domain-generality and development of this phenomenon. Replicating previous work, when the events involved a physical outcome, toddlers (mean: 24 months) failed to generalize the outcome of spontaneously occurring predictive events to their own interventions; toddlers did generalize from prediction to intervention when the events involved a psychological outcome. We discuss these findings as they bear on the development of causal concepts.

Young African American children's representations of self, science, and school: Making sense of difference

AbstractWe focused on young, low‐income, African American children in first‐ to third‐grade classrooms where they experienced varied forms of interactive, participatory, and dialogic pedagogy in the context of yearlong, integrated science‐literacy instruction. Using conversations that started around children's own science journals, which were an important part of teaching and learning science in their classrooms, we studied 25 children's ideological becoming relative to the practices of science and schooling and the interplay between their selves and others. We found that “doing school” was a dominant narrative intertwined with “doing science.” Following behavioral codes and constructing smartness as a large amount of knowledge seemed to be an important part of their school world, antithetical in some ways to the active, inquisitive, questioning, flexible view of science and science learning that their classroom instruction aimed for. Nevertheless, children had also constructed valuable scientific practices and sophisticated conceptions that involved science as capital (social, cultural, or affective) for scientists and/or for themselves as scientists. How children made sense of their experiences in and out of school and interpreted their teacher's and peers' words and actions, and how they saw themselves as competent, were echoed in the varied ideological becoming in their science worlds. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Sci Ed 95:824–851, 2011

Representational constraints on the development of memory and metamemory: A developmental–representational theory.

Traditional accounts of memory development suggest that maturation of prefrontal cortex (PFC) enables efficient metamemory, which enhances memory. An alternative theory is described, in which changes in early memory and metamemory are mediated by representational changes, independent of PFC maturation. In a pilot study and Experiment 1, younger children failed to recognize previously presented pictures, yet the children could identify the context in which they occurred, suggesting these failures resulted from inefficient metamemory. Older children seldom exhibited such failure. Experiment 2 established that this was not due to retrieval-time recoding. Experiment 3 suggested that young children's representation of a picture's attributes explained their metamemory failure. Experiment 4 demonstrated that metamemory is age-invariant when representational quality is controlled: When stimuli were equivalently represented, age differences in memory and metamemory declined. These findings do not support the traditional view that as children develop, neural maturation permits more efficient monitoring, which leads to improved memory. These findings support a theory based on developmental-representational synthesis, in which constraints on metamemory are independent of neurological development; representational features drive early memory to a greater extent than previously acknowledged, suggesting that neural maturation has been overimputed as a source of early metamemory and memory failure.

Location representation in enclosed spaces: What types of information afford young children an advantage?

It has been suggested that young children can only reorient, locating a target object, when the geometry of an enclosed space provides distinctive shape information [e.g., Hermer, L., & Spelke, E. (1994). A geometric process for spatial reorientation in young children. Nature, 370, 57–59]. Recently, however, young children were shown to specify location in a square-shaped space, where geometry is uninformative, so long as scale-like information was available on the walls of the space [Huttenlocher, J., & Lourenco, S. F. (2007a). Coding location in enclosed spaces: Is geometry the principle? Developmental Science, 10, 741–746]. Here we build on this work by examining more closely what types of cues afford 18- to 24-month-olds an advantage in locating a target object following disorientation. Their performance was assessed when linear scale-like information was presented either in isolation or in composite form. It was found that, even in isolation, young children searched at the appropriate locations, with added benefit when presented as a composite. We suggest that linear scale-like dimensions, especially when available in composite form, play a critical role in supporting location representation in young children.

The effects of an art application program based on drama activities on young children's language and drawing representation abilities

The effects of an art application program based on drama activities on young children's language and drawing representation abilities

Young children's representations of conflict and distress: A longitudinal study of boys and girls with disruptive behavior problems

We investigated narratives, symbolic play, and emotions in children who varied in severity of disruptive behavior problems. Children's representations of hypothetical situations of conflict and distress were assessed at 4-5 and 7 years. Behavior problems also were assessed then and again at 9 years. Children's aggressive and caring themes differentiated nonproblem children, children whose problems remained or worsened with age, and those whose problems improved over time. Differences in boys and girls whose problems continued sometimes reflected exaggerations of prototypic gender differences seen across the groups. Boys with problems showed more hostile themes (physical aggression and anger), whereas girls with problems showed more caring (prosocial) themes relative to the other groups. Modulated (verbal) aggression, more common in girls than boys, showed developmentally appropriate increases with age. However, this was true only for children without problems and those whose problems improved. We consider how these findings contribute to an understanding the inner worlds of boys and girls who differ in their early developmental trajectories for behavior problems.

Young children's representations of peers’ distress: Associations to children's social functioning and acceptance of distressed peers

Children's mental representations of situations involving another child's distress were examined in two studies. Study 1 examined 3- to 7-year-old children's (n= 44) ideas about what victims and bystanders would think, feel and do in hypothetical situations. In Study 2, 7- to 8-year-olds (n= 40) described their own cognitive response to situations in which they were confronted with another's distress. In both studies, representational bias was examined in relation to children's display of prosocial and aggressive behavior and in relation to their acceptance of distressed peers. Although not entirely consistent, findings indicate that three types of representational biases are associated with low levels of considerate behavior and with relatively low acceptance of distressed peers: (a) mentally representing the victim's problem without giving thought to its implications for the victim, (b) significantly reducing the emotional significance of the problem and (c) exaggerating negative aspects of the problem.

From Actors to Agents to Persons: The Development of Character Representation in Young Children's Narratives

This study addressed a puzzling discrepancy in existing research about when children achieve and manifest a mentalistic conception of the person. Narrative research suggests that children do not represent characters as mental agents until middle childhood, whereas social cognition research places this understanding at around 4 years. Using a theoretically informed typology, 617 stories were analyzed composed by 30 children participating in a storytelling and story-acting practice integrated into their preschool curriculum. Results indicated that children's representation of characters shifted from almost exclusively physical and external portrayals of "actors" at 3 to increasing inclusion of "agents" with rudimentary mental states at 4 and of "persons" with mental representational capacities by 5. The developmental trajectories of boys and girls differed somewhat.

Young children's representations of their families: A longitudinal follow-up study of family drawings by children living in different family settings

Family drawings of 166 children aged 7 years (97 boys and 69 girls, age range 6.7–7.9 years), living in various family settings–stepfather, single-parent, complex stepfamilies and non-step control families–were investigated; longitudinal data were available for 119. The exclusion of family members and the grouping of parents were examined in relation to family type, biological relatedness and residency. Longitudinal analyses showed consistency in familial representations and predictions of child adjustment over time, validating the measure. Children from step and single-parent families were more likely to exclude family members than children from non-stepfamilies. Half and step-siblings were more likely to be excluded than full siblings. Non-resident family members were more likely to be excluded than resident members. Children biologically related to both resident parents were more likely to group their parents together. Omission of resident siblings or biological father, and drawing mother alone were associated with poorer adjustment as reported by mothers. Omission of resident siblings added predictive power to adjustment. These findings indicate that certain obvious and easily-coded features of family drawings may be an empirically supported and useful research and clinical tool.

What's got two heads and no nose? Young British and Chinese children's representations of unreality

In this study, two samples of 4‐year‐old Chinese children were given two drawing tasks, one very familiar task and one novel and challenging task. The first sample was drawn from a nursery that taught art in a similar way to that widely used in the West, with an emphasis on individual expression. The second sample was from a nursery where drawing was taught explicitly and directly in the traditional Chinese way. Results were compared between the two groups and with a British sample given the same task. Some very significant differences were found with both tasks, and these are discussed in the context of different ideas about young children's drawing and art education.

Relations between young children's responses to the depiction of separation and pain experiences

This study examined relations between young children's representations of separation and pain experiences in 60, 4- and 5-year-old children. Separation representations were assessed with the Separation Anxiety Test (SAT) and pain representations were assessed by examining responses to pictures of children about to experience pain in the presence of parent figures. Results showed that representations of separation and pain experience were systematically related and the patterns were not accounted for by the child's ability to differentiate emotional states, language ability, or reports of emotional regulation. These findings are consistent with Bowlby's (1982) concept of secure base behaviour in response to a variety of distress, and support the hypothetical construct of an internal working model of attachment which organizes children's behaviours, thoughts, and feelings in response to both separation experience and painful events.

Fostering young children's representation, planning, and reflection: A focus in three current early childhood models

Many educators and developmental psychologists have pointed to the development of symbolic thought and representational abilities as a set of fundamental capacities that underlie the development of self-regulation, problem solving, planning, and higher level thought processes. While many early childhood programs value children's development of symbolic capacities, three approaches, High/Scope, Tools of the Mind, and Reggio Emilia, were analyzed in terms of one context from the array of strategies and experiences that characterizes the approach in order to examine the distinctive way that three different preschool programs apply the theoretical construct of representational development to pedagogical strategies.