摘要:

High‐ability autistic children were compared with low‐ability Down's syndrome children and clinically normal preschool children on a picture sequencing task. When the sequences could be understood in terms of causal‐mechanical or simply descriptive‐behavioural criteria, the autistic children were at least as good as the controls and often showed superior performance. However, on sequences that evoked understanding in terms of psychological‐Intentional criteria, the autistic children performed much worse than the others. This pattern was also seen in the language used by the children in narrating the stories afterwards. In contrast to the controls, the autistic children used causal and behavioural language, but hardly ever mental state language. This experiment confirms and extends a previous study of ours which also tested the hypothesis of a specific cognitive deficit which apparently prevents the development of a ‘theory of mind’ in the a

ISSN:0261-510X    

DOI:10.1111/j.2044-835X.1986.tb01003.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1986

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

The marked differences between siblings brought up together within the same family have been attributed to differential maternal treatment of the children. In a study of 44 sibling pairs from the Colorado Adoption Project, mothers' behaviour towards each of two siblings was videotaped in their home at 36 months of age. Mothers were found to be consistent in affectionate, verbal and controlling behaviour to the siblings, but there was no stability in mothers' verbal or controlling behaviour to the same child between 24 and 36 months. The relative consistency of the mothers towards their two children was related to maternal personality factors, child temperament, and the biological or adoptive status of the siblings. The importance of a child's developmental stage as an influence on maternal behaviour is discussed in relation to the development of differences between the siblings.

ISSN:0261-510X    

DOI:10.1111/j.2044-835X.1986.tb01004.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1986

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

The ability of infants, who have recently become mobile, to select an open path to a goal was studied in two experiments. In Expt 1 48 infants aged 10, 12 and 14 months were required to find their mother who was located behind either a transparent or an opaque barrier. Transparency of the barrier did not influence the efficiency of the detour paths. Infants aged 14 months followed a more efficient path than younger infants. Change in the barrier position disrupted detour behaviour in the two younger groups. A similar disruption was found in 10‐month‐old infants in Expt 2 after only one trial prior to relocation of the barrier. It was concluded that infants in their first year do not readily modify their locomotor response according to changed spatial relationships between the barrier and the goal. More flexible way finding develops early in the second y

ISSN:0261-510X    

DOI:10.1111/j.2044-835X.1986.tb01005.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1986

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

A method is presented for examining perceptual development in the arts and a study based on this methodology is reported. The purpose of the study was to chart the developmental course of perceptual skills used in the arts and to investigate whether these skills generalize across art forms and aesthetic properties or are ‘art‐form‐specific’ and/or ‘property‐specific’.The sensitivity of 7‐, 9‐ and 12‐year‐olds to three aesthetic properties (repleteness, expression and composition) was investigated in three art forms (drawing, music and literature). Sensitivity to aesthetic properties increased with age. Ability to perceive aesthetic properties in one art form did not predict ability to perceive these same properties in another art form (supporting the ‘art‐form‐specific’ position). In much the same way, ability to perceive one aesthetic property of an art form did not predict ability to perceive another aesthetic property in the same art form (supporting the ‘property‐specific’ position). These results suggest that young children do not attend fully to aesthetic properties of adult works of art and that aesthetic perception develops property by property, and domain by domain. Aesthetic perception appears

ISSN:0261-510X    

DOI:10.1111/j.2044-835X.1986.tb01006.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1986

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

We investigated 5‐month‐old infants' cross‐modal transfer of form from vision to touch and from touch to vision. In the first experiment, 32 infants were familiarized with an object visually or tactually (in the hand), until a habituation criterion was reached, and then they received three tests in which the same or a different object appeared in the same or a different modality. The dependent variable was the duration of a look or of a grasp. If infants are capable of cross‐modal transfer they should (1) explore the familiar object presented in a new modality less than the novel object presented in the new modality, (2) remain habituated to the familiar object in the first modality after presentation of that object in the second modality, and (3) discriminate objects intra‐modally.Cross‐modal transfer was found from vision to touch, but not from touch to vision. In an attempt to employ a different test of touch‐to‐vision transfer, a second experiment was conducted, in which 16 infants were tactually familiarized with an object and then given a visual preference test; cross‐modal transfer from touch to vision again did not occur. Tentative explanations are presented, involving the perception of modality‐specific object properties and the development of ey

ISSN:0261-510X    

DOI:10.1111/j.2044-835X.1986.tb01007.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1986

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Three experiments analysed children's performance on quantity tasks in relation to the context of the tasks and the children's understanding of the termmore. The first two experiments compared the performance of 74 5‐ and 6‐year‐olds on conservation tasks in the standard context and in a modified context in which the children were led to interpretmoreto mean an addition rather than the observably larger of the two quantities. The children were significantly more likely to conserve in the modified context than in the standard and to focus on addition vs. appearance. Experiment 3 examined the developmental changes in the understanding ofmore. A total of 144 children of 4, 6 and 8 years were tested on four quantity tasks in whichmorecould be understood in different ways. The youngest group understoodmoreto mean an addition and were less likely to judge on the basis of appearance. Non‐conserving children at the middle and oldest ages judged according to appearance, while conservers understoodmorein a more flexible way. It is concluded that conservation can be best understood by examining the child's construal of the social and linguistic

ISSN:0261-510X    

DOI:10.1111/j.2044-835X.1986.tb01008.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1986

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

The play behaviours of Sri Lankan children were observed and categorized according to a scheme used with British preschool children. Two villages which differed in socio‐economic status were selected, and in each village 20 preschool children (10 boys and 10 girls) between the ages of 4 and 5 years were studied. Although cultural factors determined the content of their play, very few behaviours appear to be culturally specific, e.g. most of the children engaged in a recognizable form of symbolic play. Availability of toys did not inhibit the use of non‐toy materials, and other differences between children from the two villages were concordant with expectation. Boys engaged in more negative behaviour than girls, and also scored higher on fantasy object play. Results are comparable with those obtained with British children and provide face validity for the categorization sch

ISSN:0261-510X    

DOI:10.1111/j.2044-835X.1986.tb01009.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1986

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Memory for proper names was investigated using (i) a questionnaire and (ii) an experimental task. Subjects ranging in age from 20 to 80 years recorded details of naturally occurring retrieval blocks for proper names. Age differences in the nature of the blocks were apparent. For the young and middle‐aged partial information about the target name was usually available and non‐target candidates were elicited during search for the target name. Elderly subjects more frequently experienced an ‘empty gap’, with no partial information about the target name and no candidate names. The experimental task required recall of names and descriptions from specially constructed fictional biographies. There was an age‐related deficit in recall of all types of information, but in all age groups memory for names of people was poorer than memory for names of places, occupations and hobbies. Some explanations for the difficulty of retrieving people's names and for the age effects are c

ISSN:0261-510X    

DOI:10.1111/j.2044-835X.1986.tb01010.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1986

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Two studies investigated preschool children's ability to use indirect external cues to eliminate possible solutions in a retrieval problem. Children observed four toy animals being hidden at four identical locations and recall was tested by the experimenter asking the child what was at each location in turn. Two types of cues were given to assist recall. These provided information about (a) the identity of the four animals which were hidden; and (b) what was at locations other than the one being probed.The first experiment investigated whether children who looked at both these sets of cues were able to eliminate possible retrieval solutions. Recall and error data indicated that they could do so. In the second experiment the two types of cues were presented separately. Only those cues which provided information about what was at locations other than the one being searched were found to help recall. The results are discussed for their implications for recent accounts of the development of cueing.

ISSN:0261-510X    

DOI:10.1111/j.2044-835X.1986.tb01011.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1986

数据来源: WILEY