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Twenty-Eighth Annual SymposiumLanguage, Literacy, and Cognitive DevelopmentJune 11-13, 1998, Chicago, Illinois |
| Program for Thursday, June 11, 1998 |
| 5:00 - 7:30 | Board of Directors Meeting Wednesday, June 10, 1998 |
7:30 - 4:00 |
Registration (Lower Lobby) |
10:00 - 4:00 |
Book Exhibit (LaSalle II) |
9:10 - 9:30 |
Opening Remarks (LaSalle I) Michael Chandler, President, Jean Piaget Society James Byrnes, Eric Amsel, Co-Organizers, 1998 Symposium |
9:30 - 10:45 |
Plenary Session 1 (LaSalle I) Katherine Nelson, City University of New York, Graduate School Developing and Using a Social Symbolic System Natural human languages are systems of socially shared symbols (SSSS) designed to effect communication between minds. Linguisitic symbols are abstract entities that do not depend upon reference to specific concrete realities but upon a meeting of minds, a pact for signifying meanings. They are thus by definition socially shared. Languages consist of symbolic systems in which the relations between symbols, both abstractly and pragmatically, affect the meanings expressed by their users. Implications of these features for language learning are considered in this paper. That they are social implies that meanings do not reside in the individual, but are acquired in social interactions. That they are shared implies that the meanings are reciprocal rather than being one-way communications. That they are symbols means that the meanings are not tied to concrete indexical contexts; thus learners must be able to use them in novel as well as familiar contexts and for novel referents. That they are systems implies that there are relations among the symbols themselves that reflect on and may go beyond the relations among the realities referenced, even to the extent of creating new realities in symbolic form. Learners must infer these relations and meanings from uses in discourse contexts.These implications will be considered in the light of contemporary research on learning from discourse, including new studies of the acquisition of words for abstract concepts by children in preschool and the early school years. |
10:45 - 12:00 |
Paper Session 1: Conceptual Learning (State I) Moderator: Marianne Wiser, Clark University
Children's use of prior knowledge in concept learning: Schema effects and the impact of feature relations
This study examined the impact of different types of prior knowledge on children's acquisition of novel concepts. Six- and eleven-year-old children were allocated to one of three training conditions in which they were taught to discriminate between the members of two categories. In the "meaningful" condition exemplar features were familiar but were not linked on the basis of prior knowledge; "domain-consistent" features were drawn from the same knowledge domain; and in the "integrated" condition children had prior knowledge of the connections between features. Following training children were tested for categorization accuracy on novel transfer items. Analyses of this transfer data showed that an understanding of feature connections facilitated category learning to a greater degree than other forms of prior knowledge. This effect was found to be developmentally stable and independent of the ability to articulate the mechanisms linking features.
Routes to Ontological Change in science
Chi (1993) has argued that certain scientific constructs are hard to learn because they belong to an ontological category (i.e., processes) that is incompatible with students' naive concepts of the world. Two case studies explored this proposal in the context of a computer-based teaching experiment that targeted two metaconceptual processes that help children overcome their conceptual difficulties.
The processing of causality at 3.5 and 6 months of age
The infants' processing of causality was evaluated on thirty 3.5-month-olds and thirty 6-month-olds with the habituation-dishabituation technique. Causal (direct launching) and noncausal (delayed reaction and launching without collision) events were presented to the infants. If infants can appreciate causal relations, the reversal of a direct launching should produce more recovery of attention after habituation than the reversal of noncausal events, because the causal direction in direct launching is modified in addition to its spatial and temporal properties. Six-month-olds, but not 3.5-month-olds, confirmed this causal hypothesis. These results do not support Leslie's nativistic conception of causality.
Prior knowledge and exemplar encoding in children's concept acquisition
This study examined how children's domain knowledge influences the encoding of exemplar features during concept acquisition. Four and ten-year-olds were shown exemplars of fictitious animal categories which were either unrelated to or consistent with children's prior knowledge in 25% or 75% of presented exemplars. Small (8 items) and large (24 items) categories were presented for study. Prior knowledge and exemplar observation independently influenced all children's categorisation judgements at test. Utilisation of prior knowledge was consistent across age. Ten-year-olds used more feature covariation information than four-year-olds. Large categories increased the use of feature covariation information and decreased prior knowledge use. |
10:45 - 12:00 |
Paper Session 2: Theoretical Issues (State II) Moderator: Theo Dawson, University of California, Berkeley
Intersubjectivity: The "big bang" of social cognitive
development? This paper examines how a relevant and cooperating human being grows from intersubjectivity. Intersubjectivity, the "meeting of two minds", is the underlying driving "force" of a developmental continuity which brings the child from spontaneous communication, the production of signs, to symbolic communication, the production of culturally mediated meanings. From somatic, intersubjectivity gradually becomes intentional by the end of the first year, and then, with the impetus of language, mental between 3 and 4 years. An emergent modularization of the brain best captures such conceptual development of the mind. Such approach opens a prospective avenue to study developmental pathways to psychopathology.
The autopoietic nature of thought: Implications for education Living systems are distinct from non-living physical systems in that they are autopoietic; they self-organize. Piaget's notion of "equilibration or autoregulation" (1971, p. 354) is actually a theory of self-organizing systems. The study of self-organizing systems has led to rich new ways of thinking in physics, economics, astronomy, biology and genetics (Briggs & Peat, 1989; Gleick, 1987; Prigogine & Stengers, 1984; Schwartz & Ogilvy, 1979; Waldrop, 1992). Just as theories of complex systems have led to new ways of thinking in other disciplines, Piaget's theory of the self-organizing nature of thought calls for radical changes in the way we think about teaching.
Backward and Forward from the Alpach Symposium Piaget and Inhelder gave a paper entitled "The Gaps in Empiricism" at a 1968 symposium in Alpbach on the mechanistic concepts of 19th century physics and reductionist philosophy. The purpose of the present paper is to take a look back at this remarkable symposium and look ahead at the future of anti-reductionist stances such as that adopted by Piaget.
A Stage is a Stage is a Stage: New Support for a Maligned Metaphor In the psycho-social domain the stage metaphor has fallen into disfavor due to concerns about bias, reliability, and validity. To address some of these problems, I employed a multidimensional partial credit analysis that compared performances on the Moral Judgment Interview (MJI) (Colby and Kohlberg, 1987), the Good Life Interview (GLI) (Armon, 1984), and the Good Education Interview (GEI) (Dawson, in preparation). A total of 219 participants between the ages of 5 and 86 were interviewed (146 from Armon's life-span longitudinal study, 1984). Correlations of .90 to .97 show that, even though the data were collected using different methods and the scoring systems relied upon different criteria, the MJI, GLI, and GEI all work together to measure the same latent variable. The GEI appears "easier" and exhibits more internal consistency than the GLI and MJI. These results and their implications are elaborated. |
10:45 - 12:15 |
Invited Symposium 1: Language and Theory of Mind (LaSalle I) Organizer: Derek E. Montgomery, Bradley University The development of a theory of mind necessarily intersects with language development. A speaker's mental experiences (thoughts, ideas, etc.) are generally understood to be conveyed through the medium of linguistic expression. Mental concepts are also represented linguistically. From some perspectives, the very naming of mental concepts or experiences may bring them into awareness or, at the very least, modify their meaning. These various relations between language and mind demonstrate that the child's theory of mind cannot be understood independently of the linguistic context in which mental constructs and states are expressed. The purpose of this symposium is to consider from various perspectives the role that language plays in children's development of a theory of mind. More precisely, the symposium will address (a) the influence that linguistic forms of communication have on the development and representation of mental concepts as well as (b) how the development of mental concepts relates to their representation in linguistic forms. These two central issues raise important questions which will be considered by symposium presenters from Vygotskian, Wittgensteinian, Cross-linguistic, and Functionalist viewpoints. Three important and overlapping themes are addressed in the symposium. One theme involves describing the changes over time of the frequency, forms, and functions of mental term use. Another theme to be examined is the relation between conceptual development and linguistic competence; more specifically, the contribution of theory of mind development to linguistic competence and vice versa. A third theme concerns the significance of the communicative and cultural context in understanding and explaining the acquisition and meaning of various mental terms. Theory and data will be integrated by the presenters with the aim of providing frameworks conceptualizing the role of language in the acquisition of a theory of mind. Presentations: Janet Wilde Astington, Janette Pelletier, & Jennifer M. Jenkins, University of Toronto
A Developmental-functionalist approach to mental state talk
A Wittgensteinian perspective on children's acquisition of mental terms: The
case of intentions
Talking about the mind: Chinese children's and parents' use of mental terms Discussant: Alison Gopnik, University of California, Berkeley |
12:15 - 1:30 |
Lunch (LaSalle II) Lunch is included as part of the registration fee |
1:30 - 2:45 |
Plenary Session 2: (LaSalle I) Dedre Gentner, Northwestern University Relational Thinking and Relational Language The ability to reason abstractly is a hallmark of adult human cognition. I suggest that analogy -- both within and across domains -- is a major force in children's learning of abstract cognitive structures. Analogy promotes learning and conceptual change in three ways: by inviting inferences from one situation to the other, by promoting schema abstraction across the two situations, and by prompting re-representation of one or both domains. I will present evidence from category-learning studies and from model-to-room transfer studies to show that comparison processes - that is, processes of structural alignment and mapping -- constitute an important force by which similarity-based processes can give rise to complex abstract systems of understanding. I will also offer evidence for interactions between language and cognition: specifically, for the claim that the ability to carry out relational similarity comparisons is facilitated by the acquisition of relational language. |
2:45 - 4:00 |
Paper Session 3: Literacy and Narratives (State I) Moderator: Ageliki Nicolopoulou, Lehigh University
The Elementary Forms of Narrative Coherence in Young Children's Storytelling
Examines the development of narrative coherence in spontaneous stories of preschool girls (5 apiece at ages 3, 4, and 5) in a voluntary storytelling and story-acting practice that forms an integral part of everyday classroom activities. Rather than starting with the criteria for a fully achieved "well-formed" episodic structure and showing that young children's narratives do not yet display them--the predominant approach in current narrative research--this study seeks to reconstruct the developmental phases of the elementary forms of coherence in children's narrative activity. Young children at different ages focus on, and gradually integrate, distinctive narrative problems in building story coherence.
Early Literacy Development: Children's Emerging Hypothesis About the Symbolic Aspects of Written language Across Different Genres This study investigates the effects of genre specific characteristics on children's emergent knowledge of the rules that govern written language as a symbol system (i.e., orthographic or spelling rules). Results indicate that while children used a variety of writing forms, from scribble to conventional writing, across genres--apparently supporting the repertoire-of-knowledges theory and challenging the sequenced developmental-stage theory--intra-subject variability in the application of writing forms could be interpreted as variations in product that still responded to specific and overriding cognitive hypotheses (i.e., non-alphabetic vs. Alphabetic hypotheses). Specific time periods during which variation of writing forms across genres is especially (and significantly) marked were observed.
The development of emotional enactments and representations in children's
narratives about achievement, failure, and wrongdoing Achievement, failure and wrongdoing are events that elicit strong emotional reactions and play an important role in the development of self. Two tasks were used to tap into children's representation of these reactions. One was story stem completion task and the other was an emotion description task. Results indicate that even 3-year-olds can represent emotional concerns for achievement, failure, and wrongdoing, and that these concerns become more complex and internalized with age.
The development of humor and incongruity in young children by means of
children's literature: Implications for early childhood educators This paper will examine the processes involved in the development of humor in young children, aligning this to McGee's (1980) long term study of humor and incongruity as it relates to stages of intellectual growth. The primary focus will be on the use of humor in motivating children's learning. A variety of children's books will be presented and discussed in relation to their humorous content. A progress report will be given on a pilot study that examined these issues. |
2:45 - 4:00 |
Paper Session 4: Social Influences on Cognition (State II) Moderator: Karen Horobin, California State University, Sacramento
Argumentation, Social Status, and Influence in Children's Science Debates
A sixth-grade class, in small groups stratified for social status, predicted and debated the possible outcomes of science problems. Whenever at least one child changed her prediction, procedures were followed to examine if influence could be attributed to any member(s) of her group. Findings indicate that High status children had more influence than Low status children. Though influential children were not correct more often nor did they argue more complexly than other children, they made more attempts to influence others, and resisted others' attempts to persuade them. Discussion of these findings will focus on possible relationships between children's status, argumentation, and influence when engaged in "scientific" tasks
The interplay between Maternal Beliefs, Mother-Child Interaction, and child's literacy in text writing; A comparison between two social groups Parental influence on children's cognitive development and academic achievement has long been recognized. The present study will focus on mothers helping their children in text writing, a neglected yet common literacy event. Children from two SES groups wrote birthday invitations alone and then with their mother's help. Mothers watched videotapes of their sessions with their children and were asked to explain their interventions. Maternal pedagogical beliefs were extracted from these explanations. Low SES children produced lower quality texts and were less autonomous. Low SES mothers intervened more and gave fewer positive and more negative comments. However, mothers in the two SES groups expressed similar pedagogical beliefs. Positive correlations were found between mother-child interaction, pedagogical beliefs, and children's literacy level.
How input might facilitate the acquisition of Mental State Verbs: A comparison of mothers and preschool teachers How children acquire distinctions between mental state verbs (MSVs) was investigated by analyzing the input received at home and at preschool. Frequency of MSV use (10% of their utterances) did not differ across mothers and preschool teachers. Teachers provided more information about MSVs than mothers did in three different ways: they used MSVs more often in questions; especially with think, teachers used more diverse sentence frames and conveyed more pragmatic uncertainty. The linguistic clues in the classroom may thus afford preschool attenders an earlier understanding of MSV certainty distinctions than children not attending preschool.
Peer Interactions and Balance Scale Problem Solving Abilities
A total of 260 Taiwanese children between 5 years and 9 years participated in a study to investigate the relationship between peer interaction and cognitive development. Children were tested individually on Siegler's balance scale problem solving at pre-test, and then worked alone, or with an equally competent, more competent or less competent partner. Dyads were asked to explain reasons to each other when their predictions were inconsistent. Results showed that children who worked with an equally competent or more competent peer progressed more on balance scale problem solving abilities. |
2:45 - 4:15 |
Invited Symposium 2: Contemporary Trends in Scientific Methodology: Assessing the Development of Language and Meaning (LaSalle I) Organizer: Theo Dawson, University of California, Berkeley The overall objectives of this symposium are: (1) to explore why, in the general scheme of recent changes in the nature of scientific methodology, analytic tools like Rasch analysis are important, (2) to demonstrate some of the ways in which language creates the conditions for the possibility of measurement, and (3) to explore the parallels, and break down some artificial barriers between quantification and language. During the last several decades, we have witnessed several swings of the social science pendulum between an emphasis on qualitative vs. quantitative methods, general vs. contextual issues, and global vs. individual differences. When it comes to the study of language and development, these swings have often been pronounced. Yet the principles of modern science, embodied in fields like physics, Piaget's theory of development, and modern evolutionary theory, suggest that phenomena lend themselves to interpretation only insofar as we can enter into a dialectical process of discovery that is open to the entire spectrum of relevant events. This means, for example, that rather than assuming a fundamental disjunction between the epistemic and psychological subject, we should assume, instead, that we must know one to have insight into the other. Similarly, our approach to the study of language must preserve both the voice of the individual subject and describe the way in which a particular language act is part of the definition of language as a phenomenon. Scientific methods that permit this kind of approach are beginning to make their mark on the social science community. The presenters in this symposium explore the philosophical and psychological theories behind these methods and demonstrate how they can be used to deepen our understanding of development. Presentations:
Assessing Transformational Change: Methatheory, Methodology & Method
What a Mathematical Language of Development Should Look Like
Modeling Second Language Performance
Meaning and the Hierarchical Complexity of Language
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4:15 - 5:30 |
Paper Session 5: Moral Reasoning (State I) Moderator: Marvin Berkowitz, Marquette University
Social Influences in young women's statements of "moral authorship" and self
in narratives of moral conflict Young women who confront and steer a course through the moral opinions of significant others are said to claim moral authorship. Women express this tendency when they suggest that they have made a moral choice on their own, in spite of other influences. Using semi-structured interviews, the relational-self and self-authored statements of high school and college women were analyzed. Results showed that older women tended to claim moral authorship while younger girls expressed their moral positions in terms of the pressure of others on them. The proportion of relational-self statements citing parents or friends also appears to be negatively correlated with age. These results demonstrate the pervasive nature of the social in women's cognitive moral judgments.
How cultural concepts shape development: comparing sociomoral reasoning in
Icelandic and Chinese subjects The paper analyzes the interconnection between culture (including language) and cognitive development in comparing sociomoral reasoning in two widely different societies: a modern Western society (Iceland) and a traditional Asian society (China). Children and adolescents were asked about the meaning of promise-keeping and close friendship. The Icelandic study is a longitudinal study involving four measurement occasions including 97 subjects at ages 7, 9, 12 and 15 years. The Chinese study is a cross-sectional study of about 90 subjects at each of the correspondung ages. The results reveal that friendship reasoning of the Chinese subjects is advanced compared to the Icelandic subjects. This finding is interpreted with regard to the cultural concept of close friendship as provided by the Chinese culture, which includes both interpersonal and moral aspects.
Social and moral reasoning about aggression in girls with and without
externalizing symptoms This study investigated the role of attributions concerning intent in moral reasoning about physical and relational forms of aggression in a population of girls diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD). Eighty 6 to 12-year old girls were administered a hostile attribution and social-moral judgment measure consisting of eight ambiguous stories, four concerning physical harm and four concerning relational harm. Follow-up questions concerning moral and social reasoning were asked regarding four of the above eight stories, and in addition children's informational assumptions (e.g. attributions concerning intent) were manipulated to determine the role of informational assumptions.
Beliefs about truth and beliefs about rightness: Implications of developing a theory of mind for children's evaluations of right and wrong The authors argue that the exclusive preoccupation with false belief in the literature has effectively quarantined the study of early epistemic development from the remainder of the developmental enterprise. Contemporary philosophers suggest replacing the narrow truth-based conception of belief with a more inclusive one based on the construct of validity. Beliefs, seen in this light, include not only those propositions that are held to be true, but also those that are judged, for good reasons, to be "right" as opposed to "wrong." The present study explores the relative ability of 5-, 6-, and 7-year-olds to evaluate the misdeeds of puppet characters whose wrongful actions arise out of various mistakes. The results suggest that children's changing conceptions of culpability are the consequences of deeply interpenetrating developments in their changing beliefs about simple matters of fact and more complex matters of interpretation. |
4:15 - 5:30 |
Paper Session 6: Reasoning and Memory (State II) Moderator: Constance Milbrath, UCSF
The Effects of Realistic and fantasy context on abstract reasoning Conditional reasoning is one of the cornerstones of logical reasoning. Recent studies (Markovits, Venet, Janveau-Brennan, Malfait, & Vadeboncoeur, 1996) have shown that young children can reason well with concrete conditionals. However, the ability to reason with abstract content is much more difficult (Markovits & Vacnon, 1990). In the present study, we wished to examine the possible influence of one such factor, specifically fantasy versus realistic contexts. High school children at two grade levels were given reasoning problems using both concrete and abstract conditionals which were embedded into realistic and fantasy contexts. Result show that children reason better with both concrete and abstract conditionals in the realistic contexts. Discussion focuses on the nature of abstract reasoning and educational implications of these results.
Rugby, Sheep, and Hot Pools: Social Origins of New Zealand Children's
Autobiographical Memory The current study examined the relationship between early mother-child attachment and children's subsequent memory development. Sixty two mothers completed the Attachment Q-sort when their children were 19-months-old and discussed shared past events with their children at 19- and 25-months. Analyses of the 19-month data revealed a negative correlation between attachment security and maternal closed-ended elaborations for daughters only. At 25-months, a different pattern emerged, with a positive relationship between attachment status and maternal elaborations for sons only. Attachment status appears to mediate past event maternal conversation style in different ways for boys and girls. The implications of these results for autobiographical memory will be discussed.
A Neo-Piagetian Investigation of Working Memory Development in Adolescence This study investigated the relations between Working Memory (WM), field-dependence/ independence (FDI), and development in adolescence. Two measures of WM (the Figural Intersections Test and The Compound Stimuli Visual Information Task) and two measures of FDI (The Water-Level Task and The Find A Shape Puzzle) were administered to 101 adolescents ages 11 to 15 years old. The results suggest that WM develops during adolescence, however, the development mainly takes place between age 11 and age 13. Furthermore, the data suggests a strong correlation between subjects FDI and WM performance and that the relation between FDI and WM does not change over adolescence.
The Relation of Working Memory Capacity and Visual-Motor Integration in
Young Children: A Neo-Piagetian Study This study investigated the neo-Piagetian hypothesis that stages in spatial development and visual-motor ability are due to a developmental increase in working memory. The results of this study suggest that working memory may be a prerequisite for the development of spatial reasoning. The results also suggest that the Visual-Motor Integration task (Beery, 1989), used in clinical and school psychology, is assessing working memory capacity, as well as perceptual and motor ability. |
4:15 - 5:30 |
Discussion Session 1: Current Status of Vygotsky's Proposals on Private Speech, and Where to Turn Next (Huron) Organizer: Eugene Abravanel, The George Washington University The study of private speech as examined by Vygotksy was viewed as an important link between thought and social speech. It was considered to serve both functional and expressive ends beginning early in development and continuing through adulthood. A number of Vygotsky's proposals and developmental ideas have been supported empirically, but parts of the formulation have not been confirmed. We plan to review both central and lesser components of his theory, consider reasons for the difficulty in confirming some propositions, and present directions for future study of the topic. Participants:
Laura E. Berk, Illinois State University Douglas Behrend, University of Arkansas |
6:15 - 7:15 |
Cocktails (LaSalle II) |
| Program for Friday, June 12, 1998 |
| 8:30 - 4:00 | Registration (Lower Lobby) | 10:00 - 4:00 |
Book Exhibit (LaSalle II) |
8:15 - 9:30 |
Paper Session 7 Math Learning (State I) Moderator: Robert Ricco, California State University, San Bernardino
Using nonverbal representations to build mathematical understanding
Not all relevant instructional information comes in the form of spoken words; this study examines the multiple forms of nonverbal presentation used by teachers in first-grade math lessons. Specifically, we examined the use of gestures, pictures, concrete objects, and writing in mathematics lessons. An inventory and overview of teachers' nonverbal presentations showed that the most common form of representation was gestures conveying mathematical content. Moreover, the materials required by the lesson affected the rate of the other three forms of representations. Teachers tended to produce combinations of representational forms rather than a single representational form to convey mathematical ideas. Through teachers' nonverbal representations, students receive information critical to the explanation of mathematical concepts, and multiple representations of an idea can form a more coherent explanation for students than single isolated representations.
Knowing why and knowing how: Learning about mathematical equivalence This study examined interrelationships between children's understanding of mathematical concepts and their knowledge of problem-solving procedures. Fourth and fifth graders completed assessments of their conceptual and procedural knowledge of mathematical equivalence both before and after a brief lesson. The lesson focused either on the concept of equivalence or on a problem-solving procedure. Conceptual instruction led to increased conceptual understanding, as well as generation and transfer of a correct procedure. Procedural instruction led to small increases in conceptual understanding, as well as adoption, but not transfer, of a correct procedure. These results highlight the causal relations between conceptual and procedural knowledge.
The Communicative Functions of Gesture in Student/Teacher Interactions
Gesture conveys substantive information, at times different from the information conveyed in accompanying speech. We investigated gesture's role during the teaching and solving of mathematical equivalence problems. In separate studies, third-graders were asked to interpret their teachers' gestures, and teachers were asked to interpret student's gestures. We found that: (1) both teachers and students conveyed information through their gestures; (2) this gestural information was interpreted by the respective participants; (3) the presence of concurrent, mismatching gesture decreased accurate interpretation of speech. We conclude that gesture plays a significant, though not always straightforward, communicative role during student-teacher interactions.
Reasoning by Recurrence in Children's Arithmetic This paper is based on a project whose principal aims are to study children's reasoning by recurrence in simple arithmetic. The specific objectives are: (a) to replicate Inhelder & Piaget's (1963) study of reasoning by recurrence, (b) to include specific controls on children's ability to count, and (c) to focus on the development of modal knowledge in reasoning by recurrence. Evidence will be collected and interpreted with special reference to recent accounts of counting and inferential understanding during childhood and also in relation to a "possible worlds" framework directed upon intellectual development. The implications of this interpretation for the assessment of school mathematics learning will be examined in light of recent contributions to research in developmental psychology and education. |
8:15 - 9:45 |
Symposium 1: Morality in the Real World: Theory and Practice, Cognition and Affect (LaSalle I) Organizer: Herbert Saltzstein, City University of New York Research is reported about the relationship between hypothetical moral judgments and practical morality, both moral judgments of actual encounters during play and everyday moral actions by preschool children (Smetana & Daddis; Link & Saltzstein); about moral reasoning by Brazilian street children of self-generated everyday moral encounters (Haidt & Koller); and, moral reasoning and illegal drug use by adolescents (Berkowitz & Glese). Evidence is obtained showing similarities and differences between morality in practice and hypothetical morality. These findings are discussed in terms of traditional cognitive developmental theory, Turiel's domain theory, and social cognitive processes. Presentations: Marvin Berkowitz & J.K. Glese, Marquette University
Moral/emotional Development on the Streets of Brazil
Moral Judgments in Practical and Hypothetical Contexts
Preschoolers' Moral and Affective Judgments Regarding Hypothetical and Actual Transgressions Discussion will be conducted by the participants and the audience. |
8:15 - 9:45 |
Symposium 2: The Psychology of Our Discontent (State I) Organizer: Orlando Lourenco, University of Lisbon, Portugal This symposium provides a synoptic view of the problems that afflict psychology it its journey to fulfill William James' "hope of a science". These problems include the excessive number of publications and the pervasiveness of mischaracterization and distortion in the field, the preference for tabular asterisks at the expense of theoretical risks, the divorce between cognition and action in mainstream psychology, and the tendency to fall prey to reductionism of every kind. Taken together, these problems reveal that psychology gives disproportionate weight to factual, as opposed to functional and conceptual, investigations. The symposium suggests that in order to fulfill the "hope of a science" psychologists will have to restore the balance among the three kinds of investigations. Presentations: Orlando Lourenco, University of Lisbon, Portugal
The psychology of our discontent: The divorce between cognition and action
The psychology of our discontent: Uses and abuses of reductionistic thinking
Discussant: Michael Chandler, University of British Columbia |
9:45 - 11:00 |
Plenary Session III (LaSalle I) David Olson, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education/UT What Writing Does to the Mind In this paper I will elaborate three views of how writing relates to speech and consequently to the mind. The first is that writing is merely transcription, a device for recording speech but without altering speech or our conception of it. The second is like the first in adopting the transcription metaphor but claims cognitive advantage for writing as an extensions of memory, allowing one to deal with the not here and the not now. The third, the one I shall attempt to defend is that writing is not a transcription, a copy of speech, but an abstract representational model of some aspects of speech. Cognitive implications arise from the new ways in which one, once literate, comes to think about both speech and thought. This metarepresentational stance I defend by appeal to some recent work on children's understanding of words as linguistic entities and of their understanding of negation. |
11:00 - 12:15 |
Poster Session 1 (LaSalle I)
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12:15 - 1:30 |
Lunch |
1:30 - 2:45 |
Plenary Session IV: (LaSalle I) Susan Goldin-Meadow, University of Chicago From Hand to Thought: Gestural Communication in Deaf and Hearing Children All natural languages, signed or spoken, are codified. That is, they provide grammatical and lexical devices dictating the form that notions can take in communication. The question is -- how bound by our conventional language are we? One way to explore this question is to examine communication that is not codified -- that is, communication not part of a conventionally recognized symbolic system. Gesture is one salient example of non-codified communication. I explore here the spontaneous gestures that children produce -- in two very different situations. First, I have examined the gestures children produce when gesture is their only means of communication. I studied deaf children who have hearing losses so severe that they cannot acquire spoken language. Moreover, their hearing parents have not yet exposed them to a conventional sign language. Despite the absence of a usable conventional language in their lives, these deaf children communicate using gesture, and those gestures turn out to be structured in language-like ways. The notions the children express in their gestures come as close as we can currently envision to reflecting the expressible and grammaticizable notions that children themselves bring to the language-learning situation -- thought that has not yet been filtered through a conventional language model. Second, I have studied the gestures of hearing children who have learned spoken language. Like all speakers, these children also gesture as they talk. Moreover, children on the cusp of an idea will often express that idea through their hands but not their mouths. In other words, they have thoughts that are not expressed in speech yet appear in their communicative repertoires in gesture. Gesture in this context provides a second window into the mind of the speaker. Taken together, these findings underscore the child's ability to express thoughts in ways that go beyond the codified language system in the environment. |
2:45 - 4:00 |
Paper Session 8: Social Understanding (State I) Moderator: Ulrich Mueller, Temple University
Self knowledge, Language, and Memory Development Current theories of autobiographical memory development stress either the advent of self-recognition (e.g., Howe & Courage, 1993) or parent-child interaction (e.g., Nelson, 1993) as the primary impetus for a personally relevant memory system. The present study focused on self-recognition, language, and mother-child memory in 60 New Zealand children from 19-25 months. Self-recognition, language, and mother's memory style all uniquely predicted aspects of children's later remembering. Together, these influences may contribute to individual differences in autobiographical memory development.
The development of social understanding in infancy This paper examines Piaget's account of infants' social development during the first two years of life. It will be argued that Piaget correctly identified a major transition in infants' social understanding at the end of the first year of life. His account of social development during the second year, however, runs up against theoretical problems, and a revision of Piaget's account will be proposed. Implications of this revised Piagetian account for children's developing theories of mind will be indicated.
Narrating the Self through Imaginary Dialogue: Beyond Cartesian and Dialogical Conceptions of Self Western scholars have emphasized a Cartesian self characterized as a centralized "I" who controls thought and is an entity that is separable from social context and culture. In contrast, social constructionists have proposed that selves are multiple, decentralized and social. The authors propose an interactive systems view in which individuals are conceptualized as self-organizing systems who coact with other self-organizing systems. Using an imaginary dialogue technique, two sets of dialogues from two females were analyzed. Results showed that imaginary dialogues help illustrate how individuals construct agencies and identities that are distinct but nonetheless a product of mutual regulations between self and other. Selves thus function as open-ended systems that exhibit both stability and social interpenetration.
Identity as a Theory of Oneself An identity is an explicit theory of oneself as a person. That is, an identity is a conception of self that is organized in such a way as to explain, rather than simply describe, one's behavior; that is known to, rather than simply used by, the individual; and that enables one to construe oneself as a rational agent with some degree of unity across contexts and continuity across time. This definition is central to a constructivist view of identity formation that resolves the controversy over whether identity is discovered or created. |
2:45 - 4:15 |
Invited Symposium 3: The Inter-related Development of Inscriptions and Conceptual Understanding (LaSalle I) Rich Lehrer & Leona Schauble, University of Wisconsin Lehrer and Schauble work in partnership with elementary school teachers to promote children's cognitive development in mathematics and science through the creation, use, and revision of socially-shared symbols. Participating teachers work together to foster children's invention and use of notational systems, inscriptions, and models, which serve as resources in the classroom for mathematical and scientific argumentation. Fortuitously, these inscriptions also provide teachers with a window into student thinking, so that instructional decisions can be guided by accurate models of student understanding. In this symposium, Lehrer and Schauble will describe how this approach, in which instruction and research are pursued in tandem, affords longitudinal study of the development of student thinking in understudied areas of mathematics and science. Discussant: David R. Olson, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education |
2:45 - 4:15 |
Symposium 3: Development of Representation in Middle Childhood (State II) Organizer: Suzanne Gaskins, Northeastern Illinois University This symposium presents converging evidence that there is a representational reorganization during middle childhood. Independent research on three representational domains (drawing, communication, and conceptual classification) demonstrate significant changes during this period, including a period of disorganization and/or rigidity. The research suggests a significant shift from perceptual, context-dependent representations to the more conceptual, internalized representations found in adults. In the final paper, recent research on hormonal development during this age period will be presented as one possible source of these changes. Some psychological and cultural implications of these findings will be given by the discussant. Presentations: Saba Ayman-Nolley & Lora L. Taira, Northeastern Illinois University
The Link Between Verbal and Non-verbal representation for
the Observer of Communication: A Developmental Study
Grammatical Categories and Classification in Middle Childhood
Adrenarche During Middle Childhood Discussant: John A. Lucy, University of Chicago |
4:15 - 5:45 |
Invited Symposium 4: The Weft of Words: Discourse, Narrative, and Transformation (LaSalle I) Organizer: Cynthia Lightfoot, State University of New York, Plattsburgh To take seriously the idea that knowledge of the world is constituted and transformed through processes of discourse and narrative is to take up the challenge of understanding the struggle between experience, and the telling of it, and between the telling, and the story told. As will be made plain in the presentations, any such effort to understand is shot through with problematics of selfhood. We are made to consider, in particular, the epistemological and developmental implications of a self who can be variously and simultaneously an author, a narrator, a character, an interlocutor, and an audience. Bamberg will introduce the theme in the course of analyzing the distinction between story and discourse, and the bearing it has on the transformation of meaning and the emergence of subjectivity. Lightfoot will focus on the development of genres of the self, and the social and temporal processes through which they are creatively constructed. Finally, in the course of illuminating the psychotherapeutic process, Shotter will address the relationship between actions which are singular, embodied, and jointly constructed, and those which are more elaborated, refined, and generic.
The Narrator and Narrational Mediation between Story and Discourse:
Agency, Perspective, and the Creation of Characters
Self, Time, and the Dialogic Imagination
The Dialogical, Co-Authorship of Transformative Narratives Discussant: Carol Feldman, New York University |
4:15 - 5:45 |
Symposium 4: The Development of Logical Reasoning Performance: New twists on old themes (State I) Organizer: Eric Amsel, Weber State University Participants in the symposium present new research addressing the development of logical reasoning. Leevers presents new evidence of toddlers' facility for logical reasoning with false premises. In contrast, Amsel et al. demonstrate limits in preadolescents' and adults' ability to reason logically with disbelieved premises. Janveau-Brennan and Markovits find evidence of processes that can account for developmental and individual differences in children's logical reasoning with causal premises. Finally, Ricco & Zavala present evidence of children's skills to construct proofs and the relation between proof construction and other logical reasoning abilities. The implications of the findings for the literature will be discussed by Henry Markovits. Presentations: Hilary Leevers, Rutgers University; Eric Amsel, Weber State University
The development of conditional reasoning with counterfactual premises:
Distinguishing between the influence of truth-value and propositional attitude
Developmental and individual differences in reasoning with causal conditionals
Studying Necessity and Sufficiency Through Proof Construction Tasks Discussant: Henry Markovits, Université du Québec a Montréal |
4:15 - 5:45 |
Symposium 5: The Influence of Literacy on the Development of Memory and Metalinguistic Knowledge (State II) Organizer: Jens Brockmeier, OISE/University of Toronto The contributions of this symposium deal with the influence of literacy and, more specifically, of writing on children's cognitive development from a cross cultural perspective. Papers present empirical research from Canada, Mexico and Spain investigating metalinguistic understanding of words and names with English speaking children, word separation and phonological awareness in Spanish speaking children, and on the use of mnemonic notations in English speaking children. The general findings from these studies support the view that literacy development enhances cognitive functions such as metalinguistic knowledge and memory. Presentations:
The influence of symbolic literacy on memory: A developmental study
Children's metalinguistic understanding of words and names
How writing development influences phonological awareness Discussant: Merlin Donald, Queen's University |
5:45 - 6:30 |
Membership Meeting & Cocktails (LaSalle II) |
| Program for Saturday, June 13, 1998 |
| 8:00 - 9:00 | Registration (Lower Lobby) | 10:00 - 4:00 |
Book Exhibit (LaSalle II) |
8:15 - 9:30 |
Paper Session 9 Theoretical Issues II (State I) Moderator: David Moshman, University of Nebraska
A Difficulty in Reuniting Piaget and Vygotsky In this paper, I will follow up on Thomas Bidell's persuasion that developmental psychologists should treat Piaget and Vygotsky as allies in their epistemological goals. I argue that one main difficulty in reuniting Piaget and Vygotsky lies in the fact that we do not yet have a widely held socio-historical approach to examining how the two theories have been related historically. People in developmental psychology and education will continue to have difficulty treating the two theorists truly as allies unless there is a widespread understanding of the societal and intellectual contexts in which the two theorists lived and developed their theories, and in which we have construed their theories.
The psychologist's rubric and the child's construction of the task The child's construction of the task is often obscured by conventional coding of task performance. Careful description of actual responses can optimize the opportunity for discovering diversity in how subjects conceptualize and perform tasks. To illustrate this point, a case study and descriptive analysis of a standard set of tasks performed by three bright second grade boys is presented. Descriptive analyses demonstrate that each child approached the tasks in quite different ways. Conventional scoring would completely disregard idiosyncratic performances, obscuring the wide individual variation in constructing the tasks.
Roots of Piaget and Vygotsky in Levy-Bruhl In the present paper, the author will illustrate the similarities between Piaget's theory, Vygotsky's theory, and the anthropology of Lucien Levy-Bruhl. Similar to Piaget's distinction between child and adult thought, Levy-Bruhl distinguished between precivilized thought and civilized thought. In addition, Levy-Bruhl also emphasized the universality of function. Vygotsky used Levy-Bruhl's notion of participation as the gateway into the particular human ability for social/cultural historical thinking.
Exploring the zone of proximal development as a constructivist enterprise The Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) has enjoyed a recent increase in popularity, but inherent difficulties remain in establishing it as a tool for understanding human development. The major difficulty is that the ZPD remains more of a descriptive tool than a conceptual explanation of what occurs in the interaction between neophyte and social interlocutor. In order for the ZPD to work as a model for the study of development, it must have a dialectical and constructivist explanation. The latter can be found in Piaget's theory. |
8:15 - 9:45 |
Symposium 6: Interaction, Communication, and Meaning: The Pragmatic Dimension of Language (State II) Organizer: Bryan Sokol, University of British Columbia A common theme in this symposium is the rejection of overly narrow treatments of language which, at their core, take language to be some sort of simple encoding network or closed system of signs to be neatly decoded by straightforward rules of correspondence. Against this view, these papers take up a more complex, "interactive" conception of language meant to bring out its intrinsically pragmatic aspects and show the ineluctable connection language has to a shared backdrop of social activities and values. Working out this general notion of "communicative action" (which includes nonverbal action) leads the presenters to explore a variety of sources and ideas, ranging from the theoretical perspectives of Wittgenstein and Habermas to practical issues involving language acquisition and the achievement of communicative competence. Presenters: Ulrich Mueller, Temple University
An interactive model of language
Developmental implications of a social pragmatic model of talk
Becoming a competent communicator: Applying Habermas' speech act theory to
children's understanding of ambiguous messages Discussant: David R. Olson, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education |
8:15 - 9:45 |
Symposium 7: Dual Representation and the Development of Symbol Use (LaSalle I) Organizer: Judy Deloache, University of Illinois The understanding and use of symbolic artifacts necessitates dual representation--mentally representing both the symbolic object itself and its relation to the referent for which it stands. As the four presentations in this symposium show, achieving dual representation can be problematic across a wide age range (from infants to elementary school children) and with a variety of symbolic media (including photographs, video, models, and educational materials). Focusing on the symbolic object or medium itself, children have difficulty detecting the symbol-referent relation. As children develop, they achieve dual representation for particular symbols, but experience the problem anew with novel ones.
Judy S. DeLoache, University of Illinois
Getting the Object of a Picture
Very Young Children's Understanding of Video Representations
Dual Representation and Multiple Relations
Taking a Hard Look at Concreteness: Do Objects Help Young Children Learn
Symbolic Relations? Discussant: Irving Sigel, Educational Testing Service |
9:45 - 11:00 |
Plenary Session V: (LaSalle II) Colette Daiute, City University of New York Graduate School Symbol and Subjectivity: Insights from Studies of Written Language Symbolic communication is embedded in every day social interaction and activity. Spoken and written symbol systems thus interact with people's subjective responses to the events, interlocutors, and cultural artifacts involved in specific communication situations. As theorists and researchers have made advances in examining cultural aspects of symbolic communication, questions have increasingly been posed about how individuals experience and transform cultures. Such transformation has been described from diverse theoretical perspectives that invoke a range of capacities, tools, andresources. This presentation considers diverse formulations of subjectivity and its role in the development of knowledge and identity. Scholars who have theorized the need for a concept of subjectivity have done so in part to provide links between cultural, cognitive, and affective factors as they occur in lived experience. Sociocultural theorists have, for example, situated individual responses in activity, while discourse psychologists have theorized subjectivity in terms of collective responses to social relations. Some recent biological perspectives have also considered meaning as a function of action in context. In addition to a review, this presentation offers examples from several studies of written language development to illustrate the possible nature, processes, and consequences of subjectivity in symbolic communication and to consider critically the implications of this formulation for future research. |
11:00 - 12:15 |
Poster Session 2 (LaSalle II)
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11:30 - 1:30 |
Board of Directors Meeting |
12:15 - 1:30 |
Lunch |
1:30 - 2:45 |
Paper Session 10: Language (State I) Moderator: Ellin Scholnick, University of Maryland
The Relationship between Theory of Mind, Language, and Narrative Discourse: An Experimental Study The relationship between theory of mind, language ability and narrative discourse was studied in a sample of 7-year-old children. Each child completed two theory of mind tasks, two language tests and narrated a wordless picture book. The narratives were coded yielding four focal components: length and complexity, story structure, referential strategy, and use of mental state terms. One aspect of referential strategy was significantly correlated with theory of mind task performance, although there was no correlation between theory of mind and use of mental state terms. Surprisingly, there was no relationship between scores on the formal language measures and the length, complexity and story structure components of the narrative. However, a strong relationship between theory of mind competence and linguistic skills was observed.
The Intersection of Language and Cognitive Functioning:
The Case of Deaf Children of Hearing Parents Using the examples of deaf children of hearing parents and deaf children of deaf parents, this paper explores how lack of exposure to a first language in the early years may hinder the development of certain higher cognitive functions, in turn affecting literacy skills as well as performance on other psychological tasks such as those measuring reflectivity, intelligence and short-term memory. Though language and thought are often considered to function independently, the example of deaf children of hearing parents suggests that humans have taken advantage of their language facility to enhance intellectual capacity.
Word magic: Differences and similarities in monolingual and bilingual
three- and four-year-olds Three- and four-year-old monolinguals and bilinguals were tested on a metalinguistic task investigating Piaget's concept of "word magic". The experiment sought to discover if there would be any differences in susceptibility to word magic. Further, subjects' explanations for allowing or disallowing name changes were considered. Bilinguals and monolinguals were equivalent in their willingness to accept new names for familiar objects. Three-year-olds were more willing to allow name changes than four-year-olds. Monolinguals were found to favor attributional explanations whereas bilinguals were equally likely to rely on attributional or contextual justifications. These results are discussed in terms of bilingual effects and developmental shifts (with particular attention paid to implications for mutual exclusivity).
Narration and Socialization: Personal Storytelling By Deaf Children of Hearing Parents Children have access to non-linguistic behaviors that are secondary socializing mechanisms to language for hearing children, but become primary for linguistically isolated deaf children. Personal storytelling practices allow access to well-defined sets of linguistic behaviors that express culture-specific narrative strategies. Presumably, children acquire such frames through submersion in a native language. If linguistically isolated deaf children demonstrate similar narrative strategies, it is possible that socialization functions on a level deeper than conventional language, thereby indicating that all children may be relying more heavily on non-linguistic mechanisms than may have previously been recognized. |
1:30 - 2:45 |
Discussion Session 2: Teaching Piaget (State II) Organizer: Trevor Bond, James Cook University In the past three decades, Piaget's work has stimulated uncounted volumes of research and critical articles while book authors cashed in on first the Piaget and then the anti-Piaget bandwagons. The legacy of that era is a plethora of disparate and even contradictory views of important and perhaps sometimes trivial elements of Genevan genetic epistemology. Consequently, developing a well-informed view of Piagetian theory is often difficult for faculty and next to impossible for students who confront this large single intellectual enterprise in a short space of course-work time. There appear to be a number of ways in which studying Piagetian theory could be held to inform understanding in areas of developmental, educational and general psychology as well as in related disciplines of biology, philosophy and the history of sciences. While Piaget's work previously played a central role in the disciplines of developmental and educational psychology, its influence is now much less pervasive. A group of academics who teach aspects of Piagetian theory at the college and university level have combined to stimulate discussion amongst those involved in "Teaching Piaget". Lead Discussants and Invited Members of the Audience: Hiram College
Sherrie Reynolds
William M Gray
Jeanette McCarthy Gallagher
Leslie Smith
Chris Lalonde
Trevor G Bond |
1:30 - 3:00 |
Invited Symposium 5: Giving Vision to Personal and Societal Understanding: Children Communicating through Drawing (LaSalle I) Organizers: Saba Ayman-Nolley, Northeastern Illinois University Peter B. Pufall, Smith College Chair: Peter B. Pufall Creations by musicians, dancers, mimes, sculptors and painters leave little doubt that humans can effectively communicate thoughts and meanings in forms other than verbal or written language. They use these elaborate forms to communicate internal states, personal interpretations of the social and physical world, as well as chronicles of events and people around them. The earliest drawings within caves suggest these forms were more than iconic representations but a visual narrative of life at that time. Within Western society, the communicative significance of drawing is attributed to a privileged few adult artists and drawings by children construed as glimpses into their conceptions of spacial reality or artist talent. The present symposium explores the proposition that children, as adult artists, communicate through drawing. This is consistent with Piaget's view that drawing is a semiotic activity which gives "vision" to children's thoughts and meanings as verbal and written language gives it "voice". Ayman-Nolley and Taira will examine how the methodological use of children's drawings can enhance our understanding of children's perceptions of their world beyond the limits of their verbal language. Pufall, Allen, Pufall, and Min examine children's expression of personal and racial identity in their depictions of self functioning within minority and majority societies. In both cases, new analytical and procedural methodologies will be discussed. Golomb offers a cautionary tale in her examination of both the potential of and constraints on drawing as a semiotic activity. Presenters: Saba Ayman-Nolley and Lora Taira, Northeastern Illinois University, Chicago, Illinois:
Children's visions of identity; Coupling Cross's personal-cultural
identity with Coles' clinical identity
Compositional skills and their constraints on children's expression of their
thoughts and feelings in their drawings The papers will be followed by a five minute reactions from the presenters to each other's papers and then general discussion of issues and concerns raised. |
3:00 - 4:30 |
Invited Symposium 6: Constructivist Approaches to Literacy Instruction: What Some Teachers Have Learned (LaSalle I) Organizer: Paul Ammon, University of California, Berkeley Since 1995, teachers at Derby Ridge Elementary School in Columbia, Missouri, have participated in an intensive effort to institute constructivist teaching at their school. In one component of this project, the teachers and consultants working with them have addressed the question of what constructivism means in the context of reading and writing instruction. The purpose of this session is to provide a forum in which some teachers from Derby Ridge can share what they have learned about literacy development and literacy teaching as they have interacted with their students, their colleagues, and other professionals in the course of becoming contructivist teachers. They will also raise questions of the sort that seem important to them for further study. Participants: |
3:00 - 4:30 |
Symposium 8: Cognition, Causal Mechanisms, and Goals: Children's Understanding of Goal-Directed Behavior (State I) Organizer: Douglas R. Thompson, Carnegie Mellon University This symposium will illuminate the development of two aspects of knowledge about goal-directed behavior: Knowledge about mechanisms for attaining specific goals, and understanding of how goals influence behavior in general. Two presentations will focus on children's understanding of mechanisms for the attainment of fundamental everyday goals, i.e., object transformation (Smith and Keil) and money acquisition (Thompson and Siegler). Opfer will discuss children's understanding of the psychological mechanisms underlying goal-directed behavior in general. Presentations: W. Carter Smith and Frank C. Keil, Cornell University
The Development of Knowledge about Economic Mechanisms
Using Categorical Knowledge to Guide Predictions of Teleological Action Discussant: Susan A. Gelman, University of Michigan |
3:00 - 4:30 |
Symposium 9: Composition, Representation, and the Grasp of Musical Consciousness (State II) Organizer: Carolyn Hildebrandt, University of Northern Iowa The development of musical understanding is traced through children's compositions, invented notations, and growing consciousness of the physical and mental processes involved in musical activity. In a longitudinal study of a young child's vocal and instrumental compositions, Hildebrandt analyzes developmental changes in form, complexity, tonal structure, and strategies for achieving musical coherence. Then Hildebrandt and Alexander compare elementary music education and general elementary education students' understandings of children's representations of simple rhythms. Finally, Zulauf traces the development of children's "grasp of melodic consciousness" in continuing and completing simple melodies. Presentations: Carolyn Hildebrandt, University of Northern Iowa
Adults' Understandings of Children's Representations of Simple Rhythms
The Grasp of Melodic Consciousness Discussant: Jeanne Bamberger, Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
4:30 - 5:30 |
Dialogue with the Plenary Speakers (LaSalle I & II) |
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