2023 Award Recipients

Doctoral Dissertation Prize

Nicolas Alessandroni

“Object Use and the Development of Conceptual Thinking in Nursery School: A material engagement approach”

Universidad Autonoma de Madrid

Abstract: My doctoral dissertation examines the dynamic and interactive nature of conceptual development in early childhood, focusing on whether there are forms of conceptual behavior that go beyond simple perceptual categorical awareness. In the thesis, I argue and demonstrate that conventional tool use (e.g., using a spoon to eat)—a developmental milestone achieved by infants around ten months of age—is a form of conceptual thinking that allows children to generalize knowledge of the cultural function of objects to multiple exemplars of the same category (e.g., all spoons are used to eat). This idea brings a powerful perspective on how children learn and interact with the world around them, as it suggests that even at a young age, children can categorize objects not only by their physical characteristics but also by their cultural usage.

The thesis comprises five articles.

In the first article, I present a thorough epistemological analysis to dispute the widely held view that concepts arise solely from the correlation and abstraction of perceptual information. I maintain that concepts can also be based on the experience of functional similarities in how objects are used in everyday life.

The second article is a systematic and qualitative review of 281 empirical studies reported in 115 articles about the development of conceptual thinking in early childhood (0–24 months). This review gives insight into some methodological limitations of the existing literature and offers potential solutions.

In the third and fourth articles, I present the findings of two empirical studies conducted in a  nursery school setting. In the third article, I qualitatively analyze six sequences of triadic interaction involving a teacher, children, and objects and delve into the practical benefits children obtain as they begin to use artifacts conventionally. These include extending functional knowledge to new category exemplars and attaining greater self-regulation. In the fourth article, I measure and describe the development of conventional tool use among children aged 7–17 months in the nursery school setting. Through an innovative data analysis approach utilizing generalized linear mixed-effects models and Granger causality analysis, I quantify developmental changes in the frequency and duration of different types of object uses performed by children, as well as the directional influence between pairs of behaviors carried out by teachers and children.

In the fifth article, I put forth a theoretical proposal on the development of conceptual thinking based on an ecological-enactive perspective of cognition. I contend that conceptual thinking is not an abstract activity involving mental representations of the world but rather a way of engaging with and acting through it. In other words, that instead of having object concepts “in the head,” children “concept” with and through objects.

Past Recipients

Doctoral Dissertation Prize

2022: Dr. Ruthe Foushee, University of California, Berkeley: Self-directed learning in language development: Interactions of linguistic complexity, learner attention, and language socialization

2020: Dr. Shereen Bielstein, University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana: Supporting Children’s Conceptual understanding of Fractions with Manipulatives and Gesture.

2019: Dr. Courtney Ball for her dissertation in Developmental Psychology, completed in the Department of Clinical and Social Sciences in Psychology at University of Rochester: Differential Associations among Affective and Cognitive Empathy and Moral Judgments across Middle Childhood.

2018: Dr. Boby Ching completed his dissertation at the Department of Education at Oxford University: The Importance of Additive Reasoning in Children’s Mathematical Achievement

2017: Dr. Jeremy T. Burman for his dissertation completed at York University, Toronto Canada:  Constructive History: From the Standard Theory of Stages to Piaget’s New Theory.

2015: Dr. Susanne Göckeritz of The Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, for her dissertation: Children Constructing a Social World:  Exploring Preschoolers’ Understanding of Social Norms.

Please click below to learn more about the four awards that the Jean Piaget Society currently offers:

• Award for Distinguished Contribution to Developmental Science

• Early Career Award in Developmental Science

• Doctoral Dissertation Prize

• The Chris Lalonde Exceptional Service Award