Intentional Teaching Facilitates Young Children?s Comprehension and Use of a Symbolic Object

MAITA, MARÍA DEL ROSARIO; MAREOVICH, FLORENCIA; PERALTA, OLGA

JOURNAL OF GENETIC PSYCHOLOGY

Taylor & Francis

Lugar: Londres; Año: 2014 vol. 175 p. 401 - 415

0022-1325

Children are exposed to symbolic objects that they have to learn to use very early in life. The aim of the present research was to examine whether we can intentionally teach young children the symbolic function of an object. We employed a search task in which children had to use a map to find a toy. Experiment 1 revealed that with no-instruction 3;10-year-old children were quite successful, 3;6-year-olds showed a divided performance, and 3;0-year-olds failed. With this baseline, Experiment 2 compared the performance of 3;0-year-olds in three different conditions: no-instruction, complete instruction (before the task begins), and teaching (complete instruction plus corrective feedback); only children in the teaching condition succeeded. However, children six months younger, 2;6-year-olds, failed despite teaching was provided (Study 3). This research shows that at some points in development instruction is not enough, intentional teaching in communicative contexts is the mechanism that boosts symbolic understanding in early childhood.