Social Interaction and Conceptual Capacities in Young Children’s Category Learning.

TAVERNA, A. Y PERALTA, O.

Montreal

Congreso; Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development- SRCD; 2011

Society for Research in Child Development

Do young children need interaction with supportive adults in order to relate basic-level objects in a superordinate categorization?. We suggest that at early stages of conceptual development beyond conceptual capacities, children need instruction in order to detect superodinate relations: By comparing basic-level objects or making property-inferences in a context of instruction young children will be able to set basic-level in a new order forming superordinate categories. We tested this hypothesis in a pretest - posttest t raining study comparing the execution of 3-year-old-children in two instruction conditions, comparison and conceptual-based, and two control conditions (information-only and feedback-only). With this training study we intended to assess if children’s conceptualization skills changed from pretest to posttest as a function of instruction. The results found show that at this early point in category development children makes a conceptual-shift as a function of instruction. Instruction anchors in the conceptual capacities that enhance category understanding such as comparison and inferential processes. These conceptual capacities alone seem not to be enough to override young children’s preference to categorize perceptually. Combining comparison and inferential process with instruction it is possible to incite a young child who often relied on basic level terms and perceptual relations to make a shift to a superodinate categorization.