Young Children?s Category Learning. A Training Study.

TAVERNA, A. S.; PERALTA, OLGA ALICIA

EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION - EJPE

Springer

Lugar: Lisboa; Año: 2013 vol. 28 p. 599 - 617

0256-2928

From an integrative approach, this work focuses on the role of conceptual mechanisms, such as comparison and conceptual-based inference, and sociopragmatic support in young children´s taxonomic categorization. Experiment 1 assessed whether 3- , 4-, and 6-year-old children succeed in detecting taxonomic relations on their own. A clear developmental trend was found: 6-year-olds succeeded, whereas 4- and 3-year-olds relied primarily on perceptually based categories. Experiment 2 assessed if 3-year-olds are able to change their perceptual response into a taxonomic categorization as a function of the co- occurrence of contingent category information and feedback in an interactive process with an adult (experimenter). A pretest?posttest training study compared 3-year-olds´ perfor- mance in four conditions: comparison, conceptual-based, information-only, and feedback- only. A perceptual?totaxonomic shift was found only in the comparison and conceptual- based training groups. Children who only received either category information or corrective feedback did not make such a shift. The results show that social interaction with supportive adults is a mechanism that drives conceptual understanding in early childhood.