Premium
Early Understanding and Production of Graphic Symbols
Author(s) -
Callaghan Tara C.
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
child development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.103
H-Index - 257
eISSN - 1467-8624
pISSN - 0009-3920
DOI - 10.1111/1467-8624.00096
Subject(s) - symbol (formal) , psychology , set (abstract data type) , task (project management) , symbolic communication , cognitive psychology , communication , nonverbal communication , linguistics , computer science , philosophy , management , economics , programming language
Young children's ability to understand and produce graphic symbols within an environment of social communication was investigated in two experiments. Children aged 2, 3, and 4 years produced graphic symbols of simple objects on their own, used them in a social communicative game, and responded to experimenter's symbols. In Experiment 1 ( N = 48), 2‐year‐olds did not effectively produce symbols or use the experimenter's symbols in the choice task, whereas 3‐ and 4‐year‐olds improved their drawings following the game and performed above chance with the experimenter's symbols. Ability to produce an effective graphic symbol was correlated with success on a task that measured understanding of the experimenter's symbols, supporting the claim that children's ability to produce a graphic symbol rests on the understanding of the symbolic function of pictures. In Experiment 2, 32 children aged 3 and 4 years improved their third set of drawings when they received feedback that their drawings were not effective communications. The results suggest that production and understanding of graphic symbols can be facilitated by the same social factors that improve verbal symbolic abilities, thereby raising the question of domain specificity in symbolic development.