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The Early Development of Children's Communication about Nested Spatial Relations
Author(s) -
Plumert Jodie M.,
Ewert Kimberly,
Spear Sara J.
Publication year - 1995
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/j.1467-8624.1995.tb00915.x
Subject(s) - psychology , child development , developmental psychology , cognitive psychology
This investigation examined how the nature of the spatial relation influences young children's ability to remember and communicate about nested landmarks. Of particular interest was whether young children are more likely to use a supporting than a proximal landmark to disambiguate identical landmarks (e.g., “it's in the basket on the table” vs. “it's in the basket next to the table”). 3‐ and 4‐year‐olds hid objects in a dollhouse and described their locations. Children had to disambiguate the target primary landmark by relating it to a supporting or proximal secondary landmark. Both age groups almost always provided the primary landmark, but 4‐year‐olds were more likely to provide the secondary landmark than were 3‐year‐olds. Moreover, children were more successful at providing supporting than proximal secondary landmarks. These results suggest that both referential communication skills and biases in coding location influence children's communication about nested landmarks.