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How Toddlers and Preschoolers Learn to Uniquely Identify Referents for Others: A Training Study
Author(s) -
Matthews Danielle,
Lieven Elena,
Tomasello Michael
Publication year - 2007
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.1467-8624.2007.01098.x
Subject(s) - psychology , task (project management) , developmental psychology , transfer of training , incidental learning , preschool education , cognitive psychology , training (meteorology) , physics , management , meteorology , economics
This training study investigates how children learn to refer to things unambiguously. Two hundred twenty‐four children aged 2.6, 3.6, and 4.6 years were pre‐ and posttested for their ability to request stickers from a dense array. Between test sessions, children were assigned to a training condition in which they (a) asked for stickers from an adult, (b) responded to an adult’s requests for stickers, (c) observed 1 adult ask another for stickers, or (d) heard model descriptions of stickers. All conditions yielded improvements in referring strategies, with condition (a) being most effective. Four‐year‐olds additionally demonstrated learning effects in a transfer task. These results suggest that young children’s communication skills develop best in response to feedback about their own attempts at reference.