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The influence of language training on seriation of 5–6 year old children initially at different levels of descriptive competence
Author(s) -
HEBER Margery
Publication year - 1977
Publication title -
british journal of psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.536
H-Index - 92
eISSN - 2044-8295
pISSN - 0007-1269
DOI - 10.1111/j.2044-8295.1977.tb01562.x
Subject(s) - psychology , seriation (archaeology) , cognition , competence (human resources) , developmental psychology , cognitive development , cognitive psychology , linguistics , social psychology , philosophy , archaeology , neuroscience , history
Among explanations of the relation of language to cognitive development Bruner, Olver & Greenfield, 1966) and Piaget (1970) provide a contrast. Bruner has held language to be the major instrument of external influences moulding thought, while Piaget views it as merely one medium which represents developing thought systems. The present work is based on the language training experiment in seriation of Sinclair‐de‐Zwart (1967). Two groups of children comparable in seriation but who were initially at different levels of competence in the appropriate use of the relevant descriptions e.g. bigger/smaller, were trained in this use and then compared for subsequent progress in seriation, immediately and two weeks later. Significant progress followed for experimental subjects which was notably more rapid among those with prior command of the descriptions (middle class children). This advance was eventually equalled by a lower working class group. These results taken together appear to suggest an interactive process uniting speech‐in‐context with cognition.