Alissa L Ferry, Mia G Corcoran, Emily Williams, Sheila M Curtis, Cathryn J Gale, Katherine E Twomey
{"title":"Bigger versus smaller: Children's understanding of size comparison words becomes more precise with age.","authors":"Alissa L Ferry, Mia G Corcoran, Emily Williams, Sheila M Curtis, Cathryn J Gale, Katherine E Twomey","doi":"10.1111/cdev.14182","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The ability to compare plays a key role in how humans learn, but words that describe relations between objects, like comparisons, are difficult to learn. We examined how children learn size comparison words, and how their interpretations of these change across development. One-hundred-and-forty children in England (36-107 months; 68 girls; majority White) were asked to build block structures that were bigger, longer, smaller, shorter, or taller than an experimenter's. Children were most successful with words that refer to size increases. Younger children were less accurate with smaller and shorter, often building bigger structures. The dimensional aspect of taller emerged gradually. These findings suggest that children's interpretation of the meaning of size comparison words changes and becomes more precise across development.</p>","PeriodicalId":10109,"journal":{"name":"Child development","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.9000,"publicationDate":"2024-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Child development","FirstCategoryId":"102","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.14182","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"PSYCHOLOGY, DEVELOPMENTAL","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
The ability to compare plays a key role in how humans learn, but words that describe relations between objects, like comparisons, are difficult to learn. We examined how children learn size comparison words, and how their interpretations of these change across development. One-hundred-and-forty children in England (36-107 months; 68 girls; majority White) were asked to build block structures that were bigger, longer, smaller, shorter, or taller than an experimenter's. Children were most successful with words that refer to size increases. Younger children were less accurate with smaller and shorter, often building bigger structures. The dimensional aspect of taller emerged gradually. These findings suggest that children's interpretation of the meaning of size comparison words changes and becomes more precise across development.
期刊介绍:
As the flagship journal of the Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD), Child Development has published articles, essays, reviews, and tutorials on various topics in the field of child development since 1930. Spanning many disciplines, the journal provides the latest research, not only for researchers and theoreticians, but also for child psychiatrists, clinical psychologists, psychiatric social workers, specialists in early childhood education, educational psychologists, special education teachers, and other researchers. In addition to six issues per year of Child Development, subscribers to the journal also receive a full subscription to Child Development Perspectives and Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development.