An official website of the United States government
The frequency of home spatial activities (e.g., puzzles and blocks) correlates with young children's spatial skills, but causal evidence is limited. We addressed this issue by comparing the effects of a parent‐led intervention aimed at increasing spatial activities to an active control targeting narrative activities (preregistered:https://osf.io/u7qrx). Parents of 80 4‐ and 5‐year‐old children were randomly assigned to either a spatial or narrative condition. Parents learned about the importance and malleability of spatial or narrative skills and engaged their children in spatial or narrative activities provided by the researchers for a month. Unexpectedly, the spatial intervention did not significantly enhance children's spatial skills or parents' motivational beliefs regarding children's spatial abilities. These findings do not support the hypothesis that spatial play causally influences children's skills. However, we note that the families in our sample had high socioeconomic status, and their children may have already benefited from rich spatial environments.
more »
« less
Explaining and exploring the dynamics of parent–child interactions and children's causal reasoning at a children's museum exhibit
Abstract This study examines how parents' and children's explanatory talk and exploratory behaviors support children's causal reasoning at a museum in San Jose, CA in 2017. One-hundred-nine parent–child dyads (3–6 years; 56 girls, 53 boys; 32 White, 9 Latino/Hispanic, 17 Asian-American, 17 South Asian, 1 Pacific Islander, 26 mixed ethnicity, 7 unreported) played at an air flow exhibit with a nonobvious causal mechanism. Children's causal reasoning was probed afterward. The timing of parents' explanatory talk and exploratory behaviors was related to children's systematic exploration during play. Children's exploratory behavior, and parents' goal setting during play, were related to children's subsequent causal reasoning. These findings support the hypothesis that children's exploration is related to both internal learning processes and external social scaffolding.
more »
« less
- PAR ID:
- 10658702
- Publisher / Repository:
- Oxford University Press
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Child Development
- Volume:
- 95
- Issue:
- 3
- ISSN:
- 0009-3920
- Format(s):
- Medium: X Size: p. 845-861
- Size(s):
- p. 845-861
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
More Like this
-
-
ABSTRACT Although exploratory play is considered a hallmark of cognitive development and learning, relatively few studies have been able to quantitatively characterize the shifts that may occur in children's approach to exploration. One reason for this gap is due to challenges coding and analyzing children's exploratory play behavior. In our paper, we employ a novel computational modeling approach to understand whether and how children's exploratory play patterns shift in early childhood (3‐ to 11‐years‐old). We analyze data from children (N = 432) across five different experiments that varied in the type of exploration task (including novel toys, novel topics, and novel envelopes). Children's behaviors were coded action‐by‐action according to whether children repeated an action on the same type of target, switched to a novel target, or terminated play. Our computational Markov model searches over the space of possible “stay,” “switch,” and “end” parameters to quantify child‐specific transition probabilities. We find that overall, older children are less likely to perseverate, more likely to switch, and more likely to end the task earlier. Our approach provides a demonstration of how Markov models can be used to map the process of play, providing insight into theories of developmental changes in exploration. SummaryWe use Markov models to quantify developmental shifts in children's exploratory play across five naturalistic tasks.Older children showed increased exploratory variability and decreased perseveration during play.Developmental effects were most consistent in novel toy tasks, but varied across contexts.Our findings help reconcile conflicting prior research by highlighting the role of task structure and developmental changes in exploratory strategy.more » « less
-
ABSTRACT Several studies suggest that children's learning and engagement with the content of play activities is affected by the ways parents and children interact. In particular, when parents are overly directive and set more goals during play with their children, their children tend to play less or are less engaged by subsequent challenges with the activity on their own. A concern, however, is that this directed interaction style is only compared with other styles of parent–child interaction, not with a baseline measure of engagement or learning. The present study incorporates such a baseline measure, comparing it with previously‐collected data on children's engagement and learning in a set of circuit‐building challenges. Regarding engagement, children were less engaged by the challenges when their parents were more directed during a free play setting (tested in Sobel et al. 2021) than when children had no prior experience playing with the circuit components. Regarding learning, children were better able to complete the circuit challenges and provided more causal explanations for how the completed challenges worked when they had experience playing with the circuit blocks with their parent. Overall, these data suggest that parent–child interaction during a STEM activity relates to both children's engagement and performance on challenges related to that activity.more » « less
-
Abstract ObjectiveThis mixed‐methods study examined whether higher‐socioeconomic status (SES) children's digital technology use adhered to contemporaneous pediatric guidelines, how it compared to lower‐SES children, and why, as analyses showed, higher‐SES children's technology use far exceeded pediatric recommendations. Background2013 American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) guidelines recommended limited “screen time” for children. Higher SES families tend to follow guidelines, but digital technology use—simultaneously a health behavior and a pathway for building human capital—has complex implications. MethodQuantitative analyses provide new nationally representative estimates of the relationship between social class and 9‐ to 13‐year‐old children's technology time (including television), device access, and parenting rules (2014 PSID Child Development Supplement,N = 427). Qualitative analyses of 77 longitudinal higher‐SES parent interviews articulated explanatory processes. ResultsHigher‐SES children used technology as frequently as others and in excess of recommendations. Their device access, activities, and agency in adhering to rules, however, differed from others. Qualitative analysis uncovered processes that helped explain these findings: parents' ambivalence about technology and perception that expert guidance is absent or unrealistic, and children's exercise of agency to use technology facilitated by “concerted cultivation” parenting styles, led to higher‐SES individualistic parenting practices that supported children's increased non‐television technology use. ConclusionCultures and structures related to children's technology use are in flux, and classed norms and understandings are emerging to construct relevant class‐based distinctions around parenting.more » « less
-
Previous studies document associations between parents’ use of guided play strategies and children’s STEM skills. We extended existing research by exploring mediating mechanisms that may account for these links. Parents played with their preschool children (N=75; 49% girls, 51% boys; 94% White, 3% Black, 1% Biracial, 1% Asian, 1% Native American; Mage = 4.82 years), undertaking a building challenge. Videotaped play was coded for parents’ guiding STEM talk (density of math, spatial, and scientific inquiry language) and management strategy (high- vs. low-directiveness). Mediators included children’s STEM talk during play and self-regulated learning (assessed by executive function tests and examiner’s ratings of children’s task orientation). Structural equation models confirmed hypothesized mediated paths from parent STEM talk to child math (but not spatial) skills via child STEM talk, and from parent STEM talk and directiveness to child math and spatial skills via child self-regulated learning. We discuss implications for future research and intervention design.more » « less
