Developmental👶🏽 Flashcards
Microgenetic studies
Changes examined as they occur
Randomised controlled trials
Test if causality has an effect
Test baseline
Randomly assign to control or intervention
Retest after intervention to see if significant improvement
How do we live differently from animals
Human culture
High cooperation
Ratchet effect and ontogenetics
Culture passed to next generation who build and improve it
New traits from Ontogenetics (developmental processes)
Small changes have large phenotype effects
Shared intentionality
Ancient ancestors had perception
Inherited variation and natural selection led to earlier social skills
(Joint and collective intentionality)
Joint and collective intentionality
Joint- 9 months
Share a joint goal and collaborate, know own and other’s role
Collective-3 years
Group level perspective on how things should be done in culture
3 process making humans unique (Tomasello)
Three s’s
Genetically inherited capacity for SHARED INTENTIONALITY
Rich SOCIOCULTURAL ENVIRONMENT (interactions with others)
SELF REGULATION
Natural pedagogy theory
Detect communication is for them e.g. infant directed eye contact, motherese speeds up cultural learning
Generate new info, GENERALISABLE
Heye’s cognitive gadgets
PROSOCIAL
Attentional BIASES to faces and voices
Central PROCESSORS (executive function)
-use tools to acquire further skills, cultural evolution
Newborn preferences
In Utero: prefer sound and smell of caregiver
Motherese (activates prefrontal cortex), prefer biological movement and visual properties of faces
Interactive specialisation and cortical specialisation
(Interactive specialisation) biases to voices, face like stimuli AND brain architecture = attend to social environment (cortical specialisation)
Explains how cortices have specialist regions without being hard wired from the start
Possible evolutionary advantage of cooperative breeding
changes in parents with new baby
Mothers- brain changes perinatal period, promote caregiving, highly attuned to infant’s needs. Physiological and behavioural synchrony (oxytocin and prolactin)
Fathers- reduced testosterone
All attracted to babies, look adorable
Dyadic and triadic exchanges
Dyadic- 2-4 months
Interaction between one person and another
Caregivers reply to vocalisations and involuntary emissions as convo
Triadic- from 6 months
Include the world and people by bringing in objects, include gestures. joint attention and intentionality from 9 months, pointing)
Adaptive teaching from parents
Selectively respond to infant’s most adult like communication
Primary intersubjectivity
Infant and caregiver respond to each other’s actions, aware of each other, reassurance
Peekaboo across cultures, predictable and clear reversible role structure ( I and you)
Still face paradigm (faces get a response)
Adult holds face still to vocalisation
5 months-vocalisation size linked to language comprehension at 13 months
Expected response stopped so sudden increase in behaviour
Learn social value of vocalisations , precursor to words
Language key words
Phonology-sounds
Word forms-lexical, our vocabulary
Grammatical forms-(combine words in different ways to combine meanings)
syntax- (organise words into structures)
Morphology- structure of words, suffixes etc
Prosodic forms- intonation
Semantics- meanings used in the world
Pragmatics-relation to audience and context
Prosody and categorical perception in babies
Prosody (rhythm)helps distinguish languages
Easier to be bilingual if languages differ more in prosody
Categorical perception- Perceive different speech sounds from 1 month
High amplitude sucking when notices change between sounds
Phones, phonemes and tonal phonemes
Phones- different sounds in language e.g. the p in pin differs from p in spin but wouldn’t change the meaning of the word
Phonemes- when different phones CHANGE THE MEANING of words. Smallest unit of sound
Tonal phonemes- Changing tone of word alters meaning e.g. Bear and bear
Infants discriminating phonemes
Born perceive all sounds in all languages
Experience = tune into phonemic contrasts in their language and tune out those that are not
Conditioned head turning and phonemes experiment
How to maintain perception of foreign phonemes
Taught to turn head when hears certain sounds, rewarded
By 10 months cannot distinguish sound, wont turn head
TO MAINTAIN:
- small exposure to foreign language
-must experience this in real world interaction
Timeline of baby’s sounds
Birth- crying
2-4 months- cooing laughter
4-7 months- squeals, yells, vowels
7 months- reduplicated babbling (bababa)
10 months- babbling sounds of native language
1 year- first words
2 year- two words
Vocal tract development
Range of vocalisations limited to size and placement of tongue in relation to vocal cavity
Neuromuscular limits on tongue movements
Gaze following (triadic)
18 months- check where someone look to figure out meaning of a new word (what was being referred to)
Caregiver gaze directs infant to interesting events
Aware someone follows their attention
Joint attention (triadic)
9 months- 2 or more people attend to something, mutually aware
Time spent here predicts later word learning
Pointing (triadic)
Initiate joint attention between 9-14 months
Index finger pointing predicts vocab learning
imperatively, declaratively, interrogatively
Pointing stages
Perlocutionary- effect on listener unintentionally
Illocutionary stage- intentionally direct others to objects and events
Locutionary stage-propose things verbally
Gaze coordination
Vocalising AND looking
11 month olds above chance in coordinating vocalisations and gestures with gaze, likely intentional
Elicit response from caregiver (response to intentional vocalisations is best predictor of word use)
How to parents treat baby’s emissions?
Parents treat infant’s acts as intentional e.g. hiccup and respond in rewarding way
May help communication emerge
Words learnt and ages
Slow until learnt 50-100 words
Accelerates until 8-10 when learn 12 words a day
Children looked to correct picture even when hear first part of word only
How do children speak their language
Register distributional features of language
Construct utterance meaning pairs
Learn to talk in environment they can make sense of
Infants can discriminate sounds from different phonemes but not from same phoneme class
Errors in speech
Can perceive but not produce certain sounds
Underextensions or overextensions (children create new forms based on what they’ve heard not just reproduce )
Gavagi problem
Hard to tell where children have learnt a word’s meaning
Word learning needs to be controlled to avoid this
(Cannot determine which possible meaning a word means)
Solutions to Gavagi problems
Cognitive constraints- reason by exclusion, it is what you don’t know
Syntactic bootstrapping- use known words and structure to figure out others
Association- Child thinks word is what has their attention BUT doesn’t explain how abstract words are acquired: children direct attention away from salient toys to see what is being referred to
Social pragmatic theory
Learn words easily as their world is routine, engage in:
- Intention reading (learn how words function by figuring out what other person intends to communicate)
- Joint attention
Cultures and child directed speech
Cultures with less child directed speech still equal to western ones, language learnt roughly same age (difficult to know if differences due to language itself or maternal style of talk)
How are non regular plurals learnt
Discover inflection, errors of omission
Over apply inflection (mouses)
Balance applying inflections and remember exceptions
How to test syntactic development
Novel words
Who did what to whom? (Agent-patient relations)
Chomsky grammatical development
And negative
Inbuilt grammar
Children cannot learn through copying due to poverty of stimulus, and no negative evidence (few corrections) when incorrect = hardwire to grammar
No account of what innate knowledge makes up or how it is used to learn specific language
Constructivist grammatical development
And negative
Grammar learnable and social context important, no issue with poverty or negative evidence
Not clear how mechanisms interact to allow children to produce language from previous language heard
Statistical learning theory of language
Learn grammatical structures based on similarity to other structures experienced before
Use models- ‘colourless green ideas sleep furiously’never occurred but is grammatical
Morris’ semiotic triangle
Real world - signs- speaker/listener
Developing turn taking, Pragmatics
Linguistic forms related to real world, users and to each other
What do pragmatics involve
Tuning into other’s state and context, common ground built up
Understanding intentions and inferences about what someone meant
Making communicative moves in sequence in a conversation
Steady information flow
How to acquire pragmatics (3 ways)
Tune into context relevant to current goal find common ground between speakers
Understand communicative intentions, make inferences
Communicate in sequence (topic-comment)
Tune into context relevant to current goal find common ground between speakers
Pragmatics research: updating the adult
When noticed parent was disengaged from toy being hidden, updated them by gesturing or naming the toy
- respond to requests for clarification and overhearing the repair
- more effective with specific feedback NOT training in listener role
Effect of array complexity
2 years- only learn contrasts between group amounts when obvious e.g. 4 vs 2
4 years- General heuristic
Understand communicative intentions, make inferences
Pragmatic studies: intentions
18 months- (adults says ooops vs there we go) child imitates incomplete/intentional actions
Repairs communicative attempts if adult fails to understand
5 years query why someone said something that doesn’t fit the predictive model of language (horse WITH ears) Gricean reasoning
What age do have adult’s pitch and duration
By 7-8 have grasped more adult way of varying duration and pitch
Link what is currently said to the speaker’s model of the world, follow topic-comment
Language ability and what it predicts
Age 4 ability predicts later educational achievement
May predict later mental health but depends on if child or parent is asked
Knowledge based economy: language is a public health concern
Bronfenbrenner
ECOLOGICAL SYSTEM THEORY-Different levels of environmental influence: parents, community and wider politics
Parent child relationship not in a vacuum
Interacting with peers provides different learning opportunities than adults
Contingent talk
Tune in and acknowledge what child is interested in
Caregiver contingent talk seen across all SES parents
Social gradients and effects in language
Social gradient emerges in infancy
higher SES= higher vocab, accuracy and processing speed
Lower classes exposed in different ways
SES also affects access to services, stereotypes
BPS code of ethics and interventions
Respect- all humans need it regardless of SES
Social responsibility-support and respect dignity and integrity and contribute to common good
Types of intervention
Primary- target high risk groups before delays are detected
Secondary- target at risk and showing it
Tertiary- who it persists in already, improve quality of life
Making early parenting interventions work
Check which factors make lasting difference
Identify most plausible and acceptable opportunities for change (qualitative, correlation, lab, pilot interventions that are feasbile
Test causal relation with child outcomes, efficacy and effectiveness
Contingent talk RCT
Caregiver and child (socially diverse) Randomly assigned to contingent talk or control
Measure baseline and post intervention
Short visit and 10 minute video had modest but meaningful effect on way parents talked
Lower SES infant vocab increased but no effect for high SES
Effect does not last to 24 months
Improving language outcomes
Maximum clinical and educational impact with limited resources
Those with risk factors who have difficulty accessing interventions
Models gave potential to widen inequalities if ‘responsive only’
Find predictors that are multiple (open to change)
Ways of becoming bilingual (2)
Simultaneously- each parent speaks different language
Sequentially- one language at home, another at school
Depends on social contexts
Bilingual children
High individual differences
Some delays e.g. to over regularise past tense for slightly longer
Different strategies to learn language (few studies on trilingual)
Evidence for and against improved cognition but different from needing to adapt
Difficult to do controlled studies (SES, age of acquisition etc)
Atypical language development types(4)
Sensory impairment e.g. hearing loss
Difficulty producing speech e.g. cleft palate
Delays from learning disability e,g. Downs
Difficulty with social communication (Pragmatics) e.g, autism
DLD (Developmental language disorder)
Language impairment not explained by hearing loss or developmental disorders/brain injury
Often have other difficulties like ADHD making investigation and support difficult
Affects around 1 in 15
SCD (social communication pragmatic disorder)
DLD when only Pragmatics are affected
Deafness types (3)
Sensorineural deafness- hearing loss inner ear, cochlea isn’t working
Auditory neuropathy spectrum disorder- sounds received by cochlea but disrupted when travel to the brain
Conductive deafness- sound can’t pass through to inner ear. Often wax in outer ear or fluid in middle. Common in children, usually temporary
Cochlea implants
Convert sound into electrical signals, send to auditory nerve
Doesn’t completely fix hearing
Deaf communities may reject, child would have different experience to deaf parents
Consequences of language delay
Delays in social cognition, Pragmatics
Not strong support for families in UK
Approaches to teaching reading (2)
Phonics- sounds that letters make are taught explicitly (scientific consensus)
Whole language approach-child discovers meaning through literacy rich experiences
Goal of teaching reading
Learn to associate arbitrary visual symbols with meaning
Understand what has been read
Support vocab and oral language development, help readers deploy strategies to engage with text
Insight that graphemes represent phonemes does not come naturally, must be taught explicitly
The simple view of reading
Decoding + linguistic comprehension = reading comprehension (use reading to learn)
Writing systems (3)
ALPHABETIC- symbols represent individual sounds or phonemes e.g. English
SYLLABIC- symbols represent syllables e.g. Japanese
MORPHOPHONETIC- symbols represent elements of both meaning and sound
Variation in orthographic depths
Transparency in which graphemes represent phonemes (deep lags behind shallow children)
Shallow- consistent relationship between graphemes and phonemes e.g. Finnish
Deep orthographies- inconsistent relationship between graphemes and phonemes e.g. English
Children’s initial hypotheses about symbols
How they overcome it
Don’t naturally get that symbols represent sounds, must be taught:
Segment phonemes and identify their initial phonemes
Recognise graphic symbols that correspond to key sounds in transfer task
Rely on phonological awareness
Phases of learning the alphabet (3)
Initial- no alphabetic insight, guessing
Partial alphabetic-simple decoding
Full alphabetic-decode unfamiliar printed words
Cognitive processes of becoming a skilled reader
Experience, link letters and sounds. Reliance on alphabetic coding decreases
- put spelling into its sounds and to meaning
- gain the meaning directly from spelling
Orthographic learning
Depends on exposure
Learn word’s meaning from print, knowledge about the writing system
Deafness language delays or no language delays
Identified through screening
95% deaf infants have hearing parents causing language delay, may struggle to support joint attention
If have deaf parents is no language delay (use signing and look to parents more)
Dorsal and ventral streams for reading
Dorsal first, then ventral with increased reading ability
Areas used for vision, speech and language all used for reading
Discrimination challenge (reading)
Precise recognition mechanism for words with neighbours e.g. face and fact
Stems and affixes
Stem- reoccur in words with similar meanings e.g. clean and cleanliness
Affixes-later meanings of stems in predictable ways e.g UNhook
Learning these help children interpret or produce new words
Lexical tuning
Exposure to print may interact with orthography and shape child’s word recognition system
Matthew effect
Differences in exposure (to reading) have cumulative effects over time
Rewarding children for reading
May have negative impact on motivation, believe has no intrinsic value long term
Situation model
Linked info in text to background knowledge
Meaning emerges from and builds dynamically, text represented beyond what it stated itself (verbatim)
Cohesive devices and their use
Anaphors- refer to earlier things
Connectives- because
Info integrated (situation model). Background knowledge, Coherence depends on interest, motivation and quality of text
It is difficult to determine whether individual differences in Pragmatics reflect differences in:
Process of inference
Knowledge
Awareness of when to make inference
Comprehension of children
Ability to make inferences in oral language predicts reading comprehension
Children can evaluate own comprehension to identify when to repair understanding
At 9 have expectations on what should come next in discourse
Can be ‘good enough’
Training children to make inferences
Not a transferrable effect, training working memory may help
Timeline of peer interactions
Infancy-touch other infants, cry in response
1-2 friendly with other babies, pretend play
3- coordinated, role play, prefer peers
7- stable gender preferences
11- expect deeper friendships, emotional support
13+ cross gender relationships
Development of coordinated play: Types of play
Parallel play-children play same activity but individually
Parallel social play- aware both play same activity
Integrated social play- cooperating, play together
Coordinated play
Species specific, when partner stops playing, child attempts to re-engage them
Birds eye view of interactional scenarios: others have to play their part
3 years-more coordinated play, roles and prefer peers to adults
3 ways peers influence children
Modelling behaviour Reinforcing behaviour (positive and negative) Benchmark for comparison (affects self esteem)
Sociometric techniques in status study
Categorised according to popularity in classroom
Nominate 3 children they like and don’t like. Scored as:
Popular, controversial (many good and bad), average (some good some bad), rejected
Rejected subtypes: aggressive (poor self control) non aggressive (withdrawn)
Children and peer acceptance importance
Popularity is important
Status can affect happiness, development and life outcomes
Peer acceptance may be helped by close friendships
Status stable over time
Sociometric status study:
What affects peer status (4)
Temperament (sociability etc)
Past experiences (previous successes)
Physical appearance (attractiveness etc)
Social skills
Dodge social interaction study
Peer group entry
Task 1-video of peer group entry OR peer provocation
Task 2- assessed on joining two children playing OR provoked by peer
Watching social interaction predicted ability on joining children playing
Peer acceptance: influence from parents and friends
Parents first partners to interact with, talk about social interactions, role models, suggesting how to behave and build confidence about likability
Friends have protective effect against low peer group acceptance and unpopularity but can bully
Crick and dodge interaction
Aggression and passive explanation
Aggression- principle cause of rejection, limited opportunities to form relationships
Isolation consequence from exclusion. Hostile goals and jealous and exclusive friendships
Withdrawn- avoided confrontation
Predicts lower grades and school adjustment difficulties
How to overcome rejection
Want to interact with others
Confident in contributing something to group
Interested in learning what others in group are like
Teacher’s 3 methods for peer acceptance
1 ask peers positively toned questions
2 useful suggestions
3 supportive statements to peers
Improved compared to control but experimenter was not blind
Empathy, sympathy and emotional contagion, mimicry
Empathy- feel as the other does
sympathy- feel for the other person
emotional contagion-catch other’s emotions
Mimicry- adopt another’s expressions
Meltzoff newborn
The ‘like me’ hypothesis
Newborns bring common code to first interactions
Understand behaviour they see and see self as similar to others
Imitated the adult but may not be replicated today
Development of concern for others longitudinal research
Mothers record children’s responses to others’ emotions over a year. Stimulates others emotions and record how reacts
-changed from upset when see another in distress to trying to comfort with prosocial behaviour
Development of concern when emotion is not visible research
Experimenter A draws picture, B tore it OR blank paper. A neutral
Measure concerned looks
Later A dropped balloon
- those who saw A harmed more likely/quicker to look at A and help with ballon despite A being neutral
Kohlberg’s moral reasoning (3)
PRECONVENTIONAL- obedience to authorities is ‘right’. Avoidance of punishment. Equal exchanges are right
CONVENTIONAL-good behaviour is doing what is expected by people in a role. Fulfil ones duty and uphold laws
POSTCONVENTIONAL- uphold rules in best interest to group but some values are universal, reflect justice not always the law
Kohlberg’s moral reasoning evaluation
Gender bias (only tested on males)
Culture bias (western bias)
Clinical interview may not be valid
Could move through stages simultaneously
Fail to acknowledge children appreciate distinction between social conventions and morals
Facilitating moral reasoning Piaget and Kruger
Piaget- interactions with peers
Kruger- in peer conditions showed greater gains in moral reasoning at post level. Degree child engaged in reflective discourse correlated with moral reasoning at post test
Facilitating moral reasoning: peer vs mother
Females 7-10yrs solve dilemmas with a peer or mother
Peer= greater gains in moral reasoning, related to amount of reflective discourse
Define
Pro social behaviour and Altruism
Prosocial behaviour - Voluntary behaviour to benefit another e.g. sharing
Altruism- prosocial behaviour for unselfish motives
Pro social behaviours and age
Children engage in more prosocial behaviours with age
18 months others helped in simple tasks
Comforting others increases in 2yr
Biologically prepare for altruism NOT culture or teaching
Sharing stickers study
4.5-6 year old share sticker with: classmate they liked, didn’t like and unknown child
Prosocial- 1 sticker for self now OR 1 for child and 1 for self later
Sharing- 2 stickers for self now OR 1 for child and 1 for self later
More likely fair division if SHARING with friend and no cost to self when sharing with a stranger
Inequity aversion study (levers)
Pull levers to get more vs less sweets than other child or reject so no one gets any
Equal amounts = very unlikely to reject
More sweets for self=more likely to accept in some cultures
less sweets for self= more likely to reject so no one gets any
Factors influencing prosocial behaviour
Biological
Heritability-differences of temperament
Not overwhelmed by emotions have more sympathy
Factors influencing prosocial behaviour
Parenting
Secure attachment
Model empathy/sensitivity, discuss emotions and impact on others, point out consequences of anti social behaviour
Inductive parenting “can’t you see she’s upset”
Lack of sympathy if use physical punishment, threats, authoritarian
Do extrinsic rewards undermine altruism study
Children helped an adult who either: Gave material reward, praise or neutral (no reward)
Then opportunity to help adult (with no reward)
- Neutral and praise conditions make more likely to help in second phase
- suggest helping behaviours are intrinsically motivated
Prosocial behaviours from prosocial peers
Exposed to prosocial peers at start of year=more prosocial by end of year
Play with others as prosocial as them, reinforce behaviours
Peer support systems are successful in the UK
Cultural differences in prosocial behaviour
3-11 years
More prosocial-Kenya,Mexico,Philippines,
Compared to US, India, Japan (value competition)
More prosocial when had to help with chores
Challenge of altruism through evolution and solution
Natural selection- Altruism can disadvantage us
Kin selection- help others who share genetic material (family) doesn’t explain why we help friends and strangers
Children opinion on reciprocity
3years-clear on who should benefit from kindness
Think people should prefer to share resources with family and friends, people who shared with them (reciprocity) and those who shared with others (indirect reciprocity)
Can explain evolutionary origins if cooperation and solves free rider problem
Group selection and altruism
Altruistic behaviours spread to benefit group as a whole
Hard to reconcile with selfish gene accounts
Why communication is important
Concern for group mates to survive and thrive, reciprocate concern
Need to collaborate for foraging, joint goal
Recognise members to count on and share skills
Mathematical cognition
How individuals understand mathematical ideas
Factors that explain differences in maths performance
- how cognitive system processes numerical info
- low numeracy negatively impacts life outcomes
Two systems to perceive numerical information
SUBITIZING fast and accurate enumeration of small numerical amounts. Slower when more dots
APPROXIMATE NUMBER SYSTEM No time to count- estimate large quantities. Influence by density, spacing and luminance
Tend to overestimate larger numbers. Related to parietal lobe
Non symbolic (as dots) and symbolic (verbal ‘three’ or visual ‘3’)
Subitizing amounts and age
1-3 objects held between 2-5 years of age
3-4 objects held between 7 years to adult
Hard for Down’s syndrome and maths disability to subitize
Explain limited capacity of subitizing
May come from Visio spatial working memory
VSS tasks compromise ability in subitizing task
Ratio effect
When ratio closer to 1 it is harder to discriminate
Approximate number system on Gaussian curve
More overlap from wider curves of activation=worse performance
Weber fraction - measure width of curves (overlap), the lower the better
Study of of Approximate number system-ages
6 months- Flash 8 dots until bored, flash 16 (ratio of 2)- difference perceived but not when 12 flashed up
10 months-Determine 8 vs 12 but not 10 vs 12
System more precise with age when declines after adulthood
Evolutionary aspect of ANS
Discrimination necessary for survival (predator, food, mates amounts)
Difficulties studying ANS evaluation
Low reliability- different tasks have weak correlation, retest reliability
Perceptual confounds- visual stimuli influences ANS but doesn’t automatically mean there is no independent mechanism
Inhibition- may affect relation between ANS and math achievement
ANS may be just sensory cues
Our number system
Symbols are arbitrary, Arabic numerals: number words (ten) and visual (10)
Number words learnt first, understanding of symbols predicts maths achievement
2 year olds- can recite numbers from rote, don’t understand meaning
Number words easier to learn in languages with singular/plural distinction
5 counting principles (5)
Stable order
One to one correspondence-each object counted once
Abstraction-any objects can be counted
Order relevance-order items are counted is irrelevant
Cardinality-last number said gives amount in set
Give a number task
Ask for 5 tomatoes
Pre number knower- unrelated to requested number
One number knower- not reliably correct when asked for any higher than one
Two number knower-
Three number knower-
Four number knower-
Cardinal principle knower-Knows exact meaning of all number words as high as they can count
Becoming a cardinal principle knower
Long and error prone lasting around age 2 to 4
High SES (reached sooner) Home numerosity (practice with parents)
Learning number words process
- map number words to ANS (approx numerical meaning, scaffolding to counting)
- learn small number words: link to object representations
- large numbers learnt (induction) through structural similarities between words and external objects
Number words (transparency and inversion)
TRANSPARENCY-reflect place-value e.g. ‘ten-one’ not eleven
Fewer distinct numbers to learn, explicit linguistic structure, may explain good maths ability in Asians
INVERSION- order of number words is reversed e,g, German
Learning digits (mirror writing )
Mirror writing: when from memory but disappears by age 7 (assume can flip letters/numbers like objects)
Distance and size effects in digits
Distance effect -closer two digits are in value, longer it takes to decide which is larger
Size effect- larger digits take longer it takes to decide which is larger
Distance effect + size effect = ratio effect
Digit comparison task
Size congruity effect- Emerges around age 7-8
Longer reaction time when smaller digit is presented as physically bigger
Digits automatically activate magnitude representation which interferes with the physical dimension
Transcoding
Specific number syntax of multi digit numbers
Understand place value e.g. units 1-9, tens 10-90
Additive- three hundred AND forty five (345)
Multiplicative- 4x 100 400
Zero- dont say 0 in 403
Symbolic number processing and maths achievement
Symbolic number processing relates to mathematical achievement
Reduced performance in those with maths disability
Violation of expectancy to see if infants understand arithmetic
Infants look longer at incorrect puppet sum, found surprising
At 5 then 9 months for larger quantities
Visual cues can affect estimations so was controlled
Preschool children and arithmetic
Display a mental model for arithmetic before education
Accuracy increases with age
Decrease in performance with larger problem
3 Types of arithmetic problems
Non verbal (recreate numerical set) Word (Mike has 3 balls...) Abstract symbolic (one add two)
Older children more accurate in all formats
Accuracy for addition and subtraction problems
Addition-more accurate non verbal
Same accuracy in word and abstract symbolic
Subtraction-more accurate non verbal
Better at word problems than abstract symbolic
(may be less experience performing subtraction compared to addition)
Solving problems with manipulatives
Spontaneously use fingers to solve word problems and abstract symbolic problems
Create physical model using concrete manipulations
Improves accuracy in real situations
Use of pictures associated with higher accuracy
Solving word problems (4 steps)
1 create representation of problem
2 extract relevant information
3 select appropriate operation
4 perform the operation
Difficulties can arise at each step and often errors stem from failure to represent the problem correctly
Relational language
Fewer than etc
Words that require a subtraction
Strategies for addition problems (5)
Invented strategies, spontaneously developed
Studied using micro genetic designs
Count all- use objects or fingers
Count from first-count from first and use objects or fingers to keep track
Count from larger-count from largest and use objects or fingers to keep track (descending)
Decomposition
Retrieval- known number facts in LTM
Strategies for subtraction problems
CONCRETE ITEMS
Separating from- a then remove b
Adding- create b then add until a
Matching- create a and b and match them one to one
MENTAL COUNTING STRATEGIES
Counting down- from a to b
Counting up- from b to a
Arithmetic strategies: strengthening associations
Initially use procedural strategies (counting, decomposition)
Each time, association between problem and answer is strengthened
If strength of associations are above certain threshold =retrieved
Errors and incorrect answers in arithmetic
More errors with larger operands-less practice
Incorrect answers- retrieve something from memory that is close e.g. confuse multiplication with addition
Overlapping waves model
Select from a variety of strategies at any time
Not a staircase model with sudden transitions
4 dimensions of strategy use
Strategy repertoire -range of strategies
Strategy distribution - frequency
Strategy efficiency-accuracy and speed
Strategy selection-whether make appropriate choice based on efficiency
Choice/no choice paradigm
Shows which strategy is adaptive (quick and accurate response)
Choice- choose strategy and report which was used (repertoire and distribution )
No choice- must use retrieval (efficiency)
How does exposure to printed words help reading
Increase lexical quality (extent mental representation of word specifies its meaning)
Language helps learn verbal number words, understand instructions and word problems, vocab predicts early numeracy
Cognitive resources freed up for comprehension
Domain general influences on arithmetic
Domain specific mathematical knowledge + domain general executive function and language
Understand the problem, select appropriate strategy, apply it efficiently
Working memory and arithmetic
Tests-
Verbal: backward digit span (count backwards in amounts)
VSS: Corsi task (tapping a sequence, backwards)
Studies- Reduced WM in children with maths learning difficulties. Struggle to carry out procedures when calculating, cannot access arithmetic facts in LTM
Inhibition and shifting on arithmetic
INHIBITION- External (sound) or internal (irrelevant info in memory)distractions. May be related to maths achievement but other studies say not (may be because it is a multifaceted skill)
SHIFTING- Switch attention from one task to another
Correlated to maths achievement across a wide age range
MLD and DD disadvantages
Reduced subitizing, ANS
Delay in counting principle acquisition
Slower reaction time in digit comparison tasks, symbolic number processing, judging magnitude, poor understanding of place value
Reduced ability to name and write numbers
Use immature strategies for longer (count on fingers)
How long term memory may affect DD
Phonological loop- poor number facts retrieval (weak evidence)
Central executive-may be compromised
Visuospatial sketchpad-compromised representation of numbers
Unclear in comorbid with DD or a feature of condition itself
Place value understanding
Position of digit changes based on place e.g. 30 or 300
Preschoolers rudimentary understanding, understood by end of primary
Maths learning disability and developmental dyscalculia
MLD lowest 25% DD severe 5-10%
Low performance in standardised maths test
Exclusion criteria-low performance not from lack of education, neurological or psychiatric disorders
Developmental dsycalculia
Comorbid with additional learning disorder e.g. reading difficulty, attention deficit
Heterogeneous with different subtypes (needs empirical validation however)
Domains of MLD and DD
May be impaired in both domains
Domain SPECIFIC- core deficit is numerical, weak representation of number words and digits, difficulty ANS
Domain GENERAL- problems memorising arithmetic facts but little evidence for LTM deficits
Maths skills individual differences
Maths skills are not unitary (may be good at retrieval but not understand principles etc)
Large individual differences between those of same age
Different developmental trajectories
Children with DD and pseudo and real errors
Pseudo- count right to left or alternating order depending on the colour of objects
Real errors- double counting
Children with DD more likely to report pseudo errors as incorrect and real errors as correct
