TY - JOUR

T1 - Constructing Favourable Conditions for Measuring the Young Child's Understanding of the Terms in, on and under

AU - Bremner, J. Gavin

AU - Idowu, Tinu C.

PY - 1987

Y1 - 1987

N2 - Recent research has indicated that young children's responses to requests containing the prepositions in, on and under are strongly influenced by the context in which they are made, but that they probably understand the terms in and on before the term under. However, these studies employed contextual manipulations that bias the child towards one particular placement. In this study, the contextual manipulation involved a pre-test activity aimed at equating the likelihood of all three placements. Children from 1 year 6 months to 3 years old showed markedly better comprehension of the terms than children who were not exposed to such pre-test activity. This superiority cannot be put down to contextual bias towards a particular placement, and hence performance under these conditions may give a better measure of actual comprehension. It is suggested that the conditions in real life that force a clear distinction between spatial prepositions are those similar to the present experimental manipulation, in which one object commonly enters into more than one relationship with another.

AB - Recent research has indicated that young children's responses to requests containing the prepositions in, on and under are strongly influenced by the context in which they are made, but that they probably understand the terms in and on before the term under. However, these studies employed contextual manipulations that bias the child towards one particular placement. In this study, the contextual manipulation involved a pre-test activity aimed at equating the likelihood of all three placements. Children from 1 year 6 months to 3 years old showed markedly better comprehension of the terms than children who were not exposed to such pre-test activity. This superiority cannot be put down to contextual bias towards a particular placement, and hence performance under these conditions may give a better measure of actual comprehension. It is suggested that the conditions in real life that force a clear distinction between spatial prepositions are those similar to the present experimental manipulation, in which one object commonly enters into more than one relationship with another.

U2 - 10.1177/016502548701000106

DO - 10.1177/016502548701000106

M3 - Journal article

VL - 10

SP - 89

EP - 98

JO - International Journal of Behavioral Development

JF - International Journal of Behavioral Development

SN - 0165-0254

IS - 1

ER -