To copy or to innovate? The role of personality and social networks on children's learning strategies

In our technologically complex world, children frequently have problems to solve and skills to learn. They can develop solutions through learning strategies involving social learning or asocial endeavors. While evidence is emerging that children may differ individually in their propensity to adopt different learning strategies, little is known about what underlies these differences. In this article, we reflect on recent research with children, adults, and nonhuman animals regarding individual differences in learning strategies. We suggest that characteristics of children's personalities and children's positions in their social networks are pertinent to individual differences in their learning strategies. These are likely pivotal factors in the learning strategies children adopt, and thus can help us understand who copies and who innovates, an important question for cultural evolution. We also discuss how methodological issues constrain developmental researchers in this field and provide suggestions for ongoing work

The impact of model-lead-test coaching on parents\u27 implementation of reinforcement, prompting, and fading with their children with autism spectrum disorder

Parents play an essential role in furthering the development of their children with special needs. They are being trained to be co-therapists for their own children. The goal is to improve the ways they interact with their children in order to create improvements in their children\u27s everyday functioning. If the proper teaching strategies are consistently applied, a learner can significantly improve his/her performance of various life skills, including communication, self-care, social skills, along with other skill sets. Because adults\u27 learning processes differ substantially from children\u27s, it will be critical to utilize the coaching method that employs a Model-Lead-Test (MLT) approach to effectively train parents of children with autism. The primary purpose of this study is to evaluate the impact of model-lead-test coaching on parents\u27 use of prompting, fading, and reinforcement with their children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). The secondary purpose is to assess whether there are improvements in the children\u27s talker, participator, and problem solver repertoires associated with their parents\u27 use of these behavior change processes.;Using a multiple baseline across behavior design for each parent-child dyad, data are collected on parents\u27 proper use of reinforcement, prompting, and fading as well as their children\u27s talker, participator, and problem solver repertoire development. Research phases include baseline, parent training I (Oral Lecture), parent training II (Model-Lead-Test), and maintenance.;The resulting data from this study indicate that the Model-Lead-Test approach to parent implementation of core ABA strategies has a greater impact than merely using an Oral Lecture Discussion approach to parent training. To summarize, the data from all three participants showed an increase in the proper implementation of reinforcement, prompting and fading procedures especially through MLT training. The child participants also showed an increase in their talker, participator and problem solver repertoires. And finally, interpretation of the data is presented along with possible future guidelines for research

Class and Categories: What Role Does Socioeconomic Status Play in Children\u27s Lexical and Conceptual Development?

At one time, academic inquiries into the relationship between socioeconomic class and language acquisition were commonplace, but the past 20 years have seen a decrease in work that focuses on the intersection between class and early language learning. Recently, however, against the backdrop of the No Child Left Behind legislation in the United States (which has been criticized as a culturally biased education policy that, through highstakes testing and broad-based, uniform curricula, discounts the value of non-standard home language varieties largely spoken by working-class children), there has been renewed interest in the relationship between class, language use, and the assessment of academic achievement in the field of education. Despite the inroads that have been made over the past 40 years by linguists in establishing the contrary, recent educational and language policies have served to reignite the difference vs. deficit debate largely attributed to the early work of both Basil Bernstein and William Labov. Unfortunately, much of the language acquisition work upon which policymakers are relying is founded on outdated information and misrepresentations of the varieties under consideration (African American English in particular); and still the scholastic performance of these children is measured according to class-based rubrics. In order to address the lacuna in the field, in this study, working- and middle-class adults and children aged two through six were shown a series of pictures including ‘normal’ referents (e.g., a cat), and unfamiliar combinations (e.g., a clock with wheels), which they were asked to identify. There were both age and class dependent differences in terms of naming behaviors (e.g., the number of words and morphemes and linguistic construction types). The older and middle-class participants used more sophisticated linguistic strategies (such as descriptive phrases) than the younger participants, and the working-class children showed a greater reluctance to engage in naming strategies beyond one- word overextensions. These disparities suggested that the participants not only employed different strategies by age, but that there was also a classlinked difference in their understanding of the task. When these results are interpreted in light of the deficit/difference debate, it is clear that linguists and educators continue to face the same issue: non-standard varieties are linguistically adequate, but there remains a societal insistence on furthering the primacy of middle-class linguistic structures and language behaviors which serves to maintain a cycle of educational failure for working-class children

Children’s information retrieval: beyond examining search strategies and interfaces

The study of children’s information retrieval is still for the greater part untouched territory. Meanwhile, children can become lost in the digital information world, because they are confronted with search interfaces, both designed by and for adults. Most current research on children’s information retrieval focuses on examining children’s search performance on existing search interfaces to determine what kind of interfaces are suitable for children’s search behaviour. However, to discover the true nature of children’s search behaviour, we state that research has to go beyond examining search strategies used with existing search interfaces by examining children’s cognitive processes during information-seeking. A paradigm of children’s information retrieval should provide an overview of all the components beyond search interfaces and search strategies that are part of children’s information retrieval process. Better understanding of the nature of children’s search behaviour can help adults design interfaces and information retrieval systems that both support children’s natural search strategies and help them find their way in the digital information world

Language Structure Is Partly Determined by Social Structure

BACKGROUND: Languages differ greatly both in their syntactic and morphological systems and in the social environments in which they exist. We challenge the view that language grammars are unrelated to social environments in which they are learned and used. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We conducted a statistical analysis of >2,000 languages using a combination of demographic sources and the World Atlas of Language Structures--a database of structural language properties. We found strong relationships between linguistic factors related to morphological complexity, and demographic/socio-historical factors such as the number of language users, geographic spread, and degree of language contact. The analyses suggest that languages spoken by large groups have simpler inflectional morphology than languages spoken by smaller groups as measured on a variety of factors such as case systems and complexity of conjugations. Additionally, languages spoken by large groups are much more likely to use lexical strategies in place of inflectional morphology to encode evidentiality, negation, aspect, and possession. Our findings indicate that just as biological organisms are shaped by ecological niches, language structures appear to adapt to the environment (niche) in which they are being learned and used. As adults learn a language, features that are difficult for them to acquire, are less likely to be passed on to subsequent learners. Languages used for communication in large groups that include adult learners appear to have been subjected to such selection. Conversely, the morphological complexity common to languages used in small groups increases redundancy which may facilitate language learning by infants. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: We hypothesize that language structures are subjected to different evolutionary pressures in different social environments. Just as biological organisms are shaped by ecological niches, language structures appear to adapt to the environment (niche) in which they are being learned and used. The proposed Linguistic Niche Hypothesis has implications for answering the broad question of why languages differ in the way they do and makes empirical predictions regarding language acquisition capacities of children versus adults

Investigating social interaction strategies for bootstrapping lexicon development

This paper investigates how different modes of social interactions influence the bootstrapping and evolution of lexicons. This is done by comparing three language game models that differ in the type of social interactions they use. The simulations show that the language games which use either joint attention or corrective feedback as a source of contextual input are better capable of bootstrapping a lexicon than the game without such directed interactions. The simulation of the latter game, however, does show that it is possible to develop a lexicon without using directed input when the lexicon is transmitted from generation to generation

Effective and Promising Summer Learning Programs and Approaches for Economically-Disadvantaged Children and Youth

Reviews research on summer learning program outcomes for low-income children and identifies the characteristics of effective programs such as experienced teachers, small groups, and fun activities. Finds reading and math achievement gains are possible

College Student Perceptions of ADHD: Links Between Prior Knowledge and Stigma

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is characterized by persistent inattention, which might or might not accompany hyperactivity and impulsivity, that noticeably interferes with functioning and development in at least two settings. It is a commonly diagnosed childhood mental health disorder. Public knowledge and attitudes towards ADHD are an important consideration for those who are going to potentially be working with that population. Research has shown older children and parents may attribute ADHD behavior to poor social skills or immaturity. Teachers often report feeling unprepared to have a student with ADHD and would like more training. Some research has shown the perpetuation of common misconceptions of ADHD by parents and teachers. This research sought to determine if there was a correlation between knowledge of ADHD and stigma towards individuals with ADHD and to determine if students majoring in psychology differed from their peers on knowledge about ADHD or attitudes towards individuals with ADHD. After surveying 131 students from a faith-based, private university in Virginia, it was found that those majoring in psychology did not have significant differences in knowledge of ADHD or stigma towards people with ADHD when compared to students in other majors. Both knowledge and stigma scores were high across groups and no significant correlation between knowledge and attitudes was found. Findings have implications for university students diagnosed with ADHD and administrators working to reduce the stigma of ADHD on campus

The influence of problem features and individual differences on strategic performance in simple arithmetic

The present study examined the influence of features differing across problems (problem size and operation) and differing across individuals (daily arithmetic practice, the amount of calculator use, arithmetic skill, and gender) on simple-arithmetic performance. Regression analyses were used to investigate the role of these variables in both strategy selection and strategy efficiency. Results showed that more-skilled and highly practiced students used memory retrieval more often and executed their strategies more efficiently than less-skilled and less practiced students. Furthermore, calculator use was correlated with retrieval efficiency and procedural efficiency but not with strategy selection. Only very small associations with gender were observed, with boys retrieving slightly faster than girls. Implications of the present findings for views on models of mental arithmetic are discussed