How hand movements and speech tip the balance in cognitive development:A story about children, complexity, coordination, and affordances

When someone asks us to explain something, such as how a lever or balance scale works, we spontaneously move our hands and gesture. This is also true for children. Furthermore, children use their hands to discover things and to find out how something works. Previous research has shown that children’s hand movements hereby are ahead of speech, and play a leading role in cognitive development. Explanations for this assumed that cognitive understanding takes place in one’s head, and that hand movements and speech (only) reflect this. However, cognitive understanding arises and consists of the constant interplay between (hand) movements and speech, and someone’s physical and social environment. The physical environment includes task properties, for example, and the social environment includes other people. Therefore, I focused on this constant interplay between hand movements, speech, and the environment, to better understand hand movements’ role in cognitive development. Using science and technology tasks, we found that children’s speech affects hand movements more than the other way around. During difficult tasks the coupling between hand movements and speech becomes even stronger than in easy tasks. Interim changes in task properties differently affect hand movements and speech. Collaborating children coordinate their hand movements and speech, and even their head movements together. The coupling between hand movements and speech is related to age and (school) performance. It is important that teachers attend to children’s hand movements and speech, and arrange their lessons and classrooms such that there is room for both

Haptic human-human interaction does not improve individual visuomotor adaptation

Haptic interaction between two humans, for example, parents physically supporting their child while it learns to keep balance on a bicycle, likely facilitates motor skill acquisition. Haptic human-human interaction has been shown to enhance individual motor improvement in a tracking task with a visuomotor rotation perturbation. These results are remarkable given that haptically assisting or guiding an individual rarely improves their motor improvement when the assistance is removed. We, therefore, replicated a study that reported benefits of haptic interaction between humans on individual motor improvement for tracking a target in a visuomotor rotation. Also, we tested the effect of more interaction time and stronger haptic coupling between the partners on individual performance improvement in the same task. We found no benefits of haptic interaction on individual motor improvement compared to individuals who practised the task alone, independent of interaction time or interaction strength. We also found no effect of the interaction partner's skill level on individual motor improvement

Constructing an understanding of mind : the development of children's social understanding within social interaction

Theories of children's developing understanding of mind tend to emphasize either individualistic processes of theory formation, maturation, or introspection, or the process of enculturation. However, such theories must be able to account for the accumulating evidence of the role of social interaction in the development of social understanding. We propose an alternative account, according to which the development of children's social understanding occurs within triadic interaction involving the child's experience of the world as well as communicative interaction with others about their experience and beliefs (Chapman 1991; 1999). It is through such triadic interaction that children gradually construct knowledge of the world as well as knowledge of other people. We contend that the extent and nature of the social interaction children experience will influence the development of children's social understanding. Increased opportunity to engage in cooperative social interaction and exposure to talk about mental states should facilitate the development of social understanding. We review evidence suggesting that children's understanding of mind develops gradually in the context of social interaction. Therefore, we need a theory of development in this area that accords a fundamental role to social interaction, yet does not assume that children simply adopt socially available knowledge but rather that children construct an understanding of mind within social interaction

Deaf/hard Of Hearing Preschool Students’ Acquisition Of Language Through Dyadic And Triadic Communication Contexts

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness and efficiency of using dyadic communication with a teacher of the deaf (ToD) and a Deaf/Hard of Hearing (D/HH) student compared to a triadic communication with a general education teacher, sign language interpreter, and D/HH student. Four participants in a self-contained D/HH early childhood classroom participated in both comparison groups using dyadic and triadic communication to acquire vocabulary language skills for communication while playing a preschool game. An adapted alternating treatment design (AATD) for single case research was used to rapidly alternate comparison groups using equivalent games and counterbalanced across participants. Interobserver agreement was used for data and procedural reliability. Results revealed the dyadic condition to be optimal for both receptive and expressive vocabulary acquisition for efficiency and effectiveness. Stakeholders gave information regarding perceptions of the study through a social validation survey. Additional findings and recommendations for future research are discussed

How children make sense of the world:A perceptual learning account

The aim of this thesis was to describe the social and non-social development of infants and children from a perceptual learning account. Perceptual learning is a domain-general process by which children progressively can distinguish more diverse and relevant information in the world around them. This then allows children to couple perception and action in novel and adaptive ways, helping them to meet the demands and opportunities provided by that world. It is claimed that this does not require the mediation of any specialized cognitive functions, something that is usually either explicit or implicitly acclaimed in theories of development. This thesis reports several studies that show how infants and children develop social and non-social skills by means of perceptual learning, such as gaze following, specific forms of imitation, facial expression recognition, and understanding of physical mechanisms. As an example, it was shown that infants are able to perceive another person’s intended actions with objects by perceptually tuning into the sequence of events of how he or she interacts with those objects. In another reported study, it was shown that children’s interaction with physical mechanisms can create the perceptual information that helps them to understand those physical mechanisms in an advanced manner. For the future, it was suggested that perceptual learning should be used to further investigate early social development and learning contexts for children. This could lead to new insights on how to describe development and learning processes and to optimize contexts for learning to occur

Conversational Movement Dynamics and Nonverbal Indicators of Second Language Development: A Microgenetic Approach

This dissertation study extends on current understandings of gesture and embodied interaction with the eco-social environment in second language development (SLD) while introducing new aspects of movement analysis through dynamical modeling. To understand the role of embodiment during learning activities, a second language learning task has been selected. Dyads consisting of a non-native English-speaking student and a native English-speaking tutor were video recorded during writing consultations centered on class assignments provided by the student. Cross-recurrence quantification analysis was used to measure interactional movement synchrony between the members of each dyad. Results indicate that students with varied English proficiency levels synchronize movements with their tutors over brief, frequent periods of time. Synchronous movement pattern complexity is highly variable across and within the dyads. Additionally, co-speech gesture and gesture independent of speech were analyzed qualitatively to identify the role of gesture as related to SLD events. A range of movement types were used during developmental events by the students and tutors to interact with their partner. The results indicated that language development occurs within a movement rich context through negotiated interaction which depends on a combination of synchronized and synergistic movements. Synchronized movements exhibited complex, dynamical behaviors including variability, self-organization, and emergent properties. Synergistic movement emergence revealed how the dualistic presence of the self/other in each dyad creates a functioning intersubjective space. Overall, the dyads demonstrated that movement is a salient factor in the writing consultation activity

Text-Influenced Expressions of Understanding: Differences in Kindergartners’ Discourse and Written Retellings of Traditional and Digital Texts During Buddy Reading

Buddy reading a text is a collaborative act that typically generates discourse that provides researchers with a glimpse of the comprehending taking place. However, in recent years, the infusion of technology in classrooms has resulted in many traditional texts being replaced by digital versions. Thus, this qualitative case study examined the spoken and written discourse of 12 kindergartners (6 dyads) as they buddy read a traditional and digital text. Drawing upon two distinct lenses—sociocultural and comprehension signifier—video recordings, transcriptions, and written retellings were analyzed. Specifically, process coding and in vivo coding were used to construct categories and uncover sociocultural patterns in the discourse. Provisional coding was used to identify explicit (character, setting, initiating event, problem, outcome resolution), implicit (feelings, causal inference, dialogue, prediction), and reading strategy (repeats, questions, connects, dramatizes) comprehension signifiers. Findings indicate a mismatch between the kind of discourse that transpired and how it translated into the written retellings. When children engaged in conversation as they read the traditional storybook, the discussion exemplified high-frequency use of explicit and implicit comprehension signifiers. However, few of the written retellings utilized implicit comprehension signifiers. The discourse surrounding the digital texts consisted mostly of implicit comprehension signifiers and reading strategy signifiers. Conversely, the writing reflected a more extensive comprehension signifier use with many of the children’s retellings containing examples from two or more different subcategories

Infusing critical thinking into an employability skills program: The effectiveness of an immersion approach

The demands of the knowledge economy have placed renewed emphasis on graduate employability and the development of higher-order thinking skills. Preparing graduates for the workplace requires new instructional approaches to develop a matrix of interrelated skills. This study investigates an immersion approach to developing employability skills with emphasis on the infusion of critical thinking skills in an undergraduate business degree. The research is situated within the pragmatic paradigm and comprises a mixed methods approach. Analyses of project instructions, student reflections and test scores are presented in an explanatory case study in three parts: the infusion of critical thinking skills in a program that targets employability, the process of critical thinking within a community of inquiry, and the performance of students in a standardised critical thinking skills test after completing the first year of the program. The study shows critical thinking skills to be central to the development of employability skills in an immersion approach and that the project tasks engaged students in a critical thinking cycle. Analyses of test results show that participants in the program outperformed nonparticipants, but that not all participants improved their own performance. Participants from non-English-speaking backgrounds achieved lower means, but still outperformed nonparticipants. It was therefore found that participation in the program can improve student performance in a standardised test, but also that test scores in a standardised test may not be an ecologically valid indicator of critical thinking skills development in authentic learning environments following an immersion approach. The study provides new insight into the infusion of critical thinking skills in an immersion approach and makes explicit a model for employability skills development that will enable business education to deliver graduates who can participate effectively in the workplace of the 21st. century

Connecting Minds: On the Role of Metaknowledge in Knowledge Coordination

Knowledge coordination, that is, the process of locating, transferring, and integrating the specialized knowledge of multiple individuals, is a critical prerequisite for organizations to make fuller use of one of their most important resources: the knowledge of their employees. Yet, knowledge coordination is as challenging as it is important. This dissertation aims to further our understanding of how groups and larger collectives process information and integrate their knowledge and what factors influence the social interactions at the core of this process. The three empirical studies contained in this dissertation examine the role of individuals’ metaknowledge - the knowledge of who knows what - in knowledge coordination processes. Findings from the first two studies indicate that individuals who have an above-average level of metaknowledge can play a critical role in catalysing information processing and decision making in teams as well as in helping to integrate knowledge between organizational groups. The third study furthermore elucidates the role of formal rank in shaping informal organizational networks through which employees seek knowledge as well as metaknowledge. The findings presented in this dissertation contribute to research on group cognition, knowledge integration within and between groups, and intra-organizational networks. Most importantly, together these studies underscore the importance of taking into account differences in individuals’ metaknowledge in creating a better understanding of knowledge coordination in organizations