“How does it work?”:A longitudinal microgenetic study on the development of young children’s understanding of scientific concepts

Wat zie je als je 32 jonge kinderen (3 tot 5 jaar) met een onderzoeker aan praktische wetenschappelijke taken over luchtdruk en zwaartekracht laat werken? De onderzoeker had de opdracht een zo natuurlijk mogelijke leersituatie te creëren: het kind mocht de taak ontdekken terwijl de onderzoeker vragen stelde en doorvragen en ondersteuning was toegestaan. Het begrip van elk kind (in verbale uitingen) werd continue geregistreerd gedurende 5 van deze bezoeken (anderhalf jaar). Als we ons richten op één onderzoeker-kind paar, zien we dat het kind tijdens de eerste taak vooral de schommelingen in het complexiteitsniveau van de vragen volgt. Over het verloop van een aantal taken neemt het kind steeds meer initiatief en past de onderzoeker de complexiteit van de (door)vragen aan. Rond dezelfde tijd stijgt ook het complexiteitsniveau van de uitingen van het kind. Ontwikkelen kinderen met gedragsproblemen uit het speciaal onderwijs hun begrip op andere wijze? Eerder onderzoek liet zien dat zij vaak slechter presteren dan hun leeftijdsgenootjes uit het regulier onderwijs. In dit proefschrift zien we echter nauwelijks verschillen wat betreft de ontwikkeling van begrip tijdens de taken. Dit is interessant, zeker omdat dit proefschrift wèl een verschil vindt wat betreft hun scores op reken- en taaltoetsen uit het leerlingvolgsysteem. In het proefschrift wordt beargumenteerd dat speciaal onderwijs-kinderen meer kunnen dan wij denken, als de juiste omstandigheden voor hen worden gecreëerd. Hoe kunnen we de ontwikkeling van het begrip van zwaartekracht en luchtdruk over anderhalf jaar karakteriseren? We vinden 3 trajecten: een groep kinderen die goed presteert, een variabele groep en een groep met weinig vooruitgang. De trajecten zijn, opmerkelijk genoeg, niet geassocieerd met scores op taal- en rekentoetsen, het type school (regulier of speciaal) of het opleidingsniveau van de ouders. Variabelen die wel geassocieerd zijn met de ontwikkeling over tijd, zijn gerelateerd aan de interactie tussen kind en onderzoeker en de interacties tussen de kinderen en hun opvoeders in de thuissituatie

On the bright side:Young people's most positive memories of family foster care

This study explored what contributes to successful family foster care from the perspective of young people by asking them about their most positive memory of family foster care. Forty-four Dutch adolescents and young adults (aged 16-28) participated in this study and shared their most positive memory in a short interview. Their answers were qualitatively analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis, supplemented with an analysis of the structure of their memories. The thematic analysis resulted in the themes Belongingness, Receiving support, Normal family life, It is better than before, and Seeing yourself grow. The structural analysis showed that young people both shared memories related to specific events, as well as memories that portrayed how they felt for a prolonged period of time. In addition, young people were inclined to share negative memories alongside the positive memories. These results highlight that, in order to build a sense of belonging, it is important that of foster parents create a normal family environment for foster children and provide continuous support. Moreover, the negative memories shared by participants are discussed in light of a bias resulting from earlier traumatic experiences

Visualizing individual dynamics:The case of a talented adolescent

Research on talent and performance development has primarily focused on inter-individual differences. However, research suggests that performance and the underlying determinants change over time, in an individual-specific dynamic way. This chapter illustrates a method to measure, understand, and visualize the performance- and psychosocial dynamics of a talented adolescent athlete. During one season, a talented tennis player filled out an online diary questionnaire twice a week. We visualized the results using R-scripts that we made openly available. This facilitated the interpretation of the athlete’s performance- and psychosocial dynamics, which are influenced by particular events in the athlete’s life. Altogether, the current study provides insight into how the adolescent and the context interact and mutually affect each other in successive iterations

Evaluating Animal-Assisted Interventions:An Empirical Illustration of Differences between Outcome Measures

Multiple authors have called for strong empirical evaluations to strengthen the foundation of Animal-Assisted Interventions. Carefully choosing the outcome measures of these studies is important, as choosing the wrong outcomes may lead to a failure to detect effects. The current study therefore compares and contrasts the use of several outcome measures, to assess the effect of an equine-assisted intervention for a child with Autism Spectrum Disorder: (1) a semi-structured interview with both parents, specifically designed for children with cognitive disabilities, (2) a general screening instrument filled out by both parents separately, which can be used to assess children’s psycho-social problems, and (3) systematic observations of social and communication skills during the equine-assisted sessions. All instruments indicated an improvement in the participant’s social and communication skills. We found differences between the interview and questionnaires with regard to parents’ perception of aggression regulation and interacting with peers. Differences with regard to parental reports and observations were found for play development and anxiety. The observations provided a detailed view of the child’s development during the intervention, which yielded an interesting hypothesis in terms of the current dose–response discussion in AAI for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Movers and shakers of cognition:Hand movements, speech, task properties, and variability

Children move their hands to explore, learn and communicate about hands-on tasks. Their hand movements seem to be “learning” ahead of speech. Children shape their hand movements in accordance with spatial and temporal task properties, such as when they feel an object or simulate its movements. Their speech does not directly correspond to these spatial and temporal task properties, however. We aimed to understand whether and how hand movements' are leading cognitive development due to their ability to correspond to spatiotemporal task properties, while speech is unable to do so. We explored whether hand movements' and speech's variability changed with a change in spatiotemporal task properties, using two variability measures: Diversity indicates adaptation, while Complexity indicates flexibility to adapt. In two experiments, we asked children (4–7 years) to predict and explain about balance scale problems, whereby we either manipulated the length of the balance scale or the mass of the weights after half of the trials. In three out of four conditions, we found a change in Complexity for both hand movements and speech between first and second half of the task. In one of these conditions, we found a relation between the differences in Complexity and Diversity of hand movements and speech. Changes in spatiotemporal task properties thus often influenced both hand movements' and speech's flexibility, but there seem to be differences in how they did so. We provided many directions for future research, to further unravel the relations between hand movements, speech, task properties, variability, and cognitive development