preschool child

Picture overload hurts preschooler's word learning

  • A study has found that having more than one illustration results in poorer word learning among pre-schoolers — but this can be mitigated if the reader draws the pre-schooler’s attention to each illustration.

When you're reading a picture book to a very young child, it's easy to think it's obvious what picture, or part of a picture, is being talked about. But you know what all the words mean. It's not so easy when some of the words are new to you, and the open pages have more than one picture. A recent study has looked at the effect on word learning of having one vs two illustrations on a 2-page open spread.

The study, in two experiments, involved the child being read to from a 10-page storybook, which included two novel objects, mentioned four times, but only incidentally. In the first experiment, 36 preschoolers (average age 3.5 years) were randomly assigned to one of three conditions:

  • one illustration (the illustration filled the page, with the text written as part of the illustration, and the opposing page blank)
  • two illustrations (each illustration filled its page, on opposing pages)
  • one large illustration (the page was twice the size of that found in the other conditions) — this was the control condition.

Children who were read stories with only one illustration at a time learned twice as many words as children who were read stories with two or more illustrations. There was no difference in reading time, or in the child’s enjoyment of the story.

In a follow-up experiment, 12 preschoolers were shown the two-illustration books only, but this time the reader used a simple hand swipe gesture to indicate the correct illustration before the page was read to them. With this help, the children learned best of all.

In fact, the rate of word learning in this last condition was comparable to that observed in other studies using techniques such as pointing or asking questions. Asking questions is decidedly better than simply reading without comment, and yet this simple gesture was enough to match that level of learning.

Other studies have shown that various distractions added to picture books, like flaps to lift, reduce learning. All this is best understood in terms of cognitive load. The most interesting thing about this study is that it took so little to ameliorate the extra load imposed by the two illustrations.

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2017-06/uos-poh063017.php

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2017-07/w-tno071217.php

Also see https://blogs.sussex.ac.uk/psychology/2016/10/24/how-storybook-illustrat... for a blog post by one of the researchers

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Is it really better to read print books to your toddler?

  • A comparison of non-interactive electronic books and their print counterparts has found that toddlers learned more from the electronic books, but this was accounted for by their greater attention and engagement.

A new issue for parents to stress over is the question of whether reading digital books with your toddler or preschooler is worse than reading traditional print books. Help on this complicated question comes from a new study involving 102 toddlers aged 17 to 26 months, whose parents were randomly assigned to read two commercially available electronic books or two print books with identical content with their toddler (this was achieved by printing out screenshots of the electronic books).

The books included familiar farm animals (duck, horse, sheep, cow) and also wild animals (koala, crocodile, zebra, and lion), some of which were new to the children). After reading, the children were asked to identify three of the familiar animals and three of the unfamiliar.

The electronic books included background music, animation and sound effects for each page as well as an automatic voiceover that read the text aloud to the child, but there were no actions or hotspots for extra features.

Compared to those who read the print versions, toddlers who read the electronic books:

  • paid more attention
  • made themselves more available for story time
  • participated more
  • commented more about the content.

While parents tended to point at the print book more often, there was no difference between the books in the amount they talked with their children about the story. However, parent–child pairs spent almost twice as much time reading the electronic books than the print books.

Overall, children did significantly better on the learning task when they had read the electronic book. However, analysis showed that the benefit was accounted for by two variables:

  • attention
  • availability for reading.

The researchers note, however, that this may not be true of all electronic books. Previous research has suggested that highly interactive electronic books may distract from learning.

Additionally, the simplicity of electronic books for toddlers may be much better. Books for preschoolers, on the other hand, are more narrative, requiring readers to integrate content across pages. In this circumstance, electronic books may be more distracting.

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2017-06/f-sto062117.php

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New hope for autistic children who never learn to speak

A recent report from Autistica estimates that nearly a quarter (24%) of children with autism are non-verbal or minimally verbal — problems that can persist into adulthood.

A review of over 200 published papers and more than 60 different intervention studies has now concluded that:

05/2013

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Interactive robot trains kids with autism

A humanoid robot has been designed, and shows promise, for teaching joint attention to children with ASD. Robots are particularly appealing to children, and even more so to those with ASD.

http://www.futurity.org/health-medicine/interactive-robot-trains-kids-with-autism/

04/2013

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Praise the job not the child

In the first study to analyze parent praise in a real-world setting, it’s been found that the kind of praise parents give their babies and toddlers influences the child’s motivation later on, and plays a role in children’s beliefs about themselves and their desire to take on challenges five years later.

03/2013

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Math anxiety starts before school, impacts math achievement

"The general consensus is that math anxiety doesn't affect children much before fourth grade.” New research contests that.

Study 1: found many first grade students do experience negative feelings and worry related to math. This math anxiety negatively affects their math performance when it comes to solving math problems in standard arithmetic notation.

Study 2: found that second grade math anxiety affected second grade computations and math applications. Additionally, children with higher levels of math anxiety in second grade learned less math in third grade.

03/2013

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Children learn iconic signs more easily and quickly

December, 2012

A study of deaf toddlers suggests that we can support children’s acquisition of language by providing physical links to words, through the use of gestures, facial expressions, and tone.

The relative ease with which children acquire language has produced much debate and theory, mirroring the similar quantity of debate and theory over how we evolved language. One theory of language evolution is that it began with gesture. A recent study looking at how deaf children learn sign language might perhaps be taken as partial support for this theory, and may also have wider implications for how children acquire language and how we can best support them.

The study, involving 31 deaf toddlers, looked at 89 specific signs understood and produced by the children. It was found that both younger (11-20 months) and older (21-30 months) toddlers understood and produced more signs that were iconic than signs that were less iconic. This benefit seemed to be greater for the older toddlers, supporting the idea that a certain amount of experience and/or cognitive development is needed to make the link between action and meaning.

Surprisingly, the benefits of iconicity did not seem to depend on how familiar, phonologically complex, or imageable the words were.

In contrast to spoken language, a high proportion of signs are iconic, that is, related to the concept being expressed (such as, bringing the hand to the mouth to indicate ‘eat’). Nevertheless, if iconicity is important in sign language, it is surely also important in spoken languages. This is supported by the role of gesture in speech.

The researchers suggest that iconic links between our perceptual-motor experience of the world and the form of a sign may provide an imitation-based mechanism that supports early sign acquisition, and that this might also apply to spoken language — with gestures, tone of voice, inflection, and facial expression helping make the link between words and their meanings less arbitrary.

This suggests that we can support children’s acquisition of language by providing and emphasizing such ‘scaffolding’.

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Sensory therapy contraindicated for autism

December, 2012

A review has concluded that there is no evidence that sensory integration therapy helps autistic children.

A review of 25 major studies investigating the value of sensory integration therapy (SIT) for autistic children has concluded that this most popular of therapies has no scientific support.

Only three of the 25 studies found benefits from SIT, and these three all had serious methodological flaws. Eight of the studies found mixed results, while 14 studies reported no benefits. Many of the reviewed studies had serious methodological flaws.

It has been suggested that SIT may even be harmful, in that it may lead to an increase in undesirable behavior. Regardless, by taking up time that could otherwise be spent on effective therapies, the use of SIT is not recommended.

The only scientifically valid treatment and intervention for individuals on the autism spectrum is said to be applied behavior analysis, in which, unfortunately, few are trained. With applied behavior analysis, the therapist teaches children age-appropriate skills and offers systematic, repetitious positive reinforcement for desired behaviors.

Reference: 

[3183] Lang, R., O’Reilly M., Healy O., Rispoli M., Lydon H., Streusand W., et al.
(2012).  Sensory integration therapy for autism spectrum disorders: A systematic review.
Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders. 6(3), 1004 - 1018.

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Autism therapy can normalize face processing

November, 2012

A small study shows that an intensive program to help young children with autism not only improves cognition and behavior, but can also normalize brain activity for face processing.

The importance of early diagnosis for autism spectrum disorder has been highlighted by a recent study demonstrating the value of an educational program for toddlers with ASD.

The study involved 48 toddlers (18-30 months) diagnosed with autism and age-matched normally developing controls. Those with ASD were randomly assigned to participate in a two-year program called the Early Start Denver Model, or a standard community program.

The ESDM program involved two-hour sessions by trained therapists twice a day, five days every week. Parent training also enabled ESDM strategies to be used during daily activities. The program emphasizes interpersonal exchange, social attention, and shared engagement. It also includes training in face recognition, using individualized booklets of color photos of the faces of four familiar people.

The community program involved evaluation and advice, annual follow-up sessions, programs at Birth-to-Three centers and individual speech-language therapy, occupational therapy, and/or applied behavior analysis treatments.

All of those in the ESDM program were still participating at the end of the two years, compared to 88% of the community program participants.

At the end of the program, children were assessed on various cognitive and behavioral measures, as well as brain activity.

Compared with children who participated in the community program, children who received ESDM showed significant improvements in IQ, language, adaptive behavior, and autism diagnosis. Average verbal IQ for the ESDM group was 95 compared to an average 75 for the community group, and 93 vs 80 for nonverbal IQ. These are dramatically large differences, although it must be noted that individual variability was high.

Moreover, for the ESDM group, brain activity in response to faces was similar to that of normally-developing children, while the community group showed the pattern typical of autism (greater activity in response to objects compared to faces). This was associated with improvements in social behavior.

Again, there were significant individual differences. Specifically, 73% of the ESDM group, 53% of the control group, and 29% of the community group, showed a pattern of faster response to faces. (Bear in mind, re the control group, that these children are all still quite young.) It should also be borne in mind that it was difficult to get usable EEG data from many of the children with ASD — these results come from only 60% of the children with ASD.

Nevertheless, the findings are encouraging for parents looking to help their children.

It should also be noted that, although obviously earlier is better, the findings don’t rule out benefits for older children or even adults. Relatively brief targeted training in face recognition has been shown to affect brain activity patterns in adults with ASD.

Reference: 

[3123] Dawson, G., Jones E. J. H., Merkle K., Venema K., Lowy R., Faja S., et al.
(2012).  Early Behavioral Intervention Is Associated With Normalized Brain Activity in Young Children With Autism.
Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. 51(11), 1150 - 1159.

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