A process approach to children's understanding of scientific concepts: A longitudinal case study

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.

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

Simple Summary

This study compares and contrasts several outcome measures to assess the effect of an equine-assisted intervention for a child with Autism Spectrum Disorder. Before and after the equine-assisted sessions, we conducted a semi-structured interview with the participant’s parents, asked parents to fill out a general screening instrument separately, and observed the participant’s social and communication skills during five equine-assisted sessions. We found differences between the interview and questionnaire with regard to parents’ perceptions 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.

Abstract

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.

The Link between Microdevelopment and Long-Term Learning Trajectories in Science Learning

Long-term learning trajectories evolve through microdevelopmental sequences (i.e., short-term processes of change during learning tasks) and depend on variability during and across learning tasks. The aim of this study is to examine the coupling between short-term teacher-student dynamics and students' long-term learning trajectories, thereby providing empirical support for the link between the short- and long-term time scale in cognitive development. For 31 students (ages 3-5 years) from regular and special education, five teacher-student interactions during science tasks were filmed and coded in real time with regard to the student's level of understanding and the teacher's support throughout the task. A hierarchical cluster analysis resulted in four different learning trajectories over the course of 1.5 years, labeled as a high-scoring, mid-scoring, fluctuating, and low-scoring group of students. When connecting these trajectories to microdevelopmental data, the interactions of the high-scoring students were characterized by more moment-to-moment variations in the teacher's support and student's level of understanding, while the low-scoring group had the least variability compared to the other groups. Students with emotional and behavioral disabilities were represented across all learning trajectories, despite frequent accounts in the literature on their significant academic delays.

Differences in game reading between selected and non-selected youth soccer players

Applying an established theory of cognitive development-Skill Theory-the current study compares the game-reading skills of youth players selected for a soccer school of a professional soccer club (n = 49) and their non-selected peers (n = 38). Participants described the actions taking place in videos of soccer game plays, and their verbalisations were coded using Skill Theory. Compared to the non-selected players, the selected players generally demonstrated higher levels of complexity in their game-reading, and structured the information of game elements-primarily the player, teammate and field-at higher complexity levels. These results demonstrate how Skill Theory can be used to assess, and distinguish game-reading of youth players with different expertise, a skill important for soccer, but also for other sports.

Asymmetric Dynamic Attunement of Speech and Gestures in the Construction of Children's Understanding

As children learn they use their speech to express words and their hands to gesture. This study investigates the interplay between real-time gestures and speech as children construct cognitive understanding during a hands-on science task. 12 children (M = 6, F = 6) from Kindergarten (n = 5) and first grade (n = 7) participated in this study. Each verbal utterance and gesture during the task were coded, on a complexity scale derived from dynamic skill theory. To explore the interplay between speech and gestures, we applied a cross recurrence quantification analysis (CRQA) to the two coupled time series of the skill levels of verbalizations and gestures. The analysis focused on (1) the temporal relation between gestures and speech, (2) the relative strength and direction of the interaction between gestures and speech, (3) the relative strength and direction between gestures and speech for different levels of understanding, and (4) relations between CRQA measures and other child characteristics. The results show that older and younger children differ in the (temporal) asymmetry in the gestures-speech interaction. For younger children, the balance leans more toward gestures leading speech in time, while the balance leans more toward speech leading gestures for older children. Secondly, at the group level, speech attracts gestures in a more dynamically stable fashion than vice versa, and this asymmetry in gestures and speech extends to lower and higher understanding levels. Yet, for older children, the mutual coupling between gestures and speech is more dynamically stable regarding the higher understanding levels. Gestures and speech are more synchronized in time as children are older. A higher score on schools' language tests is related to speech attracting gestures more rigidly and more asymmetry between gestures and speech, only for the less difficult understanding levels. A higher score on math or past science tasks is related to less asymmetry between gestures and speech. The picture that emerges from our analyses suggests that the relation between gestures, speech and cognition is more complex than previously thought. We suggest that temporal differences and asymmetry in influence between gestures and speech arise from simultaneous coordination of synergies.

Unfolding Potential as Dynamic Emergence: A View From the Theory of Complex, Nonlinear Dynamic Systems

The process of unfolding learning and developmental potential is discussed from the viewpoint of complex dynamic systems. After a brief overview of the notions of unfolding and potential in the context of development and education, a definition of complex dynamic systems is given, emphasizing the aspects of self-organization and emergence. The concept of nonergodicity is introduced, which implies that statistical relationships between variables applying to samples of independent individuals (the classical methodological setup of educational and developmental research) do not necessarily apply to statistical relationships found in individual time series. The consequences of complexity and nonergodicity for empirical research in education and development are presented in the form of four methodological design steps, with illustrations of usable methods and empirical research focusing on individual educational and developmental trajectories.