Young Children's Long-Term Retention of a Pediatric Examination

Detecting the veracity of children's experiences through drawings

Research is lacking regarding adults' ability to determine whether children's drawings are based on an experience or not. Drawings are useful in professional settings to alleviate linguistic demands, facilitate memory, and have been used as evidence. Determining the accuracy of veracity assessments of children's drawings would inform professionals regarding their use as evidence of experiences. Twenty-eight children (14 younger, Mage = 7.53 years, SDage = 1.19; 14 older, Mage = 11.67 years, SD = 1.27) produced drawings of two events: one staged experienced, and one narrative-based not experienced event. Fifty (Study 1, Mage = 23.72 years, SDage = 9.70) and 63 (Study 2, Mage = 25.92, SDage = 12.79) adults indicated whether each drawing was based on experience and their confidence in each assessment. In Study 2, additional drawing quality assessments were collected. Results indicated that adults were more accurate at distinguishing experienced than not experienced drawings for older artists. An inverse relationship was observed between confidence and accuracy-participants were more confident when they were inaccurate, especially for younger artists. Drawing quality improved with age and for drawings of experienced events. Adults tended to rate drawings of higher quality as resulting from experience leading to the highest accuracy for drawings from older artists that were based on experience. Overall, results suggest that there may be some features of drawings that allow for above chance levels of accuracy (up to 75%). However, rates are not high enough across assessments (M = 53.93%, range: 39%-75%) to reliably use them as indicators of experience.

Preschoolers' knowledge about hospital and emergency equipment and care

BACKGROUND

Information about preschoolers' understanding of hospital and emergency care and medical equipment is needed.

OBJECTIVE

The current study contributed to our understanding of young children's health literacy in these areas.

CONCLUSIONS

Findings indicated that preschool-age children had more accurate knowledge of an emergency care as opposed to a hospital scenario. Also, young children tended to recount their experiences when discussing what they knew, supporting the idea that they acquire schemas for this information. Parents tended to overestimate their children's knowledge. Children did not mention school as a place where they learned about hospital care and those health professionals working in school settings may be uniquely positioned to teach young children about hospital care. Children may absorb more information in this environment, and assessing whether this is true remains an area for future research.