Developing language and cognition in young children with Logo

Abstract

A Logo intervention was implemented to improve the language and problemsolving skills of four young mainstreamed children with developmental disabilities. To ensure that the children had a clear concept of Logo, a specially designed scope and sequence curriculum, with instructional aids, was developed. The children were tested in language and cognitive processing and gain scores were analysed after the intervention. While there were no statistically supportable conclusions attesting to the benefit of Logo in language and problem-solving, a qualitative assessment of gains supported the value of the project.The literature on educational computing shows a great deal of equivocal support for the value of using Logo with young children (Cohen 1987, Khayrallah and Van Den Meiraker 1987). Though over ten years old, there are very few empirical studies which attest to the proven educational benefit of using Logo with children. Lepper and Gurtner (1 989) summarise the early results of Logo research when they describe the limited transfer of learning effects from Logo environments, although, as they correctly point out, some of the more recent research is beginning to show positive results (See Clements 1990, Nastasi et a1 1990. In the development of problem-solving skills using Logo, Clements (1990) is probably correct when he suggests that the contradictory results of research into higher-order thinking has been confounded by the differences in instructional settings in which the studies have taken place. The problem of assessing the value of Logo is complicated by the variety of reasons why educators use Logo.These reasons are sometimes based on the virtues of the language itself, that is, the language is procedural, extensible and fairly simple, and allows children to learn to program very quickly. Other reasons relate to Papert's vision of children generating 'powerful ideas' and being mathematicians in incredible Logo Microworlds (Papert 1980). Others of the MIT team argue a case for using computers and Logo, 'as intellectual playgrounds where learning emerges from interaction with a rich multidimensional environment'. This team supports self-directed, open-ended exploraLogo intervention for young children 8 5 tory learning, particularly for children 'who have been alienated or by-passed by traditional pedagogy' (Abelson et a1 1982, 2). Clearly, the reasons for the educational use of Logo are many and varied but a consistent theme in the literature on Logo is the notion that learning Logo will improve children's ability to solve problems.One may support Logo as an intellectual playground in which powerful ideas are generated and an exciting educational environment is provided for students failing in the educational system (or being failed by the system). However, two points about the use of Logo demand urgent attention: 0 There is no Logo curriculm, that is, Logo is not content to be learned. The language and environment of Logo is a means, to an end. Which particular end is a vital question to be addressed by ea...

An evaluation of two cognitive learning methods in adults on pre-qualification schemes: Logo and logical reasoning workshops (ARL)

“…Particular interest has been shown in the effects on development of mathematical thought, the transfer of acquisitions to other situations and effects in the shorter or longer term. Published results are contradictory and only a few examples will be given here, Some authors have found no effect on logical development expressed as Piagetian stages (Howell, Scott, & Diamond, 1987) nor on cognitive or language abilities (Bailey, 1992). In an extensively documented review of the question, Salomon and Perkins (1987) noted that the transfer of acquisitions to remote tasks was almost never seen.…”