Parental Reports of Children’s Scale Errors in Everyday Life

Abstract

Scale errors refer to behaviors where young children attempt to perform an action on an object that is too small to effectively accommodate the behavior. The goal of this study was to examine the frequency and characteristics of scale errors in everyday life. To do so, the researchers collected parental reports of children's (age range = 13-21 months at onset) scale errors over a 6-month period. All but 1 of the parents (N = 30) reported at least 1 scale error with an average of 3.2 scale errors per child. These results suggest that most, if not all, children commit scale errors during early childhood.

Children's scale errors: A by‐product of lexical development?

“…'s () seminal findings, we expected to find an inverted U‐shape with a peak of the incidence of scale errors at 24 months. In our study, however, with a larger sample size spanning the same age range as in DeLoache et al., the peak of scale errors incidence was found in the youngest group, i.e., 18 months, and decreased with age, which contrasts with the original findings, but is in line with other studies on scale errors (e.g., Brownell et al., ; Rosengren, Gutierrez, et al., 2009). While our procedure was largely similar to that of DeLoache et al., our task differed slightly in the way the experimenter encouraged children to interact with the miniature object replicas.…”

“…The absence of an inverted U‐shaped function questions the existence of a developmental stage for scale errors, as is also suggested by the fact that children vary substantially in the incidence and perseveration of scale errors (Rosengren, Gutierrez, et al., 2009; Rosengren et al., ). Rather, our findings point to an explanation based on the conjunction of different developmental factors that could potentially contribute to scale errors: inhibition, object perception and representation, and motor/action coordination could conspire to produce scale errors from the onset of object manipulation skills.…”

“…Given these inconsistencies, the first aim of this paper will be to clarify the link between age and the incidence of body scale errors between 18 and 30 months, an age range which appears to be critical for observing an inverted U‐shaped curve (DeLoache et al., ; Ware et al., ). While all studies have consistently reported that these errors decrease by 30 months (Brownell et al., ; DeLoache et al., ; Rosengren, Gutierrez, et al., 2009), it remains unknown whether the function takes an inverted U‐shape function of age as reported in DeLoache et al. () and Ware et al.…”

“…However, some of young children included in the sample were not yet mobile, therefore unable to interact with the full‐sized toys used in the study (e.g., slide, sofa or rocking chair). After removing those infants in the age range of 4–16 months, Rosengren, Gutierrez, et al. (2009) reported a decrease in the production of scale errors from infancy to 40 months.…”

“…Similar inverted U‐shape trend was reported in a study examining parents’ reports of everyday scale errors, showing an early onset at 12 months, a peak at around 20–24 months and a decrease by 30 months followed by a disappearance at 36 months (Ware et al., ). Rosengren, Gutierrez, Anderson, & Schein (2009) investigated the incidence of scale errors in three groups of children at 11 months intervals between 4 and 40 months of age, showing again an inverted U‐shape. However, some of young children included in the sample were not yet mobile, therefore unable to interact with the full‐sized toys used in the study (e.g., slide, sofa or rocking chair).…”