Scaffolding young children’s understanding of symbolic objects

Iconicity influences how effectively minimally verbal children with autism and ability-matched typically developing children use pictures as symbols in a search task

“…The pictures will show you where to look for Buzz when he hides!”). Previous research has shown that this information is critical to task understanding in young TD children (Peralta de Mendoza et al, 2012), and could therefore be necessary for understanding in minimally verbal children with ASD.…”

“…Children’s contextualization of pictures is also mediated by their ability to infer their intended symbolic-communicative function (Salsa and Peralta de Mendoza, 2007). In a series of search tasks (see Peralta de Mendoza et al, 2012), TD children aged 2.5 years achieved above-chance retrieval rates only when instructions highlighted the intended function of pictures. Therefore, young children’s early ability to contextualize pictures is contingent on their ability to infer their intended function from others.…”

Enseñando palabras mediante libros ilustrados: El aprendizaje temprano de sustantivos y adjetivos

“…En términos más generales, los resultados aquí presentados se suman al corpus de investigaciones que destacan el impacto de la instrucción y la enseñanza como factor facilitador en la comprensión simbólica (Peralta & Salsa, 2011;Peralta, Salsa, Maita & Mareovich, 2013). También se alinean con estudios que subrayan la importancia de la interac ción social en el desarrollo simbólico en general y en el aprendizaje de palabras en particular (Bruner, 1983;Nelson, 2003;Tomasello, 2003…”

Do young children of the “selfie generation” understand digital photos as representations?

“…On the other hand, it could be that young children still require scaffolding by an adult highlighting the relevance of the photo. This notion is supported by a previous study using a search task with a scale model, in which children benefited from a researcher describing the intentional origins and function of the model to stand for the search room (Sharon, 2005; also see Peralta et al, 2013). Therefore, 24-month olds participated in one of five conditions in which a researcher used approximately matched across condition.…”

“…Finally, the live iPhone training condition may have supported children's understanding by revealing the researcher's communicative intentions behind making a picture to inform the confederate, who used it to guide their behavior. In a study by Peralta et al (2013), when the researcher stressed her intention behind showing photos, emphasizing that the pictures were helpful sources of information to find the toy in the room, this helped children 6 months older than our participants to reliably use the photos. Similarly, when the maker of a different representation-a scale model of a room-highlighted her intentions for the model to stand for a larger room, this helped preschoolers to apply information from the model to find a toy hidden in the room (Sharon, 2005).…”