Young children's conception of distance.

Abstract

Whether young children conceive of distance as rigid intervals of extent seems central to their larger understanding of space and to their measurement abilities (Piaget, Inhelder, & Szeminska, 1960). A sensitive test of children's conception of distance would require them to reason about distance rather than simply visually to estimate displayed lengths. Therefore, we investigated preschoolers' understanding of two distance principles. The direct-indirect principle is the idea that a straight route between two points is always the shortest. The same-plus principle is the idea that if two routes are the same up to a point, but then only one route continues, that route is longest. In two experiments, 32 children from 3 Vi to 5 years old were given principle-relevant and principle-irrelevant problems that required comparison of two screened routes. Children performed better on principle-relevant than on principle-irrelevant screened tasks (74% vs. 19% correct). Their performances support the conclusion that even young children conceive of distance as intervals of fixed extent.

Evaluation of a learning trajectory for length in the early years

“…Given that this original LT was based on a review of research available at that time , such findings replicate the previous research and provide additional empirical support for the LT described in Table 1. For example, they indicate that development of length concepts and skills is a slow and extended process, but that young children do have the ability to understand and learn these ideas (Bartsch & Wellman, 1988;Ellis et al, 2003;Hiebert, 1981;Miller & Baillargeon, 1990;Nunes & Bryant, 1996). They reliably move through the levels posited; for example, most pass into and through the End-to-End Length Measurer level, in which they place multiple units or begin to iterate a unit but leave gaps between units (Lehrer, 2003).…”

“…They posited that young children did not possess understanding of length, based on interviews in which children appeared to believe that placing an object between two positions changed the distance between these positions (Miller & Baillargeon, 1990). However, children 3.5-5 years of age appear to understand these concepts in some settings (Bartsch & Wellman, 1988). Similarly, the Piagetians argued that meaningful measurement and indirect comparison using transitive reasoning is impossible until children conserve length.…”

Infants and Toddlers Discriminate Amount: Are They Measuring?

“…Previous studies (e.g., Bartsch & Wellman, 1988;Fabricius & Wellman, 1993;Miller & Baillargeon, 1990) suggested that measurement abilities may emerge by this age. If the effect we observed in 2-year-olds is due to inability to impose a measure, 4-year-olds might be able to discriminate extent even for an isolated dowel.…”

The Evaluation of the Religious Educational Studies in Turkey in the Context of Critiques Directed at Jean Piaget’s Language and Conceptual Development Theories

“…It is seen that other performed researches on children's competence (Zimmerman & Whitehurst, 1979;Zimmerman & Blom, 1983a, 1983bStiles-Davis, 1988;Bartsch & Wellman, 1988;Sophian, 1988;English, 1993;Fabricius & Wellman, 1993) did not support Piaget. For example, according to the results that Rosenthal and Zimmerman (1978) found in their researches, it was seen that children in the pre-operational stage successfully completed the cognitive features of the concrete operational stage after the training including oral expression and modeling.…”