So do babies/toddlers REALLY think you stop existing during peekaboo?

[Jragon]

I've seen it mentioned many times that if a baby or toddler can't directly see you they think you don't exist, but I can't really find any concrete information on it online. There seem to be a lot of problems with this. For one, how can you tell what a baby is thinking? Okay, maybe for a toddler, but I almost exclusively hear the baby one reported.

Second, and what I think is the main problem, is that babies at least seem to have a concept that people tend to them. If they didn't believe anything they couldn't directly observe at that moment existed, it doesn't seem likely that they'd bother crying. Especially at the later stages of infancy where some babies start exhibiting very clear behaviour of attention whoring, where they cry not because anything is wrong, but because they want attention. I suppose you could rationalize as some sort of operant conditioning, where they don't realize that an "agent" comes to feed them, but rather a cause-effect relationship between crying and being fed. In addition, if anything not in their direct line of sight doesn't exist, why do they seem to feel more comfortable around their parents (a sign that they remember them in some way)?

I could understand, maybe, if the fact was that they didn't realize that things not directly observable were close to them, i.e. thought they went into a different room, but the whole "they don't even know you exist!" thing seems a bit of a philosophical notion to pin on an 8 month old.

So where did this originate? Is it even true? Is it one of those things that originally meant something useful in Early Childhood Development and then got misreported by the media? It seems like it's something that might have been corrupted from the development of empathy. I have loose memories of studying something about childhood development of empathy (or maybe it was Kohlberg's stages of morality, I can't really recall), where it was said that until age 5-8 or so they don't really comprehend that other people think and feel just like they do. It seems pretty easy to corrupt that into not thinking you exist. But I'm just theorizing now, I'm curious what the facts on the claim are.

[Ferret Herder]

It's called object permanence. Piaget tested it by covering toys with blankets. If the infant tried to remove the blanket to expose the toy, it was considered a sign that the infant understood this concept.

The one I like is when you learn that a baby figures out it's him-/herself in the mirror. Show a baby a mirror and the baby may wave at the "other" kid or otherwise check out the reflection Turn baby around and touch his face, at one point smearing a little red stain on the end of his nose during the process (casually, not enough to make the kid realize something is up). Turn the baby around again and show him the mirror. If the baby grabs at his own nose, he realizes that's him in the mirror.

[Francis Vaughan]

When you consider how little of a baby's brain is actually operational, especially anything approaching a higher function, words like "realise", "believe", "know" and "exist" are almost certainly meaningless and bear no relationship to reality. Trying to rationalise behaviour using them is doomed, and indeed any theory that uses such words almost certainly just plain wrong, at least in terms that an ordinary person would understand those words.

[Hello Again]

It's called "object permanence" and it means you understand that an object persists when hidden from view and babies aren't born with it.

A guy named Piaget was an important figure in studying childhood cognitive development. He found children develop a full concept of object permanence by age two. I imagine it varies by individual to some degree. Your stupider dogs and horses never achieve it, smarter ones do.

There are some simple tests you can try on a dog. Take a desired item that isn't smelly, like a toy, cover it with something easily removed, like a cloth, while they watch. Can they figure out how to find it?

Recent study confirms it is a recognized stage in child development and finds it's linked to activity in the prefrontal cortex: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12202098

[johnpost]

i don't know where that thought came from. all i know is i've got your nose.

[Trinopus]

A friend had a very young baby. The baby would yank its own hair out...and scream because it hurt. The baby didn't comprehend that it was its own actions that hurt.

Very young babies do not have "common sense."

ETA: Hey, how am I gonna smell?

[ZipperJJ]

Originally Posted by Trinopus

ETA: Hey, how am I gonna smell?

Terrible!

[md2000]

I heard a dolphin expert talking about doing the mirror test with dolphins, theres a whole series of behaviors that show the subject has figured out that's them in the mirror.

At a certain point, a child will stop indicating out of sight means out of mind.

Another test I read of - they tested smarts and memory persistence by showing a monkey food, then putting it behind a barrier and see how long it takes for the subject to stop reaching for it. Someone decided to do this with children. They showed a child a candy, put it behind the screen, then asked the child a series of questions. After a while, the kid says "you're just trying to make me forget about the candy!"

[Mole]

So would babies/toddlers eventually solve the "object permanence" dilemma on their own or would they need the peekaboo exercises from adults in order to do so?

[Martian Bigfoot]

Originally Posted by Mole

So would babies/toddlers eventually solve the "object permanence" dilemma on their own or would they need the peekaboo exercises from adults in order to do so?

Well, it's probably a good bet that they would figure it out sometime before college.

(I'll bet that a lot of what parents think that they "teach" to normally functioning children is stuff that the kids basically figure out on their own. For instance, you'd have to put a child in a sensory deprivation chamber for most of their early childhood to have them not develop language.)

[Nava]

Originally Posted by Martian Bigfoot

(I'll bet that a lot of what parents think that they "teach" to normally functioning children is stuff that the kids basically figure out on their own. For instance, you'd have to put a child in a sensory deprivation chamber for most of their early childhood to have them not develop language.)

Not a sensory deprivation chamber, just with no-one to communicate with. Parents still teach specific languages, though. And some people never figure out what the "point" of language is: the most extreme cases of autism.

[tapu]

I don't know if this is related, but I've read that one of a child's earliest philosophical ideas is solipsism. Where you think everything stops if you're not around. Like, when people walk out the door they cease to exist; all phenomena in the world is created for the child.

[Hello Again]

Originally Posted by Mole

So would babies/toddlers eventually solve the "object permanence" dilemma on their own or would they need the peekaboo exercises from adults in order to do so?

It seems to be related to exploring through touch + the normal development of the prefrontal cortex. I don't think pure sight exercises like Peekabo do much -- it's just entertaining for the baby, like a magic trick.

[Aspidistra]

I was just doing some interesting experiments along those lines today, with the Small Boy. Not "object permanence" exactly, more like "object continuity"

We watched a show about stage magic a few days ago, so this morning he's "playing magician" - sticking Bear into a box and saying Abracadabra, seeing if he can make him disappear. And he's very disappointed to find that he does not, in fact, have the ability to make Bear disappear by saying Abracadabra at the box.

So I help him out. "Oh, I'll be the magician. Just close your eyes while I say Abracadabra. Ooh look. No Bear in the box! Now close your eyes again and I'll say Abracadabra and put him back."

So we do this for some time, appear, disappear, etc etc, with various objects. At some point in the process, he notices that when Bear is "disappeared" out of the box, he's actually behind my back. But here's the interesting thing. This knowledge has absolutely no impact on his firm belief that I am "magicing" Bear out of the box and back into it again.

In fact, at some point after he discovers the Bear behind the back, he ends up with his arms on the box and is very upset to feel it moving as I slip objects in and out. I'm Not Doing It Right - I have to use magic, like normal, not just take the things in and out. I have to explain that I can only do the magic while he's not touching the box, and he accepts that. Then later, he gets inside the box himself and wants me to disappear him too and again is very upset to find me simply picking him up out of the box and depositing him on the bed.

I have now explained to him, multiple times, that that's how the trick is done - taking things in and out while his eyes are shut is how I've been doing it all along. He categorically refuses to believe it. He is absolutely convinced that I can teleport small objects from one spot to another within his bedroom, but only while his eyes are shut. In fact, I've had to drop the subject because he gets quite angry at me when I try to explain.

He's currently four and a half years old.

Now, his autism is definitely a factor in his inability to understand that Things Do Not Teleport - I'm quite convinced that every single neurotypical four year old in existance would have figured out the trick by now. But he doesn't do abnormal development stages, only exaggerated, or unusually far behind (I think he's operating about 2 years behind the curve on this one). So I'm pretty sure that this is also a thing that all kids have to laboriously figure out for themselves in their toddlerhood - not only do objects stay existing when you're not looking at them but they stay in the same place - no jumping about, no teleporting.

Oh, and that TV program on magic that sparked this whole thing off? It was called "The Secrets of Magicians" or something like that - it was explicitly a program showing us exactly how they do all this stuff on stage! That aspect of the show just...didn't go in.

[BubbaDog]

Originally Posted by tapu

I don't know if this is related, but I've read that one of a child's earliest philosophical ideas is solipsism. Where you think everything stops if you're not around. Like, when people walk out the door they cease to exist; all phenomena in the world is created for the child.

So what your saying is that if a tree falls in the woods it does make a sound.

As opposed to never falling because it's not observed and therefore doesn't exist.

[FuzzyOgre]

Originally Posted by Nava

Not a sensory deprivation chamber, just with no-one to communicate with. Parents still teach specific languages, though. And some people never figure out what the "point" of language is: the most extreme cases of autism.

I can verify with a related anecdote.

In first grade I was one of the kids that didn't take to reading. My teacher pulled a few of us aside for individual instruction.

After she explained to me that words are little pictures, and they are put together to tell a story. She explained just as pictures has elements(birds, trees, the sun), words do too; the letters. Each page of our books had two ways of showing the same thing.

Interestingly, I understood the link between spoken words and text(and elements and words); as an adherent of the way of Sesame Street, I well understood how the word "cookie" was assembled. Om nom nom!

Cookie break: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cqz9ZXUoUcE

What I hadn't assembled was the idea of written-words-as-narrative. Once I understood that words form stories, I was off like a shot. I loved books for the pictures; now I loved reading.

So yeah, I didn't see the 'point' in a sense. I can understand how some autistic people cannot connect "make specific sound sequence" with "get slice of pie". They might even have all the pieces of the puzzle and just fail to assemble them.

In 6th grade I was accused of cheating on spelling tests by the studious girls; I never got less than a 96%(24/25) on a spelling test(nor the years prior) despite getting in trouble for not paying attention. "Antelope"? I know what they look like, so how could I not know how to spell it?

By happen-stance in seventh grade(at a different school) I sat beside a book shelf containing senior high school syllabus material: I remember my discovery of "The Chrysalids" and how much better it was than our assigned material.

I borrowed a book on poetry from one of my teachers; "Invictus", "the Unquiet Grave" and "Porphyria's Lover" were wonderful, and "archy and mehitabel" introduced me to a new way of narrating a story. I learned of Haiku and other literary techniques.

I didnt take the book back. I couldnt take it back. I can turn my head and look at it today.

I hadn't had a lot of opportunity to read advanced literature till that point. We lived on a farm, then on an acreage outside of town. Small town schools.

Mum signed us up for some sort of inter-library loans, so after that I could read what I wanted. Yearly they would mail a list of books with a few paragraphs on each, or you could ask for something "A book about...." For instance, mum made sure to order a few books about male and female puberty.

And she bought a set of Encyclopaedias. It was an astronomical cost in 1981... about 750 dollars. Apparently she agonized over potentially wasting the money. It wasn't; I cherished them. I cherish her.

I think it is important that kids be shown things outside the experiences of their daily lives. They should communicate with more than the mundane lives around them. Show them early; show them often; stuff their brains.

To wit, and to steal:

Kids used to be fed intellectual junk food. I mean, they still are, but they used to, too.


"Coookie!" Om nom nom!

[Springtime for Spacers]

it seems to me that one needs the notion of object permanence in order to think that something has disappeared. Before that the coming and going of objects and entities is just the way it is.

[tapu]

Originally Posted by BubbaDog

So what your saying is that if a tree falls in the woods it does make a sound.

As opposed to never falling because it's not observed and therefore doesn't exist.

If I am saying that, I don't know it.

[chappachula]

Originally Posted by FuzzyOgre

I cherished them. I cherish her.

Six simple words .....and such a nice feeling.
Thank you for providing today's feel-good warm-and-fuzzy moment.

[John Mace]

Originally Posted by md2000

I heard a dolphin expert talking about doing the mirror test with dolphins, theres a whole series of behaviors that show the subject has figured out that's them in the mirror.

Dolphins, elephants and the great apes.

Another test I read of - they tested smarts and memory persistence by showing a monkey food, then putting it behind a barrier and see how long it takes for the subject to stop reaching for it. Someone decided to do this with children. They showed a child a candy, put it behind the screen, then asked the child a series of questions. After a while, the kid says "you're just trying to make me forget about the candy!"

"Child" is a meaningless term hear without reference to the age of the child.

[TokyoBayer]

Originally Posted by John Mace

"Child" is a meaningless term hear without reference to the age of the child.

Exactly. Things happen so quickly that it's often meaningless to say "three years old" and not "3 1/2."

Back to the original question, from the books I've read, it seems that once researchers discovered they could track babies' eyes, then we got an explosion in understanding a lot about babies' expectations. IIRC, a baby will look at an object for a certain length of time until it gets bored. If something happens which the baby don't expect, the baby will look longer.

It's been noticed that certain age babies, for example, are less "bothered" by objects which retain their same shape but the color changes. One research I read about, they would have object move across the screen, and occasionally go behind another object. When it came out, the baby was bored more quickly if the color of the object changed, rather than the shape. From that, researchers conclude that babies understand objects change change colors, but tend to remain in the same shape.

From the wiki entry cited above

The first study showed infants a toy car that moved down an inclined track, disappeared behind a screen, and then reemerged at the other end, still on the track. The researchers created a "possible event" where a toy mouse was placed behind the tracks but was hidden by the screen as the car rolled by. Then, researchers created an "impossible event." In this situation, the toy mouse was placed on the tracks but was secretly removed after the screen was lowered so that the car seemed to go through the mouse. Also in the 1991 study the researchers used an experiment involving two differently sized carrots (one tall and one short) in order to test the infants response when the carrots would be moved behind a short wall.[10] The wall was specifically designed to make the short carrot disappear, as well as tested the infants for habituation patterns on the disappearance of the tall carrot behind the wall (impossible event).[10] Infants as young as 3½ months displayed greater stimulation toward the impossible event and much more habituation at the possible event. This indicated that they may have been surprised by the impossible event, which suggested they remembered not only that the toy mouse still existed (object permanence) but also its location. The same was true of the tall carrot in the second experiment. This research suggests that infants understand more about objects earlier than Piaget proposed.

IMHO, one problem is that when researchers attempt to put terms onto the findings, the terms can be misleading if you don't understand the research. One example I can think of is that here is research if various animals can understand that when an object is broken up into smaller objects, if the size of the smaller objects is equal to the size of the original. If the researcher adds or subtracts smaller objects, and the animal notices that the sizes are not equal, this was reported that the animals could "count." Well, sort of, but not in the sense laymen think of for "counting" as 1+1 = 2.

Newborns and small babies don't have any expectations that if an object, say a ball, goes behind something, say a towel, that the ball is still going to be behind the towel. We know this by research on where the baby looks and on how long a baby will look at objects before becoming bored.

This doesn't say squat about our knowledge or lack of knowledge if a baby believes that objects will disappear forever.

For the most part, small babies tend to love peek-a-boo not because of the wonder of the mommy or daddy disappearing and reappearing, but because of the connection with the eyes, the smiling and the interaction.

[even sven]

Originally Posted by Springtime for Spacers

it seems to me that one needs the notion of object permanence in order to think that something has disappeared. Before that the coming and going of objects and entities is just the way it is.

Exactly. People are putting narrative in where there is none. It's not that the item disappears, as much as that the item leaves your awareness and it's as if the item never existed in the first place.

Think about how you perceive dreams. In dreams, people and things morph, abruptly shift, or disappear, and in our dream state we aren't really worried about it. It's not until we wake up and try to put it into the narrative form that it falls apart and we realize just how random and disjointed our dreams are. When we are actually dreaming, we are usually in the present, and we don't perceive the bizarreness of our surroundings as strange.

I imagine it is similar to a baby (and my few early memories seem to take on this form). Stuff sort of drifts in and out of awareness, and you accept it all in the present without question or context. Slowly you start becoming aware of patterns, and from there you start to piece together the fundamentals of narrative (cause and effect, time, self and other, etc.)

[Washoe]

Originally Posted by Martian Bigfoot

Well, it's probably a good bet that they would figure it out sometime before college.

You might want to retract that statement if you were to spend any time around community college students.

[DSeid]

There are several manifestations to object permanence, which is the ability to think about an object when it is no longer in your sensory perception.

The first and most obvious ones are the ones mentioned so far in this thread: peek-a-boo (testing the concept, "yes, you are still there!"), and looking for something covered up.

Separation anxiety and stranger anxiety are manifestations of the same cognitive function and all show up typically near 7 to 8 months of age. You can only be upset that someone is not there when you can call up the concept of that person in their absence. Knowing that someone is a stranger requires calling up the concepts of everyone you "know" and be able to figure out that "buddy, you aint on the list!"

The concept can be visual (and obviously often is) but blind children develop these concepts as well.

[TriPolar]

Originally Posted by Springtime for Spacers

it seems to me that one needs the notion of object permanence in order to think that something has disappeared. Before that the coming and going of objects and entities is just the way it is.

Yes. If you cover an object with a blanket, a very young child won't even consider that it disappeared. You've removed the visual stimulus and they'll just think about something else. At some older age they'll begin to react to the disappearance, but that reaction won't reveal what they think about the object's permanence, only that they perceive it's lack of presence. I think by the time concepts of permanence occur to a baby, they already have some understanding of it.

[kanicbird]

My understanding of this is that the infant/totter is taking your intentions like if it was a game and they were acting, though a bit stronger as the game is more there world at that stage.

[Chefguy]

When I was studying child psychology, I found Piaget's work to be fascinating. His findings were initially suspect because he primarily used his own kids as observation subjects. As it turned out, his conclusions applied pretty much across the board. On experiment I thought interesting (and tried with my own kids) was for concrete vs abstract thinking. In this simple experiment, one sets out a tall glass and a glass baking dish. The glass is filled with water to a marked line, then dumped into the glass dish. Then the glass is filled to the line once more. Then the child is asked which container has more water in it. A child who has not yet reached the stage where he uses abstract thinking will say that the glass has more water.

[TriPolar]

Originally Posted by Chefguy

When I was studying child psychology, I found Piaget's work to be fascinating. His findings were initially suspect because he primarily used his own kids as observation subjects. As it turned out, his conclusions applied pretty much across the board. On experiment I thought interesting (and tried with my own kids) was for concrete vs abstract thinking. In this simple experiment, one sets out a tall glass and a glass baking dish. The glass is filled with water to a marked line, then dumped into the glass dish. Then the glass is filled to the line once more. Then the child is asked which container has more water in it. A child who has not yet reached the stage where he uses abstract thinking will say that the glass has more water.

Resisting urge to scream.

I don't want to blow up over this again, but I think that is ridiculous. I don't believe a child understands the concept of preservation of volume until he learns it. Not some magical stage of development. I don't know who this guy Piaget is, but every time I see the name it's associated with a crackpot theory that is difficult to disprove. But I think this one can be disproved. If you can show me where anybody attempts to teach young children the principle of conservation of volume, and they can't learn it, I'll change my mind, a little bit. But if Piaget didn't do that, his theory is crap.

[Švejk]

Originally Posted by TriPolar

Resisting urge to scream.

I don't want to blow up over this again, but I think that is ridiculous. I don't believe a child understands the concept of preservation of volume until he learns it. Not some magical stage of development. I don't know who this guy Piaget is, but every time I see the name it's associated with a crackpot theory that is difficult to disprove. But I think this one can be disproved. If you can show me where anybody attempts to teach young children the principle of conservation of volume, and they can't learn it, I'll change my mind, a little bit. But if Piaget didn't do that, his theory is crap.

For someone who admittedly does not know 'who this guy Piaget is', you sure are loud. Maybe you should just ask that people explain things a little bit more, rather than calling theories you don't understand 'crap'.

[TriPolar]

Originally Posted by Švejk

For someone who admittedly does not know 'who this guy Piaget is', you sure are loud. Maybe you should just ask that people explain things a little bit more, rather than calling theories you don't understand 'crap'.

You are right, because I don't know if the explanations of Piaget's theories are be correctly expressed by others. But I have seen enough about his work that there is an indication that the way Chefguy and others described is correct. A more in depth look at his work would clear that up. But if it is as it has been described, it is crap.

And there is no lack of understanding on my part here. I understand the claims people make, and they do not make sense.

[Left Hand of Dorkness]

Originally Posted by TriPolar

Resisting urge to scream.

I don't want to blow up over this again, but I think that is ridiculous. I don't believe a child understands the concept of preservation of volume until he learns it. Not some magical stage of development. I don't know who this guy Piaget is, but every time I see the name it's associated with a crackpot theory that is difficult to disprove. But I think this one can be disproved. If you can show me where anybody attempts to teach young children the principle of conservation of volume, and they can't learn it, I'll change my mind, a little bit. But if Piaget didn't do that, his theory is crap.

Dude, don't blow up over this again. You haven't read Piaget, and you haven't worked with kids, and you do not know what you're talking about. Back away from the thread. (Tripolar's previous trainwreck on the subject, starting on the second page--and it's clear that in the intervening year he still hasn't bothered to read up on Piaget)

Originally Posted by Martian Bigfoot

(I'll bet that a lot of what parents think that they "teach" to normally functioning children is stuff that the kids basically figure out on their own. For instance, you'd have to put a child in a sensory deprivation chamber for most of their early childhood to have them not develop language.)

Steven Pinker talks in one of his books about a group--Bedouin, maybe?--who put a lot of energy into teaching infants how to sit up. They believe that such teaching is necessary if their kids will ever learn to sit. Most of us in the US don't bother; we figure kids will learn to sit on their own, and they do. But we put a lot of energy into teaching our kids to talk, even though other cultures who basically ignore infants linguistically find their kids talking just as much as ours.

[TriPolar]

Originally Posted by Left Hand of Dorkness

Dude, don't blow up over this again. You haven't read Piaget, and you haven't worked with kids, and you do not know what you're talking about. Back away from the thread. (Tripolar's previous trainwreck on the subject, starting on the second page--and it's clear that in the intervening year he still hasn't bothered to read up on Piaget).

If my understanding of Piaget's theory on the conservation of volume is incorrect, please tell me where. In broad terms, he claims that children do not understand the principle of conservation of volume because they have not reached a stage of mental development. I claim they do not understand the principle because they haven't learned it, either from their life experiences or through direction.

If that is correct, than has anyone attempted to disprove it by teaching the principle to children too young to have reached the proper stage of development? If that hasn't been done, the theory is crap.

ETA: I'm actually happy to revisit this without all the acrimony. Until it was over I didn't realize the way I had offended you early on.

[Colibri]

Originally Posted by TriPolar

You are right, because I don't know if the explanations of Piaget's theories are be correctly expressed by others. But I have seen enough about his work that there is an indication that the way Chefguy and others described is correct. A more in depth look at his work would clear that up. But if it is as it has been described, it is crap.

And there is no lack of understanding on my part here. I understand the claims people make, and they do not make sense.

No, I don't think you do understand. If you don't even know who Piaget is and don't understand his theories, it's not really worthwhile for you to comment on them. If you feel that other posters are not explaining them well, then it would behoove you to read up on them independently before dismissing them.

[TriPolar]

Originally Posted by Colibri

No, I don't think you do understand. If you don't even know who Piaget is and don't understand his theories, it's not really worthwhile for you to comment on them. If you feel that other posters are not explaining them well, then it would behoove you to read up on them independently before dismissing them.

Again, I am not dimissing Piaget, because I haven't studied up on him. Nor do I need to. I am dismissing a particular claim by others, who attribute Piaget as the source.

[Inner Stickler]

Originally Posted by Left Hand of Dorkness

Steven Pinker talks in one of his books about a group--Bedouin, maybe?--who put a lot of energy into teaching infants how to sit up. They believe that such teaching is necessary if their kids will ever learn to sit. Most of us in the US don't bother; we figure kids will learn to sit on their own, and they do. But we put a lot of energy into teaching our kids to talk, even though other cultures who basically ignore infants linguistically find their kids talking just as much as ours.

It's in The Language Instinct. Would I could give you a page number but I can never find that section of the text. As I recall it's maddeningly unspecific and uncited. However, along similar lines, (those lines being the parents' lack of responsibility for language instruction) he later includes a transcript from a parent attempting to teach his child to say "other spoon" instead of "other one spoon"

C:Want other one spoon, Daddy.
D:You mean, you want the other spoon.
C:Yes, I want other one spoon, please, Daddy.
D:Can you say "the other spoon"?
C:Other. . .one. . .spoon.
D:Say other.
C:Other.
D:Spoon.
C:Spoon.
D:Other spoon.
C:Other. . .spoon. Now give me other one spoon?


Children is weird.

[Trinopus]

John T. Sladek had a riff on the "constant volume" experiment. The experimenter pours the water from the tall skinny glass into the short fat glass, and asks which one had the most water in it. The subject picked the tall skinny one. He shook it, and the last couple of drops dripped out. "...By that much, anyway."

[Bozuit]

Originally Posted by Jragon

Second, and what I think is the main problem, is that babies at least seem to have a concept that people tend to them. If they didn't believe anything they couldn't directly observe at that moment existed, it doesn't seem likely that they'd bother crying.

IANADP but isn't this a fallacy in the first place? Young birds call out for food and many other young animals prefer to be in the company of parents, but it doesn't mean they've worked anything out.

[Nava]

Originally Posted by FuzzyOgre

In first grade I was one of the kids that didn't take to reading. My teacher pulled a few of us aside for individual instruction.

After she explained to me that words are little pictures, and they are put together to tell a story. She explained just as pictures has elements(birds, trees, the sun), words do too; the letters. Each page of our books had two ways of showing the same thing.

That's similar to how Dad inadvertently taught me to read, I asked "what are you doing?" and he explained

Your post was beautiful.

[FuzzyOgre]

Originally Posted by Nava

That's similar to how Dad inadvertently taught me to read, I asked "what are you doing?" and he explained

Your post was beautiful.

Thanks.

You should tell your story.

[Nava]

Not much more to it than what I already said:

He'd read the newspaper every day, and I was intrigued by this. So one day, I went up to him and asked "Daddy, what are you doing?" "I'm reading. Here, let me explain," and he pulled me up to his lap and explained about letters being pictures for word-noises and that these things called "newspapers" and "magazines" and "books" used letters to tell stories. Now, this all took place in Spanish, which is a lot easier than English phonetically, to the point where about 15% of my kindergarten class were able to read when kindergarten started (not necessarily fast, or well, but read-read and not just recognize a few letters); a few sessions of "what does that say?" were enough for me to figure out which pictures meant which sounds.

By the time the bitch at the daycare called my parents to yell at them for "forcing their poor little daughter to learn to read" and my parents looked at each other and said "you taught her to read?" "no I didn't!", I'd been reading printed material for a while (I couldn't read handwriting at that point). They'd thought I was just looking at the pictures - and I was, the pictures of words!

[FuzzyOgre]

Originally Posted by Nava

They'd thought I was just looking at the pictures - and I was, the pictures of words!

See? That was a great story!

I feel this way: If I had understood the point of it, I would have learned to read earlier. I feel I was certainly capable. I knew words meant something "Ford" was a car for instance.

My younger sister(by 3 years) had a knack for identifying makes of vehicles. She'd yell out "FORD! SHEB!"(for Chevrolet).

One day we encountered an unusual make of vehicle and she was baffled. Finally in a quiet little voice she said "sh-sh-sh-sheb?".

It was a Dodge Crew Cab. http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a45...d/IMAG0038.jpg

[Jragon]

I never had reading explained to me in a cool way /jealous. I just played this DOS Sesame Street program with my mom that taught letters, and looked over my parent's shoulders when they read.

Apparently, the first time I read something we were in Walmart, and my mom just figured I recognized a few simple words. Then I accidentally proved them wrong and started looking at things, reading out loud, *and understanding* the signs and packaging. I think the real tell was that I could read words I didn't actually know and ask what they meant. I was really young for reading (2 or 2.5 I think), and my parents were kind of just floored and confused.

[TokyoBayer]

Originally Posted by TriPolar

If that is correct, than has anyone attempted to disprove it by teaching the principle to children too young to have reached the proper stage of development? If that hasn't been done, the theory is crap.

Yup. We tested it. My daughter will be four in October.

We worked for a week on "which is more?" and "are they the same" relatively tricky concepts for toddlers. She understands that one cookie is the biggest, but takes glob types over flat types, even though the flat types look bigger to me.

My son, at 22 months doesn't understand that yet. His only criteria is that if it's daddy's, it must be better.

So, we did the experiment with orange juice, and let her pick the bigger one. It's pretty funny to watch. She would pour in a full cup of OJ, then dump in into a bowl and pour another full cup, and would never comprehend that they are the same.

Of course, this is someone who consistently-out negotiates her father. I'll tell her that she will have to have two bites of the hated vegetables in order to get dessert, and she'll say, "No, three!" We'll count them out together, so she "ought" to know that two bites are less then three, but she doesn't. She knows that she used to be two and now she's three, and she'll be four in October. She knows that two-year-olds are smaller than three-year-olds at day care. If you ask her if she wants two cookies or three, she'll pick three consistently, but I tell her to wait two minutes before I play with her, she'll request it be three. Of course, her younger brother screams if but down for even a second, so at least she's come this far.

I'm really confused. Have you never been around young children?

[Nava]

Ah, yes, the "more is better" mindset. Littlebro (now an accountant) took a long time to get over that stage; the Gramps from Hell thought it was hilarious to trade the kid four pesetas for the boy's five-peseta coin.

I'll never understand people who think it's cool to be mean to a little kid, but I still have more trouble understanding those who think it's cool to be mean to someone who doesn't even comprehend they're being mean

[Jragon]

Originally Posted by Nava

Ah, yes, the "more is better" mindset. Littlebro (now an accountant) took a long time to get over that stage; the Gramps from Hell thought it was hilarious to trade the kid four pesetas for the boy's five-peseta coin.

I'll never understand people who think it's cool to be mean to a little kid, but I still have more trouble understanding those who think it's cool to be mean to someone who doesn't even comprehend they're being mean

I dunno, there's trolling and then there's being mean. There's a little bit of fun in teasing kids, but a lot of people do take it too far. I don't think there's anything wrong, per se, with convincing a kid you had a pet dinosaur when you were little so long as you own up to it when they find a way to corner you on your bullshit.

[Nava]

Agreed.

Maybe part of my problem is that, IME, there is a lot of overlap between the people who think it's funny to make fun of a kid and the people who think it's ok to be physically hurtful to a kid so long as they can claim "it's in jest" (80kg man holding down a toddler to tickle him, way after the kid has started saying "no, NOOOO!" or even crying) or say "he's so cute!" while pinching cheeks or breathing strange fumes way too close to a kid's face (you know those old ladies with too much makeup and a factory's worth of perfume? those).

Laughing with the kid is great. Laughing at the kid is not.

[TriPolar]

Originally Posted by TokyoPlayer

Yup. We tested it. My daughter will be four in October.

We worked for a week on "which is more?" and "are they the same" relatively tricky concepts for toddlers. She understands that one cookie is the biggest, but takes glob types over flat types, even though the flat types look bigger to me.

My son, at 22 months doesn't understand that yet. His only criteria is that if it's daddy's, it must be better.

So, we did the experiment with orange juice, and let her pick the bigger one. It's pretty funny to watch. She would pour in a full cup of OJ, then dump in into a bowl and pour another full cup, and would never comprehend that they are the same.

Of course, this is someone who consistently-out negotiates her father. I'll tell her that she will have to have two bites of the hated vegetables in order to get dessert, and she'll say, "No, three!" We'll count them out together, so she "ought" to know that two bites are less then three, but she doesn't. She knows that she used to be two and now she's three, and she'll be four in October. She knows that two-year-olds are smaller than three-year-olds at day care. If you ask her if she wants two cookies or three, she'll pick three consistently, but I tell her to wait two minutes before I play with her, she'll request it be three. Of course, her younger brother screams if but down for even a second, so at least she's come this far.

I'm really confused. Have you never been around young children?

Well, I congratulate you for trying this out yourself. That's at least one test. I'm not sure if I want to open this 'discussion' up again. If I do, the proper thing to do would be to start a new thread. So feel free to follow up if I do that, or start your own if you like.

[Left Hand of Dorkness]

Originally Posted by TokyoPlayer

I'm really confused. Have you never been around young children?

It's really one of those things that's difficult to believe without experience with kids, especially for folks who refuse to read research.

I got to do a variation of the experiment almost by accident a couple years ago with my second-graders. We were doing a unit on weather, and I put a bunch of different containers outside in the rain, and different groups talked about the best way to measure rainfall (the usual way, by height, is pretty counterintuitive, so I wanted the kids to work through the rationale for using this method before I told them how it was done). One group was examining whether it made sense to measure rainfall by volume. As part of my initial questions, I pointed to two containers--a tiny one that was almost full, and a huge one that had a tiny layer of water at the bottom--and asked which container probably held more water.

One student pointed to the smaller one, which baffled me. "Okay, why do you think that one has the most water?" I asked. She answered, "because it's almost full." THe other students nodded their heads in agreement.

Except for one boy, who scowled doubtfully and said, "I don't agree. I think the biggest one is going to have the most water. It's not full, but it's a lot bigger, so it can hold a lot more water."

I asked the students who were listening what they thought, and after a few minutes, they decided the second student's argument was persuasive.

These students were on the cusp of understanding something about volume that's not intuitive but that makes complete logical sense. The scowling student was the only one who figured it out on his own, but once he explained it to everyone else, they could see his point.

If you did the same thing with kindergarteners, it'd be highly unlikely that any students would have had his insight.

[Jragon]

Knowing nothing about measuring rainfall, when measuring rain by volume, wouldn't you need to take into account the size of the opening? If you were measuring rain, I'd expect two beakers to contain roughly the same volume of water if they had an identically sized and shaped aperture regardless of the overall volume difference of the container itself. (In other words, an open box would catch WAY more water than a beaker, even if the beaker was long enough to have several liters more available volume).

I realize this is kind of unrelated to the problem you mentioned, but now I must know.

[Left Hand of Dorkness]

Originally Posted by Jragon

Knowing nothing about measuring rainfall, when measuring rain by volume, wouldn't you need to take into account the size of the opening? If you were measuring rain, I'd expect two beakers to contain roughly the same volume of water if they had an identically sized and shaped aperture regardless of the overall volume difference of the container itself. (In other words, an open box would catch WAY more water than a beaker, even if the beaker was long enough to have several liters more available volume).

I realize this is kind of unrelated to the problem you mentioned, but now I must know.

No, that's cool; that was actually the point of the lesson .

The way the lesson was designed, different groups measured rainfall by volume, by temperature, by weight, and by height. We made a grid of the different measurements, and noticed right away that the volume and weight measurements gave drastically different results depending on the size (specifically, as you say, the opening) of the container; after some discussion, students agreed that volume and weight weren't good ways to measure rainfall.

They noticed that temperature readings were similar across all samples, but agreed that, when someone asked you how much it had rained, telling them the temperature of the rainwater wasn't an answer to their question.

And they noticed that the height measurements were almost identical to one another, and that the height measurement would vary according to how much it had rained, so they concluded that measuring rainfall by height was the best method of measurement.

Metascientifically, of course, I wanted students to see that a failed experiment often gave important information: the group that measured rainfall by volume had a lot to contribute to the post-experimental discussion, even though their work didn't yield the "correct" answer.