Full summary of all lectures – week 1 to 7 (learning material)
and summary of articles and knowledge clips that have been
included in the lectures throughout the weeks
School Psychology
By Madelief Lo Manto
Summary of lecture 1:
Conceptual Development & Causal Reasoning
- Preschool age these abilities have manifested within the child
already
- Make sense to start here on these subjects, because it forms a base
for anything in school and learning as a child
- Conceptual development:
o What are concepts?
Knowledge about the kinds of things in the world
Being able to categorize things as similar or different
based on shared interesting characteristics to make
sense of things in the world
Concrete concepts such as objects like dogs, socks,
what you can grasp
Abstract concepts such as numbers, letters, love, etc
Concepts help us to communicate (faster) helps us
make sense of the world but also communicate with the
people around us
o Understanding of objects & events in our environment
properties, associations, causes, effects
Causal reasoning is therefore connected with conceptual
development, logically, and we will touch that subject in
a bit
o First: the ability to distinguish between physical concepts
(teddy bear vs baby bottle)
In the first five years of life, this is the biggest form of
concept forming (concrete)
o Later: ability to understand abstract concepts (measurements,
time, love, order, numbers, etc).
o Categorization:
Levels (3) of inclusiveness and how to measure them
“The ability to treat a set of things as somehow
equivalent” – Neisser 1987
1
, Put them in the same pile, call them by the same name,
respond to them in the same way
This is a form of inductive reasoning!
To go from the specific (a conclusion) to the
general (several concepts)
Trying to apply one situation to another situation
so to generalize it
Making generalized conclusions out of specific
scenarios
It's a mental process where you predict what may
happen based on what you've experienced
yourself or know from other people's experiences.
Inductive reasoning happens in your brain's frontal
lobe.
Categoization: levels of inclusiveness:
Least amout of features/ lowest form:
superordinate
Middle: basic
Highest form / most amount of features:
subordinate
Example:
o Superordinate: Animal (least amount of
features)
o Basic: dog
o Subordinate: Chihuahua (most amount of
features)
Categories allow you to/are useful for:
o Prediction
o Communication
o Abstract thought processes
o Neuroscientific insights:
Our brains can handle large amount of information by
summarizing inputs to create mental representations
of it
Multimodal inferences
Comes from (multiple) different sources so
seeing, touching, smelling, etc.
Multiple sources of information to register
o Measuring categorization:
“The ability to treat a set of things as somehow
equivalent”
The 3 levels:
Respond to them in the same way
2
, Put them in the same pile
Call them by the same name
Tasks that are discussed in the chapters are:
Looking tasks (using habituation)
Sequential touching tasks
Sorting and matching-to-sample tasks
These are ways we can test categorization within
children
When you test these with children, age is very
important
You have to tailor it to the right age-appropriate
sector. Because otherwise you will not be testing
what you want to test
o Looking task (using habituation):
“Respond to things the same way”
Method: non-verbal looking preference paradigm (3-4
months old)
It is the idea that younger children are going to look
longer at new stimuli supposed to stimuli that they are
already familiar with
If you habituate them, you show them similar images,
they are automatically going to look less because it is
not novel for them (habituation)
After habituation infants will look longer at a newly
shown animal at the basic level (horse, dog, cow, etc)
categorization based on perception
o Sequential touching:
“Respond to things the same way”
For the experiment there are 8 toys (animals and
vehicles): there is a contrast
Trying to see if children touch things in a certain pattern
or in a certain way that you would not expect just by
chance
1st Example:
It is on basic level cars v.s. aeroplanes
13 months old: performed very well on the basic
level, cars v.s. aeroplanes
2 Example:
nd
It is on global level /superordinate animals v.s.
vehicle
16-20 months old did well on the basic levels, but
also on the superordinate level, vehicle v.s. animal
3
, Seeing the results, it makes you think or question: is the
basic level the first level of conceptualization that
children form?
These objects are prototypical that means that
they are objects that they are familiar with. As
toys, etc. That means they have seen these as
toys for themselves probably, have played with
them Meaning it is easier to identify them for
the children
THEN: do an experiment with non-typical objects:
1st experiment:
o 13 months old no systematic behaviour
o 16 months old basic level
o 20 months old no systematic behaviour
Then, you might be able to conclude that children
might categorize objects on a superordinate level
to make sense of them
o Based on things they know, so experience,
knowledge and familiarity, while they
categorize objects on basic level based on
physical characteristics.
o This means that they understand a form of
basic level first, because they try to make
sense of characteristics based on basic
levels
Then you got to remember the effect of
typicality: Performance on prototypical objects
sets was greater than on non-prototypical objects
sets
o There is a kind of bias towards objects or
sets that are typical to the children that
are known to them
2 experiment:
nd
o 24 months old superordinate level
o 28 months old basic and superordinate
level
This might suggest that actually the
superordinate level might be there
earlier…
CONCLUSION: there are vastly mixed results on
this… 1st experiment claims that the basic level
emerges earlier, and the 2nd experiment claims
4
, that the superordinate (global) level emerges
earlier…
o Matching-to-sample:
“Put things in the same pile”
Very good performance on 19 months old and older
Asked to categorize two out of 3 in the “right” order for
the level. Children were expected to match the dogs on
the basic level and match the types of vehicles on the
superordinate level
Children performed better on the basic levels, but
nonetheless also performed well on the superordinate
level
You can also create a variant of this for preschoolers:
“Put things in the same pile and call things by the
same name”
4–5-year-olds performed well, but more difficulty
distinguishing animate (living) from inanimate
(non-living) objects
o They were better at describing why they put
things in the basic level pile instead of
explaining it for the superordinate pile
Basic level has more characteristics, and is
therefore easier to categorize than the
superordinate, making the basic level easier for
the children to distinguish and separate
There is a trend then, when looking at the
development. Basic levels are easier from children
because of the characteristics and is better scored
within (just as the 19 months old)
o So then; which develops first?
Superordinate global based on knowledge
Basic based on perceivable features/characteristics
5
, Rosch (1978) – prototype theory basic level emerges
first
Quin (2002) and Mandler (2004) Children find it easier
to distinguish vehicles from animals, than dogs from
horses animate to non-animate is easier therefore
superordinate level emerges first
Note: some research with toys leaves out important
features of objects (e.g. size, softness, etc)
Absence of finding IS NOT the absence of ability
maybe you’re not testing it the right way
What could adults do to help children learn to categorize
at different levels?
Play with the children, link certain toys and objects
to each other by categorizing them and letting the
child play or look, etc, etc.
o Role of language and beliefs:
Language, categorical knowledge and beliefs about the
world
Children can have linguistic biases; they guide their
conceptual organization at various levels. F.e. the basic
and the superordinate
Thematic relations:
Bees go with honey
Objects of categories are often seen together with
objects of other categories
“Which goes with …?”
Categorical relations:
Bees go with butterflies
Objects of categories look similar to objects of
other categories
“Find the other one just like this one?”
Which one do you think children are better at?
Thematic relations
o Development of categorization:
Characteristic features:
Grandmothers are old
Preferred by 5-year-olds
Defining features:
Your grandmother is the mother of your parent
Preferred by 9-year-olds
Might reflect an underlying shift from concrete to
abstract reasoning
- To sum up:
6
, o Ability to categorize develops rapidly in infancy and early
childhood:
From perceptual to contextual
From general to specific
From intuitive to factual
- Causal reasoning:
o What is reasoning and why is it important
o Types of reasoning
o The why-phase earlier stages of causal reasoning trying
to understand the world around them
o Why is it important?
Learning how the world works, explaining actions from:
People: theory of mind
o Theory of mind is that not everyone is the
same and not everyone is you and your
thoughts. So, the theory and knowledge that
people have their own ideas, thoughts,
experiences, mind, etc.
o It helps to know why the following actions
might become
o Actions caused by emotions, perceptions,
goals, etc.
Things, causal reasoning:
o Actions caused by physical causes, laws of
physics, etc.
It is a complex cognitive process
Making predictions about the future and helps adapting
Essential for school learning and life learning actions-
consequences
o Examples:
Why does my head hurt?
This can have multiple reasons:
o Hit a wall if close in time, one before the
other, always occur together in time; this is
probably the cause then
o Too much to drink last night further away
in time, more difficult. Do not always occur
together, more difficult
o Haven’t had coffee yet
o Etc..
Learning by playing:
7
