Who's in the know? To a preschooler, the person doing the pointing

If you want a preschooler to get the point, point. That's a lesson that can be drawn from a new study in Psychological Science, a journal published by the Association for Psychological Science.

As part of their investigation of how small children know what other people know, the authors, Carolyn Palmquist and Vikram K. Jaswal of the University of Virginia, found they were able to mislead preschoolers with the simple introduction of a pointing gesture.

"Children were willing to attribute knowledge to a person solely based on the gesture they used to convey the information," says Palmquist. "They have built up such a strong belief in the knowledge that comes along with pointing that it trumps everything else, including what they see with their eyes."

The authors showed 48 preschoolers, half of them boys and half girls, a videotape of two women, four cups, and a ball.

In each of four sequences, one woman said she was going to hide the ball under one of the cups. The other woman covered her eyes and turned to the wall.

The "hider" placed a barrier in front of the cups, so the children could see she was hiding the ball, but not which cup she hid it under.

The barrier was removed, the other woman turned around. Then, each sequence took one of three forms. In the "baseline" condition, both women sat with their hands in their laps.

In another condition, each grasped a different cup, and in another, each pointed at a different cup. The children were asked: "Which woman knows where the ball is?" In two of the trials, one woman was the hider; in the other two, the other was.

When both grasped the cup or when neither touched a cup, the children gave the correct answer about three times out of four.

Grasping was not a meaningful gesture to the children, the authors guessed, or they may have associated grasping with searching for the ball.

When both women pointed, however, the children chose the right person only about half the time, statistically, by chance.

To make sure the preschoolers hadn't ignored the question and inferred they were being asked which cup they would look under, the experimenters showed eight other children the pointing sequences and asked: "Which woman hid the ball?"

In this case, the children got it right three out of four times. So the first group knew who hid the ball; they just thought the other woman must also have had some intelligence about the ball's whereabouts.

"From an early age, when children see pointing, they understand it as an important gesture used in contexts of teaching and learning," Palmquist explains.

"Generally people point because they have good reason to do it." As a species humans are "uniquely inclined toward cooperative communication," she notes.

"This finding fits into that framework. The children are already expecting that people will be helpful and knowledgeable, especially since they're using these cues."

A Box of Many Ideas: Parents' Support Website for Dyslexia, Dyspraxia and DCD

The one stop shop for 1000s of ideas, guidance and information for parents of children who suffer from Dyslexia, Dyspraxia and /or DCD. 

The website boast that it provides guidance on everything from early years to employment. Click on the pictures to visit the website or follow the links below.

Practical skills and information for parents concerning Education, schools and employment

Practical skills that parents and carers can use at home or outside school time. 

Move 627 is a website that examines the transitional stages that children go through in their lives, offering information and support.

To learn more about supporting parents and children with Dyslexia, Dyspraxia, DCD, ADHD, etc., be sure to visit the website of Move627 and their sister site: www.dyscovery.co.uk

The websites are supported by Prof. Amanda Kirby: A registered Medical Practitioner who specialises in Community Paediatrics and Psychiatry. Prof Kirby has particular interest in Dyslexia, Dyspraxia and DCD and is currently the patron of the Dyspraxia Association in New Zealand and medical advisor to the Dyspraxia Foundation in the UK and Ireland.

She is also a medical advisor to a developmental disorders clinic in Singapore, the UK Neurofibromatosis Association and is on the Royal College of General Practitioners Learning Disability Working Party.

Number talk is important for preschool children

The amount of time parents spend talking about numbers has a much bigger impact on how young children learn mathematics than was previously known, researchers at the University of Chicago have found.

For example, children whose parents talked more about numbers were much more likely to understand the cardinal number principle–which states that the size of a set of objects is determined by the last number reached when counting the set (e.g., a set of 10 items is larger than a set of seven items).

“By the time children enter preschool, there are marked individual differences in their mathematical knowledge, as shown by their performance on standardized tests,” said University of Chicago psychologist Susan Levine, the Stella M. Rowley Professor in Psychology and the leader of the study. Other studies have shown that the level of mathematics knowledge entering school predicts future success.

The results of the study were published in the article, “What Counts in the Development of Young Children’s Number Knowledge?” in the current issue of Developmental Psychology. Joining lead author Levine in the study were four other scholars.

“The findings underscore the important role that caregivers can play in children’s early mathematical learning,” said Soo-Siang Lim, program director for the National Science Foundation’s Science of Learning Centers Program. NSF partially funded the research.

“The frequency with which parents’ talk with their toddlers about numbers, such as counting the number of objects in spatial arrays and labeling these set sizes, predicts their children’s understanding of numbers,” said Lim.

“These findings suggest that encouraging parents to talk about numbers with their children, and providing them with effective ways to do so, may positively impact children’s school achievement,” said Levine.

7 Signs that your Pre-School Child may have Dyslexia

Mothers are Great!
Mothers are very perceptive when it comes to their children and they instinctively know when there is something wrong. Doctors, paediatricians and teachers should ignore this at their peril.

The close bond between a mother and her child is one of the understated wonders of the natural world and one that we need to pay more atention to.

Learning issues
If you, as a mother, suspect that your child is having difficulties with vocalising, or speaking, especially about letters and words, then go with those feelings and seek good qualified expert advise.

What's the worst that can happen? 1) If your fears are unfounded then that's good news and you will be more content. 2) If your child does have an issue, then you have done well to find it early and that is also good. The sooner you start helping, the better it gets.

Sharing and Empathy
Yes, you can share your concerns with your friends and their friends but unless they have the right level of expertise, then it is only helping you on a 'sharing and empathising' level.

I am not saying you should stop sharing concerns with your friends and family. Oh no, not at all. What I am saying, is it is not necessarily going to help you make progress with defining the issue or go in the right direction to help with it.

It is normally better to seek out a more qualified and objective opinion or diagnosis, before you attempt remedial action. They will be in a better position to define the issues and to help you address them.

Possible Signs of Dyslexia
Let me give you a list of the types of symptoms or behaviours that would make you believe your child had a difficulty with understanding letters and words. Your child has difficulties with the following;

• Identifying the sounds at the beginning and end of words
• Detecting or recognising when you are using rhyming sounds and words
• Identifying or rembering some letters from the alphabet
• Recognising or detecting words on signs e.g. Parking, Stop, Exit, etc.
  
• Vocalising or describing a story that you know they know e.g. something they have done or a journey they have been on.
  
• Recognising their name when you write it down
• Writing their own name

Let me know if this has helped you in any way and above all trust your own instincts as a mother but don't panic. Enjoy the support of your family and friends but seek out good advice wherever and whenever you can. Ask the school to help you and your child prepare for the future.

Dyslexia: Print Awareness in pre-school children

We are not born with the inate or genetic knowledge of how books, paragraphs and sentences are constructed, nor are we aware how print is formatted, in our language or our part of the world. We have to learn this from a teacher or preferably, from a parent.

In the West, we start reading a piece of text from the top left of the page and move along the line from left to right, finishing at the bottom left. Can you remember who showed or taught you that? Was it your parents or an older sibling or did you have to wait until you went to school to discover this?

First School day
Unfortunately, a large proportion of the population turn up on their first day at school not knowing some of these basic things. Things, that would not only make their school days so much easier and more enjoyable, but it would also make for early detection of reading and learning issues.

When reading to a child, the parent or nurturing adult can easily demonstrate by pointing, where they are starting to read and by continuing to follow the text with their finger, as they read the words. Thus, a non-reading child will become 'familiar' with this method of examining and following text, even if they are still unable to recognise the words they are looking at.

Print Awareness
A child who is experiencing dyslexia may have difficulties in this exercise of following text, even after being shown where to start and how to follow the words. The parent or adult needs to persist with this exercise to be sure that this is indeed an issue and not just a lack of interest or concentration by the child.

Bedtime Stories
Bedtime stories are a great opportunity to share this knowledge with your child and it is also an important piece of 'quality time' that you will spend with your child and one which they will cherish forever.

If you do share bedtime story reading with your child, do so in a position that the child can see you pointing to the text and following it with your finger. After a few sessions you should allow your child to point to the words and follow along as you read. This will show you their level of 'print awarenss', or not.

Do forgive them if they get sleepy during these periods and lose their concentration. Remember, it should be a pleasant and enjoyable experience for you both. One that leads to a restful night's sleep for the child, as well as a low key learning activity.

Summary
Print awareness is essential in the development of reading skills. Encourage your child to watch carefully when you point and read words and text, then ask them to do it with your help.

Don't panic! If you have any concerns about your child's print awareness or reading skills, consult a qualified consultant for their opinion and they will be able to provide re-assurance, pertinent comment and specialist observations.