Development of 5- to 9-year-old children's understanding the probabilities of the causes of illness / 中华行为医学与脑科学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To study the development of children's understanding the probabilities of the causes of illness.Methods 120 5-to 9-year-old children were interviewed via open-ended items and forced choices about illness. Results There were statistical significance in their understanding of the probabilities of the causes of illness and their strategies of prediction among the three groups(χ2(2)= 50.134,P ＜0.01;χ2(6)= 95.781, P ＜0.01);in addition, there was statistical significance between the two educational backgrounds (χ2(1)= 11.162, P ＜0.01;χ2(3)= 35.043, P ＜0.01). Conclusion Some preschool-aged children viewed outcomes of familiar causes of illness as probabilistic. The children's understanding of the causes' probabilities appeared to be based on naive biology. 5- to 9-year-old children made probabilistic predictions from a single cause to multiple causes. Children coming from higher educational backgrounds outperformed their counterparts coming from lower educational backgrounds with respect to understanding illness.