ABSTRACT
Interpretive diversity is the term used by Carpendale and Chandler (1996) to refer to the fact that two individuals exposed to precisely the same stimulus may interpret it in quite different, but equally plausible, ways. An appreciation of interpretive diversity is said by Carpendale and Chandler to represent a development in understanding that is qualitatively different from that necessary to succeed on false belief tasks. A study is reported in which children with autism and children with general delay were given a battery of tasks consisting of false belief tasks and tasks designed to test for an understanding of interpretive diversity. Findings from the present study offer limited support for Carpendale and Chandler's claim that tasks which test for an understanding of interpretive diversity may be more difficult than false belief tasks. Between-group differences in the consistency and quality of responses given by participants suggest that autistic and delayed children may have differed somewhat in their approach to the tasks given.
Subject(s)
Autistic Disorder/complications , Cognition Disorders/etiology , Culture , Child , Cognition Disorders/diagnosis , Humans , Neuropsychological Tests , Psychological Theory , Visual PerceptionABSTRACT
Prospective memory (PM), remembering to carry out a task in the future, is highly relevant to children's everyday functioning, yet relatively little is known about it. For these reasons the effects of age and task interruption on PM were studied in 3 experiments. Children aged 4, 5, and 7 years were asked to name pictures in stacks of cards (the ongoing task) and to remember to do something when they saw a target picture (the PM task). Significant age differences were identified, but age explained only a small amount of variance. As predicted, children in the no-interruption condition performed significantly better than those who had to interrupt the ongoing activity in order to carry out the PM task. An additional finding was that no relation was detected between performance on prospective and retrospective memory tasks. Taken together, these findings provide support for current models of PM and identify ways to assist children's PM.
Subject(s)
Child Development/physiology , Memory/physiology , Verbal Behavior , Age Factors , Child , Child Behavior/psychology , Child, Preschool , Female , Humans , Male , Psychology, Child , Task Performance and AnalysisABSTRACT
The behavioural management approach to treating children's sleeping problems is being used by increasing numbers of health professionals. Despite this there are few formal evaluations of its effectiveness. In this study sleeping patterns of infants in a treatment and a control group were compared. Questionnaires about sleeping were given to mothers before treatment and afterwards, the questionnaires were given to mothers in the control group over a comparable period of time. Both groups of infants appeared to improve their sleeping over the period of the study, and no differences were found in the sleeping patterns of the two groups. The reasons for these findings are discussed.
