TY - JOUR
T1 - Transitional knowledge in the acquisition of concepts
AU - Perry, Michelle
AU - Breckinridge Church, R.
AU - Goldin-Meadow, Susan
N1 - Funding Information:
This research was supported by Granr #ROI HDl8617 from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development IO S. Goldin-Meadow. by a grant from the Benton Foundation to the University of Chicago. and by funds from the Center for Developmental Studies at the University of Chicago. Preparation of this manuscript WBS conducted while R. B. Church was a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Clinical Rescarch Training Program in Adolescence jointly sponsored by the Michael Reese Hospital and Medical Center and by the University of Chicago. and funded by an institutional training grant from the National Institute of Mental Health #2T32MHlJ668-12. The authors would like IO thank Ellen Eichen. Susan Levine. Lisa Liu. Rachel Mayberry, David McNcill, Bill Meadow. Carolyn Mylandcr. Jim Stigler. Susan Stodolsky. Sharon Syc, Tom Trahasso. and Rhonda Wodlinger-Cohen for their comments throughout the development of this prqject. The extensive work done by Anne Wells in collecting data for Study 2, and by Martha Wagner and Sharon Norris in coding and analyzing data for Studies I and 3 is greatly appreciated. Correspondence and requests for reprints should be sent to Michelle Perry at the University Michigan. 3402 Mason Hall, Ann Arbor, MI JRlO9-1027.
PY - 1988/10
Y1 - 1988/10
N2 - These studies explore children's conceptual knowledge as it is expressed through their verbal and gestural explanations of concepts. We build on previous work that has shown that children who produce a large proportion of gestures that do not match their verbal explanations are in transition with respect to the concept they are explaining. This gesture/speech mismatch has been called "discordance." Previous work discovered this phenomenon with respect to 5- to 7-year-old children's explanations of conservation problems. Study 1 shows: (1) that older children (10 to 11 years old) exhibit gesture/speech discordance with respect to another concept, understanding the equivalence relationship in mathematical equations, and; (2) that children who produce many discordant responses in their explanations of mathematical equivalence are more likely to benefit from instruction in the concept than are children who produce few such responses. Studies 2 and 3 explore the properties and usefulness of discordance as an index of transitional knowledge in a child's acquisition of mathematical equivalence. Under any circumstance in which new concepts are acquired, there exists a mental bridge connecting the old knowledge state to the new. The studies reported here suggest that the combination of gesture and speech may be an easily observable and significantly interpretable reflection of knowledge states, both static and in flux.
AB - These studies explore children's conceptual knowledge as it is expressed through their verbal and gestural explanations of concepts. We build on previous work that has shown that children who produce a large proportion of gestures that do not match their verbal explanations are in transition with respect to the concept they are explaining. This gesture/speech mismatch has been called "discordance." Previous work discovered this phenomenon with respect to 5- to 7-year-old children's explanations of conservation problems. Study 1 shows: (1) that older children (10 to 11 years old) exhibit gesture/speech discordance with respect to another concept, understanding the equivalence relationship in mathematical equations, and; (2) that children who produce many discordant responses in their explanations of mathematical equivalence are more likely to benefit from instruction in the concept than are children who produce few such responses. Studies 2 and 3 explore the properties and usefulness of discordance as an index of transitional knowledge in a child's acquisition of mathematical equivalence. Under any circumstance in which new concepts are acquired, there exists a mental bridge connecting the old knowledge state to the new. The studies reported here suggest that the combination of gesture and speech may be an easily observable and significantly interpretable reflection of knowledge states, both static and in flux.
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U2 - 10.1016/0885-2014(88)90021-4
DO - 10.1016/0885-2014(88)90021-4
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:0000345932
SN - 0885-2014
VL - 3
SP - 359
EP - 400
JO - Cognitive Development
JF - Cognitive Development
IS - 4
ER -