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Children's Understanding (children + understanding)
Kinds of Children's Understanding Selected AbstractsChildren's Understanding of Ordinary and Extraordinary MindsCHILD DEVELOPMENT, Issue 5 2010Jonathan D. Lane How and when do children develop an understanding of extraordinary mental capacities? The current study tested 56 preschoolers on false-belief and knowledge-ignorance tasks about the mental states of contrasting agents,some agents were ordinary humans, some had exceptional perceptual capacities, and others possessed extraordinary mental capacities. Results indicated that, in contrast to younger and older peers, children within a specific age range reliably attributed fallible, human-like capacities to ordinary humans and to several special agents (including God) for both tasks. These data lend critical support to an anthropomorphism hypothesis,which holds that children's understanding of extraordinary minds is derived from their everyday intuitive psychology,and reconcile disparities between the findings of other studies on children's understanding of extraordinary minds. [source] Children's Understanding of Social-Cognitive and Social-Communicative Aspects of Discourse IronyCHILD DEVELOPMENT, Issue 3 2010Eva Filippova To bridge the social-reasoning focus of developmental research on irony understanding and the pragmatic focus of research with adult populations, this cross-sectional study examines 5-, 7-, and 9-year-olds' (n = 72) developing understanding of both social-cognitive and social-communicative aspects of discourse irony, when compared with adults (n = 24). Although 5-year-olds lag behind the other age groups in their reasoning about the speaker's meaning, belief, intention, and motivation, adults are consistently superior to children of all ages on these social-cognitive measures. In contrast, limited age-related differences were found in participants' judgment of the social-communicative function of irony (how nice, mean, and funny irony is). The findings help to reconcile previous discrepant claims as to the age when children come to understand irony. [source] Mothers' Use of Cognitive State Verbs in Picture-Book Reading and the Development of Children's Understanding of Mind: A Longitudinal StudyCHILD DEVELOPMENT, Issue 4 2007Juan E. Adrián Mothers read stories to their children (N = 41) aged between 3.3 years and 5.11 years old, and children then completed two false-belief tasks. One year later, mothers read a story to 37 of those children who were also given four tasks to assess their advanced understanding of mental states. Mothers' early use of cognitive verbs in picture-book reading correlated with their children's later understanding of mental states. Some pragmatic aspects of maternal input correlated with children's later outcomes. Two different factors in mothers' cognitive discourse were identified, suggesting a zone of proximal development in children's understanding of mental states. [source] Children's understanding of idioms and theory of mind developmentDEVELOPMENTAL SCIENCE, Issue 5 2008Stéphanie Caillies The aim of this study was to test the hypothesis according to which theory of mind competence was a prerequisite to ambiguous idioms understanding. We hypothesized that the child needs to understand that the literal interpretation could be a false world representation, a false belief, and that the speaker's intention is to mean something else, to correctly process idiomatic expressions. Two kinds of ambiguous idioms were of interest: decomposable and nondecomposable expressions (Titone & Connine, 1999). An experiment was designed to assess the figurative developmental changes that occur with theory of mind competence. Five-, 6- and 7-year-old children performed five theory of mind tasks (an appearance,reality task, three false-belief tasks and a second-order false-belief task) and listened to decomposable and nondecomposable idiomatic expressions inserted in context, before performing a multiple choice task. Results indicated that only nondecomposable idiomatic expression was predicted from the theory of mind scores, and particularly from the second-order competences. Results are discussed with respect to theory of mind and verbal competences. [source] Children's understanding of advertising: an investigation using verbal and pictorially cued methodsINFANT AND CHILD DEVELOPMENT, Issue 6 2007Laura Owen Abstract Conflicting results on children's understanding of advertising may stem from differences in research methods. Most studies are conducted using interviewing techniques, employing only verbal questioning. In the present study, 136 children of two age groups (7 and 10 years) were first asked what advertising was for and, after responding, shown depictions of possible reasons. The results indicate that although older children are more likely than younger ones to understand that advertising seeks to promote selling, pictorial cues allow a much larger proportion of all children to indicate their understanding than verbal questioning does on its own, with younger children especially showing improvement. Thus, seven-year-olds seem to have an implicit understanding of the persuasive intent of advertising that they are unable to articulate in response to investigators' questions. Multiple methods appear to offer a means of evaluating the level of sophistication in children' understanding of advertising. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Children's performance on the ,give x' task: a microgenetic analysis of ,counting' and ,grabbing' behaviourINFANT AND CHILD DEVELOPMENT, Issue 1 2007Elizabeth Chetland Abstract Children's understanding of the cardinal significance of counting is often assessed by the ,give x' task, in which they are categorized as ,counters' or ,grabbers'. Previous research indicates a sudden stage-like shift, implying insight into a principle. Employing a microgenetic approach, the present study was designed to explore whether this dichotomy masks a more subtle pattern. Fifty-five 39- to 58-month-olds received five ,give x' trials, involving 4, 5, 6, 7, and 10 objects, within a single session counterbalanced across individuals, each child participating in two similar sessions one week apart. Children's spontaneous strategies were recorded. They also completed a simple verbal counting test. Participants seldom simply ,grabbed'; even those who never counted gave items one-by-one. Some gave correct amounts by starting off counting then taking the remainder silently, suggesting internal counting. There was also evidence of children taking correct non -subitizable quantities without overtly counting. Individuals' strategy choice and the way they employed particular strategies varied, both within and between sessions. Furthermore, after achieving procedural mastery, children continued to refine their use of strategies. The results are discussed in relation to Karmiloff-Smith's RR model and Siegler's overlapping waves model. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Children's understanding of mental states as causes of emotionsINFANT AND CHILD DEVELOPMENT, Issue 3 2005Carolien Rieffe Abstract Theory of mind studies of emotion usually focus on children's ability to predict other people's feelings. This study examined children's spontaneous references to mental states in explaining others' emotions. Children (4-, 6- and 10-year-olds, n = 122) were told stories and asked to explain both typical and atypical emotional reactions of characters. Because atypical emotional reactions are unexpected, we hypothesized that children would be more likely to refer to mental states, such as desires and beliefs, in explaining them than when explaining typical emotions. From the development of lay theories of emotion, derived the prediction that older children would refer more often to mental states than younger children. The developmental shift from a desire-psychology to a belief-psychology led to the expectation that references to desires would increase at an earlier age than references to beliefs. Our findings confirmed these expectations only partly, because the nature of the emotion (happiness, anger, sadness or fear) interacted with these factors. Whereas anger, happiness and sadness mainly evoked desire references, fear evoked more belief references, even in 4-year-olds. The fact that other factors besides age can also play an influential role in children's mental state reasoning is discussed. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Children's understanding of certainty and evidentiality: Advantage of grammaticalized forms over lexical alternativesNEW DIRECTIONS FOR CHILD & ADOLESCENT DEVELOPMENT, Issue 125 2009Tomoko Matsui In verbal communication, the hearer takes advantage of the linguistic expressions of certainty and evidentiality to assess how committed the speaker might be to the truth of the informational content of the utterance. Little is known, however, about the precise developmental mechanism of this ability. In this chapter, we approach the question by elucidating factors that are likely to constrain young children's understanding of linguistically encoded certainty and evidentiality, including the types of linguistic form of these expressions, namely, grammaticalized or lexical forms. © Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [source] Children's understanding of psychological problems displayed by their peers: a review of the literatureCHILD: CARE, HEALTH AND DEVELOPMENT, Issue 1 2008E. Hennessy Abstract Background There is a widespread consensus in the literature that children who have psychological problems are more likely than other children to be excluded or rejected by their peers. The existence of this phenomenon has been established, primarily with the use of research on their sociometric status within groups of peers. Much less research has been performed on the way in which children develop attitudes and behavioural intentions towards peers with problems. Aims The primary aim of this article is to introduce readers to research on children's understanding of the nature of common childhood psychological problems, with a view to exploring the factors that might contribute to the development of negative attitudes and behaviour. Method Relevant publications were identified through searches of electronic databases and articles in print. Results From the early years of primary school, children are able to identify peers whose behaviour deviates from the norm and to suggest causes for the behaviour of peers with psychological problems. Furthermore, their beliefs about peers' personal responsibility for these problems appear to be a significant determinant of attitudes and behavioural intentions. The article identifies the need for more research on the role of factors such as gender and personal contact in determining children's understanding of, and attitudes towards, peers with psychological problems. In addition, the article calls for more research on mental health education programmes and the extension of these programmes to younger children, given the fact that even young primary school children appear to have beliefs about the causes of psychological problems and negative attitudes to peers who display such problems. Conclusions Research on children's understanding of mental health can make an important contribution to our understanding of why children with problems are so much more likely to be excluded from their peer group. [source] Children's understanding of mental illness: an exploratory studyCHILD: CARE, HEALTH AND DEVELOPMENT, Issue 1 2008C. Fox Abstract Background This study aimed to investigate children's thinking about mental illness by employing a well-established framework of adult illness understanding. Methods The study adopted a semistructured interview technique and a card selection task to assess children's responses to causes, consequences, timeline and curability of the different types of mental illness. The children were aged between 5 and 11 years. Results Results indicated a developmental trend in the children's thinking about mental illness; there was an increase in the children's understanding of the causes, consequences, curability and timeline of mental illness with age. The older children demonstrated a more sophisticated and accurate thinking about mental illness compared with the younger children, who tended to rely on a medical model in order to comprehend novel mental illnesses. Furthermore, the girls exhibited more compassion, showing greater social acceptance compared with the boys. Conclusions The Leventhal model provides a useful framework within which to investigate children's knowledge and understanding of mental illness. Limitations of the study and implications for future research are discussed. [source] How fantasy benefits young children's understanding of pretenseDEVELOPMENTAL SCIENCE, Issue 1 2006David M. Sobel Sobel and Lillard (2001) demonstrated that 4-year-olds' understanding of the role that the mind plays in pretending improved when children were asked questions in a fantasy context. The present study investigated whether this fantasy effect was motivated by children recognizing that fantasy contains violations of real-world causal structure. In Experiment 1, 4-year-olds were shown a fantasy character engaged in ordinary actions or actions that violated causal knowledge. Children were more likely to say that a troll doll who was acting like but ignorant of the character was not pretending to be that character when read the violation story. Experiment 2 suggested that this difference was not caused by a greater interest in the violation story. Experiment 3 demonstrated a similar difference for characters engaged in social and functional violations that were possible in the real world. These data are consistent with the hypothesis that preschoolers use actions and appearance more than mental states to make judgments about pretense, but that those judgments can be influenced by the context in which the questions are presented. [source] Peer Commmentaries on David H. Uttal's Seeing the big picture: map use and the development of spatial cognitionDEVELOPMENTAL SCIENCE, Issue 3 2000Article first published online: 28 JUN 200 Mark Blades, Young children's understanding of indirect sources of spatial information, p. 265 Roger M. Downs, The genesis of carto-gnosis, p. 267 Mary Gauvain, The instrumental role of maps in the development and organization of spatial knowledge, p. 269 Lynn S. Liben, Map use and the development of spatial cognition: seeing the bigger picture, p. 270 Kevin Miller, Mapping symbolic development, p. 274 Nora S. Newcombe, So, at last we can begin, p. 276 Herbert L. Pick Jr, Commentary on ,Seeing the big picture', p. 278 David R. Olson, Knowledge artifacts, p. 279 Barbara Tversky, What maps reveal about spatial thinking, p. 281 [source] Children's understanding of advertising: an investigation using verbal and pictorially cued methodsINFANT AND CHILD DEVELOPMENT, Issue 6 2007Laura Owen Abstract Conflicting results on children's understanding of advertising may stem from differences in research methods. Most studies are conducted using interviewing techniques, employing only verbal questioning. In the present study, 136 children of two age groups (7 and 10 years) were first asked what advertising was for and, after responding, shown depictions of possible reasons. The results indicate that although older children are more likely than younger ones to understand that advertising seeks to promote selling, pictorial cues allow a much larger proportion of all children to indicate their understanding than verbal questioning does on its own, with younger children especially showing improvement. Thus, seven-year-olds seem to have an implicit understanding of the persuasive intent of advertising that they are unable to articulate in response to investigators' questions. Multiple methods appear to offer a means of evaluating the level of sophistication in children' understanding of advertising. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Individual differences in children's understanding of social evaluation concernsINFANT AND CHILD DEVELOPMENT, Issue 3 2002Robin BanerjeeArticle first published online: 27 AUG 200 Abstract Recent research suggests that children's understanding of self-presentational behaviour,behaviour designed to shape social evaluation,is a function of both cognitive and motivational variables. Furthermore, the motivational factors involved are likely to reflect individual differences in the salience of concerns about social evaluation. The present research represents a first effort to determine whether measures of such differences are indeed associated with the understanding of self-presentational behaviour. In a first experiment, a teacher rating measure of self-monitoring was found to be positively associated with the understanding of self-presentational motives. In a second experiment, a more narrowly specified self-report measure of public self-consciousness was found to have a similar association with the understanding of self-presentation, with no such association found for private self-consciousness. These preliminary results make it clear that our formulations of development in social cognition must indeed include a consideration of individual differences in motivational orientations. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Oral health-related quality of life in children: Part I. How well do children know themselves?INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF DENTAL HYGIENE, Issue 2 2008A systematic review Abstract:, Objective:, Paediatric oral disorders are likely to have a negative effect on the quality of life. Until recently, children's oral health-related quality of life (OHRQoL) was measured using parents as informants. Instruments have now been developed, which have demonstrated that with appropriate questionnaire techniques, valid and reliable information can be obtained from children. The aim of this study was to make a systematic review of the existing literature about child perceptions of OHRQoL and their validation. Methods:, A computerized search was conducted using Medline, ISI, Lilacs and Scielo for children's perception of OHRQoL. The inclusion criteria were: the articles should contain well-validated instruments and provide child perceptions of OHRQoL. Results:, From 89 records found, 13 fulfilled the criteria. All studies included in the critical appraisal of the project suggested good construct validity of overall child perceptions of OHRQoL. However, children's understanding of oral health and well-being are also affected by variables (age, age-related experiences, gender, race, education, culture, experiences related to oral conditions, opportunities for treatment, childhood period of changes, back-translating questionnaire, children self-perceived treatment need). Conclusions:, The structure of children's self-concept and health cognition is age-dependent as a result of their continuous cognitive, emotional, social and language development. By using appropriate questionnaire techniques, valid and reliable information can be obtained from children concerning their OHRQoL. [source] Social cognition and moral cognition in bullying: what's wrong?AGGRESSIVE BEHAVIOR, Issue 6 2006Gianluca Gini Abstract Two different models have been proposed that describe the bully alternatively as a child lacking in social skills [Crick and Dodge, 1994], or as a cold manipulative individual, who leads gangs to achieve personal goals [Sutton et al., 1999a]. The present study examined the performance of 204 8,11-year-olds in a set of stories that assessed understanding of cognitions and emotions, in relation to their Participant Role in bullying. Moreover, children's understanding of moral emotions and proneness to moral disengagement was assessed. Victims showed some difficulties in the social cognition task, whereas bullies did not. Aggressive children, instead, were found to be more ready to show moral disengagement mechanisms, whereas defenders showed higher levels of moral sensibility. Results are discussed in relation to the two models, and the need for further research into empathy and moral cognition of children involved in bullying episodes is highlighted. Aggr. Behav. 32:528,539, 2006. © 2006 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source] Progression in children's understanding of the matter concept from elementary to high schoolJOURNAL OF RESEARCH IN SCIENCE TEACHING, Issue 3 2006Xiufeng Liu Adopting a neo-Piagetian conceptual framework and a phenomenographic approach, we identified students' conceptual progression pattern on matter from elementary to high school. We interviewed 54 students from Grade 1 to Grade 10 chemistry on their conceptions of substances (i.e., water, vinegar, and baking soda) and the combining of the substances. We found that progression of students' conceptions on matter from elementary to high school is multifaceted. For any aspect we examined, from spontaneous description of substances to chemical reaction of baking soda with vinegar, there was a unique progression pattern. Different conceptual progression patterns existed for different substances (i.e., water, baking soda, and vinegar) as well. Further, there is no clear conceptual leap between different grade levels in conceptual progression; that is, there is tremendous overlap in conceptions among students of different grades. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 43: 320,347, 2006 [source] Adolescents' and Mothers' Understanding of Children's Rights in the HomeJOURNAL OF RESEARCH ON ADOLESCENCE, Issue 3 2002Martin D. Ruck Adolescents' and mothers' understanding of children's self-determination and nurturance rights was examined in the context of the home. In individual interviews, 141 sixth, eighth, and tenth graders and their mothers responded to hypothetical vignettes in which a child story character wished to exercise a right that conflicted with parental practices. For each vignette, participants were asked to judge whether the story character should have the right in question and to provide a justification for their decision. Generally, eighth and tenth graders were more likely than their mothers to endorse requests for self-determination and less likely than their mothers to support requests for nurturance. Mothers of tenth graders were more likely to support requests for self-determination and less likely to favor adolescents' request for nurturance in the home than were mothers of sixth and eighth graders. In terms of reasoning, adolescents and mothers were more likely to consider the individuals' rights when discussing self-determination situations, whereas nurturance situations elicited responses pertaining to participants' understanding of familial roles and relationships. Furthermore, mothers' reasoning about childrenÃ,s rights reflected sensitivity to the developmental level of their children. The findings are discussed in terms of previous research on the development of children's understanding of rights and adolescent autonomy. [source] What goes on inside my head when I'm writing?LITERACY, Issue 2 20049-year-old boys, A case study of Abstract This article explores the idea that in order to improve the way we teach children to write, we need to improve our understanding of children as writers. Although developing their metacognitive skills can give us a clearer window into children's understanding, we must be wary of assuming that they ascribe the same meaning to their metacognitive metalanguage as we, their teachers, do. But we also need to beware of making assessments based just on the children's writing , children can use writing to hide from us what they do not know and cannot do. Through the presentation of three brief case studies of lower-attaining Year 4 (8,9-year-old boys) the article considers the implications of assessing writing without acknowledging the role of the writer. [source] Children's understanding of certainty and evidentiality: Advantage of grammaticalized forms over lexical alternativesNEW DIRECTIONS FOR CHILD & ADOLESCENT DEVELOPMENT, Issue 125 2009Tomoko Matsui In verbal communication, the hearer takes advantage of the linguistic expressions of certainty and evidentiality to assess how committed the speaker might be to the truth of the informational content of the utterance. Little is known, however, about the precise developmental mechanism of this ability. In this chapter, we approach the question by elucidating factors that are likely to constrain young children's understanding of linguistically encoded certainty and evidentiality, including the types of linguistic form of these expressions, namely, grammaticalized or lexical forms. © Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [source] Children as Citizens and Partners in Strengthening CommunitiesAMERICAN JOURNAL OF ORTHOPSYCHIATRY, Issue 1 2010Anne B. Smith Children are citizens who are entitled to recognition, respect, and participation. Positioning children as citizens gives them the opportunity to play a role in solving fundamental problems and, in partnership with adults, strengthen their communities. Research on children's understanding of rights, responsibilities, and citizenship can build a platform for action. Numerous examples of projects are available in which children have been encouraged and supported to exercise their agency and put into practice the ideals of citizenship for the benefit of their communities. If children are to exercise their rights and responsibilities as citizens, change must occur in both adult and child cultures. [source] Children's Understanding of Ordinary and Extraordinary MindsCHILD DEVELOPMENT, Issue 5 2010Jonathan D. Lane How and when do children develop an understanding of extraordinary mental capacities? The current study tested 56 preschoolers on false-belief and knowledge-ignorance tasks about the mental states of contrasting agents,some agents were ordinary humans, some had exceptional perceptual capacities, and others possessed extraordinary mental capacities. Results indicated that, in contrast to younger and older peers, children within a specific age range reliably attributed fallible, human-like capacities to ordinary humans and to several special agents (including God) for both tasks. These data lend critical support to an anthropomorphism hypothesis,which holds that children's understanding of extraordinary minds is derived from their everyday intuitive psychology,and reconcile disparities between the findings of other studies on children's understanding of extraordinary minds. [source] Metamemory Development: Understanding the Role of Similarity in False MemoriesCHILD DEVELOPMENT, Issue 3 2009Vikram K. Jaswal Research on the development of metamemory has focused primarily on children's understanding of the variables that influence how likely a person is to remember something. But metamemory also involves an understanding of why people occasionally misremember things. In this study, 5- and 6-year-olds (N = 38) were asked to decide whether another child's mistakes in a memory game were due to false memories or guesses. Some of the fictitious child's mistakes were similar to material he had seen earlier and some were not. Six-year-olds, but not 5-year-olds, consistently attributed more similar than dissimilar mistakes to false memories. Understanding the link between similarity and false memories improves significantly between 5 and 6 years of age. [source] Young Children's Reasoning About the Effects of Emotional and Physiological States on Academic PerformanceCHILD DEVELOPMENT, Issue 1 2009Jennifer Amsterlaw This study assessed young children's understanding of the effects of emotional and physiological states on cognitive performance. Five, 6-, 7-year-olds, and adults (N= 96) predicted and explained how children experiencing a variety of physiological and emotional states would perform on academic tasks. Scenarios included: (a) negative and positive emotions, (b) negative and positive physiological states, and (c) control conditions. All age groups understood the impairing effects of negative emotions and physiological states. Only 7-year-olds, however, showed adult-like reasoning about the potential enhancing effects of positive internal states and routinely cited cognitive mechanisms to explain how internal states affect performance. These results shed light on theory-of-mind development and also have significance for children's everyday school success. [source] Mothers' Use of Cognitive State Verbs in Picture-Book Reading and the Development of Children's Understanding of Mind: A Longitudinal StudyCHILD DEVELOPMENT, Issue 4 2007Juan E. Adrián Mothers read stories to their children (N = 41) aged between 3.3 years and 5.11 years old, and children then completed two false-belief tasks. One year later, mothers read a story to 37 of those children who were also given four tasks to assess their advanced understanding of mental states. Mothers' early use of cognitive verbs in picture-book reading correlated with their children's later understanding of mental states. Some pragmatic aspects of maternal input correlated with children's later outcomes. Two different factors in mothers' cognitive discourse were identified, suggesting a zone of proximal development in children's understanding of mental states. [source] Parental Guidance in Preschoolers' Understanding of Spatial-Graphic RepresentationsCHILD DEVELOPMENT, Issue 3 2004Lisa E. Szechter This research was designed to observe whether parents guide their children's understanding of spatial-graphic representations and, if so, to describe the quality of the strategies they use. Parents read a picture book to their preschoolers (3 or 5 years, N=31) and children completed spatial-graphic comprehension tasks. Observational data revealed a range of creative behaviors used to address the book's spatial-graphic challenges. The incidence and quality of parental spatial-graphic behaviors were significantly related to 5-year-old children's performance on spatial-graphic measures. These findings, as well as the paucity of parent attention to aesthetics or graphic production techniques, are discussed in relation to representational development and educational practice. [source] Talking About Science in MuseumsCHILD DEVELOPMENT PERSPECTIVES, Issue 1 2010Catherine A. Haden Abstract, New research in museums offers a unique vantage point for observing how parent,child conversational interactions may help children learn science in everyday settings. Recent studies in this area pinpoint the role of elaborative conversation,including open-ended Wh- questions and explanatory comments,in children's understanding of scientific concepts, and more generalized effects on children's attitudes and ways of making meaning may exist as well. This review places this work in its theoretical context and discusses its potential to illuminate social mediators underlying children's learning processes and outcomes. [source] From Piaget to Specific Genevan Developmental ModelsCHILD DEVELOPMENT PERSPECTIVES, Issue 1 2008Stéphan Desrochers ABSTRACT,Today, the ideas of Piaget and his numerous collaborators are rarely taken into consideration in psychologists' explanations of the development of children's cognitive abilities. The goal of this article was to promote 2 specific Genevan developmental models relating to children's understanding of number and to their understanding of physical causality and, in exploring these models, to demonstrate that new post-Piagetian empirical findings do not allow the outright rejection of Piagetian approaches. [source] Children's understanding of psychological problems displayed by their peers: a review of the literatureCHILD: CARE, HEALTH AND DEVELOPMENT, Issue 1 2008E. Hennessy Abstract Background There is a widespread consensus in the literature that children who have psychological problems are more likely than other children to be excluded or rejected by their peers. The existence of this phenomenon has been established, primarily with the use of research on their sociometric status within groups of peers. Much less research has been performed on the way in which children develop attitudes and behavioural intentions towards peers with problems. Aims The primary aim of this article is to introduce readers to research on children's understanding of the nature of common childhood psychological problems, with a view to exploring the factors that might contribute to the development of negative attitudes and behaviour. Method Relevant publications were identified through searches of electronic databases and articles in print. Results From the early years of primary school, children are able to identify peers whose behaviour deviates from the norm and to suggest causes for the behaviour of peers with psychological problems. Furthermore, their beliefs about peers' personal responsibility for these problems appear to be a significant determinant of attitudes and behavioural intentions. The article identifies the need for more research on the role of factors such as gender and personal contact in determining children's understanding of, and attitudes towards, peers with psychological problems. In addition, the article calls for more research on mental health education programmes and the extension of these programmes to younger children, given the fact that even young primary school children appear to have beliefs about the causes of psychological problems and negative attitudes to peers who display such problems. Conclusions Research on children's understanding of mental health can make an important contribution to our understanding of why children with problems are so much more likely to be excluded from their peer group. [source] Children's understanding of mental illness: an exploratory studyCHILD: CARE, HEALTH AND DEVELOPMENT, Issue 1 2008C. Fox Abstract Background This study aimed to investigate children's thinking about mental illness by employing a well-established framework of adult illness understanding. Methods The study adopted a semistructured interview technique and a card selection task to assess children's responses to causes, consequences, timeline and curability of the different types of mental illness. The children were aged between 5 and 11 years. Results Results indicated a developmental trend in the children's thinking about mental illness; there was an increase in the children's understanding of the causes, consequences, curability and timeline of mental illness with age. The older children demonstrated a more sophisticated and accurate thinking about mental illness compared with the younger children, who tended to rely on a medical model in order to comprehend novel mental illnesses. Furthermore, the girls exhibited more compassion, showing greater social acceptance compared with the boys. Conclusions The Leventhal model provides a useful framework within which to investigate children's knowledge and understanding of mental illness. Limitations of the study and implications for future research are discussed. [source] | |||||||||||||||||||