Poster #76 - Caregiver-Child Interaction in the Development of Chopstick Use by Chinese Children

• In Event: Poster Session 10

Abstract

For close to a third of the world’s population, children learn to use chopsticks as their primary tool for eating, yet little is known about the development of this ability. Using chopsticks involves the coordination of spatial and motor components. Children must align and orient the chopstick ends (spatial), and manipulate the chopsticks to grasp and transport food (motor). During the early childhood years, children have repeated opportunities to practice these skills during mealtime, when caregivers are present. Although our previous studies indicate that even by 21 months of age Chinese children use chopsticks appropriately during self-feeding (i.e., they feed themselves by bringing the thinner ends of the chopsticks to the mouth), little is known about how caregivers help children become skilled at chopstick use. Here we examined how Chinese caregivers help their children master the spatial components of chopstick use, and how Chinese children gain independence in spatially aligning chopsticks during mealtime.

We videoed 49 children (ages 21- to 78-months-old; 31 girls) and their families during mealtimes in Guiyang, China. Caregiver involvement was coded from video clips by using Datavyu (www.datavyu.org). During mealtime, we coded if the caregiver aligned the chopsticks for the child. We also examined the different strategies that caregivers used to help the child align the chopsticks appropriately (i.e., caregivers giving the chopsticks to children in the correct orientation; caregivers placing the chopsticks onto the table with the thick ends oriented closer to the child’s right hand; caregivers sticking the chopsticks into the food with the thin ends sticking down). Inter-observer reliability for each of these variables was high (ICC= .79-.93, ps < .001).

Results indicated that caregivers helped the younger children align the chopsticks more than the older children (r=-.473, p=.011; Figure 1), whereas with increasing age, children more often aligned the chopsticks on their own if they had placed the chopsticks on the table during eating (r=.423, p=.025; Figure 2). For the occasions when caregivers helped their children align the chopsticks, we examined the strategies that caregivers used. For the 62 occasions in which caregivers gave the chopsticks to children, caregivers gave the chopsticks to the child’s right hand on 57 of those occasions. Caregivers were also more likely to give the chopsticks to younger than older children (r=-.360, p=.023). For the 13 occasions in which caregivers placed the chopsticks onto table, caregivers aligned the chopsticks with the thick ends closer to the child’s right hand on 5 of those occasions (n.s.). For the 12 occasions in which caregivers placed the chopsticks upright in the rice, caregivers always oriented the chopsticks with the thin ends sticking down.

Together, our findings suggest that caregivers provide children with spatial cues to help them use chopsticks appropriately. Caregivers more often gave the chopsticks to their children’s right hand, and oriented the chopsticks appropriately when placing the chopsticks upright in rice. Additionally, caregivers more often gave chopsticks to the younger than older children. With these behaviors, caregivers help to scaffold chopstick use in their children.

Authors

• Giselle Yinjie Yao, Tulane University
  Presenting Author

• Audrey Hwang

• Jeffrey J Lockman, Tulane University