Poster #9 - Parental Use of Comparison in Conversations with their Toddlers about Categories

• In Event: Poster Session 05

Abstract

Acquiring category knowledge is an important yet complex task of early childhood (Rakison & Lawson, 2013). Previous studies have shown that parent-child interaction is an important context for learning about categories (Gelman, 2009). However, less is known about the strategies that parents use to promote category learning. In the current study, we consider one potentially useful strategy: parents’ use of comparison to draw connections between known and unknown information. We examine three research questions: 1) How frequently do parents utilize comparison in conversation with their toddlers about categories? 2) What kinds of comparisons do parents make? 3) Does parents’ use of comparison differ based on child age?
To address these questions, we systematically examined parents’ use of comparison in conversations with their 20- and 35-month-old children about two picture books using data reported in Gelman et al. (1998). Participants included 31 mother-toddler dyads who were asked to read picture books depicting animal and artifact categories. The following criteria were used in coding the transcripts. First, we identified all valid maternal comparisons defined as utterances drawing the child’s attention to similarities and/or differences between two entities (e.g., “Eels are like snakes that swim in the water”; “There's a tennis shoe here just like yours”). Next, we categorized each comparison based on (a) the entities being compared, (b) the properties being highlighted in the comparison, and (c) whether the comparison only highlighted similarities or highlighted both similarities and differences (See Table 1).
Results showed that nearly all mothers (30 out of 31) used comparisons in their conversations with their toddlers. Mothers produced an average of 6.5 comparisons across the picture book task (Range = 0 to 24, SD = 4.6). Comparisons were also diverse in type (see Figure 1). Mothers frequently used comparisons to highlight how specific items in the book were similar in overall appearance to other familiar items (19% of comparisons; e.g., “It looks like a snake, doesn’t it?”) and to highlight general similarities between items in the book and the child’s personal experience (18% of comparisons; e.g., “Those are like your brother’s shoes”). Comparisons highlighting specific properties of the category members on the page were also used, sometimes to emphasize similarities (11%; e.g., “They both have tails”) and sometimes to point out differences (10%; e.g., “It’s like a horsie with stripes”). Finally, comparisons referencing the broader categories of the items in the book were used less frequently overall (14% of comparisons), but often articulated specific properties (11%; e.g., “Seals like the water, too”). Notably, across analyses, results showed no significant effects of child age.
Overall, these findings suggest that comparisons are prevalent in parent-child conversations about categories and that parents’ use of comparison allows them to draw connections between known and unknown information and to convey a range of category knowledge to their children. Future research should further examine how parental use of comparison varies across development and the extent to which it serves to promote children’s category learning.

Authors

• Wenyan Feng, Lehigh University
  Presenting Author

• Amanda C Brandone, Lehigh University