How Children Learn the Everyday Designed Artifacts of their Culture

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Abstract

Much of children’s everyday life involves dealing with cultural artifacts that are designed to require specific actions. Children’s interactions with closures (twisting container lid), clothing (buttoning shirt), toys (interlocking Lego bricks), school supplies (unzipping pencil case), and so on are prime examples of designed actions children must learn by kindergarten age. For a novice, the goal may be known (open container) but how to accomplish the goal may not be. This symposium brings together multidisciplinary research to: (1) characterize how children learn the designed actions of cultural artifacts; (2) investigate perceptual, social, and motor factors that influence learning; and (3) discuss implications for policymakers, clinicians, parents, and artifact designers.

Presentation #1 highlights the perceptual-motor requirements to discover and implement the designed actions of artifacts (e.g., opening containers), and how perceptual feedback and mothers’ teaching strategies affect children’s behavior. Presentation #2 introduces the policies and standard protocols to measure child-resistant packaging—the accessibility of artifacts—and the impact of visual cues and distractors on children’s opening process. Presentation #3 describes how the dynamics of caregiver instruction interact with toy difficulty and children’s skill to influence how children learn to operate specific toys. Presentation #4 reveals how children learn to flexibly adapt their motor actions to the specific requirements of various size versions of a common artifact—buttons. Overall, the presentations advance understanding of a critical but understudied aspect of motor skill acquisition—how children learn the designed actions of everyday artifacts as they become functioning members of their culture.

Sub Unit

• Perceptual, Sensory, Motor

Chair

• Jaya Rachwani, City University of New York Hunter College

Individual Presentations

• Deceptively Simple: The Perceptual-Motor and Social Factors in Children's Learning of the Designed Actions of Objects - Presenting Author: Brianna Kaplan, New York University; Non-Presenting Author: Jaya Rachwani, City University of New York Hunter College; Non-Presenting Author: Catherine S Tamis-Lemonda, New York University; Non-Presenting Author: Karen E Adolph, New York University

• 50 Years of Child Resistant Packaging: Does Knowledge from Packaging Application Translate to Child Development Research? - Presenting Author: Laura Bix, Michigan State University; Non-Presenting Author: Rita Chen

• Teaching to the Toy: Caregivers and Toddlers Interact Differently With Challenging Toys to Support Learning - Presenting Author: Natalie Brezack, University of Chicago; Non-Presenting Author: Sarah Elizabeth Pan, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities; Non-Presenting Author: Amanda Woodward, University of Chicago

• Material Culture for Children: Tailoring Clothing to Children’s Buttoning Abilities - Presenting Author: Blair Youmans, Tulane University; Non-Presenting Author: Annabelle H Reese, Tulane University; Non-Presenting Author: Jeffrey J Lockman, Tulane University