Bruce Bain

Toward a fuller appreciation of codeswitching

Abstract Psychologists today concur that the mind actively reconstitutes experience. A childs cognitive processes will, thus, take in and actively rework the experience of a bilingual environment. This paper analyzes the codeswitching that occurred in a Chinese-English 4-year-olds temper tantrum behaviour. In one example, he is observed to switch from the unmarked Chinese normally used with his grandmother to English in what seems to be an attempt to gain control of the situation by using what he seems to perceive as the language of power. It would seem, then that early on, a bilingual child is already a ‘rational actor’ (cf. Myers-Scotton, this issue), able to make pragmatic language choices in accordance with how he attributes power to one or the other of his languages.

Toward a Theory of Perception: Participation as a Function of Body-Flexibility

Summary The main purpose of this study was to present a tentative statement of a theory of perception in which the role of the body was emphasized. The relationship of the body to the perceived world was conceptualized in terms of a dynamic body-schema, the extent and flexibility of which was termed body-flexibility. This hypothetical construct—i.e., body-flexibility—was seen as emerging in ontogenesis along a developmental continuum from immature to mature. The immature perceiver was conceptualized as embedded in a world, with minimal polarization of his body and his world, with minimal consciousness of his body-as-subject and body-as-object of experience. The mature perceiver was conceptualized as having the ability to distantiate: i.e., as conscious of his subjective and objective poles of being in relation to the phenomena of experience. The ability to distantiate was conceptualized in terms of degree of body-flexibility. The language and constructs of this statement were mostly distilled from the wor...

The Cognitive Flexibility Claim in the Bilingual and Music Education Research Traditions

This report briefly surveys two research traditions, bilingual child development and music education, largely unknown to each other but arriving at similar conclusions concerning the cognitive consequences of their respective programs. A study of performance on the rod-and-frame, Uznadze illusion, Piagetian conservation, and Peabody picture-vocabulary tests by kindergarten children in a bilingual immersion program, a music program, and a control group (neither bilingual nor music) was conducted. The bilingual children performed significantly better on the tests that demanded verbal facility. The music children performed significantly better on the tests that demanded awareness of inner self. Results suggest that the two types of experiences result in a more flexible means of cognition within different cognitive domains.

Further Information on the Bender-Gestalt as a Group Test for Screening School Children.

The Bender-Gestalt has been used as a group test by a number of researchers (Smith & Keogh, 1962; Dibner & Korn, 1969; Edmunds, 1970) to screen children for reading read~ness, to predict early school performance, and to identify children with gross visualmotor coordination problems. They reported high correlations between group and individually administered tests and were generally satisfied with group administration particularly as a time-saving device. However, their conclusions about group administration were not unequivocal. Part of the uncertainty arose from the present dearth of informacion about the efficacy of different methods of group presentation. The following procedural technique is offered to help fill this void. The 9 Bender designs are photographicalIy reproduced on individual film frames. This process ensures that the ratio of design size to background space size (Bender, 1938) remains constant. A slide projector, a viewing screen, and a 9-page copy booklet were used. Ss were seated in their normal classroom seaa and instructed to copy the designs shown on the screen, one design per page. The designs are flashed on the screen one at a time. No exposure time criterion is assigned. After 30 to 40 sec. of exposure, Ss were queried whether they were finished. When all Ss completed the design, E proceeded to the next design. This technique was tested on one class of 30 Grade 1 pupils and one class of 30 Grade 2 pupils. Using the Koppitz (1964) Developmental Scoring System, two judges, with an inter-rater reliability of .82 (Pearson) for the total scores, found the Grade 1 mean score to be 5.0 (SD, 2.7), and the Grade 2 mean score to be 3.4 (SD, 2.4). The means were significantly different ( p < .01, and p < .05 respectively) from Koppitzs (1964) grade norms. Since a similar trend was found when the data were analyzed by age group and compared to Koppitzs norms, it was assumed that the differences were due to the narure of the sample. This technique is simple to administer, it requires approximately 30 min. to give the entire test. i t can be administered bv a sinele E. and. with further information. i.e.. optimal number of Ss, size of room, locakon ofupupiis desks vis a vis the viewing screen; etc., i t might become a useful screening procedure.