Susan C. Somerville

The health belief model and adolescents with insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus.

We tested the predictive utility of the health belief model (HBM) for adherence with a complex, ongoing medical regimen in the context of a chronically ill youthful population (56 adolescent outpatients with insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus; mean age = 14 years). A three-construct model of health beliefs was tested: Threat (perceived susceptibility combined with severity), Benefits-Costs, and Cues to seek treatment. Multiple indicators of compliance were used, and metabolic control was measured by glycosylated hemoglobin. The Benefits-Costs and Cues constructs were related to compliance in the theoretically expected positive direction. Threat interacted with Benefits-Costs in the prediction of compliance and with Cues in the prediction of metabolic control. The greatest compliance was achieved with low perceived Threat and high perceived Benefits-Costs. Poor metabolic control was associated with high Threat and Cues. As age increased, adherence to the exercise, injection, and frequency components of the regimen decreased.

Young children’s deliberate reminding

Summary Preschool children have been shown to engage in deliberate memory procedures, but can toddlers? Mothers were instructed to present deliberate reminding tasks (e.g., “Remind me to get milk at the store”) to their 2-, 3-and 4-year-olds (10 each), in the course of their everyday activities. Unprompted deliberate reminding of high-interest tasks was frequent, both for short (five minute) and long (four- to eight-hour) delays. Even two-year-olds remembered such tasks 80% of the time. The results indicate an early development of a deliberate set to remember in toddlers.

Ontological categories and function: Acquisition of new names

Abstract This study asks whether knowledge of the functional properties of a referent for a new name influences childrens first guesses about whether that name refers to an object or a substance. Recent work on childrens categorization suggests that children differentiate concrete objects from nonsolid substances and that their initial hypotheses about the meanings of new words are affected by this knowledge of ontological categories. In addition, some research has suggested that children approach new words with a set of biases that constrain the possible meanings of those words. Most of this work has presented children with new names in the absence of explicit information about the functional characteristics of new referents. Our hypothesis was that if children are shown the functional properties of referents, they should use that information in making their first guesses about the meanings of new words. Seventy-two 3- and 4-year-olds were shown new items with new names and were tested on their extension of each new name either to a similarly shaped item made of a different material or to a differently shaped item made of the same material. Some subjects were shown a “shape-linked” function, some a “substance-linked” function, and some no function at all. One third of the subjects heard the new names presented with count syntax, one third with mass syntax, and one third with neutral syntax. Results suggest that children do not rely on a single source of information in extending new names, but, rather, draw on various kinds of information, including the perceptual characteristics of the entities themselves and the syntax of the input.

Early developments in logical reasoning: Considering alternative possibilities

Abstract Three experiments showed that starting at about 4 years of age children take into account alternative possibilities in reasoning about the location of a hidden object. The children had to infer from event sequences they observed which of several locations might contain a hidden toy and which locations definitely could not. In Experiment 1, there were always two possible places (in an array of four), and 4- and 6-year-old children were quite successful in identifying the two possible locations. In Experiment 2, the number of possibilities varied from one to three (in an array of six), and 4- and 6-year-olds appropriately adjusted the number of locations they chose as the number of possibilities varied, indicating that they could determine how many possibilities were compatible with information they had. In addition, they chose the correct locations (which were always ones the experimenter had visited) over incorrect locations that the experimenter had also visited and over incorrect locations that she had not visited at all. Experiment 3 extended the research to 2 1 2 -, 3-, and 4-year-old children, using an analog of Sperlings partial report technique to evaluate knowledge of alternative possibilities from single searches. Even the 2 1 2 - year-olds showed some logical reasoning, but only the 4-year-olds gave evidence of considering more than one possibility.

Providing impetus for conceptual change: The effect of organizing the input

Abstract This study was designed to test whether calling to mind an initial belief and presenting information that challenges that belief affects the extent to which preschoolers will modify it. The belief that was challenged in a controlled demonstration concerns the effect of the size of an object on its sinking speed (holding weight constant). In addition, childrens belief about the effect of weight on sinking speed (holding size constant) was examined, a belief that was confirmed in a demonstration. The final belief about size for those who received nothing but empirical demonstrations was less likely to be compatible with the demonstration than the final belief of those in two other conditions. Children in the other conditions were given the opportunity in the context of interviews to form expectations about how size and weight separately relate to sinking speed, in addition to receiving the demonstrations. An interview either directly preceded the demonstration for the variable concerned (coordinated sequence) or did not (uncoordinated sequence). The tendency for the final belief about size to be compatible with the demonstration was related more strongly to age in the condition with an uncoordinated sequence than in either of the other conditions. Some children among those whose final belief about the effect of size on sinking speed was compatible with the demonstration also refined their belief about the effect of weight, suggesting that these two beliefs may cohere as a system. These findings show that a relatively short experimental procedure can be an effective means of bringing about some refinement of a young childs beliefs.

The development of understanding as an indirect memory strategy

Ten-through 14-year-old children were presented a complex task designed to elicit a variety of memorization strategies. There was a curvilinear relation of age and memory performance on the task: 12- and 13-year-olds took many more trials to memorize the items than did younger or older children. Subjects reported using strategies ranging from attempts at rote memorization through attempts to avoid memorization altogether by deriving some systematic understanding of the task. Differences in reported strategies were related to age and to differences in memory performance. Results are discussed in terms of a general development of the use of understanding as a deliberate, indirect memory strategy. Whereas much is known about changes in problem solving and reasoning during adolescence (see Neimark, 1975), there has been little study of the implication of these changes for memorization strategies. Memorization strategies that have been studied with adolescents seem straightforward extensions of concrete operational abilities to classify, seriate, and manipulate images of objects (Neimark, 1976: Rohwer, 1973). However, one could also expect strategy advances brought about by the formal operational child’s new found expertise in understanding systems of variables by relating occurrences and nonoccurrences of events to higher order principles, propositions, or systems. The present research is concerned with a type of memory strategy which qualifies as a candidate here: it

Individual Drawing Styles of Three Children from Five to Seven Years

Knowledge of an artistic style is derived from the collected works of a given artist or school. Philosophers, artists, critics, and psychologists have generally agreed that a style has three major components: form, subject matter and intended meaning (e.g., Finch, 1974; Gardner, 1980; Goodman, 1978; Hartley & Uoma, 1981). While the notion of individual styles is well-established for accomplished adult artists, there has been comparatively little discussion of individual styles in children’s art. Children’s artistic accomplishments have typically been evaluated by experts, familiar with children’s art and sometimes with the children themselves (e.g. Gardner, 1980; Lark-Horovitz, Lewis & Luca, 1973; Mendelowitz, 1963). The present studies addressed the question of whether young children exhibit individual styles by investigating whether such styles could be learned by lay adults.