• Medientyp: E-Artikel
  • Titel: The Development of Diachronic Thinking in Children: Children's Ideas about Changes in Drawing Skills
  • Beteiligte: Tryphon, Anastasia; Montangero, Jacques
  • Erschienen: SAGE Publications, 1992
  • Erschienen in: International Journal of Behavioral Development, 15 (1992) 3, Seite 411-424
  • Sprache: Englisch
  • DOI: 10.1177/016502549201500308
  • ISSN: 0165-0254; 1464-0651
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  • Beschreibung: Classical work on the development of time concepts has focused on children's representation of time and reasoning involved in time measures. However, little is known about children's use of time concepts in their explanations of reality. The experiment presented here is concerned with the development of children's diachronic thinking, i.e. the ability to situate an object of knowledge (event, physical object, phenomenon, etc.) within a temporal dimension and to conceive of the changes of this object with time. The experimental situation explores children's understanding and reconstruction of the changes in their drawing abilities with age. A total of 70 children aged 6 to 12 years were asked to draw a human figure and then to produce as many drawings of a human figure as necessary to show how the drawings have changed over the years. They were then asked to sernate 12 human figure drawings produced by other children. The results indicate a progressive construction of diachronic thinking with age. Although children as young as 6 years are able to reason about changes in their drawing abilities, it is only at about 10 years that their reasoning reveals explicit use of diachrony.