Assessment of Thematic Relations in 2-4 Years Normally Developing Children
- 2016
- Volume 4 Issue 1 .
Objective:Children organize their conceptual knowledge in different ways such as thematic and taxonomicorganization. When concepts are linked by cross-categorical relations, they are said to be thematically related. Thisstudy attempts to investigate the development of different types of thematic relations such as spatial-temporal-functional relations and causal relations in Kannada speaking typical children.Method: A total of 216 typically developing children between age group of 2-4 years speaking Kannada wereselected for the study. Match to sample task using picture stimuli were administered to assess spatial-temporal-functional relations and causal types of thematic relations. The match to sample task included one standard and fourchoice responses, one of which was a thematic match (either spatial and/or temporal and/or functionally relatedmatch or a causal match depending on the test carried out) to the test stimuli. Responses of the children wereanalyzed using a four point rating scale.Results: Results revealed that appreciation of spatial-temporal-functional and causal types of thematic relationsemerges in children as young as 2 years of age and broadens with increase in age to 3-4 years. Gender effect wasnot significant in both these tasks. There was no significant difference found in the performance of children betweentest for spatial-temporal-functional relations and test for causal relations.Conclusion: The results of present study demonstrate that thematic relations in specific spatial-temporal-functional relations and causal relations show a similar pattern of developmental trend in preschool children of 2-4years of age. In addition they are found to be one of the important types of organizational strategies used by 2-4years children to conceptual world knowledge and thus play a key role in language acquisition
2375-4427
Thematic relations; Spatial-temporal-functional relations;Causal relations; Conceptual organization; Language acquisition