Browsing by Author "Ilgaz, Hande"
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Item Open Access "And they had a big, big, very long fight:" The development of evaluative language in preschoolers' oral fictional stories told in a peer-group context(Cambridge University Press, 2021-04) Nicolopoulou, Ageliki; Ilgaz, Hande; Shiro, Marta; Hsin, Lisa B.This study examined the development of evaluative language in preschoolers' oral fictional narratives using a storytelling/story-acting practice where children told stories to and for their friends. Evaluative language orients the audience to the teller's cognitive and emotional engagement with a story's events and characters, and we hypothesized that this STSA context might yield new information about the early development of this language, prior to elementary school. We analyzed 60 stories: the first and last story told by 10 children in each of three preschool classrooms (3-, 4-, and 5-year-old classes) that used STSA throughout the school year. Stories were coded for evaluative expressions and evidential expressions. Five-year-olds used significantly more evaluative language than did 3-year-olds, and children at all ages used significantly more evaluative language at the end than at the beginning of the year. The number of stories told throughout the year explained unique variance in children's evaluative language growth.Item Open Access (Co-)Constructing a theory of mind: from language or through language?(Springer, 2020) Ilgaz, Hande; Allen, Jedediah W. P.There is a large body of empirical work that has investigated the relationship between parents’ child-directed speech and their children’s Theory of Mind development. That such a relationship should exist is well motivated from both Theory Theory and Socio-Cultural (SC) perspectives. Despite this general convergence, we argue that theoretical differences between the two perspectives suggests nuanced differences in the expected outcomes of the empirical work. Further, the different ontological commitments of the two approaches have (mis)guided the design, coding, and analysis of existing research and imply different future directions. We discuss five areas of extant research that can be extended and diversified most coherently by adopting a SC framework.Item Open Access Cultural affordances: Does model reliability affect over-imitation in preschoolers(Elsevier Ltd, 2021-03) Jedediah W.P., Allen; Sümer, Cansu; Ilgaz, HandeOne general perspective on why children over-imitate is that they are learning about the normatively correct way of doing things. If correct, then characteristics of the demonstrator should be relevant. Accordingly, the current study aimed to investigate how the reliability of an adult model influences children’s selectivity of what to imitate in an over-imitation situation (i.e., when some of the actions are causally irrelevant). Seventy-eight preschoolers between 3 and 6 years of age participated at school or in the lab on four tasks. A canonical trust paradigm was used to manipulate model reliability in terms of past accuracy. Children then watched either the reliable or unreliable model open a transparent box using the same relevant and irrelevant actions. In addition, children completed a standard ToM battery. Results indicated that children were more likely to over-imitate from a demonstration given by the reliable versus unreliable model. Children’s ToM abilities were not related to their over-imitation behavior but showed some relations to their trust performance. Overall, the results provide support for a social situational approach to over-imitation that fits most closely with the norm learning perspective.Item Open Access Culturally constituted universals: evidential basis of belief matters(John Wiley & Sons Ltd., 2023-03-16) Haskaraca, F. N.; Ilgaz, Hande; Bortfeld, H.; Haan, Michelle de; Messinger, D.Differences in the sequence with which children pass the tasks in Wellman and Liu's (2004) theory of mind (ToM) battery is increasingly bringing into question the universal and cultural specifics of children's developing understanding of others' minds. Children from China, Iran, and Turkey pass the knowledge access (KA) task of the battery earlier than they pass the diverse beliefs (DB) task (e.g., Selcuk et al., 2018). This pattern is the reverse of what has been documented with children from Australia and the US (e.g., Peterson et al., 2005). This paper presents three studies with Turkish samples that explore the possible reasons for developmental sequence and performance differences in the ToM battery. Study 1 investigated Turkish-speaking adults' judgments of appropriateness for different epistemic verbs as used in the DB and false belief (FB) tasks. Study 2 investigated whether adults' performance (i.e., accuracy, reaction time) on FB tasks were affected by culturally preferred uses of these verbs. Collectively these studies showed that adults found different epistemic language (“guess,” “think,” and the Turkish-specific “falsely think”) to be appropriate for different belief-based tasks. However, there was no difference in adults' performance based on epistemic language. In Study 3, Turkish-speaking preschoolers' performance in belief-related tasks based on variations in epistemic language and epistemic features (i.e., presence of evidence) was investigated. Among five modifications, Turkish children benefited only from a modification that involved the manipulation of the epistemological basis for ambiguous beliefs (i.e., visual evidence for belief).Item Open Access Is cultural variation the norm? A closer look at sequencing of the theory of mind scale(Elsevier, 2022-06-01) Ilgaz, Hande; Allen, Jedediah Wilfred Papas; Haskaraca, F. N.Wellman and Liu's (2004) ToM scale canonized efforts to generate a developmentally nuanced understanding of ToM. Further elaboration has come from studies showing some variability in task sequencing across two broad categories of culture (i.e., ‘Collectivist’, ‘Individualist’). The current study contributes to our understanding of ToM by exploring intra-cultural variation in task sequencing for a Turkish sample. The ToM scale, language, and EF tasks were administered to 366 preschoolers. When analyzed as a single group, preschoolers showed a sequence most consistent with Chinese/Iranian samples. However, when children were grouped according to age, 3-year-olds were most similar to the US/Australian samples, 4-year-olds were most similar to Chinese/Iranian samples, and 5-year-olds showed a new sequence where knowledge access was the easiest. The analyzes suggest that EF alone was related to the differences in sequencing. Current findings imply that explaining sequence differences may require considering the interactive effects of culture and cognitive abilities.Item Open Access The language of play: developing preschool vocabulary through play following shared book-reading(Elsevier, 2018) Toub, T. S.; Hassinger-Das, B.; Nesbitt, K. T.; Ilgaz, Hande; Weisberg, D. S.; Hirsh-Pasek, K.; Golinkoff, R. M.; Nicolopoulou, A.; Dickinson, D. K.Two studies explored the role of play in a vocabulary intervention for low-income preschoolers. Both studies presented new vocabulary through book-readings. Study 1 children (N = 249; Mage = 59.19 months) were also randomly assigned to participate in Free Play, Guided Play, or Directed Play with toys relating to the books. Guided and Directed Play conditions involved different styles of adult support. Although children in all conditions showed significant gains in knowledge of target vocabulary words, children in both adult-supported conditions showed significantly greater gains than children experiencing Free Play. In Study 2, classroom teachers implemented our procedures instead of researchers. All children (N = 101; Mage = 58.65 months) reviewed half the vocabulary words through a hybrid of guided and directed play and half the words through a picture card review activity. Children showed significant pre- to post-test gains on receptive and expressive knowledge for both sets of taught words, but they also showed significantly greater expressive vocabulary gains for words reviewed through play. These results suggest that there are unique benefits of adult-supported play-based activities for early vocabulary growth.Item Open Access Making the case for playful learning(Springer, 2018) Ilgaz, Hande; Hassinger-Das, B.; Golinkoff, R. M.; Hirsh-Pasek, K.; Fleer, M.; van Oers, B.Play is one of the natural strengths of childhood through which children acquire and also practice critical language, cognitive, and socio-cognitive abilities. This long-standing belief has widely shaped curriculum in early childhood, mainly in the form allotting time and space for free play. However, lately the effectiveness of play for early childhood development and consequently its place in the early childhood curriculum are under attack especially in the USA. Policy makers are substituting playtime with didactic instruction aimed at imparting decoding skills that speak to a narrow set of literacy and school readiness skills. Their decision to make the early childhood classroom a more didactic, adult-directed teaching environment is seemingly supported with recent reviews of play research that show minimal or inconsistent effects. We propose that playful learning deserves careful consideration before we discard play as a learning and instruction strategy. In this chapter, we review some of the newly emerging evidence for the effectiveness of guided play, a form of play that is situated on a continuum between adult-directed didactic instruction and child-directed free play. In the light of reviewed evidence, we propose that playful learning should be implemented to target specific learning objectives such as numeracy, vocabulary, narrative competence, and knowledge of science concepts. We discuss the need for comprehensive playful learning programs that complement free play and didactic programs. Finally, we emphasize the need to share playful learning techniques with educators that will enable them to integrate curricular objects in playful learning activities.Item Open Access Maternal storytelling and reminiscing styles in relation to preschoolers’ perspective-taking abilities(Elsevier, 2023-03-28) Kısa, Elif Bürümlü; Şahin, B. A.; Ilgaz, HandeThis study investigated mothers’ narrative styles across storytelling and reminiscing contexts in relation to preschoolers’ visual, socio-cognitive, and syntactic perspective-taking (PT) abilities. The sample consisted of 120 Turkish mothers and their 3- to 5-year-old children. Mother-child dyads were asked to retell a storybook and to reminisce about an event they experienced in the lab. Children's visual PT, false belief understanding, syntactic PT, and vocabulary were assessed. The results indicated that mothers showed distinct narrative scaffolding styles in each context (storytelling: storyteller and story builder; reminiscing: elicitor, constructor, co-teller). Maternal storytelling styles, but not reminiscing styles were related to children's age. Children of storytellers performed better in syntactic and visual PT tasks than children of story builders, and children of memory elicitors scored higher in visual PT tasks than children of co-tellers. The implications of these findings are discussed within our understanding of how mother-child discourse affects children's socio-cognitive development.Item Open Access Preschoolers’ learning of information from fantastical narrative versus expository books(Elsevier, 2021-05-04) Aydin, E.; Ilgaz, Hande; Allen, Jedediah W.P.This study investigated preschool children’s learning from expository and fantastical narrative books and whether the children would show a tendency for learning from expository books in cases of conflicting information. Over three testing sessions, 71 3- and 5-year-olds were individually read one expository book and one fantastical narrative book. These books contained four types of information units: narrative-only, expository-only, conflicting, and consistent. Children were asked questions that tapped these information units. Results showed a main effect of age, with 5-year-olds learning more information from both books than 3-year-olds. When the information in the narrative and expository books conflicted, 5-year-olds showed a tendency to report information from the expository book, but 3-year-olds were at chance level for prioritizing information learned from either book.Item Open Access Social meta-learning: learning how to make use of others as a resource for further learning(Springer, 2017) Allen, Jedediah W. P.; Ilgaz, Hande; Hakli, R.; Seibt, J.While there is general consensus that robust forms of social learning enable the possibility of human cultural evolution, the specific nature, origins, and development of such learning mechanisms remains an open issue. The current paper offers an action-based approach to the study of social learning in general and imitation learning in particular. From this action-based perspective, imitation itself undergoes learning and development and is modeled as an instance of social meta-learning – children learning how to use others as a resource for further learning. This social meta-learning perspective is then applied empirically to an ongoing debate about the reason children imitate causally unnecessary actions while learning about a new artifact (i.e., over-imitate). Results suggest that children over-imitate because it is the nature of learning about social realities in which cultural artifacts are a central aspect.Item Open Access Teaching for breadth and depth of vocabulary knowledge: learning from explicit and implicit instruction and the storybook texts(Elsevier, 2019) Dickinson, D. K.; Nesbitt, K.; Collins, M.; Hadley, E.; Newman, K.; Rivera, B.; Ilgaz, Hande; Nicolopoulou, A.; Golinkoff, R.; Hirsh-Pasek, K.This paper reports results from two studies conducted to examine word learning among preschool children in group book reading while we developed a scalable method ofteaching words during book reading. We sought to identify factors that fostered both depth and breadth of learning by varying the type of information children heard about words while holding exposures constant. We also asked whether prior word knowledge affects children’s learning across our different instructional approaches. In Study 1 we evaluated pre-post gains from two types of explicit instruction (Didactic and Conceptual), an implicit instructional approach (Review), and repeated Exposure. For all three instructed conditions growth in receptive knowledge (our measure of breadth) was statistically equivalent when compared to control (d = 0.43) and exposure words (d = 0.41). In Study 2, words were taught using an augmented explicit approach and through repeated exposure. Moderate and statistically significant growth in receptive knowledge was found when comparing instructed to control words (d = 0.48) and large effects were found with an expressive task measure of depth of knowledge (d = 1.19). There also was evidence of learning from exposure. Children’s vocabulary knowledge moderated learning gains. In Study 1 children with limited knowledge of vocabulary (0.75 SD below the group mean) learned fewer words than others. In Study 2, pre-test vocabulary knowledge moderated gains on the expressive measure for directly taught words and gains on the receptive measure for words taught through exposure. Thus, when words were intentionally taught, all children except those with the weakest initial knowledge acquired the initial lexical representations captured by the receptive measure at a similar rate. Those with stronger vocabulary more quickly acquired initial representations from exposure alone and deeper knowledge when they received intentional instruction. We conclude that teachers can build depth and breadth of vocabulary knowledge by combining intentional instruction of target words with repeated use of varied words by reading books multiple times and instructional comments that include use of novel words.Item Open Access What makes us human: How minds develop through social interactions(John Wiley & Sons Ltd., 2022-04-04) Ilgaz, Hande; Bürümlü Kısa, Elif; Evsen, Setenay