Social learning has given us insight into how children learn actions from others across different domains (e.g., actions on objects, pretend play, and tool use). However, little research exists to confirm whether young children can generate their own novel actions. Three different settings were chosen to offer a varied investigation of children’s ability to generate novel actions: generating multiple actions with novel objects; generating iconic gestures in order to communicate; and generating pretend actions using object substitution. Generating multiple actions with novel objects: The Unusual Box test was developed to investigate children’s ability to generate multiple actions with novel objects (Chapter 2). The Unusual Box test involves children playing with a wooden box that contains many different features (e.g., rings, stairs, strings), and five novel objects. The number of different actions performed on the box and with the objects (i.e., fluency) was used as a measure of their individual learning. Positive correlations between the fluency scores of 24 3- and 4-year-olds on the Unusual Box test and two existing measures of divergent thinking were found. Divergent thinking relates to the ability to think of multiple answers based on one premise. Furthermore, a large range of fluency scores indicated individual differences in children’s ability to generate multiple actions with novel objects. In addition, 16 2-year-olds were assessed on the Unusual Box test, twice two weeks apart, to investigate test-retest reliability and the possibility that the Unusual Box test could be used with children younger than 3 years. A strong positive correlation between the scores on the two assessments showed high test-retest reliability, while individual differences in fluency scores and the absence of a floor effect indicated that the Unusual Box test was usable in children from 2 years of age. Generating iconic gestures in order to communicate: Children’s ability to generate iconic gestures in order to communicate was assessed using a game to request stickers from an experimenter (N = 20, Chapter 3). In order to get a sticker children had to communicate to the experimenter which out of two objects they wanted (only one object had a sticker attached to it). Children’s use of speech or pointing was ineffective; therefore only generating an iconic gesture was sufficient to retrieve the sticker. Children generated a correct iconic gesture on 71% of the trials. These findings indicate that children generate their own iconic gestures in order to communicate; and that they understand the representational nature of iconic gestures, and use this in their own generation of iconic gestures. Generating pretend actions using object substitution: In order to determine whether children are able to generate their own object substitution actions and understand the representational nature of these actions, 45 3- and 4-year-olds were familiarized with the goal of a task through modelling actions. Children distinguished between the intentions of an experimenter to pretend, or try and perform a correct action. Children mainly imitated the pretend actions, while correcting the trying actions. Next, children were presented with objects for which they had to generate their own object substitution actions without being shown a model. When children had previously been shown pretend actions, children generated their own object substitution actions. This indicates that children generate their own object substitution actions, and that they understand the representational nature of these actions. An additional study with 34 3-year-olds, revealed no significant correlations between divergent thinking, inhibitory control, or children’s object substitution in a free play setting, and children’s ability to generate object substitution actions in the experimental setting.

Denna essä avser att uppnå en djupare förståelse om vad barns fria lek och fysiska lek innebär i förskolan och på vilket sätt fysisk lek bidrar till barns lärande och värdegrundsarbete, genom reflektioner med hjälp av mina erfarenheter och vetenskapliga teorier. Fokus riktas mot barnens inomhuslek. Till denna essä används Lev S Vygotskijs teorier om barns lärande och utveckling samt fantasi och kreativitet. William Corsaros teorier om barns kamratkulturer används för att reflektera över barnens finess i hur de anpassar sig efter förskolans regler. Förutom detta används två lekperspektiv för att fördjupa förståelsen av barns fysiska lek.   Förskolan omfattas av den fria leken där den karakteriseras av att den erbjuder barnen fria val att välja lek, lekkamrater och vilket material som ska användas i leken. Enligt min erfarenhet har jag dock upplevt att fri lek inte är så fri som det låter. Därför kommer jag att undersöka pedagogiska aspekter av den fria leken. Fysisk lek utmanar och väcker pedagogiska frågor och farhågor bland pedagoger i förskolan. Mina reflektioner har fått mig inse att friheten i barns lek är komplext och kräver kritisk reflektion av mitt och andra pedagogers förhållningssätt inför frågor som uppstår vid fysisk lek. Detta har lett mig till förståelsen att fysisk lek har en stämpel som frambringar negativa associationer. Dessa negativa associationer inverkar på hur pedagoger bemöter barn i den fysiska leken. Till exempel frambringar ”bråklek” associationer till allvarligt bråk som leder till konsekvensen att pedagogen avbryter leken. Denna insikt har bidragit till att jag undersökt andra benämningar på fysisk lek vilket fått mig att se vad som sker bortom det som är synligt i barns fysiska lek.    Med nyfikenhet och respekt för barns intresse för att leka fysiska lekar har jag insett hur givande fysiska lekar kan vara för barnen. För att fysiska lekar ska bli givande för barnen behöver pedagogerna ge dem rätta förutsättningar i leken. / This essay intends to achieve a deeper understanding of what children's free play and physical play means in the preschool and in what way physical play contributes to children's learning and value-based work, through reflections using my experiences and scientific theories. The focus is on the children's indoor play. Lev S Vygotsky's theories on children's learning and development as well as imagination and creativity are used for this essay. William Corsaro's theories of children's peer cultures are used to reflect on the children's finesse in how they adapt to the preschool's rules. In addition to this, two play perspectives are used to deepen the understanding of children's physical play. The preschool is embraced by the free play in which it is characterized by the fact that it offers children free choices to choose play, playmates and which material to use in the play. In my experience, however, I have experienced that free play is not as free as it sounds. Therefore, I will examine the educational aspects of free play. Physical play challenges and raises pedagogical issues and concerns among educators in preschool. My reflections have made me realize that freedom in children's play is complex and requires critical reflection of my and other pedagogues’ attitudes to issues that arise during physical play. This has led me to the understanding that physical play has a stamp that gives rise to negative associations. These negative associations affect how educators encounter children in the physical play. For example, gives “play fighting”rise to associations with serious fighting leading to the consequence that the educator interrupts the play. This insight has helped me to see into other names of physical play which made me see what happens beyond what is visiblein children's physical play. With curiosity and respect for children's interest in playing physical play, I have realized how rewarding physical play can be for the children. For physical play to be rewarding for the children, the educators need to give them the right conditions in the play.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-28T18:23:45Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Silmara Parise Barosa.pdf: 292799 bytes, checksum: eddb06ac810214162de05d3f6460cd04 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2008-05-27 / This research examines the casual conversation of children between the ages of five and six within social interactions in pretend plays. Herein, I show how a number of researchers face pretend play, its relevance to the child´s development and the importance of this experience to the nuclear self I attempt, at first, to point out the importance of social interaction, in this context, to the improvement of the child´s linguistic skills; secondly, I try to highlight the lexicogrammatical choices made by these children when setting the limits between reality and fantasy, those that reveal their pragmatic competence. For this reason, I fall back upon the theoretical frame of Functional Systemic Linguistics (Halliday 1994), with special emphasis on the interpersonal metafunction and also on casual conversation (Eggins & Slade, 1997). The analyses embrace the acts of speech, lexicogrammatical choices and pragmatic competence. The results suggest that five-to-six-year-old children are capable of providing information exchange and posing challenges for the negotiation of power during pretend play, and that the fantasy context is propitious for interaction practice, without the presence of an adult. Note the intertext that sets a new social and cultural context based on the relationship of values and beliefs that the interactants bring from their family circle. The construction of the social self involves the recognition of social roles and the assignment of these roles among the participants. The marking of the reality and fantasy reference frames is realized through verbs in the present and past tenses in all the analyzed texts, and the findings of Musatti & Orsolini (1993); Lodge (1979); Kaper (1980); James (1982) e Van Gessel-Hotcker (1989) corroborate it. In addition, the analyses show the children´s competence concerning the use of pragmatic features of language when it comes to the structural dimensions related to the turn-taking dynamics; social, as the mutual intention to topics of conversation; cognitive, as the interactants communicative intention; and linguistic, as the use of speech markers, verbs, and pronouns to connect / Este trabalho examina a conversa casual de crianças de 5 a 6 anos de idade em contextos de interação social na brincadeira de faz-de-conta. Mostro como os vários pesquisadores encaram a brincadeira de faz-de-conta, sua relevância para o desenvolvimento infantil e a importância dessa experiência para a formação do eu nuclear. Tento, em um primeiro momento, destacar a importância da interação social nesse contexto para o crescimento das habilidades lingüísticas da criança; em um segundo momento, tento ressaltar as escolhas léxico-gramaticais feitas pelas crianças ao marcar os limites entre a realidade e a fantasia, aquelas que denunciam sua competência pragmática. Para tanto, recorro ao arcabouço teórico da Lingüística Sistêmico Funcional (Halliday 1994), com especial enfoque na metafunção interpessoal, e também sobre a conversa casual (Eggins & Slade, 1997). As análises abrangem os atos de fala, as escolhas léxico-gramaticais e a competência pragmática. Os resultados sugerem que as crianças da faixa etária de 5 a 6 anos são capazes de proporcionar a troca de informações e oferecer desafios para a negociação do poder durante o jogo de faz-de-conta, e que o contexto de fantasia é propício ao exercício da interação, sem a presença do adulto. Note-se o intertexto que redesenha um contexto social e cultural baseado na filiação dos valores e crenças que os interactantes trazem do ambiente familiar e que constituem o contexto em que ocorrem as interações. A construção do eu social, envolve o reconhecimento de papéis sociais e a atribuição desses papéis entre os participantes. A marcação dos enquadres de referência da realidade e da fantasia é realizada pelo tempo verbal no presente e no pretérito, em todos os textos analisados, e corroboram os achados de (Musatti & Orsolini (1993); Lodge (1979); Kaper (1980); James (1982) e Van Gessel-Hotcker (1989) em uma perspectiva interlingüística. As análises revelam, ainda, a competência das crianças quanto ao uso de aspectos pragmáticos da linguagem nas dimensões da estrutura discursiva, como a dinâmica de tomada de turno; social, como a atenção mútua aos tópicos da conversa; cognitiva, como as intenções comunicativas dos interactantes; e lingüística, como o uso de marcadores de discurso, verbos, e pronomes para conectar as idéias

This thesis will illustrate how pretend play can be used in the home for educational purposes. The major emphasis of the work will be emergent literacy, however, application principles can be applied in all subject areas. Parents who desire to expand their child's literacy skills while exposing the child to an arts enriched home environment need ideas and tools developed with supportive research to strengthen and focus their efforts. These tools will greatly expand parental resources by offering several principles as a guide for adapting existing classroom materials for home use. The following Seven Components form the core foundation for adapting pretend play materials to aid the home learning environment curricula: (1) Child as Active Participant (Vygotsky; Piaget). (2) Parent as Role Model for Dramatic Play and Literacy, serves as Facilitator, and Co-player (Haight and Miller; Vygotsky). (3) Physical environment could be anywhere: car, office, or bedroom. (4) Resource material: should be able to use common found objects in home, with limited preparations or expense. (5) Play Content needed to provide elements of literacy: cognitive learning, symbol representation, oral language, self-expression, listening and comprehension (Goodman). (6) Promote creative and fun learning experience with a relaxed, informal atmosphere. (7) Play should be process and discovery oriented, and not for performance (Brown and Pleydell; Tuge). This thesis will also examine the preliminary results of a study for parents and children who applied a curriculum developed with the core components and explored the participants' interest level in such activities. Recommendations for further research will also be made.

La capacità di capire la mente e di predire il comportamento in età prescolastica si basa su concetti mentali o i bambini capiscono gli altri costruendo significanti nell'interazione senza elaborare una formale teoria della mente – TOM? Studio 1: l'analisi coi modelli di Rasch delle performance di 141 bambini alla versione italiana della TOM Scale (Wellman, Liu, 2004) rileva la sequenza: desideri – credenze – emozioni. I risultati vengono letti nei termini della crescente capacità dei bambini a considerare prospettive diverse, e non solo in termini di sviluppo concettuale. Sudio 2: la codifica delle interazioni di 72 bambini nel gioco di finzione (con una griglia appositamente costruita) mostra un progresso nella costruzione collaborativa dei significati solo parzialmente associato alle abilità TOM e individua nella calma un correlato del successo TOM. studio 3: dall'intervista di 36 madri emerge un legame tra mindfulness materna e calma dei bambini, e tra mind-mindedness e mentalità psicologica materne e capacità di ragionamento mentale dei bambini. La letteratura e i risultati del presente lavoro portano a riconoscere che l'esperienza interpersonale sostiene lo sviluppo del ragionamento mentale e suggeriscono che future valutazioni della capacità di capire la mente coinvolgano più direttamente i bambini di quanto facciano gli attuali strumenti formali. / Do preschoolers need mental concepts in order to reason and predict behavior, or do they construe meaning within interactions and do not need to build formal theories of mind - ToM? In study 1, the Rasch analysis of 141 children's performances on the Italian version of the ToM Scale (Wellman, Liu, 2004) shows a progression of understanding from desire, to belief to emotion. Results are discussed in terms of children's increasing experience at dealing with different perspectives that interacts with conceptual development. In study 2, the observation of 72 preschoolers' dyadic play interactions (coded with an exhaustive scheme developed ad-hoc) shows progress in children's collaborative construction of meaning, partially independent from abilities measured by the ToM Scale, and finds calmness as a correlate of ToM success. In study 3, the interview of 36 mothers reveals that maternal mindfulness is related to children's calmness and that maternal mind- and psychological mindedness are associated with children's facility at reasoning about the mental world. The theoretical review and empirical evidence collected lead to recognizing the role played by interpersonal and interactive experiences in framing mental reasoning, and suggest that future research measure social understanding in more participative, subjective situations than current formal assessment.