Child Development Theories and Examples

Guided Reinvention Within Dyadic Goal-Directed Activity

The most intensive basic research on naturally occurring social-interactive modes as vehicles for guided reinvention (outside classrooms) has occurred in the field of language development (Brown, 1980; Bruner, 1983; Bullock, 1979; Cross, 1977; Kaye, 1982; Kaye and Charney, 1980; Lock, 1980; Moerk, 1976; Snow, 1977; Swensen, 1983; Wells, 1974). Most of this research involved children younger than school age. There are, however, a few notable studies of older children in domains of cognitive development other than language (Donaldson, 1978; Heber, 1977; Karplus, 1981; Wertsch, 1979; Wood, 1980). We briefly survey available results from the language development literature and use the results from studies of older children to demonstrate the generality of basic principles.
Both logical (Bruner, 1975; Macnamara, 1972; Wittgenstein, 1953) and empirical (Bullock, 1979; Cross, 1977; Snow, 1977; Swensen, 1983) analyses indicate that normal language development depends on social-cognitive coordination between the child and someone who uses language in a contextually appropriate way while interacting with the child. Other research has shown that mere exposure to television does not result in normal language development, apparently because its dynamic linguistic stimulation is provided without social-cognitive coordination. There is now ample evidence that an extraordinarily high degree of social-cognitive coordination can accelerate language development (Cross, 1977; Swenson, 1983).
Social-cognitive coordination is always a matter of degree. The degree of coordination increases with the amount of overlap between two individuals' understanding of the situation in which they jointly find themselves (e.g., the situation of playing a game). Thus, a high degree of social-cognitive coordination requires the achievement of many moments of shared understanding.
Shared understanding is such a critical factor because normal language development is a comprehension-driven process that involves much more than the learning of syntactic patterns (Curtis, 1981; Macnamara, 1972; Nelson, 1973; Wittgenstein, 1953), even though it is sometimes discussed as a pure exercise in pattern learning (Kiss, 1972). Comprehension involves both isolating new patterns and making sense of them by finding a way to articulate them with what is already understood (Clark and Clark, 1977; Schlesinger, 1982). In guided reinvention the child and adult share an understanding of their joint situation, and the adult's speech takes that understanding as a point of departure while heeding developmental and contextual constraints. As a result of this support, the child stands a good chance of being able to comprehend the adult's utterance the first time he or she hears it, even when it contains novel components (Bullock, 1979; Cross, 1977; Wells, 1974).
How do child and adult articulate new patterns with what the child already understands? The child seeks above all to discover the relevance of the adult's contributions to his or her own purposes and goals at the moment. The adult attempts to ensure that his or her acts are relevant to the child's activity in a way that the child is prepared to discover.
How is shared understanding dynamically maintained over long bouts of interaction? Parents of children who exhibit rapid language development actively work to maintain shared understanding over long stretches of interaction. They do this in several ways. They introduce objects to serve as bases for joint activities, and they closely monitor their child's apparent goals or intentions. During most of their interactive turns, they attempt to modulate, correct, or elaborate their child's behavior rather than redirect it. And they construct an internal model of their child's current preferences, skills, and world knowledge, which they continuously update and check (Brown, 1980; Kaye, 1982; Nelson, 1973; Snow, 1977).