Department of Preschool Education, University of Thessaly, Volos, Greece.
Death Stud. 2013 Jan;37(1):47-60. doi: 10.1080/07481187.2011.623216.
To investigate whether children's understanding of the concept of death varies as a function of death experience and age, 52 children aged 7, 9, and 11 years (26 had a personal death experience), drew a picture reflecting the meaning of the word death and completed the Death Concept Questionnaire for examination of Human and Animal Death. The results showed that the 2 methodological tools used offered complementary information and that children's understanding of death is related both to age and past experience. Children with death experience seem to have a more realistic understanding of death than their inexperienced age-mates. As regards to the effect of age, our findings support the assumption that the different components of death develop through different processes.
为了研究儿童对死亡概念的理解是否会随着死亡经历和年龄的变化而变化，我们调查了 52 名 7、9 和 11 岁的儿童（其中 26 人有个人死亡经历），让他们画一幅反映单词“死亡”含义的画，并完成《人类和动物死亡的死亡概念问卷》。结果表明，这两种方法工具提供了互补的信息，儿童对死亡的理解既与年龄有关，也与过去的经历有关。有死亡经历的儿童似乎比没有经历过死亡的同龄儿童对死亡有更现实的理解。至于年龄的影响，我们的发现支持了这样一种假设，即死亡的不同组成部分是通过不同的过程发展起来的。
