Wylie Breanne E, Stolzenberg Stacia N, Evans Angela D
Brock University, Canada.
Arizona State University, USA.
Int J Behav Dev. 2021 May;45(3):238-243. doi: 10.1177/0165025420979364. Epub 2021 Jan 7.
Children's developing understanding of language may influence their ability to accurately respond to questions inquiring about their event knowledge (i.e., Why and How Come questions), potentially creating misinterpretations in adult-child communication. The present study examined 120 5-, 7-, and 9-year-old's accuracy in responding to Why and How Come questions about the cause of their behaviors. Children's accuracy improved with age, highlighting a developmental milestone whereby children become highly accurate by 7 years of age. Further, the semantic differences in question type did not influence children's responses, as there were no differences in children's accuracy when answering Why or How Come questions. The findings from this study highlight the developmental shift in children's abilities to answer Why and How Come questions, and thus the importance of considering the age and linguistic abilities of the child when inquiring about their event knowledge.
儿童对语言的逐渐理解可能会影响他们准确回答询问其事件知识的问题（即“为什么”和“怎么会”问题）的能力，这可能会在成人与儿童的交流中造成误解。本研究考察了120名5岁、7岁和9岁儿童回答关于其行为原因的“为什么”和“怎么会”问题的准确性。儿童的准确性随着年龄的增长而提高，这突出了一个发展里程碑，即儿童到7岁时回答问题的准确性会变得很高。此外，问题类型的语义差异并未影响儿童的回答，因为儿童回答“为什么”或“怎么会”问题时的准确性没有差异。这项研究的结果突出了儿童回答“为什么”和“怎么会”问题能力的发展转变，因此在询问儿童的事件知识时，考虑儿童的年龄和语言能力非常重要。
