Carew J V
Monogr Soc Res Child Dev. 1980;45(6-7):1-115.
This study examined the relationship between the antecedent everyday experiences of middle-class children in middle-class day-care centers and their intellectual development assessed by the Binet and tests of Spatial Abilities and Receptive Language at age 3. As in the previous study of children in home care, certain types of experiences were hypothesized in advance to be intellectually valuable in that they seemed to provide the clearest opportunities for the child to learn the skills required for successful test performance. The study demonstrated that these experiences were indeed uniquely intellectually valuable in that (apart from preparatory, planful activities) they comprised the only category of everyday experiences that predicted test scores. The research then compared the predictive power of various combinations of sources and topics of intellectual experiences. As expected from the home-care results, language-mastery experiences provided by caregivers when the child was 18--33 months old were clearly the most valuable type of intellectual experiences in predicting test scores at age 3. This subset of intellectual experiences stood out as the strongest predictor of IQ in day care. Performance on the Spatial Abilities and Receptive Language tests was also significantly predicted by language-mastery experiences but here, in contrast to IQ, other types of interactive experiences in which the child played a more prominent role vis-à-vis the caregiver and also experiences which focused on the acquisition of skills other than language were beneficial. The critical importance of intellectually stimulating interaction with caregivers was highlighted by the finding that, of the six combinations of sources and topics of intellectual experiences that proved predictive of test scores, four referred to experiences occurring in interactive situations in which the child are caregiver jointly created the intellectual experiences or in which the caregiver unilaterally structured the experiences for the child. By comparison, intellectual experiences that the child generated for himself in solitary play explained little of the variance in test performance. In sum, this study strongly suggested that, by reciprocally or unilaterally providing various forms of intellectual stimulation and especially experiences designed to foster the mastery of language, caregivers may play a essential, --at least insofar as the 3-year-old's intellectual competence is validly assessed by measures like IQ. Why teachers provided more of this stimulation to some children than others was not clear. Their differential treatment seems to have been guided in part by perceptions of individual intellectual development and especially language competence, but, as in the home-care study, their behavior also seems to have been affected by many other unmeasured factors.
本研究考察了中产阶级日托中心里中产阶级儿童的日常经历与其3岁时通过比奈测试、空间能力测试和接受性语言测试所评估的智力发展之间的关系。正如之前对家庭照料儿童的研究一样，某些类型的经历事先被假定在智力方面具有价值，因为它们似乎为儿童提供了最清晰的机会来学习成功完成测试所需的技能。该研究表明，这些经历在智力方面确实具有独特的价值，因为（除了有准备的、有计划的活动之外）它们是唯一能够预测测试成绩的日常经历类别。这项研究接着比较了智力体验的各种来源和主题组合的预测能力。正如从家庭照料的研究结果中所预期的那样，照料者在孩子18至33个月大时提供的语言掌握体验显然是预测3岁时测试成绩最有价值的智力体验类型。这一智力体验子集在日托中是智商的最强预测指标。空间能力测试和接受性语言测试的表现也能由语言掌握体验显著预测，但在此，与智商情况不同的是，孩子相对于照料者发挥更突出作用的其他类型互动体验，以及专注于获取语言以外技能的体验也是有益的。与照料者进行智力激发互动的至关重要性通过以下发现得以凸显：在被证明能预测测试成绩的六种智力体验来源和主题组合中，有四种涉及在互动情境中发生的体验，即孩子和照料者共同创造智力体验，或者照料者单方面为孩子构建体验。相比之下，孩子在独自玩耍中为自己创造的智力体验对测试表现的差异解释甚少。总之，这项研究有力地表明，通过相互或单方面提供各种形式的智力刺激，尤其是旨在促进语言掌握的体验活动来发挥作用，照料者可能发挥着至关重要的作用——至少就3岁儿童的智力能力通过智商等测量手段得到有效评估而言是如此。教师为何对某些孩子提供比其他孩子更多的这种刺激尚不清楚。他们的区别对待似乎部分受到对个体智力发展尤其是语言能力的认知的引导，但与家庭照料研究一样，他们的行为似乎也受到许多其他未测量因素的影响。
