12 ToM Learning, Teaching Knutsen, Frye, Sobel-Proof-3

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Chapter 12
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Theory of Learning,
Theory of Teaching,
and Theory of Mind
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How Social-Cognitive Development
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Influences Children’s Understanding
of Learning and Teaching
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John Knutsen, Douglas Frye, and David M. Sobel

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One of the fundamental goals of research in cognitive development is

to describe how children learn. Young children have powerful learning
mechanisms for incorporating observed data with existing knowledge (see
e.g., Griffiths, Sobel, Tenenbaum, & Gopnik, 2011). But young children
©
also lack particular metacognitive abilities that prevent them from reflect-
ing on how learning occurs or how beliefs change (e.g., Dunbar & Klahr,
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1989; Klahr, 2000; Kuhn, 1989; Schauble, 1990, 1996) and possibly from
introspecting in general (e.g., Flavell, Green, & Flavell, 1995). These dif-
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ficulties do not mean that young children cannot learn. Rather, they sug-
gest that young children might engage in the process differently than older
Contemporary Perspectives on Research in Theory of Mind in Early Childhood Education, pages 269–290
Copyright © 2014 by Information Age Publishing
All rights of reproduction in any form reserved. 269
270  J. KNUTSEN, D. FRYE, and D. M. SOBEL
children, reflect on their knowledge differently, and for the purposes of

the present chapter, conceptualize the process of learning differently than
older children.
At the same time, children’s teaching has been described as “natural cog-
[QA: There is no refer- nition” (Strauss, 2002). Teaching is a common behavior children engage
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ence for this citation.]
in from early on and is clearly related to children’s developing knowledge
of their own and others’ mental states (e.g., Astington, & Pelletier, 1996;
Strauss, Ziv, & Stein, 2002; Wellman & Lagattuta, 2004; Ziv & Frye, 2004;
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Ziv, Solomon, & Frye, 2008; although see Davis-Unger & Carlson, 2008, for
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an alternative view). Many of these investigations suggest that how children
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engage in teaching others and how they understand the process of teach-
ing (i.e., who needs to be taught or how that teaching will take place) is a
function of what children know about how their own and others’ beliefs are
formed and change.
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These two literatures for the most part have developed independently,
and while both have seen significant advances in what we know about chil-
dren’s learning and teaching, there is much to be gained from integrating
these two approaches. This is the goal of this chapter. We will argue that what
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a child understands about the ways learning and teaching are accomplished
are deeply dependent upon the child’s developing metacognitive knowledge.
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We divide our review into three sections. First, we examine what chil-
dren might know about learning as a mental process and how their under-
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standing of learning concepts potentially develops. Second, we investigate

children’s developing understanding of teaching—when and how to com-
municate information to others to provide them with information they did
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not previously possess. Finally, we consider how these concepts potentially

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develop in high-functioning children with Autism Spectrum Disorder, who

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are known to lack particular skills in social cognition.

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Children’s Developing Concepts of Learning
What do young children know about the process of learning—the circum-

stances under which ignorance is replaced by knowledge or knowledge
changes based on information available in the environment? A good start-
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ing point for answering this question is what children know about their
own knowledge, and there is evidence that such awareness is present at
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early ages. For instance, children use the word know in their spontaneous
conversational utterances by age 3 (Shatz, Wellman, & Silber, 1983). Very
young children also understand the difference between knowing and not
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knowing (e.g., Pillow, 1989; Pratt & Bryant, 1990). Between the ages of 3
and 5, children learn to recognize that beliefs can be false (e.g., Perner,
Leekham, & Wimmer, 1987; Wimmer & Perner, 1983), the difference
Theory of Learning, Theory of Teaching, and Theory of Mind  271
between knowledge and ignorance (e.g., Hogrefe, Wimmer, & Perner,

1986), when their own beliefs have changed (e.g., Gopnik & Astington,
1988), and the difference between their own knowledge and that of an-
other person (Wimmer, Hogrefe, & Perner, 1988). Moreover, during this
age, children recognize that others’ false beliefs can arise from misconcep-
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tions about specific pieces of information (e.g., being told that “cats can
read”) (Flavell, Mumme, Green, & Flavell, 1992) or from naturally occur- [QA: There is no refer-
ring thoughts (e.g., such as that others cannot hold the appearance/real-
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ity distinction) (see Miller, Holmes, Gitten, & Danbury, 1997). In general, [QA: There is no refer-
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during this time, children appreciate that others can hold beliefs contrary
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to the actual state of the world and that they themselves can hold such false
beliefs (for a review, see Wellman, Cross, & Watson, 2001).
Generally, however, preschoolers do not understand where their knowl-
edge comes from or that they have acquired a new piece of knowledge.
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For instance, when taught new pieces of knowledge, young preschoolers
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typically claim that they knew it all along (Esbensen, Taylor, & Stoess, 1997;
Taylor, Esbensen, & Bennett, 1994). Similarly, while 4-year-olds might un-
derstand that their knowledge changes, it is not until later in development
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that they can track how they know that change occurred (e.g., Gopnik &
Graf, 1988). Further, 4-year-olds’ understanding of the indeterminacy of
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belief is limited (Kuhn, 2002), that is, young children lack the metacog-
nitive knowledge that beliefs can be variable and can change given novel
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data (e.g., Carpendale & Chandler, 1996; Eisbach, 2004; Kuhn, Cheney, &
Weinstock, 2000).
As children come to understand that mental states are related and in-
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tertwined with others, they also become more aware of the indeterminacy
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of mental states. For instance, Eisbach (2004) demonstrated that between

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the ages of 4 and 7, children become more aware that beliefs can lead to
other beliefs in a variable manner, that is, two people who initially see the
same percept can have different subsequent beliefs about that percept (if
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you and I see a bear, I might think of a trip to the zoo while you might think
about your favorite childhood toy). To use Miller’s (2000) terminology, [QA: There is no refer-
while young children may understand the situational characteristics of how
beliefs are derived from information, they potentially do not understand
how different individuals might bring different pieces of knowledge to a
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situation and apply that knowledge differently.

To investigate some of these issues, Sobel (2012) considered the differ-
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ence between preschoolers’ understanding of learning as recognizing that

someone’s knowledge has changed as opposed understanding someone is
capable of a particular act. Learning requires a knowledge or belief change;
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if children’s judgments of learning focus only on the outcome, they should

not distinguish learning from various other factors (e.g., luck) that could
be responsible for that outcome.
In one experiment, children heard stories about characters who initially

did not know a piece of information (e.g., how to solve a set of puzzles)
and were exposed to a teacher who worked with them to teach them how
to solve the puzzles. Of particular interest were conflict stories, in which
the character made a claim about whether s/he learned how to solve the
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puzzles after the teacher’s intervention, which conflicted with the charac-
ter’s ability to demonstrate that knowledge (i.e., the character could have
claimed she learned how to solve the puzzles but failed to solve them later
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or the character could have claimed she did not learn how to solve the
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puzzles but could solve them later).
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Three-year-olds did not make systematic responses when asked whether
the characters learned the puzzles, while 4-year-olds reliably used the char-
acter’s demonstrative abilities, and overall, the usage of these demonstra-
tive abilities correlated with children’s performance on a standard measure
[QA: Please indicate a

year for this citation.] I
of false belief (i.e., Perner et al., 1987), in which children must recognize
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that another has a belief different from the actual state of the world. Criti-
cally, in another experiment, Sobel (XXXX) replicated this procedure
without informing children at the onset of the story that the character was
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ignorant. In this case, in which the stories were not about the indetermi-
nacy of the character’s beliefs, 3-year-olds’ performance improved. They,
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like 4-year-olds, responded based on the character’s demonstrative actions
and not their claims about whether they learned (and responding was no
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longer related to children’s false-belief capacities).

These data suggest that preschoolers are sensitive to judgments about
the indeterminacy of beliefs when making judgments about whether others
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have learned. However, this work only focuses on children’s appreciation

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of the role that changing beliefs has in learning. What about other men-
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tal states? Sobel, Li, and Corriveau (2007) hypothesized that the theory of
mind literature also provides a blueprint for how children develop their
conceptualization of the learning process. Following other research in
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theory of mind (e.g., Bartsch & Wellman, 1995; Wellman, 1990), children
start with a relatively immature concept based on desires: a learner’s desires
underlie whether information is learned, regardless of their other men-
tal states. After age 4, children might realize the importance of noise-level
and the importance of interest in paying attention to a particular topic
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(e.g., Miller & Zalenski, 1982). However, preschoolers have difficulty ar-
ticulating an adult-like conception of attentional focus (e.g., Flavell et al.,
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1995, Flavell, Green, Flavell, & Grossman, 1997). As such, children’s under-
standing of the role of attention in learning might lag behind that of de-
sire. Finally, there is some understanding of intentionality at very early ages
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(e.g., Woodward, 1998). However, understanding that intentions and de-

sires are distinct and that intended actions can produce desired results by
accident occurs after children come to understand that intentional actions
are epistemic (i.e., that people intentionally act because they believe their
actions will have particular results; see e.g., Feinfeld, Lee, Flavell, Green,
& Flavell, 1999; Phillips, Baron-Cohen, & Rutter, 1998; Schult, 2002; for a
review, see also Moses, 2001).
To test these hypotheses, Sobel et al. (2007) first performed a CHILDES
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analysis, examining five corpora of parent-child interactions. They isolat-
ed children’s spontaneous usage of the words learn and teach, and analogs
based on those roots (e.g., learning). They found that as children got old-
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er, their utterances were more likely to indicate an understanding of how
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learning was taking place. Talk about the role desire played in learning de-
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creased with age, while talk about the role attention played remained stable
(children rarely talked about intentionality). These natural language data
suggest that as children grow, they begin to understand learning in terms of
other mental states in addition to desire.
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The utterances they analyzed were a small sample, and the fact that chil-
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dren did not talk about learning much does not indicate that they lack an
understanding of the learning process. In follow-up procedures, Sobel et al.
(2007) investigated 4- and 6-year-olds’ understanding of whether characters
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learned information based on conflicts between various mental states. Chil-
dren were told explicitly about two mental states of a character that were
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either consistent or inconsistent with each other. For example, a consistent
story might be that the character wanted to learn something and attended
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to the relevant information, while an inconsistent story might be that the

character wanted to learn, but failed to attend. They found that both age
groups correctly judged whether learning would occur in the consistent
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cases, but justified their responses differently. Four-year-olds justified re-

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sponses in terms of desires (even when desire was not mentioned). Six-year-
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olds were more likely to justify their responses in terms of attention and
intentionality of the characters.
More interesting are the responses on the inconsistent stories. Four-year-
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olds’ responses were desire-based—they judged that learning occurred if

the character wanted to learn, regardless of the character’s other mental
states. Six-year-olds were more likely to judge that characters who lacked
the intention to learn or who failed to attend to information would not
learn, even if they wanted to learn. There was also evidence that the older
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children began to appreciate that learning could be incidental—6-year-olds

were more likely than 4-year-olds to say that a character who attended to
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information would learn it, even if she did not practice.

Taken together, these data suggest that children’s explicit judgments of
whether learning occurs follow a developmental pathway that parallels their
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understanding of belief. Children potentially start as “desire psychologists”

(Gopnik & Wellman, 1994; Wellman, 1990) and appreciate the role of per-
ceptual access (e.g., Wellman et al., 2001) and then intentionality later in
development (e.g., Schult, 2002). Children might similarly be desire-based

about whether learning occurs and come to appreciate the roles these oth-
er mental states play as they move into the elementary school years.
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Children’s Developing Concepts of Teaching
Learning and teaching are often complementary activities that occur in
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relation to each other (LeBlanc & Bearison, 2004; Strauss & Shilony, 1994).
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One person teaches and the other learns in a joint interaction. However,
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this relation does not mean that exactly the same mental states and skills
are involved for both. For example, learning can either be intentional,
when we set out to acquire new knowledge or skills, or incidental, when we
find out something new that we did not expect to know. Teaching, arguably,
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can only be intentional. We have specialized terms to distinguish instances
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when we learn something from someone without their help (e.g., observa-
tional learning, incidental learning, or imitation).
Teaching can be defined as an intentional activity to increase someone’s
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knowledge or skills (Frye & Ziv, 2005; Kruger & Tomasello, 1996). Given
that there is a goal to teaching, it is possible to recognize an activity as teach-
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ing, even if it is unsuccessful. Describing teaching as intentional also makes
it possible to separate it from imitation, in which someone learns from an-
other but the other might not have the goal to teach (Premack & Premack,
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1996). Olson and Bruner (1996) were among the first to apply a theory of
mind approach to teaching (see also Strauss, 1993; Strauss & Shilony, 1994)
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and reasoned that instruction depends on a perceived knowledge differ-

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ence between teacher and student. They point out that when there is “no
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[QA: Please indicate attribution of ignorance [then there is] no effort to teach” (p. 12). Recog-
to which reference this
page number refers.] nizing the lack of knowledge or possession of mistaken information makes
it possible to adopt a goal to change that state through a chosen activity.
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This mental state definition of teaching suggests that young children will
need theory of mind abilities before they can recognize teaching and dis-
tinguish it from other means of acquiring knowledge. Specifically, children
will need to be able to appreciate when people lack knowledge or are igno-
rant (Hogrefe et al., 1986) and when they have mistaken beliefs (Wimmer
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& Perner, 1983). They will also have to begin to identify when people are
[QA: There is no refer- acting intentionally (Astington, 1991; Baird & Moses, 2001; Feinfeld et al.,
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1999; Moses, 2001; Schult, 2002). These developments are accomplished

during the preschool and entry-to-school period. Their timing indicates
that the understanding of teaching should be accomplished near the start
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of formal schooling.
Perhaps the first systematic investigation of teaching (although not
[QA: There is no refer- described as such) comes from Piaget (1926), who compared children’s
spontaneous language utterances with those of other children and adults.

He found that the majority of the utterances generated by two 6.5-year-olds
he observed were egocentric. In further observations of children interact-
ing, he outlines stages of communication, ranging from purely egocentric,
in which children at age 4 have roughly two distinct monologues, to a stage
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in which they can dialogue about collaborative action (at roughly age 5.5),
and then finally dialogue about action or events not directly present (at
roughly age 7). It is interesting that these latter stages are often evidence of
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teaching in young children. For instance (taken as evidence of children in
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the second stage):
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Rog (5;6) asks Ez (6;4) to explain a point in an education game: “Was there
one of these ones with the yellow ones?”
Jac (7;2): You musn’t show him.
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Ez: There are yellow ones. He’s doing it all wrong. That one’s much easier.
You can finish it now. Go along and finish it. (Piaget, 1926, p. 61)
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We do not necessarily endorse Piaget’s ideas about communication at age
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4 being completely egocentric, and suggest, like many others, that young-
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er children might have fairly advanced perspective-taking abilities both in
their natural language (e.g., Bartsch & Wellman, 1995; Shatz et al., 1983)
and cognition (e.g., Miller, 2000; Wellman et al., 2001). What is interesting
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about this exchange (and many of these examples) is that the communica-
tion describes a clear act of teaching. One child (Rog) asks for information
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from another child. The other child (Ez) provides that information (with
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the third child, Jac, more metacognitively saying that Ez should not). Such
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spontaneous instances of teaching are potentially commonplace for these

older children. An open question is when such teaching acts emerge in
children’s communication, and when children recognize acts as teaching.
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Identifying Teaching
We will first examine when young children recognize that teaching is tak-
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ing place. Ziv and Frye (2004) presented preschoolers with short scenarios
based on the mental-state components of teaching. They were told simple
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stories in which characters differed in their knowledge of how to do some-

thing (e.g., read) and then were asked to predict whether one character
would try to teach the other. Both 3.5- and 5.5-year-olds were able to answer
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these questions correctly. They were able to say that the person who has
knowledge about something would teach the other who did not (i.e., “Who
should be taught?” and “Who can teach?” stories). Children were even able
to make this judgment when the person who possessed the knowledge was
a child and the person who lacked it was an adult teacher (“Can a teacher
be taught?”). This pattern of results indicates that 3.5-year-olds use knowl-
edge conditions to interpret teaching and do so despite the usual role of
the character. It also confirms Olson and Bruner’s (1996) prediction that
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young children appreciate that a lack of knowledge is necessary for teach-
ing to occur.
Ziv et al. (2008) used a similar approach to see if 3.5- and 5.5-year-olds
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realized that intention was a defining feature of teaching. They presented
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children with stories that contrasted teaching with imitation, thus removing
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the intention to teach from the story. For instance, children heard about
a character (A), who learned from watching another person (B), who was
unaware that A was watching. Three-and-a-half-year-olds judged that B was
teaching, while 5.5-years-olds recognized that B was not teaching.
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Children were also given an example of guided discovery learning in
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which a teacher was trying to teach but presented the activity as if it were a
game (Embedded teaching). Here, the younger children thought that the
teacher only wanted to play, but the older group began to acknowledge that
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the adult’s goal was to teach. The results of these stories indicated that only
the 5.5-year-olds used intention to distinguish teaching from learning in
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situations like imitation and guided discovery.
Finally, Ziv et al. (2008) investigated whether children appreciate the
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role belief has in guiding instructors’ actions. The actual knowledge states
of the learners do not determine teaching, but the perception of those
knowledge states do. For example, what if a teacher were to have a false
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belief about a student’s knowledge, as might occur when someone under-

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estimates the level of understanding of a new class or particular student? If

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this situation is judged on the actual knowledge states involved, no teach-

ing would be predicted, but if the teacher’s perspective is relevant, there
will be an attempt to teach. Ziv et al. presented 3.5- and 5.5-year-olds with
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stories in which teachers had a variety of inaccurate beliefs. In these stories,

the teacher either assumed the student did not know, when he actually did
(Underestimate learner); or assumed he knew, when he did not (Overesti-
mate learner); or assumed that his own knowledge was correct, when it was
not (Overestimate self). Only the 5.5-year-olds were able to predict teach-
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ing on the basis of the teacher’s point of view, and this understanding was
correlated with success on a standard unexpected-transfer false-belief task
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(Wimmer & Perner, 1983). Thus, the more complicated knowledge condi-
tions again reveal a developmental advantage for 5.5-year-olds in being able
to understand what teaching is and when it will occur.
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The difference between younger and older preschoolers’ understand-

ing of the mental state components of teaching has direct implications for
their concept of teaching and may affect how they recognize it in everyday
situations. For example, teaching and imitation are both specific means
of knowledge acquisition with unique characteristics. The current results,
however, indicate that only older preschoolers distinguish between the two.
The distinction is important because understanding the difference is neces-
sary for having different expectations in the two situations. In real instances
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that correspond to the stories presented here, young preschoolers might
expect an adult’s level of involvement in a student’s learning to be the same
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whether the adult was teaching or just being observed doing something.
Moreover, some of the data on children’s understanding of the learn-
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ing process integrate well with these results. In both cases, children have
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to separate beliefs from reality, suggesting that what children know about
how beliefs are formed, represented, and change informs their understand-
ing of both learning and teaching. That said, the inferences children have
to make are slightly different. In the cases in which children have to dis-
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tinguish between claims or false beliefs about learning and the reality of
evidence for learning, children have to ignore the claim and focus on the
reality. In the cases of judging teaching, children have to use the false belief
of the teacher while ignoring the reality of the knowledge states.
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Children’s Teaching
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One activity in which it must be expected that children’s conception

of teaching would make a difference is in their own teaching. It is not un-
usual for school-aged children to be given the opportunity to engage in
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peer teaching (e.g., Flynn, 2010; Rogoff, 1990) or reciprocal instruction

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(e.g., Brown & Palincsar, 1989). If young children are just developing a con-
ception of teaching, it is likely to make an observable difference in how
they approach the activity. Arguably, intention links the understanding and
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conduct of teaching. Because teaching is an intentional activity, you have to

understand what it is in order to be able to do it.
Consequently, placing young children in a situation in which they have
an opportunity to teach could be a good test of their understanding of
teaching. In order to recognize whom they should teach, children must
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realize that a potential student lacks skill or knowledge, and they must in-
tentionally choose a strategy to do something about it. Wood, Wood, Ain-
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sworth, and O’Malley (1995) examined children’s teaching by studying

pairs of 3-, 5-, and 7-year-olds in which one child knew how to construct a
block pattern because they had previously been taught by an adult and the
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other did not. The oldest children displayed the most success in teaching by
using verbal instructions and contingent instruction in which they adjusted
the amount of help they gave depending on the learner’s current success.
Similarly, Ashley and Tomasello (1998) tested pairs of toddlers from 2 to

3.5 years of age in which they had to act cooperatively to operate a simple
device. Then each child was given the opportunity to teach a new child
what to do. Only the 3.5-year-olds appeared to teach in this situation. They
coordinated their actions more with the new child, gave specific directives
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for what the other child should do, and produced some demonstrations to
illustrate what should be done.
Children’s teaching also appears related to their emerging theory of
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mind abilities (Astington & Pelletier, 1996; Strauss et al., 2002). For in-
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stance, Strauss et al. (2002) asked 3.5- and 5.5-year-olds to teach a peer
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a simple board game. They found that the younger children were more
likely to demonstrate the moves in the game and the older children were
more likely to explain them, and the number of explanations was related
to children’s success on standard false-belief measures. Davis-Unger and
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Carlson (2008) performed a more detailed investigation of the task and
introduced instances in which an adult learner made (deliberate) errors.
They found that over the preschool ages, children increased the time, rules
presented, and strategies used in teaching and that all of these differences
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were related to theory of mind performance. Five-and-a-half-year-olds were
also much better at noticing a learner’s errors and responding with a variety
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of strategies. Recently, Howe, Recchia, Della Porta, and Funamoto (2012)
found similar patterns for sibling pairs, with older siblings being better at
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adjusting their strategies to teaching two different types of tasks.

The pattern of results across these studies is generally supportive of the
idea that children develop an understanding of teaching during the pre-
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school period. Their efforts to engage in teaching seem to begin at 3.5

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years and continue to change thereafter. There is evidence that this un-
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derstanding is related to standard theory of mind developments. It will be

interesting if more specific relations can be established between children’s
understanding of what is needed in a teaching situation and what strategies
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they start to employ. For example, when children are trying to bring about
a particular outcome in their teaching, do they become more aware of de-
viations from that outcome and more motivated to correct them? Similarly,
as we suggested above regarding learning, children who develop the ability
to integrate mental states together to recognize that beliefs are not fixed
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should also be able to make deeper inferences about the roles different
mental states play in their own teaching.
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Children’s Learning From Teaching

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Several studies have recently suggested that, at very early ages, children
make pedagogical inferences from others’ teaching (e.g., Bonawitz et al.,
2011; Gweon, Pelton, & Schulz, 2011) based on their natural ability to read
the intentions of others during communication (what Csibra & Gergeley,
2009 call “natural pedagogy”). These studies, however, categorize teaching
as an act of communication, subject to children reading the intentionality
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of their interlocutor, that is, whether their actions are goal-directed. We
have suggested that children’s understanding of the epistemic aspect of in-
tentionality is also critical to their understanding of learning and teaching.
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Studies on pedagogy do not examine how the child’s own knowledge of
teaching affects whether they understand why another would teach. That
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is, does understanding what teaching is—an activity to change what others
know—help children to participate in attending to it?
There is surprisingly little research on this question. Woodburn (2008)
made a first step in considering this question in a 1-year longitudinal
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study of the transition from Head Start to kindergarten. Some 120 Head
Start and kindergarten participants (ages 3.3 to 6.8) were assessed on
(a) an understanding-of-teaching scale constructed from the previously
described teaching stories (Ziv & Frye, 2004; Ziv et al., 2008), (b) the
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Wellman and Liu (2004) theory-of-mind scale, (c) the Learning Behav-
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ior Scales (McDermott, 1999; McDermott, Green, Francis, & Stott, 1999), [QA: Year does not
agree with reference.]
(d) Adjustment Scales for Preschool Intervention (Noone-Lutz, Fantuzzo,
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& McDermott, 2002), and (e) standardized measures of literacy (Test of

Early Reading Ability—TERA) (Reid, Hresko, & Hamil, 2001) and early
mathematics (a short form of Ginsburg & Baroody’s [2003] Test of Early
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Math Ability—TEMA).
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As would be expected with children of these ages, there was improved

performance on each of the measures over the course of the year. Rasch
modeling indicated that a 5-item subset of the understanding-of-teaching
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stories could be treated as a scale. Simultaneous multiple regression analy-

ses using the literacy scores at time two as outcomes indicated that all of the
independent variables at time two (age, understanding of teaching, theory
of mind, learning behavior scale) were related to the literacy outcome.
When the predictive relation between the independent variables at time
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one and the literacy outcome at time two was tested, only initial literacy and
understanding of teaching scores remained in the equation. These find-
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ings indicate that the children who started with better literacy skills and
the ones who had the better understanding of teaching were the ones who
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benefitted the most from the literacy instruction that was presented during
the first year of school. This finding suggests that knowing what it means to
teach does benefit children’s ability to learn from teachers.
Summary
We have suggested that children’s developing social cognition influences

how they teach, how they understand teaching, and how they learn from
teachers. Our general conclusion is that two basic aspects of social-cognitive
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development greatly influence these processes: how children understand
the ways in which beliefs are formed and change, and their ability to in-
tegrate mental states together to recognize that beliefs are not fixed and
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depend on other mental states. Children’s understanding of teaching, like
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their understanding of learning, relies on their developing knowledge of
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others’ mental states.
Learning and Teaching in Children
I
With Autism Spectrum Disorder
er
Given that children’s developing understanding of belief and its relation
and integration with other mental states (such as intention) plays a primary
4
s
role in their understanding of the concepts of learning and teaching, what
happens to children’s understanding of learning and teaching when their
re
understanding of beliefs and intention is impaired? Autism Spectrum Dis-
order (ASD) is a prominent developmental disorder that is found in about
g 1
1% of the US population (CDC, 2006). It is known to affect the ontogenesis

of metacognitive abilities, such as the understanding of belief and inten-
tion in others. ASD manifests in the first 3 years of life and is characterized
s
by impairments in social skills, verbal and nonverbal communication, and

ri 0
by the presence of restricted interests, behaviors, and activities (American

ht
Psychiatric Association, 2000). One dominant psychological hypothesis that

explains these diminished social and communicative characteristics is that
children with ASD have an impaired theory of mind (e.g., Baron-Cohen,
2
1989; Frith, 1989; Leslie, 1987). Does a diminished capacity for mental-state
understanding in children with ASD affect these children’s understanding
of the processes of learning and teaching?
We have seen that typically developing (TD) children’s understanding
of the processes of learning and teaching relates to their developing theory
©
of mind. For instance, an understanding of others’ intentions is critical for

understanding aspects of the learning process (Sobel et al., 2007), and rec-
ll
ognizing that teaching is an activity that is performed on purpose (Ziv et

al., 2008) is critical for understanding aspects of the teaching process. Chil-
dren who have difficulty understanding differences in knowledge states be-
A
tween two agents may be limited in their ability to appreciate the role that
changing beliefs might have in learning, or to see the reason for someone
to teach another. Similarly, if children have trouble understanding when
others act intentionally, then they are likely to struggle with understanding
the intentional components that underlie the processes of learning and
teaching. Investigating the developing understanding of others’ beliefs and
intentions in children with ASD may reveal what children who are autistic
know about the processes of learning and teaching. Moreover, such inves-
P
tigations could inform us about the relation between children’s developing
theory of mind and the understanding of learning and teaching.
Research investigating aspects of social-cognitive development in ASD
d
d
has provided repeated demonstrations that “high functioning” children
A
with ASD (HFA) have delays or deficits on mental-state attribution tasks
ve
compared with TD children matched for verbal mental, and chronologi-
cal age (see Baron-Cohen, 1989). In particular, HFA children exhibit fun-
damental impairments or significant delays in understanding inaccurate
knowledge or false belief in others (e.g., Baron-Cohen, Leslie, & Frith,
I
1985; Peterson, Wellman, & Liu, 2005; Senju et al., 2010). A meta-analysis
er
of studies employing a variety of false-belief paradigms showed that chil-
dren with ASD on average are not successful on false-belief tasks until they
have an estimated verbal mental age (VMA) of at least 11 years (Happé,
4
s
1995). To date, there have been no reported cases of a group of children
with ASD whose mental age is equivalent to typically developing preschool-
[QA: There is no refer-
re
ers who pass standard false-belief tasks (Baron-Cohen, 1989; Lombardo &
Baron-Cohen, 2010). Based on the extensive literature documenting an
g 1
attenuated theory of mind and, in particular, impairments in false-belief

understanding in HFA children, there is good reason to suspect that delays
in the understanding of belief for children who are autistic might obstruct
s
their ability to determine what actions constitute learning and teaching.

ri 0
Belief understanding, however, is not the only element involved in un-

ht
derstanding learning and teaching. Understanding others’ intentions is

crucial to understanding core components of learning and teaching. As
demonstrated in the previous sections, judgments of intentionality relate
2
to both the understanding of learning and the understanding of teaching.

For example, Ziv et al. (2008) asked preschoolers to judge the intent of an
instructor’s action in an embedded teaching task. In this story, children had
to determine whether a given action is brought about by one of two inten-
tions (e.g., to play a game or to teach). Four-year-olds performed signifi-
©
cantly worse than 5-year-olds, a finding consistent with Baird and Moses’s
(2001, Study 1) “same action/different intention” task, in which children
ll
were required to judge whether the same action could be motivated by

different intentions. Further, understanding the “successful imitation” task
(Ziv et al., 2008) involves appreciating that a desired outcome (e.g., learn-
A
ing how to tie a knot) resulted from an unintentional action on the part
of the teacher. Schult (2002) demonstrated that TD 4-year-olds struggled
to understand cases in which a character’s desires were satisfied by an
unintended action (i.e., they interpreted such events by saying that the ac-
tions were intentional all along). Five-year-olds were more likely to appreci-
ate that desires could be satisfied by unintentional actions.
What about HFA children? Are HFA children delayed in their under-
standing of intention and thus possibly delayed in understanding the
P
relevance of intention to learning and teaching? Unlike false-belief un-
derstanding, relatively little research has examined the understanding of
others’ intentionality in HFA children. Moreover, the work that has been
d
done has resulted in discordant findings showing HFA children sometimes
A
do and sometimes do not perform worse than matched controls on tasks
ve
that examine judgments of others’ intention-in-action (Russell & Hill,
2001; but see also Phillips et al., 1998; Williams & Happé, 2010). Stud-
ies that test judgments of nonverbal intention-in-action have also yielded
mixed results (see Aldridge, Stone, Sweeney, & Bower, 2000; Carpenter,
& Charman, 2002, 2006).

I
Pennington, & Rogers, 2001; Hornbeck, 2001; but also see Huang, Heyes,
er
Despite these inconsistent observations about intention-in-action, it is
clear that HFA children are delayed in understanding intentions-in-others.
4
s
Two recent studies suggest that HFA children struggle with developing
an appreciation of intentional versus unintentional behaviors in others
re
(D’Entremont & Yazbek, 2007; Williams & Happé, 2010). However, to de-
termine more fully whether HFA children understand intentions (in oth-
g 1
ers), which then provides critical information about their understanding

of the intentional aspects of learning and teaching, we need to investigate
whether HFA children have an appreciation for the mental state itself, as
s
has been done in studies with TD children.

ri 0
Knutsen (2012) investigated HFA children’s (Mean CA: 7;9) understand-

ht
ing of the concept of teaching and intentions in others, as well as the rela-
tion between these two concepts. To examine the knowledge and inten-
tional aspects of teaching, HFA children were presented with tasks similar
2
to those used in Ziv and Frye (2004) and Ziv et al., (2008). To examine
the distinction between intentions and desires and to examine the under-
standing that different intentions may be used to carry out the same action,
HFA children were presented with tasks used by Schult (2002) and Baird
and Moses (2001), respectively. The teaching measure was composed of (a)
©
knowledge stories that included a simple knowledge task (e.g., Who should
be taught?), a teacher’s misestimation of the learner’s knowledge tasks,
ll
and a teacher’s misestimation of own knowledge tasks; and (b) intention-

in-teaching stories that included a successful (intentional) teaching task,
a failed (intentional) teaching task, a successful (nonintentional by the
A
teacher) imitation task, and two teaching-embedded-in-a-game (guided dis-

covery learning and its control) tasks (Frye & Ziv, 2005). In the intention-
desire distinction measure, children were presented with stories in which
the character’s intention or desire either was or was not satisfied (Schult,
2002); whereas the “same action/different intentions” measure had two
characters performing an identical action motivated by substantially differ-
ent desires and intentions (Baird & Moses, 2001).
In the teaching stories, Knutsen (2012) found HFA children to be im-
P
paired in understanding the knowledge-state component that underlies
teaching. The HFA children responded above chance, although were sig-
nificantly worse than the TD 3- and 4-year-olds in the original sample (Ziv
d
d
& Frye, 2004) on the simple knowledge task (“Who should be taught?”).
A
They were also significantly worse on the two intention stories in which the
ve
teacher’s attempt to teach either resulted in the student learning or not
(the successful teaching; failed teaching condition from Ziv et al., 2008).
HFA participants also performed at or below chance and were significantly
worse than the original sample of TD 5- and 6-year-olds (Ziv & Frye, 2004)
I
on all of the knowledge teaching stories in which a character misestimated
er
the knowledge state either of the other or of him/herself. Finally, HFA
children struggled at tasks that involved a teacher having a false belief
about either their own knowledge state or the knowledge state of the
4
s
learner. For instance, when a teacher thought that their student already
knows how to spell his/her name, when in fact the student does not, HFA
re
children claimed that the teacher would still try to teach the student how
to spell his/her name.
g 1
These preliminary findings suggest that HFA children’s understanding

of teaching and learning is constrained by their impaired understanding of
teaching as an intentional activity that requires appreciating that there is a
s
knowledge difference between two people. HFA children’s metacognitive

ri 0
delays in the understanding of beliefs and intentions in others impedes

ht
their ability to understand these two mental-state components that underlie

the teaching process. HFA children’s understanding of the teaching aspects
of the learning process (e.g., when learning occurs or not, based on wheth-
2
er the attempt to teach occurred) is also potentially compromised by their

delays in mental-state understanding.
These findings provide a roadmap for conducting further research on
young typically and atypically developing children’s understanding of the
processes of teaching and learning as well as how such abilities relate to
©
their mental-state understanding. For instance, a next step might be to in-

vestigate HFA children’s understanding of their own intention and its rela-
ll
tion to their understanding of the processes of learning and teaching. The

results also imply that HFA children can be expected to struggle with activi-
ties in the classroom that require understanding beliefs and intention in
A
others, such as following a teacher’s presentation that is being performed

on purpose to impart knowledge to the student. Additional research should
be conducted to explore HFA children’s reactions in the classroom to
teaching and learning situations by manipulating additional mental-state

attributes used in particular teaching situations, such as the epistemic com-
ponent of teaching and learning.
P
Concluding Thoughts
The question of when and how young children understand the processes
d
of learning and teaching has more than theoretical consequences. School
A
readiness is often evaluated in terms of young children’s first grasp of litera-
ve
cy, numeracy, and social skills (e.g., Boyer, 1991; Mashburn & Pianta, 2006).
Besides this focus on the different content areas of instruction, however,
another important factor might be the understanding of instruction itself.
Are children likely to show the most benefit from school if they do not
I
yet grasp what teaching is? The same issue is important in preschool. The
er
general question of whether students should be exposed to direct instruc-
tion (e.g., Klahr & Nigam, 2004) or guided discovery learning (e.g., May-
er, 2004) is long-standing (e.g., Anastasiow, Sibley, Leonhardt, & Borich,
4
s
1970), but it may have the most purchase in preschool. Because guided
discovery learning does not require the understanding that instruction is
re
taking place, there may be good grounds for employing it in preschool
if young children do not yet know what teaching is. The answers to these
questions about appropriate practice with children at the beginning of
g 1
school might be advanced if it were possible to determine what they under-

stood about teaching.
s
Further, what young children know about learning and teaching poten-
ri 0
tially relates to how they are engaged by and feel about the process of learn-
ht
ing and being taught. These questions are particularly important given re-
search on elementary school children, which suggests that how children
understand the learning process potentially influences their later concep-
2
tions of knowledge, school, or themselves (Dweck, 1999; Dweck & Leggitt,

1988; Eccles, Wigfield, & Schiefele, 1998; Li, 2004; Skinner, 1995; Stipek
& Mac Iver, 1989). What young children know about learning might ini-
tially shape how engaged they are by learning as well as their developing
concepts of their own or others’ intellectual ability or drive. If children’s
©
academic engagement is influenced by their understanding of learning and

teaching, then one might also conceptualize early interventions that foster
ll
understanding of these processes.

Given these ideas, and given that children’s understanding of learning
and teaching appears connected with their social-cognitive development, a
A
critical question is how children’s understanding of the learning and teach-

ing processes relate to their broader beliefs about school and their school
readiness. For instance, understanding the extent to which the process of
learning involves integrating various mental states might relate to Dweck

and Leggett’s (1988) “implicit theories” of intelligence as fixed or mallea-
ble constructs. The more the child recognizes that learning involves inte-
grating various mental states, the more the child could conceptualize one’s
learning ability as malleable (particularly if the child recognizes those men-
P
tal states can change). Similarly, while children clearly learn much from
guided discovery, the more children understand what they can learn from
teaching, the more value they get from approaches to teaching that poten-
d
d
tially emphasize direct instruction. Finally, interventions for HFA children
A
that focus on social-cognitive development might affect how these children
ve
conceptualize learning and teaching, and particularly if those interven-
tions focus on applying what children have learned to their daily lives, and
more generally may improve how they learn from others. Such interven-
tions could have broad application in the classroom, where now ~1% of the
I
population is diagnosed with ASD. All of these hypotheses require future
er
study and would have great relevance to and importance for how to trans-
late basic research in social-cognitive development to the classroom.
4
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John Knutsen, Douglas Frye, and David M. Sobel

One of the fundamental goals of research in cognitive development is

children, reflect on their knowledge differently, and for the purposes of

standing of learning concepts potentially develops. Second, we investigate

not previously possess. Finally, we consider how these concepts potentially

develop in high-functioning children with Autism Spectrum Disorder, who

are known to lack particular skills in social cognition.

Children’s Developing Concepts of Learning

What do young children know about the process of learning—the circum-

between knowledge and ignorance (e.g., Hogrefe, Wimmer, & Perner,

of mental states. For instance, Eisbach (2004) demonstrated that between

situation and apply that knowledge differently.

ence between preschoolers’ understanding of learning as recognizing that

if children’s judgments of learning focus only on the outcome, they should

In one experiment, children heard stories about characters who initially

[QA: Please indicate a

longer related to children’s false-belief capacities).

have learned. However, this work only focuses on children’s appreciation

(e.g., Woodward, 1998). However, understanding that intentions and de-

to the relevant information, while an inconsistent story might be that the

cases, but justified their responses differently. Four-year-olds justified re-

olds’ responses were desire-based—they judged that learning occurred if

children began to appreciate that learning could be incidental—6-year-olds

information would learn it, even if she did not practice.

understanding of belief. Children potentially start as “desire psychologists”

development (e.g., Schult, 2002). Children might similarly be desire-based

Learning and teaching are often complementary activities that occur in

and reasoned that instruction depends on a perceived knowledge differ-

1999; Moses, 2001; Schult, 2002). These developments are accomplished

spontaneous language utterances with those of other children and adults.

spontaneous instances of teaching are potentially commonplace for these

stories in which characters differed in their knowledge of how to do some-

belief about a student’s knowledge, as might occur when someone under-

estimates the level of understanding of a new class or particular student? If

this situation is judged on the actual knowledge states involved, no teach-

stories in which teachers had a variety of inaccurate beliefs. In these stories,

The difference between younger and older preschoolers’ understand-

One activity in which it must be expected that children’s conception

peer teaching (e.g., Flynn, 2010; Rogoff, 1990) or reciprocal instruction

conduct of teaching. Because teaching is an intentional activity, you have to

sworth, and O’Malley (1995) examined children’s teaching by studying

Similarly, Ashley and Tomasello (1998) tested pairs of toddlers from 2 to

adjusting their strategies to teaching two different types of tasks.

school period. Their efforts to engage in teaching seem to begin at 3.5

derstanding is related to standard theory of mind developments. It will be

Children’s Learning From Teaching

& McDermott, 2002), and (e) standardized measures of literacy (Test of

As would be expected with children of these ages, there was improved

stories could be treated as a scale. Simultaneous multiple regression analy-

We have suggested that children’s developing social cognition influences

Learning and Teaching in Children

1% of the US population (CDC, 2006). It is known to affect the ontogenesis

by impairments in social skills, verbal and nonverbal communication, and

by the presence of restricted interests, behaviors, and activities (American

Psychiatric Association, 2000). One dominant psychological hypothesis that

of mind. For instance, an understanding of others’ intentions is critical for

ognizing that teaching is an activity that is performed on purpose (Ziv et

attenuated theory of mind and, in particular, impairments in false-belief

their ability to determine what actions constitute learning and teaching.

Belief understanding, however, is not the only element involved in un-

derstanding learning and teaching. Understanding others’ intentions is

to both the understanding of learning and the understanding of teaching.