title: Two-year-olds' understanding of self-symbols.
abstract: This study investigated 48 2.5-year-olds' ability to map from their own body to a two-dimensional self-representation and also examined relations between parents' talk about body representations and their children's understanding of self-symbols. Children participated in two dual-representation tasks in which they were asked to match body parts between a symbol and its referent. In one task, they used a self-symbol and in the other they used a symbol for a doll. Participants were also read a book about body parts by a parent. As a group, children found the self-symbol task more difficult than the doll-task; however, those whose parents explicitly pointed out the relation between their children's bodies and the symbols in the book performed better on the self-symbol task. The findings demonstrate that 2-year-old children have difficulty comprehending a self-symbol, even when it is two-dimensional and approximately the same size as them, and suggest that parents' talk about self-symbols may facilitate their understanding.
authors.affiliation: Center for Early Education and Development, University of Minnesota, Saint Paul, Minnesota, USA.
authors.forename: Katherine
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Herold
authors.forename: Nameera
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Akhtar
mesh_terms: D001828:Body Image / Q000523:psychology*; D002657:Child Development / Q000502:physiology*; D002675:Child, Preschool; D032882:Comprehension / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D018594:Human Body; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010287:Parent-Child Relations; D012649:Self Concept
keywords: parent-child conversations; symbolic development