Active Learning from Infancy to Childhood

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xiii

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2. Foundations of Active Learning

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 1-1

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   2. Introduction: How Children Propel Development

      • Megan M. Saylor, Patricia A. Ganea

      Pages 3-11

   3. Curious Learners: How Infants’ Motivation to Learn Shapes and Is Shaped by Infants’ Interactions with the Social World

      • Katarina Begus, Victoria Southgate

      Pages 13-37

   4. Taking Center Stage: Infants’ Active Role In Language Learning

      • Catherine S. Tamis-LeMonda, Yana Kuchirko, Daniel D. Suh

      Pages 39-53

3. Cognitive and Linguistic Skills that Enable Active Learning

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 55-55

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   2. Curiosity, Exploration, and Children’s Understanding of Learning

      • David M. Sobel, Susan M. Letourneau

      Pages 57-74

   3. The Process of Active Word Learning

      • Sofia Jimenez, Yuyue Sun, Megan M. Saylor

      Pages 75-93

   4. Understanding When and How Explanation Promotes Exploration

      • Judith H. Danovitch, Candice M. Mills

      Pages 95-112

   5. Explanation Scaffolds Causal Learning and Problem Solving in Childhood

      • Justin T. A. Busch, Aiyana K. Willard, Cristine H. Legare

      Pages 113-127

4. Epistemic Trust: Selectivity in Children’s Learning

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 129-129

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   2. Insights into Children’s Testimonial Reasoning

      • Katherine E. Ridge, Annelise Pesch, Sarah Suárez, Melissa A. Koenig

      Pages 131-146

   3. Mechanisms of Selective Word Learning: Evidence and Implications

      • Haykaz Mangardich, Mark A. Sabbagh

      Pages 147-166

   4. The Role of Testimony in Children’s Belief in the Existence of the Unobservable

      • Ian L. Campbell, Kathleen H. Corriveau

      Pages 167-185

5. Active Learning in Diverse Contexts

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 187-187

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   2. How Conversations with Parents May Help Children Learn to Separate the Sheep from the Goats (and the Robots)

      • Jennifer L. Jipson, Danielle Labotka, Maureen A. Callanan, Susan A. Gelman

      Pages 189-212

   3. Choosing to Learn: Evidence Evaluation for Active Learning and Teaching in Early Childhood

      • Elizabeth Bonawitz, Ilona Bass, Elizabeth Lapidow

      Pages 213-231

   4. Bilingual Children: Active Language Learners as Language Brokers

      • Georgene L. Troseth, Jeannette Mancilla-Martinez, Israel Flores

      Pages 233-259

6. Correction to: Taking Center Stage: Infants’ Active Role In Language Learning

   • Catherine S. Tamis-LeMonda, Yana Kuchirko, Daniel D. Suh

   Pages E1-E1

7. Back Matter

   Pages 261-265

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This book presents new findings on the role of active learning in infants’ and young children’s cognitive and linguistic development. Chapters discuss evidence-based models, identify possible neurological mechanisms supporting active learning, pinpoint children’s early understanding of learning, and trace children’s recognition of their own learning. Chapters also address how children shape their lexicon, covering a range of active learning practices including interactions with parents, teachers, and peers; curiosity and exploration during play; seeking information from other people and their surroundings; and asking questions. In addition, processes of selective learning are discussed, from learning new words and trusting others in acquiring information to weighing evidence and accepting ambiguity. 


Topics featured in this book include:

• Infants’ active role in language learning.
  
• The process of active word learning.
  
• Understanding when and how explanation promotes exploration.
  
• How conversations with parents can affect children’s word associations.
  
• Evidence evaluation for active learning and teaching in early childhood.
  
• Bilingual children and their role as language brokers for their parents.

Active Learning from Infancy to Childhood is a must-have resource for researchers, clinicians and related professionals, and graduate students in developmental psychology, psycholinguistics, educational psychology, and early childhood education. 

• Early communication between mothers and infants
• Early language acquisition and development
• Early pragmatic language development
• Infant preferences and language development
• Infants’ understanding of speech
• Knowledge acquisition in infancy and early childhood
• Language acquisition in infancy and early childhood
• Language and social interaction in infants and young children
• Language development in infancy and early childhood
• Language development in preschoolers
• Language disorders in early childhood
• Lexical gaps in preschoolers
• Picture book reading in early childhood
• Question-asking behaviors in preschoolers
• Shared book reading with preschoolers
• Specific language impairment in preschoolers
• Social cognition in infants and young children
• Social motivational components of early communication
• Social motivation in infancy and early childhood
• Teaching infants and young children

• Department of Psychology and Human Development, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, USA

  Megan M. Saylor

• Department of Applied Psychology & Human Development, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada

  Patricia A. Ganea

Megan M. Saylor, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor at Vanderbilt University in the Department of Psychology and Human Development. She received her undergraduate degree from UC Berkeley in 1996, where she studied psychology and linguistics. She joined the faculty at Vanderbilt after completing her doctorate at the University of Oregon in 2001. Her research focuses on the social and cognitive mechanisms that support the acquisition of language in infants and preschoolers. 


Patricia A. Ganea, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor at the University of Toronto in the Department of Applied Psychology and Human Development. She received her undergraduate degree from the University of Bucharest in 1996, where she studied psychology and philosophy. Following one year at the University of Oxford as a Soros visiting student, she completed her doctorate in Developmental Psychology at the University of Virginia in 2004. She was Assistant Professor at Boston University from 2007 until 2011, when she joined University of Toronto. Her research focuses on the social, linguistic, and representational aspects of young children's learning.

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