Influence of the functional level of training on relational elaborations in a verbal task

Abstract

This aim of this study was to investigate if children's speech in an evaluation task depends on the functional level at which verbalizations are trained and the characteristics of the stimulus events employed in the evaluations. Eighteen first-grade, elementary-school children who did not elaborate descriptions implying relations of causation, conditionality, or function when speaking of a mascot were selected as subjects. The children were randomly assigned to three groups of six children each: Group 1 (children trained at the contextual level), Group 2 (children trained at the referential-substitutive level), and Group 3 (children without training). The results show notable differences among the three groups in terms of relational elaboration. Regarding the characteristics of the stimulus events employed in the evaluations, the cards that included two drawing in a sequence promoted a better elaboration of relational descriptions in the two experimental groups, as compared to the cards that included a single drawing.