Active Learning from Infancy to Childhood: Social Motivation, Cognition, and Linguistic Mechanisms

Megan M. Saylor · Patricia A. Ganea

May 2018 · Springer

About this ebook

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.

About the author

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.