The origins of higher-order thinking lie in children's spontaneous talk across the pre-school years.

摘要: Abstract Higher-order thinking is relational reasoning in which multiple representations are linked together, through inferences, comparisons, abstractions, and hierarchies. We examine the development of higher-order 64 preschool-aged children, observed from 14 to 58 months naturalistic situations at home. used children's spontaneous talk about with relations (i.e., talk, or HOTT) as a window onto their skills. find that surface HOTT, between more immediate easily perceptible, appears before—and far frequent than—structure abstract less easy perceive. Child-specific factors (including early vocabulary gesture use, first-born status, family income) predict differences onset age acquisition) HOTT its trajectory use across development. Although utterances tend be longer syntactically complex than non-HOTT utterances, frequently non-complex substantial proportion children achieve utterance prior HOTT. This finding suggests language neither necessary nor sufficient for occur; other above beyond linguistic skills involved thinking. Finally, we found particularly structure HOTT—but not utterances—during preschool period predicts standardized outcome measures inference analogy grade school, underscores crucial role this kind plays later outcomes.