Text 2. Children Remember More From Television thanReading

(from Self Help and Psychology Magazine by Juliette H. Walma van der Molen, Ph.D., & Tom H.A. van der Voort, Ph.D. The American Psychological Association, 1998)

(1) While some parents might view the frequent use of films and videos in their children's classrooms as a sign of laziness on the part of teachers, a new study published in the American Psychological Association's (APA) Journal of Educational Psychology suggests otherwise: such teaching materials may help children - unlike adults - remember more of what they are taught.

(2) Psychologists Juliette H. Walma van der Molen, Ph.D.. and Tom H.A. van der Voort. Ph.D., of the Center for Child and Media Studies at Leiden University in The Netherlands wanted to see if the results of previous studies comparing the recall of television and print news information in educated adults would apply to children as well. All the earlier studies (except one, which found no difference) found that adults remembered more of what they read than what they saw on television, possibly because adults take advantage of the freedom to re-read printed material that they don't usually have with television.

(3) To do this, the researchers designed a study in which 152 fourth- and sixth-grade children (between ages 10 and 12) were presented with five children's news stones, either in their original televised form or in a verbatim printed version. Some of the children were told they would be tested on what they read or saw (to simulate the school setting) and others were not told that they would be tested (to simulate watching or reading at home). The television version of the five stories lasted 11 minutes and was viewed once; the children reading the printed versions could take as long as they needed to read them.

(4) Across the board, children who watched the television news reports recalled more of what they viewed than the children who read the printed versions. Also, the children who watched the televised version recalled more items of information that were presented both verbally and visually than they did those that were presented only verbally, without accompanying pictures. In other words, the television items were particularly effective (compared with the printed versions) when the children received the news via two channels: the spoken commentary and the television pictures conveying more or less the same information.

(5) "The results of this study," the researchers conclude, "are 'good news' for children, because in the home situation they rely primarily on the medium that can serve them most effectively. For instructional settings, the study suggests that television news that is adapted to children's level of understanding and that effectively uses television's ability to convey news both verbally and visually may be an effective aid to the teacher."

Text 3. Drawing Helps Children Talk About Emotional Experiences

(from Self Help and Psychology Magazine, by Julien Gross, MSc. & Harlene Hayne, Ph.D., 1998)

(1) As every parent knows, getting young children to talk about emotional experiences is often difficult. But new research suggests that one way to overcome this problem is giving children an opportunity to draw while they talk. In an article to be published in the June issue of the American Psychological Association's (APA) Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, researchers report that when relaying an emotional experience, children who drew as they spoke reported more than twice as much information than children asked only to talk about their experiences. Furthermore, the additional information did not occur at the expense of accuracy.

(2) Psychologists Julien Gross, MSc., and Harlene Hayne, Ph.D., of the University of Otago, New Zealand, conducted two studies involving 60 children between the ages of 3 and 6. In the first experiment, half the children were asked to tell a trained interviewer about the time they were happy, sad, or scared (the tell group), while the other half were given 10 magic markers and asked to draw about the time they were happy, sad, or scared (the draw group). The researchers found that children given the opportunity to draw while talking about their emotional experiences reported more information than children merely asked to tell about their experiences.

(3) The second experiment was designed to determine whether the additional information provided by children while drawing concerning their emotional experiences was accurate. Children in this experiment were given the opportunity to draw and tell the interviewer about one emotion and to only tell about another. Parents were asked to verify the accuracy of their child's emotional narrative. The results of this experiment indicated that even when the same child was interviewed using both procedures, he or she reported more information when asked to draw.

(4) The researchers assert that drawing increases the amount of information that young children report about their own past experiences, regardless of their age or the emotional content of the target event. The psychologists note that the underlying mechanism responsible for the effect of drawing on children's recall of emotional experiences is not clear. They hypothesize that drawing may facilitate children's reports for at least four reasons: drawing may reduce the perceived social demands of the interview; drawing may facilitate memory retrieval; drawing may help children organize their narratives; drawing may facilitate their interview performance simply because it extends the duration of the actual interview. Yet the researchers caution that drawing, like all other forms of interviewing, is not immune to the negative effects of misleading or aggressive questioning.

(5) The authors conclude that their findings suggest that even very young children can retrieve appropriate examples of their own emotional experiences and provide detailed descriptions of the emotion-generating events. They assert that drawing may be particularly valuable legal interviews with children in which the accuracy of their reports is crucial.

Text 4. How Pagan Are We?

(from Self-Help Psychological Magazine, by Joanna Poppink, 1999)

(1) Maybe the floats in our Christmas parades are our tribute to the Feast of Fools, born of the ribbon festooned carts of Lord Misrule's boisterous subjects celebrating the revolution of the earth. Today many children want to stay up and wait for Santa on Christmas. They want to hide and spy as he lays gifts under the tree. Many such children receive a warning from their parents. "If you see Santa he will leave you coal in your stocking and disappear." I thought this was commonly said to encourage bedtime so parents could have calm before the Christmas morning tumult. But it may be connected to deeper traditions of solstice reversals.

(2) Animals were also affected by the overturning of nature. During this upside-down time, animals could speak. On Christmas Eve the cattle spoke and kneeled to honor the Christ child. However, for a human to hear them or attempt to hear them was dangerous and could be fatal. This may be part of the excited secrecy at Christmas. Adults and children keep secrets from each other about who is giving what to whom. People whisper secrets and wrap presents behind closed doors. It becomes deliciously dangerous to listen. There is so much mystery in the season, in the rituals then and now.

(3) The children loving spirits of Berchta and Hulda may well be influencing for our hearts as we celebrate our children at Christmas. And the warning, "You must be a good boy or girl if you want Santa to bring you gifts," may have some connection to Berchta. After all she would not be pleased with people who don't wash their hands or behind their ears or keep their things somewhat tidy. Yet, with all her power, it is she who cradles the neglected child, bringing protection and soothing to his fears. Could this be akin to the soothing so many children receive from writing letters to Santa with their heartfelt requests?

(4) Christmas presents, cloaked in mystery and kept secret till Christmas day, may be our version of the fertility vigil. The gifts are like seeds and ova germinating in the dark and which will soon emerge in the light of the sun. And our jolly Santa is the gift bringer. He jingles with bells which frighten away all evil. He travels through wild winter storms to find each of us, as his many forerunners have in the past.

(5) The myths, history and folklore show us that natural cyclical events grip us in our modern December traditions as they have in the past. We seem to acknowledge the forces of creation in our souls, our behavior, our emotions, our genetic code and our imagination. Perhaps we will always live out ancient and new rituals devised to honor these events whether they fit our currently accepted religious and philosophic beliefs or not. There may be more than a touch of pagan in us all.