Preliminary study on development of autonomy in terms of children's abilities in spatial coping.

1996 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary

• Project/Area Number: 07801017
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Single-year Grants
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: 実験系心理学
• Research Institution: Waseda University (1996); Mukogawa Women's University (1995)
• Principal Investigator: NEGAYAMA Koichi Waseda University, School of Human Sciences, Associate Prof., 人間科学部, 助教授 (00112003)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): YAMAMOTO Toshikazu Faculty of Education, Osaka Kyoiku Univ., Associate Professor, 教育学部, 助教授 (20200826)
• Project Period (FY): 1995 – 1996
• Keywords: maigo / young children / development of autonomy / space / accident / avoidance of obstacle / body / earthquake

Research Abstract

This research is concerned with development of autonomy in terms of children's abilities in spatial coping. We have focused on accident and 'maigo' (to be lost) among children.
Children's accidents were found most frequent at three years of age, but serious aceidents very often occurred during the first year of life, too. Tytical serious accidents in the youngest age were burn and swallowing. In our perception, house is a place for a safe child-rearing, but it is also a place of serious injury. Presence of adults near the children is not necessarily effective in preventing these accidents. An experimental study showed that 4-year-olds did not avoid an obstacle well when walking, whereas 5-vear-olds became careful not to fall. It was found that the children's behaviors in active and passive avoidances were very different.
Two researches, one is an investigation and the other is an experiment, were conducted to get information about maigo. From the investigation for 1319 parents, the 43% children have experienced maigo ; 3-year-old children are easy to be maigo ; boys are easier to be maigo than girls ; almost all the maigo occured in large-sized supermarkets of department-stores. The experiment was executed in order to specify a cause of maigo with 4-year-old kindergarteners. While a subject walked in a toy-house, experimenters recorded his/her bevavior. Obvlous relations between maigo and performances in the experiment were not trcognized. For this result.complex reasons to the occurrence of maigo were discussed.