The Development of Children's Comprehension of Causal Direction

KUHN, DEANNA, and PHELPS, HENRY. The Development of Children's Comprehension of Causal Direction. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1976, 47, 248-251. The development of children's comprehension of the necessary unidirectional relation which exists between a cause and an effect was studied. 68 kindergarten through second graders were asked to choose the better sentence alternative to accompany a sketch portraying an event which could be described as A causes B. In each case the alternatives were of the form A because and B because A. Almost all subjects in the youngest age group (M = 5-9) chose randomly while subjects in the oldest age group (M = 7-10) were mostly correct and none responded randomly, suggesting that this competence is acquired fairly rapidly during the age range studied.