Language, Literacy, and Cognitive Development: The Development and Consequences of Symbolic Communication (Jean Piaget Symposium Series)

Language, Literacy, and Cognitive Development addresses the impact of language and literacy on cognitive development.Top researchers examine the cognitive significance of the growth in children's ability to express themselves symbolically, whether that involves communicating linguistically, mathematically, logically, or through some other symbol system expressed in speech, gesture, notations, or some other means.The book contributes to refining and answering questions regarding the nature, origin, and development of symbolic communication in all its forms, and their consequences for the cognitive development of the younger child at home and the older child at school. Content: Language, literacy, and thought : forming a partnership / Ellin Kofsky Scholnick -- Developing a socially shared symbolic system / Katherine Nelson and Lea Kessler Shaw -- A developmental-functionalist approach to mental state talk / Nancy Budwig -- Relational language and relational thought / Dedre Gentner and Jeffrey Loewenstein -- From thought to hand : structured and unstructured communication outside of conventional language / Susan Goldin-Meadow -- What writing does to the mind / David R. Olson -- Symbolic communication in mathematics and science : co-constituting inscription and thought / Richard Lehrer and Leona Schauble -- Social relational knowing in writing development / Colette Daiute -- Symbolic communication and cognitive development : conclusions and prospects / Eric Amsel and James P. Byrnes. This text's goal is to go beyond traditional accounts of human symbol skills to examine the development and consequences of symbolic communication. The editors explore the significance of communicationg symbolically as a means for understanding human symbol skills