Abstract
Descriptions provided by 20 five-year-olds and 20 eight-year-olds of what happens in five medical contexts (when visiting a doctor, dentist, not feeling well, going to the hospital, having an operation) were assessed for their degree of sequential structure.
Subjects’ descriptions conformed closely to conventional ordering of events, with almost no descriptions containing implausible reversals of sequence. However, whereas younger children tended to «list» events, older children provided descriptions of greater complexity and sequential organization (especially in the contexts of going to the doctor or hospital). The results are discussed in terms of the theoretical relationship between children’s scripts of medical events and their «concepts» of illness, and the implications for medical communication.
Résumé
On demande à 20 enfants de 5 ans et 20 enfants de 8 ans de décrire ce qu’il se passe dans 5 situations médicales (chez le docteur, chez le dentiste, quand on ne se sent pas bien, à l’hôpital, subir une opération). Les descriptions sont analysées en fonction de la structure des séquences d’évènements qui y apparaîssent.
Les descriptions des enfants sont très proches des conventions socialement partagées sur l’ordre dans lequel différentes séquences se succèdent dans ces situations. Cependant, alors que les plus jeunes tendent à énoncer des listes d’évènements, les plus agés fournissent des desriptions présentant un degré d’organisation des séquences nettement plus sophistiqué (particulièrement dans les contextes de visites chez le docteur et à l’hôpital). Les résultats sont discutés à la lumière des relations théoriques que l’on peut établir entre l’usage des scripts médicaux, le concept de maladie chez l’enfant et les implications de ces aspects sur la communication médicale.
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This work is supported by the ESRC, Windsor, England
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Eiser, C., Eiser, J.R. & Lang, J. Scripts in children’s reports of medical events. Eur J Psychol Educ 4, 377–384 (1989). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03172670
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03172670