An Exploration of the Development of Young Children's Understanding of Time Concepts

Abstract

This paper reports research which explored the development of children's understanding of some everyday time terms, particularly those which require understanding of and competence in the use of temporal dimensions. Eighty Australian children aged from three to six years participated in interviews designed to reveal the characteristics of the temporal ‘rulers’ they used to organise past and future experience. As predicted, older children showed more comprehension of the concepts involved, and a trend was found for the temporal ‘rulers’ employed to become more detailed and differentiated with increasing age. It was concluded that general principles found to apply to cognitive domains which may be characterised as ‘dimensionally structured’ also apply to the development of competence in the comprehension and use of time concepts.