Escolhas categorizacionais em crianças de três a sete anos: o que revelam suas justificativas?

Abstract

This paper highlights a misconception implied by categorization research carried out with pre-schoolers and children in their first years of schooling as regards the alleged emphasis for slot-filler groupings by youngr children as opposed to the noted preference, by the older group, for formal vertical groupings of the type animal-dog. The evidence points to the fact that even pre-schoolers justify their categorization choices by highlighting similarly attributes shared by the items. We conclude, thereforse, that the two stages (i.e., contextual categorization vs. similarity categorization) of semantic development are not to be rigidly delimited.