Katherine Nelson
Encyclopedia
Katherine Nelson is an American developmental psychologist
, a distinguished professor emerita of psychology at the City University of New York
.
Jerome Bruner describes Nelson as a "contextual functionalist": she seeks "the contexts that give human acts their meaning" while investigating the functions that these acts play in longer-term scenarios. She has also studied childhood amnesia
and the development of episodic memory
.
.
Her book Language in cognitive development: emergence of the mediated mind (Cambridge University Press, 1998) stands in contrast to the theories of Jean Piaget
and others that cognitive and linguistic development are independent of each other, and instead views language acquisition as a bridge that connects a child's social and cultural growth with his or her growing knowledge of the world.
She is also the author or co-author of:
award for Distinguished Scientific Contributions to Child Development.
In 2001, a symposium in her honor was held as part of the Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, and in 2002 the Journal of Cognition and Development published a special issue in her honor.
Developmental psychology
Developmental psychology, also known as human development, is the scientific study of systematic psychological changes, emotional changes, and perception changes that occur in human beings over the course of their life span. Originally concerned with infants and children, the field has expanded to...
, a distinguished professor emerita of psychology at the City University of New York
City University of New York
The City University of New York is the public university system of New York City, with its administrative offices in Yorkville in Manhattan. It is the largest urban university in the United States, consisting of 23 institutions: 11 senior colleges, six community colleges, the William E...
.
Jerome Bruner describes Nelson as a "contextual functionalist": she seeks "the contexts that give human acts their meaning" while investigating the functions that these acts play in longer-term scenarios. She has also studied childhood amnesia
Childhood amnesia
Childhood amnesia refers to the inability of adults to retrieve episodic memories before the age of 2-4 years, as well as the period before age 10 of which adults remember fewer memories than accounted for by the passage of time...
and the development of episodic memory
Episodic memory
Episodic memory is the memory of autobiographical events that can be explicitly stated. Semantic and episodic memory together make up the category of declarative memory, which is one of the two major divisions in memory...
.
Books
Nelson's book Narratives from the Crib (Harvard University Press, 2006) investigates the cognitive and linguistic development of a two-year old, based on an in-depth analysis of the child's crib talkCrib talk
Crib talk or crib speech is pre-sleep monologue made by young children while in bed. This starts somewhere around one-and-a-half years and usually ends by about two-and-a-half years of age, though children can continue longer. It consists of conversational discourse with turn-taking often...
.
Her book Language in cognitive development: emergence of the mediated mind (Cambridge University Press, 1998) stands in contrast to the theories of Jean Piaget
Jean Piaget
Jean Piaget was a French-speaking Swiss developmental psychologist and philosopher known for his epistemological studies with children. His theory of cognitive development and epistemological view are together called "genetic epistemology"....
and others that cognitive and linguistic development are independent of each other, and instead views language acquisition as a bridge that connects a child's social and cultural growth with his or her growing knowledge of the world.
She is also the author or co-author of:
- Structure and strategy in learning to talk (University of Chicago Press, 1973)
- Young children's knowledge of relational terms: some ifs, ors, and buts (with Lucia A. French, Springer-Verlag, 1985)
- Making sense: the acquisition of shared meaning (Academic Press, 1985)
- Event knowledge: structure and function in development (with Janice Gruendel, Psychology Press, 1986)
- Sociocultural psychology: theory and practice of doing and knowing (with Ethel Tobach, Cambridge University Press, 1995)
- Conceptual Development: Piaget's Legacy (with Ellin Kofsky Scholnick, Susan A. Gelman, and Patricia H. Miller, Psychology Press, 1999)
- Young minds in social worlds: experience, meaning, and memory (Harvard University Press, 2007)
Awards and honors
In 1999, Nelson was one of four recipients of the Society for Research in Child DevelopmentSociety for Research in Child Development
The Society for Research in Child Development is a professional society for the field of developmental psychology, focusing specifically on child development. It is a multidisciplinary, not-for-profit, professional association with a membership of approximately 5,500 researchers, practitioners,...
award for Distinguished Scientific Contributions to Child Development.
In 2001, a symposium in her honor was held as part of the Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, and in 2002 the Journal of Cognition and Development published a special issue in her honor.