Nowadays, Piaget's domain-general theory is questioned. Recent work in cognitive development suggests that preschoolers develop naive theory in some specific domain. Whether children before school age possess a naive theory of biology is a hot issue Wellman&Gelman(1992) and Hatano&Inagaki (1994) argue that three important components constitute a naive theory. The first is a core ontological distinction in biological domain. The second is a non-intentional causal explanatory framework. The third is coherence. That is a mode inference which can produce consistent and reasonable prediction for attributes or behaviors of biological kinds.
In the present research, 90 children of 3 to 5 years old were interviewed to assess their understanding of illness. Results showed as follows.
(1) 3-and 4-year-old children knew that human and animals can get sick,whereas non-living things can't. With age, children became to know that pants also can get sick. 5-year-old children showed distinction between living and Moll-hvlllg th111gS Ill terms of illness on the easier task.
(2) Children even young as 4-year-old could recognize that illness is out of intentional control.
(3) With age,}more and more children used biological causes to explain illness. But preschoolers primarily used behavioral causes relevant to health to explain illness .
These results indicated that preschoolers gradually developed naive biology on
illness. At first, they recognized that illness is involuntary. Then, they became to develop a biological ontology. Finally, preschoolers used biological causes to explain illness.
(4) There was individual difference on children's understanding of illness. Children coming from higher educational background outperformed the counterpart coming from lower educational background.
(5) There was intra-individual difference on preschoolers' understanding of illness. Children showed different performance on different tasks and domains.
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