The ages of zone of proximal development for retrospective time assessment and anticipation of time event

Abstract

From childhood to adulthood, an individual’s ability to estimate and anticipate the timing of events changes continuously. This study investigated the ability of 287 children aged 5–14 years to estimate the duration of prior events and anticipate the timing of future events for determination of the age at which children improve their timing skills. The Luria neuropsychological assessment battery and the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC-IV) were applied to find correlations between timing skills and the development of cognitive functions. The findings demonstrated that retrospective estimation of duration has a zone of proximal development in children between the ages of six to eight; in these children, the accuracy of time assessment significantly improved after receiving the prompt. However, improvement in time estimation was significantly lower in those children who achieved lower results in the attention and memory tests and demonstrated reduced spatial and verbal reasoning skills. The zone of proximal development for the ability to anticipate the timing of future events was demonstrated in children between the ages of nine to eleven years. The improvement of time anticipation was negatively correlated with the number of mistakes made during the dynamic praxis test.

Keywords:

• Development
• duration of an event
• neuropsychological assessment
• time perception
• zone of proximal development

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationship that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Additional information

Funding

The article was prepared in full within the state assignment of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation for IHNA&NPh RAS АААА-А17-117092040004-0.