Haviland's and Clark's research on stages of childrens' linguistic development of kinship terms

There have been many studies on kinship terms. In 1928, Piaget looked at children's definitions of the terms 'brother' and 'sister'. Danziger (1957) and Elkind (1962) replicated the study and also looked at three additional terms: 'daughter', 'uncle' and 'cousin'. However, it was not until 1974, that Haviland and Clark asked children, between the ages of 3 and 8, to define 15 kinship terms. These were: mother, father, son, daughter, brother, sister, grandmother, grandfather, grandson, granddaughter, uncle, aunt, niece, nephew and cousin. …

…My mother's brother, who he married. One child even explained an aunt as being " My grandfather's sister" What impressed us was that on more than one occasion, the children refer to their aunt and uncle as their grandmother and grandfather respectively and vice-versa. Bibliography 'The Development of Language' Jean Berko Gleason, Allyn & Bacon (2001) 'Developmental and Pathological' Morton and Marshall, Paul Elek (1977) 'Explanations in the study of child language development' Martin Atkinson, Cambridge University Press (1982)