Proverbs and Fables

Question 1

Proverbs

Answer 1

• Proverbs- statements that express the collective beliefs, values, and wisdom of a society

— They can be used to offer encouragement or advice, warn a person of danger, or comment on events

— Context plays an important role in the interpretation of proverbs and when used apart from natural communicative contexts, their meanings may be unclear

— They typically occur in the context of fables

Question 2

Fable

Answer 2

Fables- are short and imaginative stories that conclude with a proverbial statement or moral

— Animals acting like humans are typically the main characters in fables

Question 3

When do children see proverbs

Answer 3

• Children are usually first exposed to proverbs as preschoolers and then later on when they can read

— How much exposure an individual has to proverbs and fables affects understanding

— The prevalence of fables used in our society has dramatically decreased

Question 4

Comprehension of Proverbs 1

Answer 4

• Comprehension of proverbs requires making inferences based on subtle cues, grasp perspectives of characters, and appreciate the human longing for independence.
• Proverb understanding increases with age and studies concluded that intelligence plays a role in proverb understanding.
• Piaget said proverb understanding requires advanced cognitive processes during formal operational thought and must have abstract reasoning

Question 5

Comprehension of Proverbs 2

Answer 5

• Proverbs may be more difficult to understand than other types of figurative language such as metaphors, similes, and idioms
• Children typically understand proverbs before they can explain them.
• Proverb understanding develops through meaningful exposure to the expressions and through metasemantic hypothesis(through active analysis of words)

Question 6

Comprehension of Proverbs 3

Answer 6

• Younger children interpret proverbs literally and situationally specific

— Ex: “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks”

— 8 y.o. interpretation- There is an old dog and you are trying to teach him a new trick but he won’t do it.

• Explanation of proverbs gradually becomes more general and figurative as age increases

— Explanations remain quite literal until adolescence

• The syntactic and semantic complexity of proverbs contributes to the difficulty of understanding
• Also proverbs require real world knowledge to fully understand and appreciate

Question 7

Role of Knowledge in understanding Proverbs

Answer 7

• Concrete proverbs are easier to comprehend than abstract

— Concrete Ex: “A leopard cannot change its spots”

— Abstract ex: “A wonder lasts but nine days”

• Knowledge of concrete nouns was not correlated to performance on concrete proverbs
• Knowledge of abstract nouns however was significantly correlated to comprehension of abstract proverbs

Question 8

Understanding Proverbs

Answer 8

• Educational background is related to performance on proverb explanation tasks. Adults who had more formal education provided better explanations of proverbs than those with less education.
• People ages 20-70 who completed 4 years of college perform better on explaining proverbs

Question 9

Young children and comprehension

Answer 9

• Young children can understand simple proverbs
• Understanding is associated with:
  (a) general cognitive ability
  (b) school success
  (c) number of years of formal education

Question 10

Why Teach Fables

Answer 10

• Working with fables enables children to:

— build literacy skills through teaching them to predict narratives.

— Build ethical and moral development through the context of stories. Children begin to feel more comfortable exploring the moral domain, develop critical thinking about ethical issues, and reflect on their own values.

— Build Classroom community through classroom discussions of the fables. Children learn to listen to each other and engage in conversation.

— Develop an understanding of metaphor. Children are challenged to relate concrete series of actions to a given moral, to abstract from the specific to the general, and to understand figurative language. This promotes higher-level thinking in developing children’s ability to interpret meaning and metaphor, make inferences and judgments, and create alternative solutions to problems.

— Translate Ethical Issues into Real Life-Children develop and apply critical thinking about events and stories to a variety of ethical issues and apply proverbs to variety of real-world events.

Question 11

Treatment 1

Answer 11

• Proverbs and fables are not typically treated directly because:

— They are not as prevalent as they used to be

— The understanding of proverbs and fables requires the understanding of idioms, metaphors, similes, and inferencing

— A client in a school setting would not qualify for services if their only deficit was in understanding of proverbs and fables

— Understanding proverbs and fables is a later developing skill because it involves abstract thinking

Question 12

Treatment 2

Answer 12

• Therefore, therapy would indirectly target the understanding of proverbs and fables through targeting inferencing, abstract thinking, taking other’s perspectives.
• Therapy may not directly target the comprehension of the moral of the fable but instead fables may be used to increase expressive language and inferencing skills.
• Aesop’s Fables are an entertaining way to foster the love of reading, increase vocabulary and learn a life lesson that will be useful to our children for the rest of their lives
• As a SLP, our goal is to improve functional language skills for everyday life. The comprehension of fables and proverbs does not typically affect our daily life and functioning in society and is not generally affected because they are not common in today’s society.

Question 13

Examples

Answer 13

• The Lion and the Mouse
  Lesson plan for younger children
  Moral- A kindness is never wasted (however small it may be)
• The Young Crab and His Mother
  Moral- Do not tell others how to act unless you can set a good example
  Can relate to school and how students should act