Children's Understanding of Death a Review of Three Components

8/3/2019 Children's Understanding of Death a Review of Three Components

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ReviewChildren's Understanding of Death: A Review ofThree Components of a Death ConceptMark W. Speece and Sandor B. BrentWayne State University

S P E E C E , M A R K W . , and BR E NT , SANDOR B . Children's Understanding of Death: A Review of ThreComponents of a Death Concept. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1984, 55, 1671-1686. This review of thempirical literature on the development of the concept of death focuses on 3 components of thconcept: irreversibility, nonfunctionality, and universality. These findings overall suggest that thmajority ofhealthy children inmodem urban-industrial societies achieve anunderstanding of allcomponents betw een 5 and 7 years of age. S ince this is also the age at which most children m ake thtransition from preoperational to concrete-operational thinking, some relationship between theseprocesses seems likely. H owever, attempts toempirically validate that relationship have thus fayielded ambiguous results. Possible reasons for this ambiguity are suggested.

In recent years there hasbeen steadilyincreasing interest in the psychological as-pects of death and dying in children. T his arti-cle reviews selected aspects of the empiricalliterature regarding heaJthy children's under-standing of death.'^ This literature is inter-esting not only for what it reveals about thedevelopment of the concept of death itself,but also for what it reveals about thedifficulties oneencounters in attempting touse a general theory of cognitive developm entlike Piaget s as the basis for understanding thedevelopment of a specific abstract conceptsuch as the concept of death.Background

The study of healthy children s under-standing of death beg an in the 1930s with twoinvestigations (Anthony, 1939, 1940, 1972;S childer & W echsler, 1934), followed by tw omore inthe 1940s (Gesell & Ilg, 1946; Nagy,1948, 1959), and one the next decade (Alexan-der & Adlerstein, 1958). Since iliat time chil-dren's unde rstanding of death has becom e thefocus of a rapidly increasing body of research,with eight studies reported inthe 1960s, andat least 27 from 1970 to thepresent. Thus, todate there have bee n at least 40 studies in all.

D espite this substantial and growing

body of information, no exhaustive review othis literature has yet appeared. Kastenbaumand Aisenberg (1972) reviewed many of thconceptual and methodological issues raiseby this research. H owever, m ore than twothirds of the studies now available have beereported since their review. Even a more recent review by L onetto (1980) included onl13 of these 40 studies. The present paper rviews all of the available data concerninthree of the most widely studied componentof the "m ature " concept of death: irreversibiity, nonfunctionality, and universality (seBeauchamp, 1974; Kane, 1979).Definitions

Irreversibility refers to the understandinthat once a living thing dies, its physical bodcannot be made alive again (e.g., H om blum1978). Terms such as death as final (e.g., Garley & B emasconi, 1967), death as irrevocabl(e.g., C hilders & W immer, 1971), and death apermanent (e.g., Koocher, 1972/1973, 1971974) have also bee n u sed to refer to this basconcept. T he question of wh ether th e physicbody itself can come back to life after deathseparate from the belief in a spiritual afterlifI n thepresent review we will only addresthe former question.


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1672 Child DevelopmentNonfunctionality refers to the under-standing that all life-defining functions ceaseat death. Alternate terms inc lude dysfunction-ality (Kane, 1975, 1979) and cessation (e.g.,

Nagy, 1948).Universality refers to the understandingthat all living things die (e.g., Childers &W imm er, 1971). Oth er terms used for this gen-eral notion include death as an immediatepossibility (e.g., Gartley & Bem ascon i, 1967),death as a personal event (Swain, 1975/1976,1979), and inevitability (Bolduc, 1972).

RationaleWe decided to foeus on these three com-ponen ts for two reasons. First, each has been afocus of mo re tlian 20 studies, and a total of 35studies examined at least one of the threecomp onents (see Tab le 1).^ Th us, these com-ponents are the most widely investigated as-pects of children's understanding of death.Second, since each is considered part of a ma-ture adult's conceptualization of death, eachhas a well-defined developmental end stateagainst which ch ildren's notions can be read-ily compared (Brent & Speece, Note 1).

Focal QuestionsIn reviewing this literature, we focusedon four questions: (1) How was each compo-nent measured? (2) How do young childrenview death before they achieve a matureund erstandin g of the co mp onent? (3) At whatage do the majority of children appear toachieve such a "ma ture" understanding? And(4) Is the understanding of each componentrelated to a child's overall level of cognitivedevelopment?Population Characteristics

With the exception of age, sample size,and gender, this literature is strikingly incom-plete in its reporting of the demo graphic char-acteristics of the po pulation s inv estigated. D e-spite this scarcity of information, these dataappear to represent primarily white, urban,middle-class children of average or above in-telligence. There are, hovs?ever, several clearexceptions: Zweig (1976/1977) studied mostlylower-class black children; Orbach and

Glaubman (1978, 1979) also studied lower-class children; Sternlicht (1980) studied re-tarded individuals; Bolduc (1972) studiedonly females; and Hansen (1972/1973), Peck(1966), Portz (1964/1965), and Safier (1964)studied only males.

Although these studies included subjectsfrom 2 to 20 years of age, about half of' thestudies examined ages 5 through 12, whilechildren younger than 5 and older than 12have received considerably less attention (seeTable 1).Methodology

Let us turn next to the methods used inthese studies. All but four studies used inter-views (many were not standardized) with chil-dren as their primary source of data. The fourexceptions are Anthony (1972), who had chil-dren define the word "dead"; Bolduc (1972),who had them write an essay about whatdeath meant to them; Pitcher and Prelinger(1963), who had them write stories and thenanalyzed the story themes (some childrenwrote about death spontaneously); and Z weig(1976/1977), who gave children a writtenquestionnaire concerning their understandingof and attitudes toward death.

Some of the investigators who used inter-views also used other techniques as well.These included drawings (Childers &Wim-mer, 1971; Looetto, 1980; Nagy, 1948), de-scriptions of death-related pictures (Schilder& Wechsler, 1934; Steiner, 1965), writtencompositions (Childers & Wimmer, 1971;Nagy, 1948), spontaneous play (Rochlin,1967), directed play (Hansen, 1972/1973;Weininger, 1979), and nonverbal tasks (Horn-blum , 1978). Because most of the se additionaltechniques involve some methodologicaldifficulties, the results we report here arebased primarily on information gained frominterviews.Specific Questions'^The specific interview questions used toelicit information regarding each componentvaried somewhat among these studies. Wewill consider the components one at a time.


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Irreversibility.Of the 21 studies thatprovided their specific questions, 13 used avariation of "Can a dead person come back tolife?" Of the remainin g seven , three (Koocher,1973; Stemlicht, 1980; Weininger, 1979)asked tbe question, "How can you make deadthings come back to life?"; two (Lonetto,1980; Steiner, 1965) simply asked about whathappens after death; one (Nagy, 1948) askedthe general question, "What is death?";'* andone (B eaucham p, 1974) asked a series of ques-tions that focused on whether childrenthou gh t specific actions (e.g., giving me dicin e,magic words) could bring things back to life.Nonfunctionality.Of the 15 studies thatprovided their specific questions, 12 asked avariation of "C an a dead person do X?" whereX was some specific life-defining function.However, those 12 studies showed consider-able variability in the types and number oflife-defining functions they each used to con-cretize the notion of nonfunctionality. Thefunctions included moving, growing, eating,heart beating, kn owing, h earing, feeling, see-ing, thinking, dreaming, and talking. For ex-ample, Steiner (1965) asked about feeling and

talking, while Hansen (1972/1973) askedabout moving, growing, eating, and feeling.Of the remaining three studies, both Lonetto(1980) and Orbach and Claubman (1979)asked a general question dealing with whathappens after things die, while Nagy (1948)asked the still more general question, "Whatis death?"Universality.Twenty studies providedthe specific questions they used regarding

universality. Although most of these were in-terested only in human death, four were alsointerested in animal death (Beauchamp , 1974;Hansen, 1972/1973; Zweig, 1976/1977) oranimal and plant death (Homblum, 1978).Seven of the studies concerned with humandeath (Beauchamp, 1974; Childers & Wim-mer, 1971; Hansen, 1972/1973; Kalmbach,1978/1979; Peck, 1966; White et al., 1978;Zweig, 1976/1977) asked about human deathin general (e.g., "Does everybody die?"), five(Cartley &Bemasconi, 1967; Koocher, 1973;Rochlin, 1967; Stemlicht, 1980; Weininger,1979) asked specifically abou t the c hild's per-

Speece and Brent 16731980; Robinson, 1976; Schilder &Wechsle1934; Steiner, 1965) asked bo th types of questions. W ith two excep tions (Blum, 1975; Nagy1948), these studies asked whether livinthings (people, animals, etc.) would dieBlum, on the other hand, asked, "Can yothink of someone who might not die?" whilNagy asked the general question, "What isdeath?"Children's Early Views of Death

Despite the variations in methodologythese data suggest certain general conclusionconceming howchildren view death beforthey have achieved a mature understand ing othe three components. In undertaking thisummary it is important to bear in mind thaeven very young children, as young as 18mon ths of age, appear to have som e concept odeath long before th ey achieve the normativadult conceptualization (see Brent, 1977-78Kastenbaum & Aisenberg, 1972; Speece1983).Before Irreversibility

Before they understand irreversibilityyoung ch ildren often v iew death as temporaryand reversible. For these children dead thingscan become alive again spontaneously (Nagy1948), as the result of medical intervention(Beauchamp, 1974; Hansen, 1972/1973; Kane1979; Lonetto, 1980; Rochlin, 1967; Steiner1965; Stem licht, 1980; Wein inger, 1979), afteeating (;Hansen, 1972/1973; Koocher, 1973)after drinking water (Beauchamp, 1974; Hansen, 1972/1973; Stemlicht, 1980), by magic(Schilder & Wechsler, 1934), through wishfulthinking (Hansen, 19724973), and by praying(Stemlicht, 1980; Weininger, 1979). Theseyoung children tend to see death as sleep(from which you wake up) or like a trip (fromwhich you return). In addition, the fact that alarge num ber of children m ention medical in-tervention (e.g., going to a hospital, getting ashot) as a me thod for reversing death also sug-gests that some children see death as similarto being sick.

However, a cautionary note is neededhere. Although there are examples in whichchildren clearly show their belief in a revers-


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1676 Child Development1974), the conclusion that young childrenview de ath as reve rsible comes primarily fromaffirmative responses to questions such as"Can dead things come back to life?" Theconcept of reversibility logically implies thatthe same referent is alternately in one andthen in another of two distinct states at differ-ent times, that is, that dead and alive aremutually exclusive states of being . How ever,only two researchersKalmbach (1978/1979)and Steiner (1965)attempted to first deter-mine whether children did in fact view"dead" as distinct from "alive." All of theothers seemed to have assumed that childrenalready saw life and death as distinct states.For this reason it is possible that some of theaffirmative responses to the typical question,"Can dead things come back to life?" resultedfrom a belief that some things can be bothdead and alive at the same time. Thus, theconclusion that young children view death asreversible may credit some children withmore know ledge (i.e., sufficiently differen-tiated concepts of alive and dead) than theyactually possess (see B rent & Spe ece, Note 1).Before Nonfunctionality

Before ch ildren und erstand that death in-volves a cessation of all life-defining functions(nonfunctionality) they often answer "Yes" tosuch questions as "Can a dead person feel?"and "If someone died, could he still breath?"Thus, it appears that for many of these chil-dren death is viewed as somewhat differentfrom life in that either dea d things do not pos-sess all of the functional capabilities of alivethings, or dead things have diminished capa-bilities for specific functions (e.g., dead thingscannot hear as well as alive things). As notedpreviously, these studies varied considerablyin the specific functions (e.g., feeling, m oving)they asked about. Kane (1979) suggested thatchildren realize certain functions cease atdeath before they realize that other functionscease. She separated cognitive aspects offunctioning (e.g., knowing, feeling) fromother, noncognitive, aspects (e.g., heart beat-ing, breathing) and investigated them sepa-rately. She found that children were morelikely to attribute continued cognitive func-tioning to dead things than they were theother type of functioning. Kane explained h er

and speaking andonly later recognize thatmore subtle, cognitive aspects such as dream-ing and knowing also end with death.Here again, most interpretations of tliesefindings assume that these children alreadyunderstand the states of alive anddead asmutually exclusive, and therefore that theirprincipal difficulty in understanding nonfunc-tionality is their uncertainty abou t which func-tions continue after death. However, as we al-ready noted, for at least some children deadand alive may not be v iewe d as distinct states.Therefore, concluding that young childrenthink dead things arefunctional may creditsome of them with more differentiated con-cepts of alive and dead th an they actually pos-sess (Brent & Speece, Note 1).

Before UniversalityBefore children understand that death isuniversal and inevitable, they often believethat there are certain actions that can be takento avoid de ath, or that certain " spe cial" classesof people do not die. For example, Nagy(1959) reported that young children thinkdeath can be avoided by being clever orlucky. People thoug ht to be excluded from dy-ing include teachers (Beauchamp, 1974), thechild's immediate family (Swain, 1979), chil-dren in general (Peck, 1966; Robinson, 1976/1978), and the individual children themselves(Hornblum, 1978).

Schilder and Wechsler's data (1934) sug-gested that children understand that otherswill die before they understand that theythemselves will die. This idea is also impliedin those studies that only asked whether thechild itself would die, using such questions as"Will you die?" Without a doubt most chil-dren understand that some people die beforethey understan d that they themselves will die.How ever, the suggestion that children extendthe possibility of death toallother humansprior to extending it to themselves has notbeen supported. Six studies (Caustin, 1977;Homblum, 1978; Lonetto, 1980; Feck, 1966;Robinson, 1976/1978; Steiner, 1965) indicatethat very few children exclude only them-selves from death. Thus, if children excludethemselves from dying they usually excludeother individuals as well.


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Speece and Brent 1677tendency to say that their death will occuronly in the remote future when they get old(e.g., Lonetto, 1980). For many children thisstatement will turn out to be true. However,apparently these children do not seem able tograsp the possibility that their own deaths canoccur at any time.Age of Acquisition

Having examined how children viewdeath before they have achieved a matureconceptualization of tlie three comp onents, letus now turn to the age atwhich each compo-nent is typically acquired.Definition o f Age of Acquisition

Two problems arise in the attempt to de-termine tiie age atwhich ch ildren can be saidto understand acomponent. First, the studiesvaried widely in the statistical criteria whichthey used to determine that age. For example,Hansen (1972/1973) appears to have used atleast a60% criterion, H om blum (1978) a 75%criterion, and Childers and Wimmer (1971)close to a100% criterion. Inother words, theyrequired, respectively, that 60%, 75%, or100% of the children of a given agedemon-strate an "adult" understanding of a compo-nent in order to specify aparticular age as theage of acquisition. Thus, acommon criterionwas necessary in order tomeaningfully com-pare theresults of these studies. Second, fivestudies (Beauchamp, 1974; Gartley & Berna-sconi, 1967; Gesell & Ilg, 1946; Safier, 1964;Schilder & Wechsler, 1934) did not indicatetheir criterion for the age of acquisition theyreported, and their published data did notallow us to determine the percentage ofchildren who understood each component.Therefore, for these studies w e mad e die con-servative assumption that at least 50% of th echildren at the age given by the author hadachieved that understanding. Inorder to dealwith these two problems, we settled on asim-ple-majority criterionthe age at which atleast 50% of the children of a given ageshowed an adeq uate u ndersta ndin g of a givencomponent.

Tab le 1 lists theages studied, the samplesize, and the age of acquisition for each com-ponent, as well as the actual percentage ofchildren demonstrating an understanding of

stood this component. By our 50% criterion,these data indicate that the age of acquisitionfor irreversibility is age 10. On th e other hand ,only 40% of the 11-year-olds in this studyunderstood nonfunctionality. Since this wasthe oldest group in this study, we interpretthese data as indica ting tha t the age of acquisi-tion for this comp onent m ust be old er than 11years of age. Thus, the entry for Anthony(1972) fornonfunctionality is "> 11; 40%.Table 1also shows that Anthony did not in-vestigate universality.

Most of the ages andpercentages shownin Table 1 we re d erived d irectly from data orstatements published by the authors in theirreports. There were, however, two additionalproblems in sixstudies that resulted in es-timated ages of acquisition. First, Anthony(1972), Bolduc (1972), andNagy (1948) eachreported a developmental sequence for chil-dren's understanding of death. Therefore, inorder to compare their resuRs with those ofthe other studies, we had to identify the par-ticular level of their seq uenc es at which chil-dren were said tounderstand the componentof interest. We then determined thepercent-age of children of each yearly age who hadattained that level. Finally, we selected theyoungest agewhere at least 50% of childrenhad ach ieved that level of und erstanding . Sec-ond, some of the data presented by Hom blum(1978), Kalmbach (1978/1979), and Koocher(1973) didnot permit us todetermine the ex-act percentage of children who understood acomponent. In these cases we estimated thepercentage of children understanding eachcomponent.

In addition tothese estimates, six addi-tional studies didnot provide sufficient infor-mation for us to even estimate an age of acqui-sition for at least one component (Lonetto,1980; Melear, 1973; Pitcher & Prelinger,1963; Portz, 1964/1965; Rochlin, 1967; Town-ley & Thomburg, 1980). Finally, because Or-bach and Glaubm an (1978) confounded the ir-reversibility of physical death with belief inan afterlife, we could notdetermine the per-centage of children who u nderstoo d irreversi-bility alone, as wehave defined it; and sinceSternlicht (1980) only studied retarded indi-vidua ls, determ ination of an age of acquisition


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1678 Child DevelopmentTABLE 2

AGE OF ACQUISITION STATUS FOR THE STUDIES

Status4 or younger . ..5-7

8 or older

IrreversibilityKaneNagyBeauchampBlumGartley & BernasconiGesell & IlgHansenHornblumKalmbachKoocherMclntire etal .MelearS aflerSchilder & WechslerSteinerSwain

AnthonyBolducChilders & WimmerWass etal .Wass & To wryWeiningerWhite et al.Zweig

NonfunctionalityPeckSwainBolducGartley & BernasconiHansenHornblumKalmbachKaneLonettoMclntire et al .Schilder & W echslerSteinerZweig

AnthonyGesell & IlgNagyOrbach & Glaubman (1979)White et al .

UniversalityPeckWeiningerBeauchampBlumGaustinGhilders & WimmerGartley & BernasconiHansenHornblumKalmbachKaneKoocherLonettoRobinsonSteinerSwainWhite et al .ZweigBolducGesell & IlgNagySaflerSchilder & Wechsler

a modal age of acquisition of 7 years for eachcomponent. Further, about 60% of these stud-ies found the age of acquisition to be betw een5 and 7 years of age for each component. Inorder to high light th e rang e of ages of acquisi-tion found in the different studies, we dividedthem into three grou ps; a 4-or-younger, a 5- 7,an d an8-or-older group. Table 2 shows thestatus of each study inTable 1 for which anage of acquisition could be determined.One of the problems with summarizingthe data using this "scoreboard approach" inTables 1 and 2 is the implication that all thestudies are equally valid. Although the stud-ies are clearly not equally valid, overall thefindings for the age of acquisition for eachcomponent are unequivocal.

by Kane (1975, 1979). Kane studied 122 mid-dle-class, white children aged 3 through 12years. Th ere were at least 10 children at eachyearly age. Kane used an open-ended inter-view, but she did not provide her specificquestions. However, she clearly focused on anum ber of comp onents of a death concept, in-cluding irreversibility (which she termed ir-revocability), nonfunctionality (teiTned dys-functionality), and un iversality. Data prov idedin her dissertation (Kane, 1975) permit a de-termination of the ages of acquisition.While only one of 10 3-year-olds under-stood irreversibility, 58% ofthe 4-year-olds (7of 12) understood the component. Only 18%

of 3- and 4-year-olds (4 of 22) and 46% of 5-and 6-year-olds (11 of 24) understood non-


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Speece and Brent 1679year-olds and only 42% of th e 4-year-olds (5 of12) understood universality, 64% of th e 5-yaar-olds (7 of 11) understood it.Sequence of AcquisitionIn general, the sequence inwhich vari-ous forms of cognition are acquired plays aparticularly im portant role in our un derstand-ing of the processes bywhich children de-velop intellectually. In the present case, thequestion of sequence concerns whether thethree components of the mature concept ofdeath are acquired concu rrently as a resu lt of amore general underlying cognitive achieve-ment, inan invariant sequence, or indepen-dently of each o ther. W hile these data cannotresolve this issue conclusively, the fact thatthe age range 5-7 is also the time when mostchildren can be expected to make the transi-tion from preoperational to concrete-opera-tional modes of thinking (e.g., Piaget, 1976)suggests that all three components may in-deed be concurrent acquisitions. We return toan examination of that possibility b elow .Summary and DiscussionTh ese d ata suggest that (a) the majority ofchildren achieve at least some understandingof all three comp onents irreversibility, non-functionality, anduniversalityand (fo) allthree compo nents are understood at about thesame timebetween age 5and 7. However,in addition to this strong central tendency,there is also awide range of ages of acquisi-tion found across these studies. This suggeststhat population andprocedural differencesamong them may also play a role in determin-ing each specific result. As we indicated ear-lier, so many of the se s tudies failed to prov ideadequate information on their subject samplesthat ameaningful evaluation of the efifects ofpopulation differences among them was im-possible. We w ere thus limited to looking forprocedural differences that might account forsome of the differences in ages of acquisition.

Th e approach w e took involved an exami-nation of each 8-or-older study (see Table 2)for any procedure that may account for theolder age of acquisition compared to the ma-jority of studies. Three p rocedural dimensionsare suggested: (1) task difficulty, (2) taskspecificity, and (3) leading questions. Each of

Task difficulty.Most studies only required children to make simple verbal responses. Inmany cases all that was requiredwas a yes/no response to such questions as"Does everybody d ie?" H owever, Anthony (1972) task involved definitions of the word"de ad," Bolduc's (1972) an essay about deathand White et al.'s (1978) required children tologically justify their resp onses. Ea ch of thesethree tasks appears to make considerablymore nontarget demands (see Flavell, 19701977) than was generally required .

Task specificity.T he questions used bymost studies requested specific informationregarding the component of interest, for example, for universality the question "Doeeverybody die?" However, six of the 8-orolder studies (Anthony, 1972; Bolduc, 1972Lonetto, 1980; Nagy, 1948; Orbach & Glaubman, 1979; Steiner, 1965) asked general questions that did not require children to commenon a specific component. For example, Anthony (1972) only hadchildren define theword " dea d"; Nagy (1948) only asked the general question, "What is death?" and Orbacand Glaubm an (1979) only asked, "What happens to things when they die?" for nonfunctionality. These less specific tasks and questions appear better suited to measure whachildren of different ages spontaneously saabout death (i.e., the m ost salient aspects) thathey are at tapping what children actuallunderstand about each specific component.

Leading questions. The wording of several questions used by some of the 8-or-oldestudies may have led some children to denthe relevance of a particular component thathey would otherwise have endorsed as beinan essential characteristic of death. This appears to be the case for Wass, Guenther, anTowry (1979) and Wass and Towry (1980)who asked, "Can dead people and animalever come back to life?" and for Zweig (19761977), wh o had children respond to the statemen t, "When a person dies he can never comback to life." In these cases the w ords " everand "never" may have suggested to somchildren the possibility of exceptions to thgeneral irreversibility of death.^These three procedural differences ac


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168 0 Child Developmentysis also yields several inconsistencies. Forexample, while White et al.'s (1978) use of amore difficult task may account for the 8-or-older age of acquisition for both irreversibilityand nonfunctionality, it cannot at the sametime account for the 7-year age of acquisitionfor universality. Clearly, further research isneeded to validate our suggestions.

Thus far we have focused primarily onthe age at which children typically appear tounderstand each component of the concept ofdeath. Age has traditionally been interestingas a developmental variable because it is pre-sumed to provide a useful index of overallphysical and psychological maturity. How-ever, we turn next to a psychologically moreinteresting variablethe effects of cognitivedevelopment on children's understanding ofeach component.Cognitive Development

Children's understanding of death doesnot exist in isolation from other developm entstaking place in their cognitive life in general.It is reasonable to assume that a child's con-ceptualization of death will vary with his orher overall level of cognitive development.Indeed, Kastenbaum (1967), among others,has held that children's understanding ofdeath cannot be fully understood without afoil appreciation of their cognitive develop-ment. It is, therefore, not surprising to findthat after age, cognitive development is thevariable that has been studied most often.Twelve studies (Anthony, 1972; Blum, 1975/1976; Hansen, 1972/1973; Hornblum, 1978;Kalmbach, 1978/1979; Kane, 1979; Koocher,1973; Robinson, 1976/1978; Safier, 1964;Steiner, 1965; Townley & Thornburg, 1980;White et al., 1978) suggested a relationshipbetween cognitive development and theunderstanding of death. All used a Piagetianapproach to cognitive development^** Let usno^v examine them in more detail.

Anthony (1972), Kane (1979), Robinson(1976/1978), Safier (1964), and Steiner (1965)all concluded that the development of anun der stan din g of deatla parallels P iaget's (e.g.,1976) seq uen ce of stages for cognitive devel-

opment at a macroscopic level. Th ey didnot,howev er, explicate at a microscopic level thespecific ways in which children's ability toconceptualize death is related to the differentmodes of cognitive functioning associatedwith each Piagetian stage. In addition, whilethey drew logical parallels betw een children'sconceptions of death and their g eneral cogni-tive develop men t, they did not examine thoseparallels empirically. Seven others (Blum,1975/1976; Hansen, 1972/1973; Homblum,1978; Kalmbach, 1978/1979; Koocher, 1973;Townley & Thornburg, 1980; White et al.,1978) have been somewhat more explicit inspecifying those logical relationships at a mi-croscopic level and have also examined thoserelationships empirically by comparing chil-dren atdifferent P iagetian leve ls. T he specificcognitive achievements that have been sug-gested as essential for understanding thesecomponents include classification abilities(Hansen, 1972/1973), the ability to focus ontransformations as well as on states (Hansen,1972/1973), a linear notion of time (Hansen,1972/1973; Hornblum, 1978), the ability toperform reversible operations (Hansen, 1972/1973; Ho rnb lum , 1978; Kalmbach, 1978/1979;Tow nley & T hornb urg, 1980), those reciproc-ity skills that enable children to learn fromthe experience of others (Blum, 1975/1976;Koocher, 1973), increased objectivity and de-creased egoceotrism (Blum, 1975/1976; Han-seo, 1972/1973; Ho mb lum , 1978; Tow nley &Thornburg, 1980), and the universal applica-tion of rules (White et al., 1978). Althoughthese authors identified these specificachievem ents, their rationale for doing so wasnot always clear.

Since preoperational children by defini-tion lack all of these specific cognitive abili-ties, they should be unable to understand anyof tlie three comp onents. On the other hand,since within Piaget's system these abilities areachieved with the advent of concrete opera-tions, children who have achieved that stageshould then be able to understand all threecomponents. All of these authors exceptWhite et al. (1978) concur with that conclu-sion. White et aJ., however, took a differentapproach by suggesting that, while an under-


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Speece and Brent 16standing of universality should be related tothe advent of concrete-operational thinking,an understanding of irreversibility and non-functionality should b e unrela ted to cognitivedevelop men t. Ho wever, the basis for this sug-gestion is unclear from their presentation.

Because the general cognitive abilitiesthought to be prerequisite for understandingthese components are achieved only duringthe concrete-operational period, the compari-son between preoperational and concrete-operational children is particularly inter-esting. Five of the seven studies thatcompared children atdifferent cognitive de-velopmental levels differentiated preopera-tional and concrete-operational children di-rectly through the use of classical Piagetianconservation tasks (Hornblum, 1978; Kalm-bach, 1978/1979; Koocher, 1973; Townley &Thomburg, 1980; White et al., 1978). One ofthese, Hornblum (1978), also used Piagetiantime-concept tasks to assess the children'slevel of cognitive development indepen-dently of tbeir conservation performance. Tb eremaining two studies (Blum, 1975/1976;Hansen, 1972/1973) did not independentlydeterm ine the ch ildren's actual level of cogni-tive development, but rather inferred tbatlevel from the children's chronological age.Let us consider each of these three assess-ment procedures separately.Studies U sing Conservation TasksTh e results ofthe studies using conserva-tion tasks have yielded ambiguous results.

Irreversibility. Three studies, Horn-blum (1978), Kalmbach (1978/1979), andKoocher (1973), found a relationship betw eenthe understanding of irreversibility and gen-eral cognitive develop men t, while two . Town-ley and Thomburg (1980) and White et al.(1978), did not. Further, Kalmbach (1978/1979) found that 73% andKoocher (1973)found that 60% of preoperational childrenunderstood irreversibility. This suggests thatpreoperational thinking alone may be suffi-cient for understand ing irreversibility. On theother hand. White et al . (;i978) found that only33% of concrete-operational children under-stood irreversibility. This suggests that con-crete-operational thinking by itself may not be

functionality and cognitive developm ent. Fther, Kalmbach (1978/1979) found that 8of preoperational children understood nfunctionality, suggesting that preoperatiothought may be sufficient for understandthis component. On the other hand. Whiteal. (1978) found that only 32% of concreoperational children understood nonfunctidity, suggesting that concrete-operatiothought by itself is not sufficient for undstanding nonfunctionality.

Universality.Two studies, Hornbl(1978) and White et al. (1978), found a retionship betw een children's un derstandinguniversality an d their level of cognitive devopment, while Kalmbach (1978/1979) founo such relationship. Further, Kalmba(1978/1979) and Koocher (1973) found over two-thirds of their preoperational chdren understood tbis component, suggestthat preoperational thought may be sufficifor understanding universality. On the othand. W hite e t al. (1978) found that only 3of preoperational children but 62% of ccrete-operational children understood univsality. T'his suggests that concrete-operatiothinking m ay be necessary for an understaing of tliis co mp onent.

The variability in these results, repsented most clearly and consistently in coparing the studies conducted by Kalmb(1978/1979) and White et al. (1978), maydu e in part to differences in the a ssessmenan und erstandin g of each com ponent. Speccally, White et cil. used a procedure that presented as being more difficult than msince it required that children logically justheir responses. Thus, even if Kalmbach White et al . assessed level of cognitive devopment identically (which is not the caWhite et al. would be expected to find fewchildren of a given cognitive level undstanding each component. Still further, thwere also clear differences in the proceduus ed by different researchers to assess convation. Th ese pro cedures varied along at lefour dimensions: (1) the specific tasks eployed (e.g., number, area, volume), (2)nu m be r of trials per task, (3) whe the r the crrion for achievement of conservation wbased on correct judgments alone or whet


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1682 Child Developmentthe relationship between general cognitivedevelopment and children's conceptualiza-tion of death cannot be made since cognitivedevelopment was in every instance con-founded with age. Hom blum (1978), the onlyinvestigator to have been concerned with thisissue, found that when she partialed out ageeffects, cognitive dev elop me nt was no longerrelated to an und erstand ing of any of the com-ponents.Time-Concept TasksHomblum (1978) also assessed the chil-dren's level of cognitive development inde-pendently of conservation by using Piagetiantime-concept tasks (Piaget, 1969). She arguedthat children's ability to understand the ir-reversibility of death should be related toheir conceptualization of time, since duringthe course of their development they shiftfrom a cyclical notion of time , typical of preo p-erational thought, to a linear notion of time,achieved during concrete operations. She de-scribed an operational notion of time asnderstanding time as linear and continuous,and being able to understand and integrateideas of temporal succession, duration, andsimultaneity (nonsuccession and nondura-ion). Here Hornblum took the achievementof an operational notion of time to be indica-tive of concrete-operational thinking.

Hornblum found that children who hadachieved an operational notion of time weremore likely than nonoperational children tounderstand both irreversibility and nonfunc-ionality. However, since at least 40% of chil-dren w ho had not yet achieved an operationalnotion of time also understood both compo-nents, she concluded that such an operationalnotion of time was not necessary for theunderstanding of both components. Further-more, here again, when Homblum partialedout the effects of age, the relationship be-tween children's concepts of time and theirund erstand ing of both irreversibility and no n-functionality no longer held.

tudies That Assume Children's Level ofognitive DevelopmentBlum (1975/1976) found that 83% and8% of 7-year-olds (his you nge st child ren, andmed by him to be at the level of concrete

Hansen (1972/1973) found that irreversi-bility, nonfunctionality, and universality wereunderstood by 92%, 92%, and 66%, respec-tively, of her children aged 7-6 to 8-6. Sincethis age group was presumed to have alreadyachieved concrete operations, she concludedthat this level of thought was sufficient forunderstanding all three components. Hansenstudied younger children as well, but wecould not determine the actual percentage ofchildren understanding each of the compo-nents since she did not ask all of the youngerchildren about these components.DiscussionSeveral investigators, and Hansen (1972/1973) in particular, presented a logical ra-tionale for expecting that a mature under-standing of each component would beachieved with the advent of concrete-operational thinking. However, those em-pirical studies that specifically looked for arelationship between children's cognitivedevelopment and their conceptualization ofdeath have y ielded m ixed results. And the re-sults of even those investigations that reportedsuch a relationship are ambiguous, since agewas confounded with level of cognitive devel-opment in every case.

The evidence conceming the level ofcognitive development (if any) that is neces-sary and/or sufficient for such an understand-ing is also ambigu ous. This am biguity may b edue in part to differences in the subject popu-lations inve stigated in different studies, and inpart to differences in the procedures used toassess both the children's understanding ofeach component and those used to assess thelevel of cognitive development of the chil-dren.

At a more theoretical level, the relation-ship these authors inferred between the cog-nitive operations associated with each Pia-getian stage and the logical operations neces-sary to und erstand each compo nent, as well asthe means used to assess the children's levelof cognitive de velo pm ent, m ay refiect an over-reliance on Piagetian stages as unified struc-tures (what Piaget termed structures d'ensem ,-bles). If, however, it is the case that Piaget'sstages are not the unified structures, as is gen-


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Speece and Brent 16achievement of concrete operations in gen-eral.

A still broader theoretical problem con-cerns the difficulty one encounters in attempt-ing to determine the specific implications ofPiaget's general theory of cognitive develop-ment for the development of specific abstractconcepts such as the concept of death (seeBibace & Walsh, 1979). Tobe sure, the rela-tionships that various authors have inferredbetween children's cognitive developmentand their understanding of each componentare generally consistent with Piagetian theory.D espite this- gene ral consistency, how ever,they still lack sufficient specificity to allow usto understand why the achievement ofa par-ticular Piagetian stage is of nece ssity a prereq -uisite for the achie vem ent of a particular levelof understanding of a concept such as death.W hat is missing in thes e formulations is ade-tailed description of the specific cognitiveabilities that are logically implicit in a "ma-ture" understanding of each individual com-pon ent of a death conc ept, and that are, there-fore, logically necessary for the achievementof that understanding. Such a model is beingdeveloped (see Brent & Speece, Note 1) andhopefully will permit us toexplore the devel-opment of children's understanding of deathin greater detail.

However, Piagetian theory is unlikely inprinciple to provide a complete picture ofchildren's conceptions of death since it em-phasizes the development of context-inde-pendent reasoning abilities. It has beenshown tha t performance on Piagetian tasks of-ten depends on the individual's kno\vledge ofthe specific sub ject m atter (e.g., Flav ell, 1977).In the pres ent case, differences in individualchildren's experience with death may affecttheir responses on death-concept tasks. Chil-dren's experiences with death, including theirexperiences with actual death as well as whatthey have bee n told about death, are probablycrucial to their un derstan ding of death. ^ If so,then the study of children's understanding ofdeath, as ^veII as that of cognitive develop-ment in general, needs a model of develop-m ent that simu ltaneously accounts for both in-creases in subject-matter knowledge and the

ConclusionsThe findings we have review ed here gested several ways in which younger dren's understanding of death differs f

that of older children and adults. Undeleast some circumstances, young chilthink death is reversible; they attribute vous life-defining functions to dead thin gs;they think that certain individuals (oftencluding them selves) will not die. More imtant, the age-of-acquisition data sugge stedirreversibility, nonfunctionality, and unisality are understood by m ost children by7. These general findings can serve as roguidelines concerning what children ofous ages can be expe cted to und erstand adeath . Th ere a re, how ever, at least seven eral suggestions for future research regarthese specific components.

1. We need a clearer picture of the tionship between general cognitive devement and an understanding of each specomponent. A useful a pproach ap pears tomore elaborate discussion of the specific nitive prerequisites of an understandineach, followed by an empirical investigaof those logicaJ analyses.

2. Children's understanding of these cponents (and of the concept of death ineral) needs to be explored in relation tooclosely related concepts, especially the cepts of "alive," "inanimate," and "sick."particularly surprising that only avery fewsearchers (only seven of the studies wviewed here) examined both the concepalive and dea d in the same sample of child3. Alternate tasks would aid our ustanding of the components. For examH om blum (1978) used nonverbal tasks ining pictures toassess irreversibility. Her had the advantage of making less dem andchildren's verbal abilities than is true otypical interview techniques. While it isrect that there is no "true" m easure of a cept, alternate tasks do enrich ou r und ersting of the circumstances that enable chilto express their abilities.4. Further information regarding thder of acquisition of these com ponents w


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Child Development

for most children betw een 5 and 75. The reasons for the range of ages ofto be ex-In particular, the procedural differ-we identified (task difficulty, task

for some of the variance6. In general, the study of the th ree com-was concerned with human death,sequ endy we said very little about theand plant death.om blu m (1978) and Steiner (1965) alsoand suggested that

for plant death than for humanto the fact that most chil-af-

dothe

7. There is little information regardingof various socioexperiential vari-h as gender, death experiences, andon children's devel-erstandin g of the com ponen ts. Suches have sometimes been examined, butin relation to anoverall concept ofexperience w ith death on children's u nder-arly interesting.

In conclusion, the decision to subdividein highlighting someage trends regarding children's un-ing of death. In particular, our reviewthe available data suggests that irreversibil-and universality are7.

understanding of three components of a deathconcept. Paper presented at the Foundationof Thanatology Symposium, "Children andDea th," N ew York, Jun e 1983.ReferencesAlexander, L E., & Adlerstein, A. M. Affective re-sponses to the concept of death in a populationof children and early adolescents. Journal ofGenetic Psychology, 1958, 93, 167-17 7.Anthony, S. A study of the development of the con-cept of death. British Journal ofEducationalPsychology, 1939, 9, 27 6-2 77 . (Abstract)Anthony, S. The child's discovery of death. NewYork; Harcourt, Brace, 1940.Anthony, S. The discovery of death inchildhoodand after. New York; Basic, 1972.Beauchamp, N. W. Th e young child's perceptions ofdeath (Doctoral dissertation, Purdue tJniver-sity, 1974). Dissertation Abstracts Interna-tional, 1974, 35, 3288A-3289A. (UniversityMicrofilms No. 74-26,684)Bibace, R., &Walsh, M. E. Develop mental stages inchildr en's co nceptions of illness. In G. C. Stoneet al. (Eds.), Health psychology A handbook.San Francisco; Jossey-Bass, 1979.Bluebond-Langner, M. The private worlds of dyingchildren. Princeton, N.J.; Princeton UniversityPress, 1978.Blum, A. H. Children's conceptions of death and anafterlife (Doctoral dissertation, SUNY at Buf-falo, 1975). Dissertation Abstracts Interna-tional, 1976, 36, 5248B. (University MicrofilmsNo. 76-9032)Bolduc, J. Adevelopmental study of the relation-ship between experiences of death and age anddevelopment of the concept of death (Doctoraldissertation, Columbia University, 1972). Dis-sertation Abstracts International, 1972, 34,2758A. (University Microfilms No. 72-30,311)Brent, S. B. Puns, metaphors, and misunderstand-ings in a two-year-old's conception of death.Omega, 1977-78, 8, 285 -293 .Caustin, K. C. An exploration of the effect of threevariables on children's concepts of aliveness.Unp ublished master's thesis, Wayne State Uni-versity, 1977.Childers, W., & Wimmer, M . The concept of deathin children. Child Development, 1971, 42,

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Speece an d Bren t 16Hansen, Y. Development of the concept of death:Cognitive aspects (Doctoral dissertation, Cali-fornia School of Professional Psychology,1972). Dissertation Abstracts International,1973, 34, 853B. (University M icrofilms No. 73-19,640)Hom hlum , J. N. Death concepts in' childhood andtheir relationship to concepts of time and con-servation (Doctoral dissertation. Temple Uni-versity, 1978). Dissertation Abstracts Interna-tional, 1978, 39 , 2146A. (Unive rsity MicrofilmsNo. 7817306)Kalmbach, C. A. The relationship be tween the cog-nitive level of the child and his/her conceptionof death (Doctoral dissertation, Florida State

University, 1978). Dissertation Abstracts In-ternational, 1979, 39, 5518B, (UniversityMicrofilms No. 7909770)Kane, B. Ch ildren 's co ncepts of death (Doctoral dis-sertation. University of Cincinnati, 1975). Dis-sertation Abstracts International, 1975, 36,782A. (University Microfilms No. 75-16,803)Kane, B, Children's concepts of death. Journal ofGenetic Psychology, 1979, 134, 141-153.Kastenbaum, R. The child's understanding of death:How does it develop? In E. A. GroUman (Ed.),Explaining death to children. Boston: Beacon,1967.Kastenbaum , R., & Aisenberg, R. The psychology ofdeath. New York: Spdnger, 1972.Koocher, G. P. Childhood, death, and cognitive de-velopment (Doctoral dissertation. University ofMissouri, 1972). Dissertation Abstracts Inter-national, 1973, 33 , 4512B. (University Micro-films No. 73-7050)Koocher, G. P. Childhood, death, and cognitive de-velopment. Developmental Psychology, 1973,9, 369-3 75.Koocher, G. P. Talking with children about death.American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 1974,44, 404-411.Koocher, G. P., O'Malley, J. E., Foster, D., & Go-gan, J. L. Death anxiety in normal children andadolescents. Psychiatria Clinica, 1976, 9, 22 0-229.Lonetto, R. Children's conceptions of death. NewYork: Springer, 1980.Mclntire, M. S., Angle, G. K., & Struempler, L. J.The concept of death in Midwestern childrenand youth. American Journal of Diseases ofChildren, 1972, 123, 527-532.

Moody, R. A., Jr, Life after life. New York: Ban1975,Moody, R. A., Jr, Reflections on life after life. NYork: Bantam, 1977,Nagy, M. The child's theories concerning deJournal of Genetic Psychology, 1948, 73, 3Nagy, M, The child's view of death. In H. F(Ed.), The meaning of death. New YMcGraw-Hill, 1959,Orbach, I., & Glaubman, H, Suicidal, aggressand normal children's perception of persand impersonal death. Journal of Clinicalchology, 1978, 34, 850-857 ,Orbach, I,, & Glaubman, H, Children's percepof death as a defensive process. Journal ofnormal Psychology, 1979, 88, 671-674 ,Peck, R, The development of the concept of din selected male children (Doctoral disstion. Ne w York U niversity, 1966). DissertaAbstracts International, 1966,27,1294B, (versity Microfilms No. 66-9468)Piaget, J, [The language and thought of the ch(M, Gabain, trans,), London: Routledge &gan Paul, 1959.Piaget, J. The child's conception of time. New YBallantine, 1969.

Piaget, J, The psychology of intelligence. TotoN,J,: Littlefield, Adams, 1976.Pitcher, E. G., & Prelinger, E, Children tell stoAn analysis of fantasy. New York: Intetional Universities Press, 1963,Portz, A. T. Th e m eanin g of death to children (Dtoral dissertation. University of Michi1964), Dissertation Abstracts Internatio1965, 25, 7384-7385, (University MicrofNo, 65-5364)Reilly, T, P,, Hasazi, J, E ,, & Bond, L, A, Ghildrconceptions of death and personal mortaJournal of Pediatric Psychology, 1983, 8,31,Robinson, R. A, The development of a concepdeath in selected groups of Mexican Amerand Anglo American children (Doctoral ditation, Galifomia School of Professional chology, 1976), Dissertation Abstracts Intetional, 1978, 38, 4478B, (University MicrofNo, 7732510)Rochlin, G, How younger children view deaththemselves. In E, A. GroUman (Ed,),plaining death to children. Boston: Bea1967,


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L. Ghildren 's con cepts of life and death ;A developmental study (Doctoral dissertation,Columbia University, 1965). Dissertation Ab-stracts International, 1965, 26, 1164. (Univer-sity Microfilms No. 65-8864)tional retarded children. Journal of GeneticPsychology, 1980, 137, 157-164.concept of death in children (Doc-toral dissertation, Marquette University, 1975),Dissertation Abstracts International, 1976, 37,898A-899A. (University Microfllilis No. 76-16,880) views of death. Death Edu-cation, 1979, 2, 341 -358 .influencing children's concepts of death. Jour-nal of Clinical Child Psychology, 1974, 3, 17 -19.concept of death in elementary school children.Educational Research Quarterly, 1980, 5, 17-24.

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Walco, G. A. Children's concepts of death: A cogni-tive training study. Columb us; O hio State Uni-versity, 1982. (ERIC Document ReproductionService No. ED 222 282)Wass, H., Guenther, Z. G., & Towry, B. J. UnitedStates and Brazilian children's concepts ofdeath. Death Education, 1979, 3, 41-55 .Wass, H., & Scott, M. Middle school studen t's dea thconcepts and concerns. Middle School Journal,1978, 9, 10-12.Wass, H., & Towry, B. J. Ghildren's death conceptsand ethnicity. Death Education, 1980, 4, 83-87.Weininger, O. Young children's concepts of dyingand dead. Psychological Reports, 1979, 44,395-407.White, E. A. A description of kindergarten throughfourth grade students' conceptions of death(Doctoral dissertation, Oklahom a State U niver-sity, 1976). Dissertation Abstracts Interna-tional, 1977, 37, 5721A. (University MicrofilmsNo. 77-5208)White, E. A., Elsom, B., & Prawat, R. Ghildren'sconceptions of death. Child Development,1978, 49, 307-310.Zweig, A. R. Children's attitudes toward death(Doctoral dissertation. Northwestern Univer-sity, 1976), Dissertation Abstracts Interna-tional, 1977, 37, 4249A-4250A. (UniversityMicrofilms No. 77-1393)


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Children's Understanding of Death a Review of Three Components

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