Young children's responses to "when" questions: issues of directionality.

On the basis of the bulk of the available literature, it appears that in talking or reasoning about temporal sequences, preschoolers lack bidirectional flexibility and are limited to forward order, antecedent toward consequent movement. 3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds and adults responded to when-questions designed to permit assessment of directional preferences. All questions referred to the second sentence of 3-sentence stories, so that before-type (antecedent to consequent) and after-type (consequent to antecedent) responses were possible for all questions. Children showed a strong preference for giving after-responses. Contrary to claims made in previous literature, preschoolers are quite capable of reasoning from consequences to antecedents when provided with a context, such as responding to when-questions, for which such movement is appropriate. Children's apparent lack of bidirectional reasoning on problems involving temporal sequence may reflect preferred directionality based on conventions associated with particular tasks rather than a lack of flexibility in temporal reasoning per se.