Children's understanding of death

Abstract

According to most researchers (Anthony, Nagy, Childers & Wimmer, Melear, Weininger, White, Elsom & Prawat, etc.) children understand that death is irreversible and universal only after the age of 7‐8. In contrast with these opinions, for some years now we have been carrying out investigations demonstrating that, even from the age of 4‐5, children have a highly evolved understanding of death. Our investigations were carried out using the Piagetian interview (on 348 children aged between 4 and 10) and longitudinal research (by means of hundreds of hours of almost pure observation in kindergarten and junior schools and daily record kept at home over periods of several months, on more than 30 children between 2 and 5). Results confirm our hypothesis: at the age of 4‐5, most children reveal a particularly well‐structured understanding of death, implying the substantial comprehension that they do not consider death as something which may happen only to others, but also to their parents and to themselves and that death is irreversible, universal and consists in the cessation of vital functions.

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