Adequate mental representations of animals are important for children's personal development, because they result in their appropriate treatment of such animals, which would not, for example, compromise either animals' or children's safety. By using a convenient sample of 101 six- to seven-year old children, this research examined these…

Young children engage in essentialist reasoning about natural kinds, believing that many traits are innately determined. This study investigated whether personal experience with second language acquisition could alter children's essentialist biases. In a switched-at-birth paradigm, 5- and 6-year-old monolingual and simultaneous bilingual…