In a series of 3 studies, the ability of preschool children to describe the temporal or causal relationship in two events was examined using production as the response mode. Ss were asked to produce a story from two events; in a forward condition Ss were asked to describe them in time, and in a backward condition they were asked to describe them which involved a conflict between temporal succession and spatial arrays of cards. The results showed that the younger children had more difficulty with the production of temporal relationship in the backward condition, also three stages of production in the backward condition were found: first, children used an event-ordered strategy to describe temporal relationships; second, they used an event-ordered-changed strategy through reconstruction of representation; third, they used a backward strategy depending on such lexical knowledge as the relational term for describing backward relationship. The present investigation demonstrated that, contrary to current claims in literature, the expository skills of causal relationship possessed by children were, as yet, in the preoperational period.

In a series of 3 studies, the ability of preschool children to describe the temporal or causal relationship in two events was examined using production as the response mode. Ss were asked to produce a story from two events; in a forward condition Ss were asked to describe them in time, and in a backward condition they were asked to describe them which involved a conflict between temporal succession and spatial arrays of cards. The results showed that the younger children had more difficulty with the production of temporal relationship in the backward condition, also three stages of production in the backward condition were found: first, children used an event-ordered strategy to describe temporal relationships; second, they used an event-ordered-changed strategy through reconstruction of representation; third, they used a backward strategy depending on such lexical knowledge as the relational term for describing backward relationship. The present investigation demonstrated that, contrary to current claims in literature, the expository skills of causal relationship possessed by children were, as yet, in the preoperational period.