A Toddler's Use of Humor

Let Me Show You a Trick: A Toddler’s Use of Humor
to Explore, Interpret, and Negotiate Her Familial

Environments During a Day in the Life
E. Leslie Cameron, Katherine M. Kennedy

Carthage College
Catherine Ann Cameron
University of British Columbia
As adults, we value humor as a way to express emotions, day; from that, they produced a compilation videotape. The
establish relationships, relieve stress, and cope with our family was interviewed after viewing this videotape and
daily lives. Yet, what do we really know about children and asked to comment and reflect on their child’s development.
humor? Is this area really worth our study and attention? From transcriptions of the videotapes, field notes, and raw
Questions about the age at which young children begin to video data, the authors independently analyzed and classi-
understand humor and use it to interpret their world have fied the types of humor displayed, and later the functions
not been extensively studied. This lack of research means of humor between the child and her family members.
that we underestimate the role that humor plays in young Their results found four types of humor demonstrated
children’s social-emotional, cognitive, and linguistic devel- by the child: 1) clowning, 2) teasing, 3) jokes (including
opment. Recent studies of children’s humor highlight how word play and playful language), and 4) physical play. In
early in life (infancy) children can perceive and demonstrate addition, two clusters of humorous functioning emerged:
humor, the range of humor children exhibit, and what sorts 1) socioemotional functioning, which enabled the child to
of things children find funny. Each of these insights shows maintain and strengthen her position within her family and
that our prior assumptions about children and humor were 2) cognitive and linguistic functioning, which represented
faulty—by overestimating children’ ages for comprehend- the child’s playful language to explore her world and help
ing humor as well as discounting the functions of humor her understand it. The child’s socioemotional functioning
in children’s development. Just as educators came to value observed in this case study is similar to Halliday’s instru-
Halliday’s research identifying the functions of children’s mental function of language (getting things done) in that she
language use, his work also enabled us recognize children’s understood how to use humor and how it affected her own
linguistic and social-emotional development more completely social power within the family. Her cognitive and linguistic
than we could just by counting the numbers of words in a functioning involved using playful language to make and
child’s vocabulary or by calculating the mean length of ut- get a joke, identify and push the social norms, and exchange
terance in their sentences. ideas and experiences with her family.
Cameron, Kennedy, and Cameron’s study is theoretically This case study highlights the contributions of a positive
grounded in the work of such cognitive psychologists as family environment to a child’s development. She was fortu-
Piaget and Vygotsky, as well as in the work of researchers nate to live in a family that valued humor, used it frequently
such as Bergen, Loizou, and Reddy, who investigated pre- (almost every 10 minutes), and used humor in a positive
school children’s humor. The study presented here differs way—no put-downs, sarcasm, or jokes at anyone’s expense.
in two ways from previous studies: 1) the child is studied at Because of this strong, positive family, she demonstrated
home throughout the day and 2) the researchers use a “Day above-average growth in language and the ability to use
in the Life” methodology to capture all of the child’s humor- humor to make positive affective connections and negotiate
ous experiences and expressions throughout an entire day. social situations. Through humor, she used language as a
As a case study, the data were gathered by videotaping the cultural and psychological tool, helping her grow socially
child and her family from the time she woke in the morn- and emotionally. Now we need to consider the ways we can
ing until she went to bed at night, stopping only when she recognize and support children’s humorous perceptions of
was toileted or took a nap. The 30-month-old girl and her the world within school settings. How will we use humor to
family from the United States were part of a larger study make connections, examine how the world works, and build
whose sample included working- to middle-class families upon each child’s understanding? How will understanding
from seven different countries. a child’s culture and family background help us build upon
In addition to compiling videotapes, one researcher kept his or her confidence and competence? For most of us, these
detailed field notes to help with later data analysis and questions mean that our classrooms need to change in order
interpretation by the team. From the entire videotape, the to enhance children’s opportunities to learn about and use
researchers selected six 5-minute clips capturing the variety humor. Perhaps this will result in a more positive learning
of interactions and activities observed throughout the child’s environment for children and adults!
Full article published in

Journal of Research in Childhood Education, Fall 2008, Volume 23, No. 1, pp. 5-18.
Summary written by Rebecca Harlin.

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Let Me Show You a Trick: A Toddler’s Use of Humor

to Explore, Interpret, and Negotiate Her Familial

E. Leslie Cameron, Katherine M. Kennedy

Full article published in

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