not been put to direct empirical test. Research supports the notion that as children grow older they acquire a more complete grasp of the notion of advertising, including the idea of sponsorship of programs. It seems likely that, as they grow older, children's understanding of advertising proceeds from rudimentary ideas of commercials trying to sell products to more complete comprehension of the consequences of advertiser motivations in the presentation of product information in commercials. As the discussion of program-commercial separation and children's understanding of persuasive intent indicates, evidence of "understanding" or "awareness" varies depending on the standards to be used in judging these notions. If evidence of attention shifts when commercials appear on the screen is an acceptable indicator that children "discriminate programs from commercials," then three- and four-year-olds can be said to make such discriminations. However, if other standards are used, such as the ability to articulate the notion that the selling intent of commercials distinguishes them from programs, then only a slim majority of kindergartners may meet this criterion. On the other hand, most third graders do meet this criterion. And if the criterion of "understanding" is articulation of the total economic relationship between advertising and programming, including the idea of sponsorship, then even most sixth-grade children are deficient. In summary, children's understanding of advertising proceeds from showing evidence first of perceptual discriminative ability and then rudimentary conceptual distinctions followed by an increasingly better grasp of the concept of advertising through the elementary school years. The beginning of conceptual understanding as articulated verbally by some kindergartners appears to be well articulated by nearly all children by the time they reach third grade. It is difficult to provide evidence of when children begin to...
