is this because the compiler decides which name to invoke according to the reference variable?
No, because if you changed it to a reference variable of type Child you still get "parent" as output. I don't know what this example has to prove, because you are not overriding, overloading,... You just declared 2 different variables (with the same name = shadowing).
So your example is completely similar to this one:
You have to override the say-method in the Child class and add something like this:
Both will print
.
Kind regards,
Roel