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Alison has done other experiments that point in a similar direction. For example, three-year-olds seem to be unable to remember how they learned about something, even when the events took place only a few moments before. In one study the experimenter hid a cup under a cloth "tunnel," a wire arch covered with cloth…
Alison and Andy designed an experiment to test this idea further. First they set up an imitation game: you give the toy to me and I'll give it to you; you put the sticker on my hand and I'll put it on your hand. Children are very good at this and love doing it. Then Alison and Andy put a screen on the table between…
Other experiments also show that one-year-olds have a radically new understanding of people. What happens when you show a baby something new, something a little strange, maybe wonderful, maybe dangerous—say, a walking toy robot? The baby looks over at Mom quizzically and checks her out. What does she think? Is there a…
There are other reasons to think that even very young babies are especially tuned to people. Babies flirt. One of the great pleasures in life is to hold a three-month-old in your arms and talk absolute nonsense. "My, my, my," you hear your usually sane, responsible, professional voice saying, "you are a pretty bunny…
But why should you believe us instead of those benighted experts who thought babies couldn't really see? How can we say we actually do know what babies think? With the help of videotape, scientists have developed ingenious experimental techniques to ask babies what they know. One whole set of techniques has been…
Vygotsky saw that adults, and especially parents, were a kind of tool that children used to solve the problem of knowledge. in contrast to our—probably necessary—parental megalomania. Vygotsky noticed, for example, how adults, quite unconsciously, adjusted their behavior to give children just the information they…
Piaget concluded that babies aren't just born in possession of adult knowledge, either from a past life or from DNA. Instead, Piaget thought that children must have powerful learning mechanisms that allow them to construct new pictures of the world, pictures that might be very different from the adult picture. When we…
Walk upstairs, open the door gently, and look in the crib. What do you see? Most of us see a picture of innocence and helplessness, a clean slate. But, in fact, what we see in the crib is the greatest mind that has ever existed, the most powerful learning machine in the universe. The tiny fingers and mouth are…
Scientists and children belong together in another way. The new research shows that babies and young children know and learn more about the world than we could ever have imagined. They think, draw conclusions, make predictions, look for explanations, and even do experiments. Scientists and children belong together…
But there is more to the interaction than a matter of adults putting on i a show. When babies and adults interact, they are partners in an interactive social dance in which they jointly regulate each other, and this dance is essential for the baby's social and psychological development Renowned pediatrician T. Berry…
In a more evolutionardy appropriate infant-caretaker scheme, the infant is a social partner, part of a dyad. Both mother and infant are interested in being in equilibrium, that is, in a stable and contented state. This goal is adiieved by mutual regulation, by reciprocity, and by keep¬ ing tabs on each other. This…
A more flexible construct of normality also has practical applications. As all parents in Western culture know, there is a "normal growth curve" against which all infants are compared when they are brought in for visits to the pediatrician. This standard is used to evaluate babies' growth, and if die baby falls…
It might also be difficult to extend the categories of temperament across cultures when the categories mean different things in different environments. For example, "difficult" babies in Western cultures are those who do not sleep for long periods and those who cry. Under a different caretaking package, these…
Not all babies are the same. Human babies are rather helpless, interested mostly in food, sleeping, eating, defecating, and comfort. Compare human babies with newborn deer. When fawns are born, they immediately stand up and soon are able to run away from danger. Scientists call these two types of babies in the animal…
An estimated 181 654 (95% confidence interval: 148 548–214 761) children younger than 2 years of age were treated in emergency departments in the United States for injuries related to cribs, playpens, and bassinets during the 19-year study period. There was an average of 9561 cases per year or an average of 12.1…