brilliantbaby.com the website that can help you have a happy, smarter child.

11 March     12 March

Understanding "prior intentions" enables two-year-olds to imitatively learn a complex task.

Carpenter M, Call J, Tomasello M.

Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany. carpenter@eva.mpg.de

This study investigated children's understanding of others' intentions in a social learning context. Specifically, it investigated whether knowing an adult's prior intention before the adult gives a demonstration influences what children learn from the demonstration. In the five main experimental conditions, ninety-six 2-year-old children watched as an experimenter (E) pulled out a pin and opened the door of a box. Children in two No Prior Intention conditions saw this demonstration alone or paired with an irrelevant action. Children in three Prior Intention conditions knew what E was trying to do before the demonstration: they first saw E either attempt unsuccessfully to open the door, or visit and open several other containers, or they first saw that the door opened. Children opened the box themselves more often in each of these three conditions than in the two No Prior Intention conditions, even though children in all five conditions saw the exact same demonstration of how to open the box.

Comment: Detailed and simple explanation before doing things for young children can make a lot of difference. Use simple words and short sentences when explaining things or concepts.     

Dr. Leonidas

10 March

Dr Leo,

 We use math in negotiations. Ashley is 2 1/2 and definitely wants to do things on her schedule. I'll tell Ashley "three more minutes" before bed time, we have to leave the playground, etc. She always replies "four more minutes" and I usually reply "no three more minutes". She then repeats "four more minutes" again.

  A few weeks ago we were going through this routine and when she replied "four more minutes", I tested her by saying "no five more minutes". She started to reply and stopped because she knew something was different - and then replied "how about six more minutes?".

Best regards,

Comment: Ashley’s thinking process is advanced for her age.

Dr. Leo

[Home] [Smart Baby] [Baby Math] [Our Graduates] [Toddlers] [Pre-School] [Today] [February] [June] [September 03] [Falling In Love] [January 2004] [March 2004] [Diagnosis] [Medical Errors] [Physical Examination] [Treatment] [Best Practice] [Parents Grand Rounds] [Medical Decisions] [About Us]