See What Children Know
Just because infants or one-year old children cannot tell us what they are trying to do does not mean that they are without plans or an expectation. Young children have many intentions that we can read by careful attention to their subtle movements and glances. A grasp is not the same as a point. A swipe has a different purpose than a push. A sideways glance to Mom or Dad frames the next action differently than the same action without the parent-ward glance. While our speculations might garner consensus from others who slow down to watch the same example (say a video clip), we seldom take the time. Once we do slow down, we develop a heightened appreciation and respect for the strategies and assumptions that very young children already have and we thereby become more effective in the moves we make to support their explorations.
A poke is not a pat
Two children, about 14 months of age, pat, rub, poke, and scrape a large block of clay. When you watch their actions (video link below), consider their goals and what each goal implies about their knowledge. A poke implies they expect the clay to indent. A scrape implies they expect some of the clay to separate from the large block. A rub implies they expect the clay is smooth (or want to confirm this expectation). And a downward pat implies they expect the clay to flatten. Each action carries with it a readable implication about what the child knows.
We may call these actions “sensory play”, but that phrase does not contain any reference to the relation between the act and the nature of the child’s thinking. Be aware that these acts imply that the child is thinking as much about, “How does this medium behave?” as about, “Is this medium X (e.g. cold)?” Indeed, even the “sensation” smooth must be confirmed by rubbing the clay to feel how it behaves during that brief time period of moving the hand across its surface. Smooth is an event, not a discrete sensory input. The rub implies the child is testing how the medium behaves (no change in pressure on my hand versus irregular pressure on my hand). Thus we come closer to truly understanding “sensory play” when we call it “event perception” (see Mandler, 2006).
Mandler, J. (2006), Actions organize the infant’s world. In K. Hirsh-Pasek and Roberta Michnick Golinkoff (Eds.) Action Meets Word, New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 111 – 133.
Click here to view this clip and five other short clips that deal with reading the intentions of young children as they play with clay and blocks, and as they make social overtures to their peers.
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Notes from the Field
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