Psychologist Jean Piaget believed that young children spent the first two years of their lives using their hands, eyes, ears, noses, mouths and senses to “think.” But as they matured towards 2 year of age, they begin shifting their learning and thought processes away from sensorimotor responses to the use of mental representations.^1,2 This means that by 18-24 months, your child will start interacting with the world using her improving mental abilities rather than the simple sensory perception and motor skills she relied on as a younger infant.^3,4 With her growing ability for this type of representational thinking and long-term memory, your child will be able to build and refine her Scientific Knowledge.

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Mental representations are internal pictures of information that cannot be currently seen or experienced by the senses.^1,5 It is the foundation of symbolic thinking and includes both images of things (e.g. objects, people, events and environments) as well as concepts that group objects and events into categories.¹ The ability to use mental representation lets your child find objects hidden while she wasn’t watching (invisible displacement),¹ remember and copy actions that she has seen before (deferred imitation),^1,6 and think about events that she’s never experienced or objects that don’t exist (e.g. make-believe fantasy).⁵

As a result of these developing mental and memory abilities, your child will be able to find missing objects more easily, having both the Initiative and Curiosity to look for her lost toys and the ability to remember where she last played with them. She will have a greater understanding of the order in her room and play area, knowing where her favorite doll is kept so that she can put it back after playtime. She will also notice changes to her environment, figuring out that there’s a new book in her library or that a puzzle is missing from her toy box.

At 18-24 months, your child is building her Scientific Knowledge at a faster rate now that she is better able to categorize information based on physical features and function and remember and relate that information using her growing Vocabulary Knowledge.^7,1 You may hear her blurt out a loud “moo” before you actually press the cow sound button in her farm book. She may point up to the sky and correctly identify an airplane compared to a flying bird. And she will be able to demonstrate her knowledge of her body by pointing out and verbally naming her various facial and body parts with little prompting. With the ability to think using mental representations and remember past experiences and ideas, she will be able to build on her knowledge base with the new experiences she has in the future.

Play Tips:

Do you want to know how you can support your child’s development of Scientific Knowledge and Initiative and Curiosity skills at this age? It’s easy! Read on for some simple tips to incorporate into your daily play time together.

1. Repeat favorite songs, nursery songs, and books.⁸ Your child develops her memory skills through repetitive experiences. While children love novelty and new experiences, be sure to give your child lots of repetitive exposure to favorite songs, books, and toys before rotating to a new set of learning materials. Reading “First Word” books over and over again and singing favorite songs every day will help solidify this knowledge in her long-term memory, helping her build her Scientific Knowledge.
2. Keep toys, books, and clothes organized in consistent places.⁸ To encourage your child to learn where things belong and, therefore, where to find them when she wants them, be sure to keep the organization of her toys, books, and clothes consistent. If your child is still learning where everything goes, point out the correct place to put back her toys and books when she’s done playing. Consider creating print labels with illustrations and names for each toy bin, shelf, and space holding her different belongings.

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Developmental Milestones:

Has your baby achieved the following Scientific Knowledge and Initiative and Curiosity developmental milestones yet? If yes, check off all the skill(s) she has already mastered to date using Playful Bee’s developmental milestones tracker. It’s absolutely FREE and easy to use, just click HERE!

• Finds well-hidden objects.
• Knows the names of body parts.

Sources:

¹Berk, Laura E. (2011). Infants, Children, and Adolescents (7th ed.). Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon, Inc.

²Shulman, Brian B.; and Capone, Nina C. (Eds.) (2009). Language Development: Foundations, Processes and Clinical Applications. Boston, MA: Jones and Bartlett Learning.

³Piaget, Jean (1983). Piaget’s Theory. In P. Mussen (Ed.), Handbook of Child Psychology, Volume 1 (4th ed.) (pp. 103-128). New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons.

⁴Piaget, Jean (1952). Logic and Psychology. In Howard E. Gruber and J.. Jacques Voneche (Eds.), The Essential Piaget (pp. 445-477). New York, NY: Basic Books, Inc.

⁵Sternberg, Robert J. (2009). Cognitive Psychology (5th ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.

⁶California Department of Education. Cognitive Development Domain. California Infant/Toddler Learning & Development Foundations. Retrieved on March 12, 2014, from http://www.cde.ca.gov/sp/cd/re/itf09cogdev.asp.

⁷Cohen, Leslie B. (2003). Commentary on Part 1: Unresolved Issues in Infant Categorization. In D.H. Rakison and L. M. Oakes (Eds.), Early Category and Concept Development: Making Sense of the Blooming, Buzzing Confusion (pp. 193-209). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

⁸Maryland State Department of Education (2010). Healthy Beginnings: Supporting Development and Learning from Birth through Three Years of Age.

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Playful Bee

Education Team at Playful Bee

Playful Bee is an e-Preschool that delivers inquiry-based preschool learning from the classroom to your home. Our preschool curriculum was created by our talented team of rock star teachers. With years of hands-on preschool and Kindergarten teaching experience, they've developed a high-quality preschool experience that is convenient-to-use and easy-to-teach by you, grandparents, or your nanny at home.

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