Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Foreword by Sue Taylor Parker
- Preface and acknowledgments
- I Historical, developmental, and comparative overviews
- II Pretense and imagination in children
- 4 Language in pretense during the second year: what it can tell us about “pretending” in pretense and the “know-how” about the mind
- 5 A longitudinal and cross-sectional study of the emergence of the symbolic function in children between 15 and 19 months of age: pretend play, object permanence understanding, and self-recognition
- 6 Caregiver-child social pretend play: what transpires?
- 7 Just through the looking glass: children's understanding of pretense
- 8 Young children's understanding of pretense and other fictional mental states
- 9 Pretend play, metarepresentation and theory of mind
- 10 Replica toys, stories, and a functional theory of mind
- 11 Young children's animal-role pretend
- 12 Imaginary companions and elaborate fantasy in childhood: discontinuity with nonhuman animals
- III Pretense and imagination in primates
- IV Prospects
- References
- Author Index
- Subject Index
5 - A longitudinal and cross-sectional study of the emergence of the symbolic function in children between 15 and 19 months of age: pretend play, object permanence understanding, and self-recognition
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 August 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Foreword by Sue Taylor Parker
- Preface and acknowledgments
- I Historical, developmental, and comparative overviews
- II Pretense and imagination in children
- 4 Language in pretense during the second year: what it can tell us about “pretending” in pretense and the “know-how” about the mind
- 5 A longitudinal and cross-sectional study of the emergence of the symbolic function in children between 15 and 19 months of age: pretend play, object permanence understanding, and self-recognition
- 6 Caregiver-child social pretend play: what transpires?
- 7 Just through the looking glass: children's understanding of pretense
- 8 Young children's understanding of pretense and other fictional mental states
- 9 Pretend play, metarepresentation and theory of mind
- 10 Replica toys, stories, and a functional theory of mind
- 11 Young children's animal-role pretend
- 12 Imaginary companions and elaborate fantasy in childhood: discontinuity with nonhuman animals
- III Pretense and imagination in primates
- IV Prospects
- References
- Author Index
- Subject Index
Summary
The emergence of the symbolic function at the end of the sensorimotor period plays an important role during the development of the human infant. It is the beginning of the attainment of signs and symbols – depicting an item (an object, a person, an event, etc.) by a differentiated signifier (language, mental image, symbolic gesture, etc.) specifically used for this particular representation.
Although the symbolic function cannot be tested directly, various behavioral manifestations, implying the use of differentiated signifiers, reflect it. Authors generally agree on the various behavioral manifestations appearing during the second semester of the second year of life:
“generative” language (Piaget, 1936);
deferred imitation (Piaget, 1945) or real imitation (Guillaume, 1925);
the communicative function of immediate imitation (Baudonnière & Michel, 1988; Asendorpf & Baudonnière, 1993; Hart & Fegley, 1994);
pretend play (Piaget, 1945; Kagan, 1981);
stage 6 understanding of object permanence (Piaget, 1936);
recognition of the specular self-image (Zazzo, 1975, 1977, 1985; Lewis & Brooks-Gunn, 1979).
These behavioral manifestations allow us to study the emergence of the symbolic function. The question is to determine whether these new competences emerge simultaneously, resulting from a common transformation, or successively. If the symbolic function appears as a singular modification influencing many behaviors, it should result in the simultaneous emergence of the various behavioral manifestations. On the contrary, if this emergence proceeds step by step, the different behaviors should emerge not synchronously but progressively, eventually in a hierarchical way.
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- Pretending and Imagination in Animals and Children , pp. 73 - 90Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2002
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