Sensorimotor Development and the Use of Prelinguistic Performatives

Abstract

Thirty-two children participated in a study designed to determine the effects of sensorimotor training on proto-declarative and proto-imperative performative behavior. The children were randomly assigned to training on means-end schemes, training on relating to objects schemes, training on both means-end and relating to objects, or to a control condition involving no training. Results indicated that relating to objects schemes training was successful. Also, a greater degree of performative usage was seen in the relating to objects training group. These results offer relatively strong evidence for a relationship between these sensorimotor and communicative abilities.

Object permanence in the African Grey parrot (Psittacus erithacus)

“…Other researchers (e.g., Ginsberg & Opper, 1969;Steckol & Leonard, 1981) suggest that the presence of cognitive mechanisms of the type found during the sensorimotor, preoperational, and concrete operational periods (the latter two being more advanced stages than those discussed here) facilitate use of language by enabling children to represent reality abstractly. Still other researchers suggest the separation of language and thought (e.g., Steklis & Raleigh, 1979), and others (e.g., Bates et al, 1979) suggest that the appearance of object permanence, while not necessarily related to initial human language abilities (e.g., most holophrasic communication), may be related both to the vocabulary burst that usually occurs late in the second year and to what Hockett (1960) calls "displacement": the ability to refer to and converse about an object not immediately present in space or time.…”

“…According to Piaget (1952Piaget ( , 1954, this concept takes 2 years to develop in a child, and occurs within the period of the six-step sensorimotor stage of intelligence. Although sometimes criticized as too rigid and insensitive to the possibility that environmental stimulation could accelerate cognitive growth (see Bruner, 1964;Steckol & Leonard, 1981), the Piagetian framework has undeniable usefulness as a yardstick in comparative studies (Chevalier-Skolnikoff, 1976): Because the results of cross-species comparative work are often rendered ambiguous by significant variations in experimental design between laboratories (e.g., Bateson, 1979;Kroodsma, 1982), tasks that enable researchers to compare directly the abilities of various species are particularly valuable.…”

Development of Piagetian object permanence in grey parrot (Psittacus erithacus).

“…Finally, a child masters invisible displacements (Stage 6): An object is hidden in a container, the container is moved behind another occluding device, the object is transferred to (placed in or under) this second device, the child is shown that the first container is empty, and the child successfully infers where the object now resides. Although sometimes criticized as too rigid or insensitive to the possibility that environmental stimulation could accelerate cognitive growth (see Bruner, 1964; Steckol & Leonard, 1981), or as too dependent on physical maturation (Baillargeon, 1987), the Piagetian framework is undeniably useful in tracking the existence of developmental stages.…”

Symbolization in language impaired children

“…The time-related events of early milestones in language development and symbolic play spawned a series of studies examining this relationship just prior to the onset of first words and through the early stages of the acquisition of syntax. These studies looked at the relationship between emerging components of sensorimotor stage development such as imitation (Bates and others, 1979), meansends relations (Bates and others, 1979;Bates, Camaioni, and Volterra, 1975;Steckol and Leonard, 1981), object permanence (Bates and others, 1979;Harding and Golinkoff, 1979) operational causality (Bates and others, 1979;Sugarman, 1973;Harding and Golinkoff, 1979) and gestural communication. They also examined the relationship between the development of object permanence (Bates and others, 1979;Bloom, 1973;Comgan, 1978;Dihoff and Chapman, 1977;Ramsey, 1977;Ramsey and Campos, 1978;Smolak, 1982;Veneziano, 1981;Zachry, 1978), and imitation (Bates and others, 1979;Veneziano, 1981), other sensorimotor attainments (Bates and others, 1979;Zachry, 1978), and their first words.…”