The origins of intelligence in children.

Fitting objects into holes: On the development of spatial cognition skills.

“…In other words, the planning of the second action begins already during the accomplishment of the first action. Piaget (1952) asserted that under around eight to twelve months of age, children are incapable of representing objects and experiences. However, in completion and occlusion studies researchers have found that four-to five-month-old infants extrapolate the motion of an object behind an occluder by moving their gaze to the point where the object is going to reappear (Rosander and von Hofsten 2004;von Hofsten, Kochukhova et al 2007).…”

“…Still, it is not until children are about one year old that they begin to understand the relationship between objects. Earlier, they have perceived objects as a part of themselves (Piaget 1952). Now, they begin to perceive the space of different objects in the room in relation to each other, and treat the objects according to function.…”

“…Researchers have long proposed a mismatch between children's and adults' representations of objects (Piaget 1952). Looking at the matter more closely, the task of inserting an object into an aperture is not so easy after all.…”

“…As a critic of the study of DeLoache et al (2004), one could presume that the children's actions are over-interpreted as serious actions. According to Piaget (1952), children do not start to engage in pretend actions until they can form mental representations, at about two years. Rakoczy and Tomasello (2006) claim that children under five years are unable to pretend, as pretending has to be done knowingly and intentionally.…”

Memory plasticity across the life span: Uncovering children's latent potential.

“…Adaptation, or the interplay between assimilating the environment to existing forms of thought and action and accommodating these thoughts and actions to environmental features (e.g., Piaget, 1952), requires flexibility (or plasticity) on the part of developing individuals. Such flexibility entails the modifiability of the ranges of possible developmental processes, events, and outcomes (Baltes et al, 2006; see also the notion of the zone of proximal development, i.e., Vygotsky, 1978).…”