Birth to three matters - Communities and Local Government

still gave them biscuits, because that iswhat the children themselves preferred.The children older than 18 mont h sh oweve r, g ave them broc coli despite theirown expressed preference for biscuits.Gopnik and her colleagues suggest thatat about this age a child’s brain is actuallyreprogramming itself to recognise thisnew understanding about other minds.So although babies seem to be able toempathise by crying when other babiescry, it may be that they are emotionallytuned in to other people – both adults andchildren – but do not yet understand otherviewpoints. Despite this, Bruner (1983) haspointed out that in observations of twobabies, begun when they were three andfive months old respectively, they beganpointing (see chapter 4) at just over ninemonths and at 13 months, and pointingindicates an understanding of otherminds, and of trying to share what is ‘inone’s own mind’. To Bruner, their behavioureven before they began pointing, signalledthat babies are ‘Naïve Realists’, they believethere is a world of objects and that othersexperience the same world they do.Making connections about the world,about what things are and theirsignificance in one’s culture, is important,but being able to appreciate that others’minds may ‘hold different perceptions andthoughts from one’s own’ is a major step.Memory and cognitive developmentAlthough some recent experiments showthat even young babies can rememberwhat happened in the past and canpredict (see for example Wynn’s 1992experiment on babies counting toy duckswhich ‘disappear’), their memory abilitiesclearly develop rapidly between eightmonths and a year (see also chapter 6).This is displayed by their fear of strangersduring this phase, where earlier theywould have smiled.Memory plays an important role inunderstanding the world and in beingable to think. When a toy is hidden undera cloth a baby under about eight monthswill not search for it. Gopnik et al (1999)argue that babies live in a ‘magic’ worldwhere things can just vanish. Later, thebaby will search for the hidden toy,realising that it still exists somewhere. Thisphenomenon is called object permanence.Similarly, when a baby recognises thatpeople do not simply vanish,this is knownas person permanence. It is thoughttherefore that during the last part of theirfirst year babies are able to internallyrepresent – or think about – people orobjects that are familiar to them. Asmemory develops during the second andthird year of life, children become able toengage in the construction of narrativesabout themselves, their families and thingsthat interest them. These narratives helpthem develop their sense of self and selfregulation(see chapter 3), relate to pastexperiences and project into the future.These activities indicate a child’s level ofthinking as we will see in the next section.89