Our aim was to investigate why 16-month-old infants fail to master a novel tool-use action via observational learning. We hypothesized that 16-month-olds' difficulties may be due to not understanding the goal of the observed action. To test this hypothesis, we investigated whether showing infants an explicit demonstration of the goal of the action…

Examined the relation between the spontaneous occurrence in play of simple two-part action sequences and the frequency of these sequences and their components following modeling at 12, 15, and 19 months of age. Play following modeling was typically more advanced but only 19-month-old children generally were able to imitate complete sequences.…

Theories of imitation learning are examined regarding their account of how the infant acquires the ability to emit a response which resembles a response previously exhibited by another. The role of cognition in imitation learning theory is discussed. (BRT)

Four studies examined 10- to 18-month-old infants' ability to detect and encode correlations among features in a motion event. Findings indicated that the youngest infants process static features in an event independently but do not process correlations among dynamic features; the oldest detect correlations between all three features when the…

Investigates ability of nine-month-old infants to imitate simple actions with novel objects. Looks at both immediate and deferred imitation. Findings show that imitation in early infancy can span wide enough delays to be of potential service in social development. (Author/RWB)

This review of literature on children's learning focuses on the following seven subject areas: (1) Infant learning, particularly studies of conditioning and individual differences in infants, (2) New perspectives on Piaget, reviewing studies where conservation and transitive inferences have been taught to young children, (3) Language and…

Attempts to determine whether children can use social-pragmatic cues to determine "what kind" of referent, object, or action an adult intends to indicate with a novel word. Doubts that children assume that a novel word refers to whatever nameless object is present. Suggests that lexical acquisition rests fundamentally on children's…

Examines whether knowledge of functional properties of a referent for a new name influences children's first guesses about whether that name refers to an object or a substance. Suggests that children do not rely on a single source of information, but rather draw on various kind of information, including perceptual characteristics of the entities…

This volume includes reports of five research projects of the Kansas Center for Research in Early Childhood Education: (1) Individual Differences in Newborn and Young Infants, including research with the Brazelton Neonatal Assessment Scale and laboratory studies of infant discriminative abilities; (2) Development of Social Competence, including…