This study examined how 5- and 9-year-old children (N = 40) produce pantomimes of object use on verbal request. The task required participants to enact an action with an imagined object. Results showed that with age, children (a) proceeded from body part as object to imaginary object and (b) incorporated into their pantomimes more distinctive…

Young children asked to pretend to use a series of absent objects typically pantomime by using a body part as the object (BPO) rather than by acting as if using an imaginary object (IO). This replication of Lyons's work (1983, 1986) examines whether different pretend contexts when requesting pantomimes influence children's use of IO and BPO…

Children's developing competence with symbolic representations was assessed in 3 studies. Study 1 examined the hypothesis that the production of imaginary symbolic objects in pantomime requires the simultaneous coordination of the dual representations of a dynamic action and a symbolic object. We explored this coordination of symbolic…