SCIENCE / MEDICINE : Game Gives Clues to When Children Achieve Concept

Using a hiding game, a researcher has discovered that an important milestone in children’s mental development occurs between the ages of 2 1/2 and 3 years.

Judy S. DeLoache, associate professor of child development at the University of Illinois in Urbana, found that between 30 and 36 months of age, children suddenly achieve “the realization that an object can be understood both as a thing itself and as a symbol of something else,” a concept that she called “a hallmark of human cognition.”

DeLoache conducted an experiment with two groups of 16 children, involving a game in which they were shown a scale model of a room. After showing the children how the model corresponded exactly to a full-sized room next door, researchers had the children watch as they hid a miniature dog or other toy behind a miniature couch or in another hiding place in the model room.

“The child was then asked to find an analogous toy that had been concealed in the corresponding place in the room itself, for example, a larger stuffed dog hidden behind the full-sized couch,” said DeLoache.

Almost 805 of the older children went directly to the toy in the full-sized room, but less than 20% of the younger children were able to do the same thing.