| |
|
|
For decades, scientists didn’t think babies could remember much.
Although parents and caregivers suspected that more was going on
inside their young children’s heads, many “experts” thought babies
experienced the world as simply a blur of sights, sounds, smells
and textures.
They were wrong.
Babies and toddlers can remember a lot. And they can remember some
things for a surprisingly long time. Remember that all children
are different, and each child’s development may not match this
exactly.
How can we learn what babies remember? Since babies can’t answer
scientists’ questions directly, researchers have had to develop
clever ways to learn how long babies can remember things. One type
of experiment used deferred imitation to see how long babies
remember how to do things. Deferred imitation is based on two main
ideas:- Babies will imitate what they see people do.
- Babies can remember what they see and do it at a later time.
For example, researchers showed babies how to use a toy they’d
never seen before in a special way. After demonstrating a unique
way to play with the toy, researchers removed the toy so that the
babies couldn’t practice or experiment with it. After some time
passed, researchers gave the unusual toy to the babies to see what
they would do. When the babies played with the toy in the unique
way demonstrated earlier by the adult, researchers knew that the
babies remembered and copied what they were shown (Gopnik,
Meltzoff, & Kuhl, 1999).
In one series of experiments, researchers wanted to learn if
12-month-old babies could remember what they were shown after
delays of three minutes, one week, and four weeks.
 Researchers
first showed groups of babies’ five different toys and a unique
way to play with each of them, like pulling apart a
dumbbell-shaped toy or making a stirring motion with a wooden
stick inside a box. After showing these babies unique ways to play
with the toys (20 seconds for each toy), the researchers removed
the toys from the room. The researchers also made sure that the
parents never saw what the babies were shown so the babies
couldn’t practice at home (Klein & Meltzoff, 1999).
Other groups of babies in the experiment were shown different
things. Some babies watched adults do different interesting things
with the five toys, and other babies never saw any of the five
toys. Later, the researchers placed these toys one at a time in
front of the babies to see what they would do (Klein & Meltzoff,
1999).
|
What
they found:
The researchers in this study did three separate
experiments, which are combined and summarized
here.
 - After a three minute delay, the babies remembered about
3.5 (about 70%) of the special ways to play with the five
toys.
- After one week, the babies remembered more than 2.5
(more than 50%) of the special ways to play with the five toys.
- After four weeks, the babies remembered about 2.5 (about 50%) of the special ways to play with the five toys.
Groups of babies that were not shown the special
ways to play with the toys still figured out a few
of these ways on their own. Overall, these babies
used about 1.5 (about 30%) of the five special
ways to play with the toys.
Even after four weeks, 12-month-old babies could
remember and copy about half of the things they
were shown—and they saw each unique action for
only 20 seconds! Also, this study doesn’t suggest
that babies can remember and copy what they see
for only four weeks, but for at least four weeks.
They may remember what they were shown even longer
(Klein & Meltzoff, 1999)! |
|
|
|
|
 |
-
 Babies and toddlers learn by watching and copying you!
- Show babies and young children positive examples to imitate and remember like giving hugs, treating others well, and playing with toys in fun new ways.
- Remember that children don’t know the difference between what is safe and what is dangerous. They are watching everything we do, including things like working with sharp tools and using poisonous cleaning supplies.
- Celebrate your baby’s growing memory when she remembers how to do new things.
- Enjoy the wonderful learning abilities of babies and remember that they might copy any model they see.
Think of ways to fill their lives with healthy, safe
examples to copy.
|
back to top |
|
References:
Gopnik, A., Meltzoff, A. N., & Kuhl, P. K. (1999).
The scientist in the crib: Minds, brains, and how children
learn. New York: William Morrow.
Klein, P. J., & Meltzoff, A. N. (1999). Long-term
memory, forgetting, and deferred imitation in 12-month-old
infants. Developmental Science, 2(1), 102-113. |
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
