In a recent New York Times article, Alison Gopnik (Gopnik 2009) summarizes several research studies that reveal a number of unexpected capacities of infants and young children. In these studies, young infants and children were found to have sophisticated and powerful learning abilities.

Eight month old infants, for example, were found to have an elementary understanding of probability. These infants were shown a box full of ping pong balls which were mostly white but with a few red ones thrown in. The children were surprised and looked longer at the experimenter when she drew four red balls and only one white one out of the box. They did show the same interest and surprise when four white balls and only one red one were drawn.

In another experiment one group of children were shown how a lever could make either a duck or a puppet pop up. Another comparable group of preschoolers saw the experimenter press both levers at the same time and observed both duck and puppet pop up. But they did not see what the levers did separately. When the children themselves were allowed to play with the toy, the children who had not seen the levers work independently spent more time exploring how the toy worked than did those who had been shown how it operated. Apparently the latter group had a need to explore cause and effect.

In reporting this and other research, however, Gopnik makes clear that she is no advocate of exposing young children to academics. She emphasizes that infant intelligence is very different from the adult intelligence which is emphasized in school work. She argues that school work focuses upon goals, objectives and planning and about information that children should know. But she contends that babies and young children are awful at planning and setting precise goals. It is not as she points out, that young children cannot pay attention, but rather that their attention is not fixed and they are constantly looking at what is most salient.

In one study adults were shown a video of adults tossing a ball to one another and were asked to count the number of passes particular people made. Adults, but not young children, ignored the fact that in one scene an adult dressed in a gorilla suit began passing the ball.

Gopnik concludes: “The learning that babies and young children do on their own, when they carefully watch an unexpected outcome and draw conclusions from it, ceaselessly, manipulate a new toy or imagine different ways that the world might be, is very different from schoolwork. Babies and young children can learn about the world around them through all sorts of real world objects and safe replicas from dolls to cardboard boxes, mixing bowls, and even cell phones and computers...But what children observe most closely, explore most obsessively and imagine most vividly, are the people around them...Parents and other caregivers teach children by paying attention and interacting with them naturally, and, most of all, by allowing them to play.”

Couldn’t have said it better myself.

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Gopnik, A. (2009). "Your Baby is Smarter than You Think." The New York Times.