You, like so many other parents, assume your child must be gifted because you are amazed at how advanced your eighteen-month-old son's thinking can be at times. At first you thought your son was simply imitating your behavior, but you have come to believe he is actually capable of thinking and learning. Discuss three thinking capacities that are actually quite typical of most eighteen-month-old

Question

children.

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

We are often amazed at the thinking capabilities of infants and young children. In fact, one of the criticisms of Piaget is that he may have underestimated the cognitive skills and competencies of children. We can expect that at or about eighteen months most children can do the following: show interest and interact with other children, develop friendships and demonstrate prosocial behaviors, imitate the behaviors of others, comfort others in distress, express themselves even if they do not have the language or words, understand the importance of turn-taking when playing games, label objects, and use their vocabulary that consists of about 50 words. Between 12 and 18 months of age, children's language skills increase dramatically and they experience a vocabulary explosion. As a result, their behaviors also appear more goal directed and they can be more cooperative in their play and problem solving. They are now able to experiment more with their behaviors and see the consequences of their actions (cause and effect). Increasingly infants gain more cognitive resources over time because they are able to store more bits of information in their short term memory. Toddlers' increased information processing skills influence all of their actions, thinking, reasoning, and performance.