Initiative and Purpose in the Motoric Explorations of 10- to 24-Month-Old Children: An Educator's Interpretation of a Geneva Study.

This document, the first in a four-part series, presents a synopsis of a Geneva research report delivered at Cornell University (New York). It describes a study in which 10-month-old infants were given intermittent free-play opportunities to manipulate 18 objects. Regularly presented in disarray were 6 balls, 6 sticks, and 6 open cubes; each set was graduated in size. Repeated viewings of videotaped behaviors revealed a consistent pattern and succession of organizing practices which were implemented spontaneously and universally over the course of 14 months. Also spontaneous and universal was the abrupt cessation of the organizing behaviors following a final, perfect, continuous review of all the organizing patterns which had previously been practiced. It is argued that the contrived setup used in the study, which regularly presented the same three sets of objects in disarray, stimulated the children's curiosity and motivated the acts of initiative which occurred. Properties of the objects and the disarray induced purposeful explorations, enhanced and sustained constructive interest, and prompted the repetitive displays of relation among the objects. It is thought that the abrupt cessation of the organizing practices marked the time when the relations were no longer held in question by the young children, but rather were known by them (i.e., internalized as schemes). The internalization accounts for the reappearance of the practiced schemes later when the children were faced with new problems. (RH)