Intentional teaching facilitates young children's comprehension and use of a symbolic object

Children are exposed to symbolic objects that they have to learn to use very early in life. The authors' aim was to examine whether it is possible to intentionally teach young children the symbolic function of an object. They employed a search task in which children had to use a map to find a toy. Experiment 1 revealed that with no instruction 3-year-, 10-month-old children were quite successful; 3-year-, 6-month-olds showed a divided performance; and 3-year-, 0-month-olds failed. With this baseline, Experiment 2 compared the performance of 3-year-, 0-month-olds in three different conditions: no-instruction, complete instruction (before the task begins), and teaching (complete instruction plus corrective feedback); only children in the teaching condition succeeded. However, children 6 months younger, 2-year-, 6-month-olds, failed despite teaching that was provided (Study 3). This research shows that at some points in development instruction is not enough; intentional teaching in communicative contexts is the mechanism that boosts symbolic understanding in early childhood.