A key to innovation: When do children begin to recognize and manufacture solutions to future problems?

Innovation in children is typically studied by examining their capacity to independently create tools to solve problems. However, it has been argued that innovating requires more than creative problem-solving; it is essential that the future utility of a solution is recognized. Here, we examined children's capacity to recognize and construct a tool for future uses. Experiment 1 presented fifty-five 3- to 5-year-olds (28 girls) with a future-directed variation of a task in which children had to make a hook to solve a problem. When given a tool construction opportunity in anticipation of returning to the task, only 5-year-olds chose to make a hook-shaped tool more often than expected by chance. Experiment 2a assessed ninety-two 3- to 7-year-olds' (48 girls) capacity to construct a tool with both present and future utility in mind. Specifically, they needed to make a tool long enough to not only poke a ball from a short tube in the present but also poke a ball from a longer tube in the future. Older children tended to construct longer tools and were more likely to do so in this situation than in a follow-up control study (2b, N = 89, 41 girls) where the future- and present-task tubes were identical. This pattern suggests that older children had the future task in mind when making their tools. Children's propensity to construct longer tools in Experiment 2a was associated with their capacity to prepare for two alternative possibilities on a secondary task, suggesting performance reflects emerging future-oriented cognition. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).