Developmental Trajectory

Age
Dimensions of Development
Motor Skills
Imitation
Play
Reality Monitoring
Perspective-Taking
Mindreading
Birth to 16.5 mos.     Mouthing (Belsky & Most, 1981)   Global empathic distress, shared negative affect, unclear whether self or other is distressed (Hoffman, 1984)  
Birth to 15 mos.     Simple manipulation = visually guided manipulation (Belsky & Most, 1981)      
9 to 10.5 mos.     Enactive naming = approximate pretense activity withouth confirming evidence of actual pretense behavior (Belsky & Most, 1981)      
12 mos.     Begin Pretend-self; Self-referenced actions in pretense ( Belsky & Most, 1981; Piaget, 1962; Nicholich,1977)   Sympathetic distress now possible with formation of self-representation and person permanence, attempts to help others are inappropriate because lacks perspective-taking skills (Hoffman, 1984)  
13.5mos    

Relational = bringing together two or more objects in a way not intended by the manufacturer; Begin Pretend-other, Sequence pretend, and Sequence pretend substitution (Belsky & Most, 1981; Haight & Miller, 1993)

     
15 mos.     Functional-Relational = bringing together and integrating two obects in a way inteded by the manufacturer (Belsky & Most, 1981)      
20 mos.           use language to attribute agency in pretense (Fenson, 1984)

2 yrs.

          can represent own and another's mental state in pretense (Leslie, 1987); ascribe agency to people and toys during play (Wolf, 1982; McCune, 1995); understand adult's actions in pretense alters the simulation (Harris & Kavanaugh, 1993); understand doll-directed pretense scenarios (e.g., doll is hungry) (Kavanaugh, Eizenman, & Harris, 1997)
2.5 yrs.           assign passive agency (e.g., sleeping) to ojects in play ( Bretherton, 1984; Fenson, 1984; Watson, 1977; Wolf, 1984); action-based attributions of ageny in pretense (Fenson, 1984)
3 yrs.     describe imaginary inferences resultiung from pretense, often with novel terms (Kavanaugh, Eizenman, & Harris, 1997) accurate memories of own actions; confuse memories of imagined and pretended actions with those performed = indicates sensory-perceptual encoding (Welch-Ross, 1995); incorrectly remember real identity of objects in abstract substitutions (1994); remember object identity independent of actions on it, incorrectly remember true identity as pretend identity in object substitutions (Amsel et al., 1996; Harris, 1991; Dilalla, 1988; Foley, 1984; Johnson, 1994)); remember both identities in substitutions equally well while pretending (Flavell, 1987; Harris, 1994; Lillard, 1992); when asked difficult questions about pretense-reality distinction return to pretense scenario with no answer (Golomb et al., 1996) increased ability to perspective-take leads to more sophisticated empathy, helping becomes more appropriate (Hoffman, 1984) can think about pretense mental states as representations of an alternative event (Flavell, 1987; Hickling, 1993; Seier); assign active or independent agency to objects in play (Bretherton, 1984; Fenson, 1984; Watson, 1977; Wolf, 1984)
4 yrs.       accurate memories of own actions; accurate memories of pretended actions ; confuse imagined actions with pretended actions = indicates encoding pretense as a fictional simulation (Welch-Ross, 1995); better memory for real and pretend object identities after pretense ends (Amsel et al., 1996); when asked difficult questions about pretense-reality distinction give reversibility and/or identity explanations (Golomb et al., 1996)   understand fictional mental states(Perner, 1991; Harris & Kavanaugh, 1993); tend to say pretending is related to the body and not the mind (Lillard, 1995); assign pretend emotions and cognitions to objects in play (Wolf, 1984)
5 yrs.       accurate memories of own actions; accurate memories of pretended actions; confuse imagined actions with pretended actions = indicates encoding pretense as a fictional simulation (Welch-Ross, 1995)  

tend to say pretending is related to the body and not the mind (Lillard, 1995)

6 yrs.       correctly remember real identity of objects in abstract substitutions    

 

 

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