The Efficiency of Infants' Exploratory Play Is Related to Longer-Term Cognitive Development
In this longitudinal study we examined the stability of exploratory play in infancy and its relation to cognitive development in early childhood. We assessed infants' (N = 130, mean age at enrollment = 12.02 months, SD = 3.5 months; range: 5–19 months) exploratory play four times over 9 months....
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Frontiers Media S.A.
2018-05-01
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| Series: | Frontiers in Psychology |
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| Online Access: | https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00635/full |
| _version_ | 1819053604121608192 |
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| author | Paul Muentener Elise Herrig Laura Schulz |
| author_facet | Paul Muentener Elise Herrig Laura Schulz |
| author_sort | Paul Muentener |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | In this longitudinal study we examined the stability of exploratory play in infancy and its relation to cognitive development in early childhood. We assessed infants' (N = 130, mean age at enrollment = 12.02 months, SD = 3.5 months; range: 5–19 months) exploratory play four times over 9 months. Exploratory play was indexed by infants' attention to novelty, inductive generalizations, efficiency of exploration, face preferences, and imitative learning. We assessed cognitive development at the fourth visit for the full sample, and again at age three for a subset of the sample (n = 38). The only measure that was stable over infancy was the efficiency of exploration. Additionally, infants' efficiency score predicted vocabulary size and distinguished at-risk infants recruited from early intervention sites from those not at risk. Follow-up analyses at age three provided additional evidence for the importance of the efficiency measure: more efficient exploration was correlated with higher IQ scores. These results suggest that the efficiency of infants' exploratory play can be informative about longer-term cognitive development. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-21T12:38:22Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-25b08df4f15f4f2f848c853b82e5ff2f |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1664-1078 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-21T12:38:22Z |
| publishDate | 2018-05-01 |
| publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Frontiers in Psychology |
| spelling | doaj.art-25b08df4f15f4f2f848c853b82e5ff2f2022-12-21T19:03:51ZengFrontiers Media S.A.Frontiers in Psychology1664-10782018-05-01910.3389/fpsyg.2018.00635291931The Efficiency of Infants' Exploratory Play Is Related to Longer-Term Cognitive DevelopmentPaul Muentener0Elise Herrig1Laura Schulz2Department of Psychology, Tufts University, Medford, MA, United StatesDepartment of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Medford, MA, United StatesDepartment of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Medford, MA, United StatesIn this longitudinal study we examined the stability of exploratory play in infancy and its relation to cognitive development in early childhood. We assessed infants' (N = 130, mean age at enrollment = 12.02 months, SD = 3.5 months; range: 5–19 months) exploratory play four times over 9 months. Exploratory play was indexed by infants' attention to novelty, inductive generalizations, efficiency of exploration, face preferences, and imitative learning. We assessed cognitive development at the fourth visit for the full sample, and again at age three for a subset of the sample (n = 38). The only measure that was stable over infancy was the efficiency of exploration. Additionally, infants' efficiency score predicted vocabulary size and distinguished at-risk infants recruited from early intervention sites from those not at risk. Follow-up analyses at age three provided additional evidence for the importance of the efficiency measure: more efficient exploration was correlated with higher IQ scores. These results suggest that the efficiency of infants' exploratory play can be informative about longer-term cognitive development.https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00635/fullexploratory playcognitive developmentIQinfancylongitudinal design |
| spellingShingle | Paul Muentener Elise Herrig Laura Schulz The Efficiency of Infants' Exploratory Play Is Related to Longer-Term Cognitive Development Frontiers in Psychology exploratory play cognitive development IQ infancy longitudinal design |
| title | The Efficiency of Infants' Exploratory Play Is Related to Longer-Term Cognitive Development |
| title_full | The Efficiency of Infants' Exploratory Play Is Related to Longer-Term Cognitive Development |
| title_fullStr | The Efficiency of Infants' Exploratory Play Is Related to Longer-Term Cognitive Development |
| title_full_unstemmed | The Efficiency of Infants' Exploratory Play Is Related to Longer-Term Cognitive Development |
| title_short | The Efficiency of Infants' Exploratory Play Is Related to Longer-Term Cognitive Development |
| title_sort | efficiency of infants exploratory play is related to longer term cognitive development |
| topic | exploratory play cognitive development IQ infancy longitudinal design |
| url | https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00635/full |
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