Structural priming paradigms have been influential in shaping theories of adult sentence processing and theories of syntactic development. However, until recently there have been few attempts to provide an integrated account that explains both adult and developmental data. The aim of the present paper was to begin the process of integration by…

Tool making evidences intelligent, flexible thinking. In Experiment 1, we confirmed that 4- to 7-year-olds chose a hook tool to retrieve a bucket from a tube. In Experiment 2, 3- to 5-year-olds consistently failed to innovate a simple hook tool. Eight-year-olds performed at mature levels. In contrast, making a tool following demonstration was easy…