Object play yields enormous benefits for infant development. However, little is known about natural play at home where most object interactions occur. We conducted frame-by-frame video analyses of spontaneous activity in two 2-h home visits with 13-month-old crawling infants and 13-, 18-, and 23-month-old walking infants (N = 40; 21 boys; 75%…

Object exploration is considered a driver of motor, cognitive, and social development. However, little is known about how early childhood education and care settings facilitate object exploration. This study examined if children's exploration of objects during free play was facilitated by the use of particular spatial components (floor, tables,…

The present research studied children in the second year of life (N = 29, M[subscript age] = 21.14 months, SD = 2.64 months) using experimental manipulations within and between subjects to show that responsive parental influence helps children have more frequent sustained object holds with fewer switches between objects compared to when parents…

A set of boxes with incongruous animal pictures and a set of plastic Bristle Blocks were presented to 20 preschool children and 20 college students to investigate or play with as they wished. The time spent in investigative exploration and play was recorded over three 10-minute sessions on separate days. (Author/JMB)

Examines the manipulative strategies of 2- to 6-year-olds in terms of three structural principles--hierarchical complexity, interruption and role change--which are formally parallel to dimensions of language structure. Paper includes an extensive discussion of related studies. (JMB)