ERIC Number: EJ1327052
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2022
Pages: 15
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0009-3920
EISSN: N/A
Infant Exuberant Object Play at Home: Immense Amounts of Time-Distributed, Variable Practice
Herzberg, Orit; Fletcher, Katelyn K.; Schatz, Jacob L.; Adolph, Karen E.; Tamis-LeMonda, Catherine S.
Child Development, v93 n1 p150-164 Jan-Feb 2022
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% White). Regardless of age, for every infant and time scale, across 10,015 object bouts, object interactions were short (median = 9.8 s) and varied (transitions among dozens of toys and non-toys) but consumed most of infants' time. We suggest that infant exuberant object play--immense amounts of brief, time-distributed, variable interactions with objects--may be conducive to learning object properties and functions, motor skill acquisition, and growth in cognitive, social, and language domains.
Descriptors: Infants, Infant Behavior, Play, Object Manipulation, Child Development, Toys, Learning Processes, Psychomotor Skills, Skill Development, Cognitive Development
Wiley. Available from: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030. Tel: 800-835-6770; e-mail: cs-journals@wiley.com; Web site: https://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2191/en-us
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) (DHHS/NIH)
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: R01HD094830