object permanence- 9-12 months cognitive development milestone of a child. jean piaget- a psychologist. occupational therapy

1. Object permanence
Object permanence means a child’s ability to know that objects continue to exist even though
they can no longer be seen or heard.
For example, if you have ever played “peak-a-boo” with an infant then you know how it works.

2. • The concept of object permanence plays a significant role in the theory of cognitive development created
by psychologist Jean Piaget.
• Piaget suggested that children understand the world through their motor abilities such as touch, vision,
taste, and movement.
• During early infancy, babies are extremely egocentric. They have no concept that the world exists
separate from their point of view and experience. To understand that objects continue to exist even when
they are unseen, infants must first develop a mental representation of the object.
Schemas –
Piaget referred these mental images as Schemas. A schema is a category of knowledge
about something in the world. For example, an infant might have a schema for food, which
during early infancy will be either a bottle or breast.
As the child grows older and has more experiences, their schemas will multiple and
become much more complex.

3. • To determine if object permanence was present, we can show a toy to an infant before hiding it or
taking it away. We could hide a toy under a blanket and then observe to see if the infant would
search for the object.
• Some of the infants would appear confused or upset by the loss while other infants would instead
look for the object.
• Piaget believed that the children who were upset that the toy was gone lacked the understanding of
object permanence, while those who searched for the toy had reached their 9-12 months cognitive
developmental milestone.
Object identity is seen as a necessary precursor to the development of object
permanence

4. Research –
Object permanence in five-month-old infants
Abstract
A new method was devised to test object permanence in young infants. Five- month-old infants were habituated
to a screen that moved back and forth through a 180-degree arc, in the manner of a drawbridge. After infants
reached habituation, a box was centered behind the screen.
Infants were shown two test events: a possible event and an impossible event. In the possible event, the
screen stopped when it reached the occluded box; in the impossible event, the screen moved through the
space occupied by the box. The results indicated that infants looked reliably longer at the impossible than at the
possible event. This finding suggested that infants (1) understood that the box continued to exist, in its same
location, after it was occluded by the screen, and (2) expected the screen to stop against the occluded box and
were surprised, or puzzled, when it failed to do so. A control experiment in which the box was placed next to the
screen provided support for this interpretation of the results. Together, the results of these experiments indicate
that, contrary to Piaget's (1954) claims, infants as young as 5 months of age understand that objects continue
to exist when occluded. The results also indicate that 5-month-old infants realize that solid objects do not move
through the space occupied by other solid objects.