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Object Concepts and Their Functional Core: Material Engagement and Canonical Uses of Objects in Early Childhood Education

  • Arena of Development
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Abstract

Concept formation is a crucial milestone for cognitive development. In the last 40 years, empirical evidence obtained in laboratory settings suggested that babies have a rich conceptual system that expresses in responses to stimuli. However, very little is still known about how concepts develop in every day, ecological contexts. This is due to a lack of studies addressing (i) the intersubjective contexts of activity in which concepts develop and (ii) the meanings that objects that are part of those contexts acquire through material engagement. This paper presents a qualitative analysis of six observations from a longitudinal pilot study carried out at an infant school in Madrid (Spain), with children from ages 5 to 17 months. Children’s interactions with each other, with their teacher, and with objects were recorded every 21 days for 6 months. Results show that when children, in their first year of life, grasp the canonical uses of objects they stop interacting with isolated things and start to interact with members of functional classes. Knowledge about the canonical function of objects grants children access to new forms of interaction with the material world, with others, and with themselves. I, therefore, propose that, in early childhood, general forms of material engagement that take place within culturally organised activities are central to conceptual development. Specifically, I hold that canonical uses of objects are conceptual in nature. Results are discussed in relation to the need for more studies addressing the active role of material culture for cognition in early childhood.

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Data Availability

Due to European data protection regulations, the videos analysed in this study are not available in public repositories.

Notes

  1. For a contemporary and richer view on affordances, see Rietveld and Kiverstein 2014. The criticism of the adaptationist model does not hold for this emerging enactive-ecological approach.

  2. It is not equivalent either to the permanence of the object referred to by perspectives adhering to the existence of an innate core knowledge about objects that is mainly dependent on phylogenesis (e.g. Baillargeon et al. 1985; Spelke 2000).

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Acknowledgements

I am most grateful to Cintia Rodríguez and Lambros Malafouris for their comments, support and suggestions that improved previous versions of this paper. My thanks also go to the members of the DETEDUCA team (Desarrollo Temprano y Educación, UAM, Spain) and the participants of the METhODS (Material Engagement Theory Oxford Discussion Seminar, University of Oxford, UK) for the enriching discussions on this article and the topics it covers.

Funding

This research is part of the project FPU16/05358 funded by the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport (Spain) and the project EDU2015-64129-P funded by the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (Spain).

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  1. Departamento Interfacultativo de Psicología Evolutiva y de la Educación, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain

    Nicolás Alessandroni

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NA designed the study, collected the data, performed the data analysis and wrote the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Nicolás Alessandroni.

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The research ethics committee of Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (Spain) has reported favourably on this research under the code CEI-88-1666 (July 5th, 2018).

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Alessandroni, N. Object Concepts and Their Functional Core: Material Engagement and Canonical Uses of Objects in Early Childhood Education. Hu Arenas 4, 172–195 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42087-020-00119-5

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