New View of How Young Children Think

Young children think very differently from adults.

Professor Yuko Munakata, who conducted a recent study at the University of Colorado, shows that what is told to young children does not just go in one ear and out the other. At the same time, it also does not go in and then get put into action like it does with adults.

What he found is that the information goes in, and then gets stored away for later use.

Professor Mukaka states “There is a lot of work in the field of cognitive development that focuses on how kids are basically little versions of adults trying to do the same things adults do, but they’re just not as good at it yet. What we show here is they are doing something completely different.”

For example, if it is cold outside, and the toddler is told to go and get his jacket from the bedroom in order to go outside, it might be expected that the child would plan for the future, and get the jacket. However, this is not what goes on in the young child’s brain. Instead, they run outside, find out that it’s cold, and then retrieve the memory of where their jacket is, and go and get it.

This research suggests that repeating something many times to prepare the young child for something in advance may not be effective. Young children's brains function in very different ways to those of adults. 

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