Object Permanence Essay

Object permanence was a concept first introduced by Jean Piaget, it is defined as ‘ ‘ REF. In his studies to demonstrate object permanence Piaget hid a toy underneath a blanket while the child watched, the children who had developed the ability to form mental representations of the object and therefore displayed object permanence would look for the toy, he concluded that this started at around 9 months old (as cited in Baillargeon, 1987). Bowlby stated at around 8/9 months is when a child will seek out their caregiver, and is able to form lasting attachments, (as cited in Meins, 2003) therefore it can be assumed that at this age the child is able to form a mental representation of their caregiver and hence recognise they still exist when not in vision therefore actively seek them out. This helps the child into the social world as attachments have been linked to social competence in later life (Allen et al., 2002). In a study by …show more content…
This therefore shows that the ability to form mental representations well, can lead to a stronger attachment therefore social competence.
The age at which object permanence begins is an enigma, although Piaget’s theory does take into account individual differences can alter the age at which the stages happen, some researchers have found object in permanence in children much younger than the 9 month bracket (Baillargeon, 1987). During the observations the infants visual display of emotion (e.g. surprise) would be used to analyse the expectation that the object will appear (Brian & Mukherji, 2005), thus confirming the infant can produce mental representations of the object. It may be that infants below the age of 8/9 months may not be able to reflect these emotions and therefore it is assumed they do not display object permanence. It can also be criticised as it requires the infant to have the motor-skills to search for the toy, however