̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Centre for Research on Play in Education, Development and Learning

Learning through 'guided' play can be as effective as adult-led instruction

tdk25 — Wed, 12 Jan 2022 09:01:39 +0000

Teaching younger children through 'guided' play can support key aspects of their learning and development at least as well, and sometimes better, than traditional, direct instruction, according to a new analysis.

̽��ֱ��research by academics at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge gathered and assessed data from numerous, widespread studies and information sources, which collectively documented guided play’s impact on the learning of around 3,800 children aged three to eight. Guided play broadly refers to playful educational activities which, although gently steered by an adult, give children the freedom to explore a learning goal in their own way.

Overall, the study found that this playful approach to learning can be just as effective as more traditional, teacher-led methods in developing key skills: including literacy, numeracy, social skills and essential thinking skills known as executive functions. ̽��ֱ��findings also suggest that children may master some skills – notably in maths – more effectively through guided play than other methods.

̽��ֱ��relative merits of play-based learning compared with more formal styles of instruction is a long-standing debate in education, but most of that discussion has focused on ‘free’ open-ended play.

̽��ֱ��new study is the first systematic attempt to examine the effects of guided play specifically, which is distinctive because it uses games or playful techniques to steer children towards specific learning goals, with support from a teacher or another adult using open-ended questions and prompts.

This may, for example, involve creating imagination-based games which require children to read, write or use maths; or incorporating simple early learning skills – such as counting – into play. Such methods are common in pre-school education, but are used less in primary teaching – a deficit which has been criticised by some researchers.

̽��ֱ��analysis was carried out by academics from the Play in Education, Development and Learning (PEDAL) Centre at the Faculty of Education, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge.

Dr Elizabeth Byrne, a co-author, said: “It’s only recently that researchers have started to conceptualise learning through play as something that exists on a spectrum. At one end you have free play, where children decide what to do with minimal adult involvement; at the other is traditional, direct instruction, where an adult tells a child what to do and controls the learning activity.”

“Guided play falls somewhere in between. It describes playful activities which are scaffolded around a learning goal, but allow children to try things out for themselves. If children are given the freedom to explore, but with some gentle guidance, it can be very good for their education – perhaps in some cases better than direct instruction.”

Paul Ramchandani, Professor of Play in Education, Development and Learning at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, said: “ ̽��ֱ��argument is sometimes made that play, while beneficial, adds little to children’s education. In fact, although there are still some big questions about how we should use guided play in classrooms, there is promising evidence that it actively enhances learning and development.”

Guided play has rarely been systematically studied in its own right, but the team found 39 studies, undertaken between 1977 and 2020, which had captured some information about its value compared either with free play or direct instruction, usually in the course of wider research.

By combining the results of studies which looked at similar types of learning outcome, the researchers were able to calculate how much of an overall positive or negative effect guided play has on different aspects of numeracy, literacy, executive functions or socioemotional skills, compared with other approaches. These effect sizes were measured using Hedge’s g; a widely-used statistical system in which a result of 0 represents no comparative gain, and 0.2, 0.5 and 0.8 represent small, medium and large effects respectively.

̽��ֱ��results offer significant evidence that guided play has a greater positive impact on some areas of children’s numeracy than direct instruction. For example, guided play’s comparative effect size on early maths skills was 0.24, and 0.63 on shape knowledge. There was also evidence that guided play better supports the development of children’s cognitive ability to switch between tasks.

Alongside other positive findings, there was also no statistically significant evidence that guided play is less effective than direct instruction on any of the learning outcomes studied. In short, guided playful activities tend at the very least to produce roughly the same learning benefits as more traditional, teacher-led approaches.

̽��ֱ��researchers offer various possible explanations about why guided play may improve numeracy in particular. One possibility is that the gentle prompting that guided play entails may be a particularly effective way of teaching children to work through the logical steps that maths-based tasks often involve.

Equally, the fact that guided play often involves hands-on learning may be important. “Children often struggle with mathematical concepts because they are abstract,” Byrne said. “They become easier to understand if you are actually using them in an imaginary game or playful context. One reason play matters may be because it supports mental visualisation.”

More broadly, the authors suggest that guided play may influence other characteristics which have a positive, knock-on effect on educational progress – enhancing, for example, children’s motivation, persistence, creativity and confidence.

Dr Christine O’Farrelly, a Senior Research Associate at the Faculty of Education, said: “It’s likely that playful activities have the sort of positive impact we saw in our analysis partly because they are acting on other skills and processes which underpin learning. If we can understand more about how guided play shapes learning in this way, we will be able to identify more precisely how it could be used to make a really meaningful difference in schools.”

̽��ֱ��study is published in the journal Child Development.

Play-based learning may also have a more positive effect on younger children’s acquisition of important early maths skills compared with traditional, direct instruction.

If children are given the freedom to explore, but with some gentle guidance, it can be very good for their education – perhaps in some cases better than direct instruction

Elizabeth Byrne

Faculty of Education

Researchers and children at the PEDAL Centre during the Cambridge Festival

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Video-led feedback programme reduces behaviour problems in children as young as 12 months

tdk25 — Tue, 16 Mar 2021 10:15:14 +0000

̽��ֱ��six-session programme involves providing carefully-prepared feedback to parents about how they can build on positive moments when playing and engaging with their child using video clips of everyday interactions, which are filmed by a health professional while visiting their home.

It was trialled with 300 families of children who had shown early signs of behaviour problems. Half of the families received the programme alongside routine healthcare support, while the other half received routine support alone. When assessed five months later, the children whose families had access to the video-feedback approach displayed significantly reduced behavioural problems compared with those whose families had not.

All of the children were aged just one or two: far younger than the age at which interventions for behaviour problems are normally available. ̽��ֱ��results suggest that providing tailored support for parents at this earlier stage, if their children show early signs of challenging behaviour – such as very frequent or intense tantrums, or aggressive behaviour – would significantly reduce the chances of those problems worsening.

Children with enduring behaviour problems often experience many other difficulties as they grow up: with physical and mental health, education, and relationships. Behaviour problems currently affect 5% to 10% of all children.

̽��ֱ��trial – one of the first ever ‘real-world’ tests of an intervention for challenging behaviours in children who are so young – was carried out by health professionals at six NHS Trusts in England and funded by the National Institute for Health Research. It was part of a wider project called ‘Healthy Start, Happy Start’, which is testing the video-based approach, led by academics at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and Imperial College London.

Dr Christine O’Farrelly, from the Centre for Play in Education, Development and Learning (PEDAL), Faculty of Education, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, said: “Often, as soon as you move a programme like this to a real health service setting, you would expect to see a voltage drop in its effectiveness compared with research conditions. Instead, we saw a clear and striking change in child behaviour.”

Beth Barker, a research assistant at the PEDAL Centre, said: “ ̽��ֱ��fact that this programme was effective with children aged just one or two represents a real opportunity to intervene early and protect against enduring mental health problems. ̽��ֱ��earlier we can support them, the better we can do at improving their outcomes as they progress through childhood and into adult life.”

̽��ֱ��programme, known as the Video-feedback Intervention to promote Positive Parenting and Sensitive Discipline (VIPP-SD), is delivered across six home visits, each lasting about 90 minutes.

Health professionals film the family in everyday situations – such as playing together, or having a meal – and then analyse the content in depth. During the next visit, they review specific clips, highlighting often fleeting moments when the parents and child appear to be ‘in tune’. They discuss what made these successful, as well as any incidents in which more challenging issues arose. This helps the parents to identify particular cues and signals from their children and respond in a manner that helps their children feel understood and reinforces positive engagement and behaviours.

̽��ֱ��300 participating families all had children who scored within the top 20% for behaviour problems during standard healthcare assessments. Misbehaviour is a normal part of toddlerhood, and not all of the children would necessarily have gone on to develop serious problems. All were, however, deemed ‘at-risk’ because they exhibited challenging behaviours like tantrums and rule-breaking more severely and frequently than most. These are often the early symptoms of disruptive behaviour disorders and typically emerge at 12 to 36 months.

̽��ֱ��researchers used various tools, principally interviews with the parents, to assess each child’s behaviour before the trial, and again five months after. Each child received a score based on the frequency and severity of challenging behaviours including tantrums, ‘destructive’ behaviours (such as deliberately breaking a toy or spilling a drink); resisting rules and requests; and aggressive behaviour (hitting or biting).

Between the assessments, all 300 families received the routine healthcare available to them for early symptoms of behaviour problems. ̽��ֱ��researchers describe this as ‘typically minimal’, as there is currently no standard pathway of support for behaviour problems in such young children. Only half of the families were given access to the parenting programme.

In the second assessment, five months later, children from families who received the extra video feedback support scored significantly lower for all measures of behaviour problems than those who only received routine care.

̽��ֱ��average difference between the scores of the two groups was 2.03 points. While the exact meaning of this varied depending on the specific problems exhibited by the child, the researchers describe it as roughly equivalent to the difference between having tantrums every day, and having tantrums once or twice a week. Similarly, in the case of destructive behaviours, it represents the disparity between regularly throwing or breaking toys and other items, and barely doing so at all.

Encouragingly, 95% of the participants persevered with the trial to its conclusion, suggesting that most families are able to accommodate the visits.

Paul Ramchandani, Professor of Play in Education, Development and Learning at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, said: “To provide this programme in any health service would require investment, but it can realistically be delivered as part of routine care. Doing so would benefit a group of children who are at risk of going on to have problems with their education, behaviour, future wellbeing and mental health. There is a chance here to invest early and alleviate those difficulties now, potentially preventing problems in the longer term that are far worse.”

̽��ֱ��results are reported in JAMA Pediatrics. ̽��ֱ��Healthy Start, Happy Start project is also reviewing further data from the project – including assessments of the children two years after the trial – which will be reported at a later date.

A home-based parenting programme to prevent childhood behaviour problems, which very unusually focuses on children when they are still toddlers, has proven highly successful during its first public health trial.

We saw a clear and striking change in child behaviour

Christine O’Farrelly

KE ATLAS

Mum and toddler

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Children use make-believe aggression and violence to manage bad-tempered peers

tdk25 — Tue, 06 Oct 2020 08:55:06 +0000

Academics from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge believe that the tendency for children to introduce aggressive themes in these situations – which seems to happen whether or not they are personally easy to anger – may be because they are ‘rehearsing’ strategies to cope with hot-headed friends.

̽��ֱ��finding comes from an observational study of more than 100 children at a school in China, who were asked to play with toys in pairs. Children whose play partners were considered bad-tempered by their peers were 45% more likely to introduce aggressive themes into their pretend play than those whose partners were reckoned to be better at controlling their temper.

Importantly, however, a child’s own temperament did not predict the level of make-believe aggression. Instead, children often appeared to introduce these themes specifically in response to having an irritable playmate.

This may mean that, while many adults understandably discourage children from pretend play that seems aggressive, in certain cases it may actually help their social and emotional development. ̽��ֱ��paper’s authors stress, however, that further research will be needed before they can provide definitive guidance for parents or practitioners.

Dr Zhen Rao, from the Centre for Research on Play in Education, Development and Learning (PEDAL), at the Faculty of Education, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, said: “If children have a friend who is easily angered, and particularly if they haven’t coped well with that behaviour, it’s possible that they will look for ways to explore it through pretend play. This gives them a safe context in which to try out different ways of handling difficult situations next time they crop up in real life.”

Aggressive pretend play has been the subject of considerable wider research, much of which aims to understand whether it predicts similarly aggressive real-life behaviours. Most of these studies, however, tend to focus on whether these associations are linked to the child’s own temperament, rather than that of the children they are playing with.

̽��ֱ��Cambridge study aimed to understand how far aggressive pretend play is associated with not only children’s own, but also their play partner’s anger expression. It also distinguished between aggressive pretend play and its ‘non-aggressive, negative’ variant: for example, pretend play that involves imagining someone who is sick or unhappy.

̽��ֱ��research was carried out with 104 children, aged seven to 10, at a school in Guangzhou in China, as part of a wider project that the team were undertaking in that region.

Participants were asked to organise themselves into pairs – many of them therefore picking friends – and were then filmed playing for 20 minutes. ̽��ֱ��toys they were given was deliberately neutral in character (for example, there were no toy weapons), and the children could play however they wanted.

̽��ֱ��researchers then coded 10-minute samples of each pair in 120 five-second segments, earmarking instances of pretend play, aggressive themes, and non-aggressive negative themes.

Separately, they also asked peers to rate the children’s tendency to become angry. Each of the 104 children in the study was rated by, on average, 10 others, who were asked to decide whether they were good at keeping their temper, easily angered, or ‘somewhere in between’.

̽��ֱ��researchers then analysed the data using a statistical model called an Actor-Partner Interdependence Model, which is a means of measuring and testing the influence that two individuals have on one another. This allowed them to work out how far children were playing a certain way of their own volition, and how far they were being influenced by their partner.

On average, the children spent only about a fifth of the recorded session participating in pretend play, of which around 10% involved aggressive themes and 8% involved non-aggressive negative themes. Pretend play was observed in all children. More than half (53.5%) showed at least one instance of aggressive pretend play, and 43% of the children showed at least one instance of negative pretend play.

̽��ֱ��children’s own ability to control their temper, as reported by their peers, did not significantly predict the amount of their pretend play involved aggressive themes. If they had a play partner who was considered quick to anger, however, they were 45% more likely to create pretend situations that involved some sort of aggressive element. This percentage is to some extent shaped by how the data was segmented, but nonetheless indicates a greater likelihood that children will do this if they are playing with someone peers regard as easy to anger.

There was no evidence to suggest that either child’s temperament influenced the frequency of non-aggressive, negative pretend play. ̽��ֱ��researchers also found that boys were 6.11 times likelier to engage in aggressive pretend play than girls.

̽��ֱ��theory that children may introduce these themes to rehearse ways of handling bad-tempered peers is only one possible explanation. For example, it may also represent an attempt to stop playmates becoming angry by giving them a pretend situation in which to ‘let off steam’, or simply to keep them playing by appealing to their nature.

“Our study highlights the importance of taking into account a social partner’s emotional expression when understanding aggressive pretend play,” Rao added. “Further research is clearly needed to help us better understand this in different social contexts. ̽��ֱ��possibility that children might be working out how to handle tricky situations through pretend play suggests that for some children, this could actually be a way of developing their social and emotional skills.”

̽��ֱ��research is published in the British Journal of Developmental Psychology. Dr Rao’s research is funded by an ESRC postdoctoral Fellowship.

Children are more likely to introduce violent themes into their pretend play, such as imaginary fighting or killing, if they are with playmates whom peers consider bad-tempered, new research suggests.

For some children, this could actually be a way of developing their social and emotional skills

Zhen Rao

woodleywonderworks via flickr

Boy playing with a toy gun made of wood

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Gardeners and carpenters: the ‘skill’ of parenting

Anonymous — Thu, 08 Nov 2018 09:20:41 +0000

Professors Claire Hughes and Paul Ramchandani have spent their adult lives studying children. Both are fascinated by the complicated jigsaw of early child development. “Such a lot happens in pregnancy and the first few years of life: the child’s brain and physical development, the acquisition of new skills and knowledge, it’s utterly transforming,” says Ramchandani, Cambridge’s first LEGO Professor of Play.

But while we know much about what goes on, we understand far less about how the outside world shapes this transformation – knowledge we need as parents, practitioners and policymakers to provide environments that help children thrive.

It’s clear, for instance, that our mothers, fathers and families affect our lives and the people we become, but has understanding the importance of parent–child relationships led to modern-day parenting approaches that stifle rather than help a child to flourish?

“Think carpenters and gardeners,” says Hughes, referring to a book by American psychologist Alison Gopnik published in 2016. “Gopnik’s theory is that parents who behave like carpenters mould their child by a deliberate, organised and focused influence on their development; those who behave like gardeners create a safe, nurtured and free environment that helps their child to shape themself.”

Hughes’ work looks at how parents talk to children in their early years and what this means for how children develop some of the most crucial skills of their lives. Since she began her academic career as an undergraduate in Cambridge 30 years ago, her focus has shifted from clinical groups, including children with autism, to studying social influences on two key psychological constructs – theory of mind and executive function.

Psychologists use the term theory of mind, or mind reading, to describe awareness that other people have thoughts, feelings, intentions and desires. Most children develop theory of mind around the age of four. “Without it you can’t joke, you can’t lie, you can’t get sarcasm – the many social things that hinge on what others say and mean to say,” she says.

As a result, theory of mind is pivotal to children’s ability to interact and form social relationships, but it doesn’t act alone. Along with theory of mind comes executive function – all those higher-order thinking skills such as planning, adapting plans when situations change and working memory.

“These two things go hand in glove,” explains Hughes, whose research is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council. “You need good executive function to acquire a theory of mind, because how we process information from others depends on being able to keep track of information and shift attention, and we know that poor executive function often leads to behavioural problems, which can in turn affect children’s ability to learn from social situations.”

By following a group of 117 children from toddlerhood to adolescence, and developing a new battery of tests – including an innovative ‘silent film’ task based on Harold Lloyd’s 1923 comedy Safety Last!, developed with one of her former students, Dr Rory Devine – Hughes has been able to gain a deeper understanding of how family environments shape young children’s theory of mind.

Her studies show that how parents talk to toddlers – in particular the extent to which they use words such as ‘think’, ‘believe’, ‘understand’ and other so-called ‘mental state talk’ – predicts how well children do at the silent film task when they reach the age of ten.

One of her new studies, which involves more than 400 first-time families in the UK, USA and Netherlands, aims to tease out differences in the way that fathers and mothers talk to their children. “We’re filming children at home at four, 12 and 24 months and we are now following them up at nursery at the age of three,” says Hughes. “It’s a big study, producing very rich data, and we’re using some interesting technology – including a device that’s like a talk pedometer – to get at children’s linguistic environments.”

Such detailed, long-term studies could, she hopes, lead to simple and effective tools to help parents foster their children’s theory of mind skills. Together with Professors Lynne Murray and Peter Cooper at the ̽��ֱ�� of Reading, Hughes is testing a South African intervention based on reading picture books, something that’s on the decline within UK families.

“It’s been a revelation to me to see how hard some parents find it to read a picture book. Some literally just read what’s on the page, and if there are no words they just show the picture,” she says. “ ̽��ֱ��South African study shows that in ten weeks you can take parents who aren’t very good at this type of reading and show them how to get their child involved.”

Testing new interventions is also central to Ramchandani’s research, not least because as well as an academic he’s also a practising psychiatrist. “I come from a medical background where you want to learn stuff so that you can do something about it,” he says.

He’s currently leading a randomised controlled trial with parents from London, Peterborough, Oxford and Hertfordshire to see if video feedback is a viable way of promoting positive child development. Over six sessions, parents are filmed playing with their toddler and the videos are then used to help parents notice – and respond appropriately to – their child’s communication.

One of his long-standing areas of interest is the role fathers play in the lives of their young children, something he feels has often been overlooked. “There are obvious reasons for this – mothers are more often the primary carers and theories that have dominated psychology have revolved around the mother–child relationship – plus, over the past 30 years, most research on children’s relationships with parents has focused on mothers,” says Ramchandani.

Before arriving in Cambridge in early 2018, he conducted the first major study of depression in fathers, which revealed that paternal – as well as maternal – depression has an impact on child outcomes.

“This study got me thinking about the family constellation, about how mothers and fathers influence children, and how children influence parents too, which led to my interest in play as one aspect of those relationships.”

Since then, he’s studied the way fathers play with their babies and found that when fathers were more physically and emotionally engaged, children did better behaviourally and cognitively. “It’s striking to see how different fathers can have very different styles of interacting with their babies, even though they are very young, with some getting stuck in and leading the play, and others watching and following their child’s lead more”.

Ramchandani is Director of Cambridge’s Centre for Research on Play in Education, Development and Learning, and with the team will be looking at an even wider field of play – studying its role in learning and social development, and finding the best way of measuring playfulness itself.

“Healthy child development is a fascinating and complicated picture: a jigsaw comprising fathers, mothers, siblings and the wider world, and involving language, play, physical and psychological health and more,” adds Ramchandani. “By getting a clearer picture of how it works, we have the best chance of helping to improve children’s lives around the world.”

Inset image: read more about our research on the topic of children in the ̽��ֱ��'s research magazine; download a pdf; view on Issuu.

Wanting your child to have the best chance in life is natural for any parent. But by focusing too much on the ‘skill’ of parenting, are we losing sight of things that matter more – how we talk to and play with children? Cambridge researchers are examining how parents can best help their children in their early years through nurturing rather than shaping.

Healthy child development is a fascinating and complicated picture. By getting a clearer picture of how it works, we have the best chance of helping to improve children’s lives around the world

Paul Ramchandani

Sushobhan Badhai

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Education and the brain: what happens when children learn?

amb206 — Wed, 10 Feb 2016 12:27:02 +0000

Researchers looking at child development often use search-and-find tasks to look at the ways in which children apply what they are learning about the physical world. Tests carried out on toddlers reveal that something quite remarkable happens in child development between the ages of two and five – a stage identified by both educationalists and neuroscientists as critical to the capacity for learning.

Dr Sara Baker is a researcher into early childhood at the Faculty of Education. She is interested in the role of the brain’s prefrontal lobe in how young children learn to adapt their understanding to an ever-shifting environment. Many of her studies chart changes in children’s ways of thinking about the world. She uses longitudinal designs to examine the shape of individual children’s learning curves month by month.

Research by Baker and colleagues is contributing to an understanding of the acquisition of skills essential to learning. She explains: “ ̽��ֱ��brain’s frontal lobe is one of the four major divisions of the cerebral cortex. It regulates decision-making, problem-solving and behaviour. We call these functions executive skills – they are at the root of the cognitive differences between humans and other animals. My executive functions enable me to resist a slice of cake when I know I’m soon having dinner.”

In an experiment designed to identify the age at which executive skills develop, Baker and colleagues used a row of four interconnected boxes to test children’s ability to apply their knowledge of basic physics. A ball rolled down an incline entered the first box and disappeared. A barrier (its top visible) was slotted in between two of the boxes to stop the ball rolling any further. ̽��ֱ��children were asked to open the door of the box in which the ball was hidden.

Aged 29–31 months, only 32% of the children correctly identified the location of the ball by working out that the barrier would have stopped it. Aged 32–36 months, 66% of children were successful. Toddlers under the age of three appear to understand the principles of solidity and continuity, but have trouble acting on this knowledge. A single month in a child’s age affected their ability to carry out the task correctly.

Baker’s interest in children’s development of executive skills dates from the moment a decade ago when she picked up a picture book while sitting in the foyer of a nursery school; the narrative focused on opposites: big/small, light/dark, hot/cold. How would children respond if they were asked to point to the opposite picture to the one depicting the word they heard spoken? This question became the topic for her PhD. Her findings confirmed that the huge variability of children’s executive skills could explain the range of social and cognitive behaviours we see emerging in the early years. What we learn at this stage, and what we learn to apply, sets us on course for life.

Most three-year-olds find the ‘opposites’ task hard. Given two pictures of bears, one big, one small, they automatically point to the big bear when they hear the word ‘big’ spoken aloud. They point to the big bear even when they have been asked (and appear to have understood) to point to the image that is the opposite of the word they hear.

Five-year-olds are much more successful in carrying out the task explained to them. “By age five, most children have acquired the ability to override their impulses, and put them on hold, in order to follow a request,” says Baker. “ ̽��ֱ��ability to control impulses is vital to children’s socialisation, their ability to share and work in groups – and ultimately to be adaptable and well adjusted.”

What happens in children’s brains and minds to enable them to make these important leaps in understanding? ̽��ֱ��answer involves an understanding of neuroscience as well as child development. Baker and colleagues are engaged in multidisciplinary projects including examining how individuals with autism may perceive and learn about the physical world differently from those without a diagnosis. Her team is also developing a pedagogical, play-based approach in collaboration with teachers.

“Executive function is a hot topic in education. When we talk to teachers about the psychology behind frontal lobe development, they immediately recognise how important self-regulation is, and will tell you about the child who can’t concentrate. It might be the case that this child is struggling with their executive functions: their working memory or inhibitory control might be flagging,” says Baker.

“ ̽��ֱ��tricky part is to grasp the processes developing in the child’s brain and come up with ways to encourage that development. In early years’ education, playful learning and giving children freedom to explore could help to encourage independence as well as the ability to know when to ask for help, both of which depend on self-regulatory skills. If we want to encourage adaptability and self-reliance, we have to look beyond the formal curriculum.”

Baker’s research into children’s ability to apply knowledge to successfully predict the location of an object hidden from view revealed much more than simply which age group was successful. She says: “In looking at the data from tasks, it’s not enough to focus only on children’s failures. We need to look at why they search for an object in a particular place. Often they’re applying something else that they’ve learnt.”

When younger children opened the same door twice in the boxes experiment, despite the barrier having been moved, they were applying logic: an object may be precisely where it was found before. After all, it’s always worth looking for the house keys first where they should be.

In another experiment (involving dropping balls into opaque tubes that crossed each other), the younger children applied their knowledge of gravity (the ball would fall down the tube) but failed to take into account that the tubes were not straight. Baker says: “When children repeat a mistake, they reveal something about their view of the world and, as researchers, we learn how their brain is developing. As teachers and parents, our role is to help children to overcome that strong, but wrong, impulse.”

During the course of a day, your frontal lobe will have enabled you to do far more than find your keys. ̽��ֱ��synaptic firing of millions of cells in your brain may have guided you through a tricky situation with colleagues or prompted you to make a split-second decision as you crossed a busy road. “ ̽��ֱ��development of this vital area of your brain happened well before you started formal education and will continue throughout your lifetime,” says Baker.

Have you lost your house keys recently? If so, you probably applied a spot of logical thinking. You looked first in the most obvious places – bags and pockets – and then mentally retraced your steps to the point when you last used them.

̽��ֱ��tricky part is to grasp the processes developing in the child’s brain and come up with ways to encourage that development.

Sara Baker

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Frontal lobe

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

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