Social Work Today E-Zine

Young children show evidence of smart and flexible behavior early in life—even though they don’t really know what they’re doing, new research suggests. The study appears in a recent issue of the journal Child Development.

In a series of experiments, scientists tested how well 4- and 5-year-olds were able to rely on different types of information to choose objects in a group. In some situations, they were asked to choose objects based on color and in some cases based on shape. Results showed children could be trained to choose correctly, but still didn’t know why shape or color was the right answer in any particular context.

“Children have more powerful learning skills than it was thought previously,” Vladimir Sloutsky, coauthor of the study and a professor of psychology and human development and the director of the Center for Cognitive Science at Ohio State, says. “They can show evidence of flexible learning abilities without conceptual knowledge and without being aware of what they learned.”

Sloutsky says, “these children were not aware of what they learned. They didn’t know how they were making the correct choices.” The findings have implications for theories of how children learn and develop their cognitive abilities, he says.

“Children learn implicitly. They don’t need complex conceptual knowledge to show evidence of smart, flexible behavior.”

— Source: Ohio State University