The Importance of Imitation in Early Child Development Essay

The term imitation in psychological terms refers to the copying or mimicking of patterns of behaviour. This essay will evaluate the importance of imitation in infancy using the theory of Piaget contrasted with the findings of other studies that differ radically in their conclusions. The essay will show that the importance of imitation as a forerunner to symbolic representation and ultimately abstract thought can be counterbalanced by arguments concerning language acquisition which does not solely depend on imitation for its development and is arguably one of the most important of human tools to develop. The amount of study this developmental feature has attracted is indicative of its importance in respect of cognitive development. As a†¦show more content†¦Piaget (1951) argued that the ability to think and reason is a lengthy developmental process that begins in infancy and is not fully completed until late childhood. To investigate the development of memory, a necessary component of representation and abstract thought, Piaget conducted a longitudinal study of his own children during their first year of life. Piaget reasoned that the start of memory development was evident when an infant was able to imitate an event and later repeat the event for itself. For Piaget a time interval between successful episodes of mutual imitation was necessary to confirm memory retention and actual reproduction of the behaviour. In his study Piaget failed to observe evidence of imitation in the first month of life which concurs with his theory that infants at this age are capable only of reflex actions over which they have no control. In the second to fourth months Piaget observed some evidence of imitation such as the opening and closing of the hand but noted that infants in this age band were unable to imitate new actions not already within their behaviour range. From four to eight months of age infants were able to imitate actions such as the hitting or banging of an object. Between the ages of eight and twelve months Piaget observed that infants were able to directly imitate facial expressionsShow MoreRelatedThe Effects Of Deferred Imitation During The Sensorimotor Period1037 Words   |  5 PagesImitation and observational learning are important in aiding the attainment and portrayal of new behaviours, beginning as early as infancy (Meltzoff, 1993, p. 467). Deferred imitation and mental representation s were concepts by developmental psychologist Jean Piaget in his theory of infant cognitive development. Deferred imitation refers to a child’s ability to imitate the actions that they have seen others perform, following a delay, (Slater, Lewis, Anzures Lee, 2011). 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