A micro-genetic analysis of the realization process of association between young children.

Abstract

This study examined the process of how two 4-year-old children met each other at the first time and began to play together. They played in a pair for about 30 minutes in each of two sessions in the laboratory playroom. At first, they did not even look at each other, but at last, they more or less cooperated together to perform the train game. Utterances to each other occured at the last moment. From a micro-genetic analysis of the details of this process, the following conclusions were suggested. First, it was found to be important for children to keep their attention on a common object. Next, the formation of two focused places in the play enabled the division of play, and furthermore made it easy to cooperate to a degree. Third, going and coming of an object (i. e., a train) between the two places made possible the association of each other. Thus, the beginning of interpersonal association was formed, owing to the characteristics of physical objects. Although all the beginnings of interaction among young children are not necessarily formed in this way, these results suggest that this type of interactive situation is important..