Franklin & Marshall College

Investigating the nature and development of young children's thinking

During the toddler and preschool years, children learn a great deal about the world. They're organizing objects and entities into categories, figuring out what makes other people tick, and learning how to navigate the complexities of day-to-day life. In the Child Development Lab at F&M, we're working to better understand some of these fantastic advances.

In particular, our current research focuses on the development of children's artifact concepts. Here are some of the questions we're asking:

• How do toddlers and preschoolers learn to use tools and other human-made objects?
  
• Is the way children approach objects similar to or different from the way adults approach objects?
• What "mental rules" do children apply when they see someone else using an object?