Perceptual and Motor Skills
Author:
Keywords:
Social Sciences, Psychology, Experimental, Psychology, INFANTS IMITATION, INTENDED ACTS, TERM-MEMORY, INTENTIONS, EMULATION, REENACTMENT, MOVEMENTS, COGNITION, AUTISM, BOYS, Aptitude, Child Development, Child, Preschool, Female, Humans, Imitative Behavior, Infant, Male, Motor Skills, Psychomotor Performance, Reference Values, 1106 Human Movement and Sports Sciences, 1701 Psychology, 1702 Cognitive Sciences, Sport Sciences, 5202 Biological psychology, 5203 Clinical and health psychology, 5205 Social and personality psychology
Abstract:
The Preschool Imitation and Praxis Scale (PIPS) was developed to measure bodily and procedural imitation aptitude in young children. However, the investigation of procedural imitation is more complex than that of bodily imitation. The procedural imitation tasks of the PIPS mainly consisted of unusual acts upon objects (for example: switching on a lamp in a toy animal with the forehead). This study assessed the suitability of these tasks by ruling out non-imitative learning in 15 typically developing children between 12 and 55 mo. of age (6 girls, 9 boys). Results indicated that the tasks seem novel and unlikely to be performed spontaneously by the children. In addition, the number of target acts performed by the children in the imitation condition was significantly higher than in the baseline, investigator-manipulation and imitation-enhancement non-imitative control conditions. Finally, the tasks elicited more frequently imitative behaviour than end-state emulation. Therefore, the tasks appear appropriate to measure procedural imitation, and the findings support the theoretical validity of the PIPS.