It also engages in some imitation but only imitation of actions which were already in the child's repertoire and imitation of actions which aren't in the baby's repertoire begins at 12 months. .
4. Coordination of secondary schemes (8-12 months)- The baby exhibits means-end behavior , the child now has the ability to go for what he/she wants and may combine two schemes to do so. E.g. moving a toy. Some signs of object permanence is seen.
5. Tertiary circular reaction (12-18 months) " "experimentation " begins in which the infant tries out new ways of playing with or manipulate object. The child is very active, purposeful and engages in trial and error exploration.
6. Beginning of mental representation (18-24 months) - Development of use of symbol to represent an object or event. The child understands that the symbol is separate from the object. As a result, infants in this stage are able to solve problems by thinking about them. Moreover, deferred imitation becomes possible because it requires the ability to represent internally the event to be imitated.
Criticism of Piaget's Contribution from Birth to Age Two.
According to Boyd and Bee, studies suggest that Piaget underestimated the cognition of infants, by changing the methods used to measure object permanence researchers found that younger infants better understood object movement , also imitation begins earlier that Piaget suggested. Piaget tested object permanence by moving a blanket from their sight, this method is flawed because children wouldn't have the ability to go after what was removed or even grasp for it, however, recent researchers have used computer technology to trace the movement of the infants eyes when the object is removed. According to Spelke and Wasserman (1993) babies show clear signs of object permanence from as early as sub-stage three.
Poulson, Nunes and Warren ( 1998) agree with a section of Piaget's theory on imitation i.
