View report page

71
up to five into a meaningful unit. Again the period of 18 months
initiates the important stage, where the child is able to combine
more than two elements in its play.
In conclusion, it appears that in the second year of life an important
transition takes place from relatively unco-ordinated
activities to the first manifestations of an organised and integrated
behaviour. From a mainly reactive being the child becomes a
purposive being, able to solve problems and to pursue ends.
All evidence supplied by the experiments points to the conclusion
that the capacity to cope with problems emerges early in the second
year of life. It strongly supports the view which is more and
more prevailing that the care for the child's intellectual development
must begin early. It is, nevertheless, still widely held that
until the age of two the child's needs lie mainly in the physical
field, and that education—other than the habituation to a certain
routine—need not set in until the third year. The present investigation
definitely supports a view that one year is not too young an
age for beginning to foster and guide the child's intellectual development.
The child's growing capacity to solve problems should be
given an ample field to exercise itself. The child should be allowed,
and encouraged, to explore his surroundings and to "experiment"
with things in order to gain experience of the properties the things
have and of the numerous relations things can be made to enter into.
Thus, educational toys, which are usually given to the child of
two years or older, could, in a suitably simplified form, be presented
to much younger infants.
The experience made with these tests suggests that they may be
a useful means for detecting mental retardation at a very early
age, provided that they are appropriately standardized.