Unlike the younger child playing peekaboo, the 2-year-old with the sock has controlled the stimulus for laughter. They share their mastery of that knowledge through laughter.Ĭhildren at that age may also tell you for the first time that they are being silly. Placing it on an ear is hysterical to 2-year-olds because they realize that it does not belong there. Other things that are out of place will get the same laughter from 2-year-olds, for they are learning that there is an order to the world. The intensity of the 1-year-old’s laughter tells you that he or she “gets it”: That’s my mother behind those hands! It is a realization that would have eluded the child only a few weeks or months earlier. Laughing at peekaboo is a marker for a certain level of intellectual development. Yet a 6-month-old will barely respond to the game, and a 6-year-old will find it boring. (The first time I tried this test on my 6-month-old son he tried to eat the cardboard barrier!)įew things elicit as much laughter from a 1-year-old child as a game of peekaboo. By reaching for that toy, the child shows that he understands the concept that people and things have a physical existence even when they are not seen. A toy that is placed behind a cardboard barrier can be obtained if you reach around or over the barrier. When Mom leaves the room, she is doing something else and will eventually return. Soon they begin to understand that objects and people exist, even when they are out of sight. True laughter, which is more complex, does not appear until a few months later.Ĭhildren learn some very complex things during their first dozen months, starting with the realization that they are separate individuals from their parents. Our nervous systems appear to be wired to make us smile. A twelve-hour-old infant will shape his mouth into what looks like a smile at the smell of a banana or other sweet food. Laughing and smiling are among the most human of behaviors.
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