Describe and discuss the Nativist approach to the development of early

child abilities. Refer to evidence in your answer.

Nativist psychologists don’t agree that children develop or ‘construct’ early
skills through discovery learning, as Piaget described, but rather they see these
abilities as being innate.

One such example is direct perception, where children have an immediate

understanding of a stimulus. Although Psychologists such as Gibson believed we
were born programmed to understand the world around us- he did concede that we
also need to learn about perception in infancy. If infants did have direct perception,
it would follow that there would be some evidence of cross-modal integration; the
understanding that different senses are related. Meltzoff and Borton showed that
four-week old infants are capable of cross-modal integration. Pps were split into
two groups, one group were a stippled surface dummy and the other group were
given a plain dummy, and, making sure they never saw the dummies, they sucked on them for 90 seconds.
Afterwards, the baby’s were shown the two dummies, and it they were significantly more likely to look at
the one they previously sucked on. Although the study does not necessarily disprove the importance of
schemas in later development, it is unlikely that at four weeks children will have discovery-learnt that
different dimensions are related.

Baillargeon found that children at around 5 months understand both that objects exist even when
occluded, and that solid objects do not move through space occupied by other solid objects. Like Meltzoff
and Borton, he measured how long children looked at an event: in the control condition a screen fell on a
cube and rested on it, and in the experimental condition the screen moved through the space occupied by
the box. The pps looked significantly longer at the impossible event, showing that they had an understanding
of object permanence- contrary to Piaget’s finding that we only do at 8 months.

Baillargeon study and the Meltzoff and Borton’s study have both been used to prove that indeed we
are born with much of the tools that are needed to understand the world. However, one could also argue
from a constructivism perspective that we just learn very quickly- although its difficult to imagine that we
just ‘learn’ to integrate between senses so quickly, without some biological predisposition to learn such
things.

Although much opposition to the Nativist explanation and supporting studies is from Piaget-the
given studies are also far more scientific and valid then poor old Piaget’s evidence. Piaget did a longitudinal
study on his own children, and measured when they could successfully complete certain tasks such as
searching for a hidden object. This isn’t internally valid as Piaget is measuring when children have developed
the the motor and visual capacities, as well a grasp on object permanence in order to try and find the hidden
object. Measuring how long children look at an object is more valid as where the child is looking gives a
better, although not perfect insight into what the child is thinking. This is why it’s generally considered that
he underestimated the capabilities of children. Piaget’s study also used a small sample, which may not be
representative of the whole population as his children may be more adept to learn. Piaget’s evidence may
also be subjective, as while he noted down and recorded much of his children’s behaviour- he may have
been actively seeking evidence for his theories and ignoring anything that might challenge them.j