Everyday interactions support toddlers’ learning of conventional actions on artifacts

Abstract

Children learn to perform actions on artifacts in their environments from infancy, but the ways caregivers support this learning during everyday interactions are relatively unexplored. This study investigated how naturalistic caregiver–child teaching interactions promoted conventional action learning in toddlers. Caregivers of 32 24- to 26-month-old children taught their children to perform novel target actions on toys. Afterward, an experimenter blind to the toys children had been taught tested children’s action learning. Results indicated that children’s propensities to assemble objects and vocabularies were positively associated with learning. Whereas caregivers’ speech did not directly support learning, caregivers’ action performance negatively related to children’s learning. Importantly, children’s own actions related to learning: Children who performed proportionally more actions relative to their caregivers with higher action accuracy demonstrated better learning of the taught material. Thus, children who “drove” the teaching session and were more accurate in their actions learned more. Caregivers contributed by supporting their children’s actions: Caregivers who provided more specific instructions and praise had children who were more active during instruction. Importantly, analyses controlled for child-level individual differences, showing that beyond children’s own skills, active experience supported by caregiver guidance related to conventional action learning. These findings highlight children as central agents in the learning process and suggest that caregivers contributed by coaching children’s actions.