The Development of Children’s Representations of Temporal Structure

Abstract

Adaptation to the temporal environment requires building mental representations of recurrent time patterns. From infancy onward children store information about the temporal order of event sequences, and from early childhood through adolescence they come to form representations of progressively longer patterns. The nature of the representations can be studied by asking children to perform certain unusual operations on the elements of time patterns. Research using this method indicates that image representations are available for the pattern of daily activities by about five years of age. Imagery for the days of the week and months of the year appears much later, at early to mid adolescence, showing that content has a strong influence on the pattern of representational development. Questions about developmental mechanisms and the importance of temporal representations in adaptation are discussed.