3V0306.03 Pervasive Instruction. 11/24

PERVASIVE INSTRUCTION — Peggy’s maternal grandmother (Edie) has been visiting us for the week around Thanksgiving. Six months ago she played “Clap hands, here comes Charlie” with Peggy and is delighted that Peggy claps on command and gets others to clap by doing it herself. While she sat across the table and clapped, both imitating and leading, she added a new behavior to Peggy’s repertoire — she clasped her hands and held them up over her head. I don’t know how many times it took before Peggy imitated her.

Taking up such an action is something very ‘natural’ to Peggy right now, because it fits in with a more general activity she has engaged in for the past two weeks (at least). Peggy is exploring the parts of her body she can’t see. Sitting on the floor, she lifts both hands up behind her head (almost tipping over). I have seen her play with her hair when doing that. She has played with her silver rattle-cum-string, the string end in one hand and the rattle in the other, lifting both up and beyond her head then pulling the string down behind her back.

RELEVANCE — Both of the preceding observations show adults responding eagerly when Peggy shows herself capable of learning from them. I responded ‘automatically’ to Peggy’s verbal addition to the giving game, before I even noticed what I was doing. Edie introduced her variation on ‘clap-clap’ and made her mark on Peggy.

Finally, Peggy’s exploration of her body should be marked at this time. It may show her conceiving of herself as a complete and circumscribed “object” — at least as an entity.

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