3V0204.01 Ring Tower Toy: beginning of “putting on” sequence (8/14/78)

Peggy received a ring-tower toy as a present at her birth. She has not played with it before today (Note however that Peggy played with similar rings from a different set in the earliest videotape of her playing.) The toy looks like this: (diagram; rings in decreasing size: purple blue green yellow orange red). I had wanted to introduce this toy to Peggy during our next videotape session, but Gretchen gave it to Peggy this morning. The purple ring was loose its hole is so small as to lock the others on the shaft when it is tightly in place.) Both the purple and blue rings fell off when Peggy first reached out for the toy. She chewed on them for a while then, drawing the stack to her she lifted off the green and yellow rings from the shaft. After scattering the separated rings about the bed, Peggy lifted off the orange and red rings. She brought each to her mouth in turn, and then the now empty shaft.

Why is this observation of interest ? It is less an observation in itself than as a beginning for a specific investigation of how Peggy’s interest in penetrations develops. This toy will not be used as it is because the shaft is tapered and the necessary ordering of rings would complicate too much the initial experiments with “putting-on” rings to the shaft. Thereafter, when Peggy has done so and shows she is engaged with doing so, the tapered shaft will be replaced. thus she will confront a new problem and we will explore how she goes about working out the problem.