Object permanence
Also called object permanency
Object permanence is a baby's understanding that people and things still exist when they're out of sight. The term comes from psychology, and parents use it for the stage when a baby starts looking for a hidden toy.
How it's said
Developmentally, this is a positive sign as it demonstrates your baby is developing 'object permanence'.
Yes, it has definitely coincided with the object permanence development as he now looks for toys when he drops them...
In a lot of baby books they talk about how infants don't have an understanding of object permanence.
Who says it
Not to be confused with
- Object permanence is knowing a thing or person still exists out of sight. Object constancy, a term from psychoanalyst Margaret Mahler, is a child understanding that the mother is a separate person who is still loved.
Where it came from
The idea comes from Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget, who first studied it by hiding a baby's favorite toy under a blanket and watching whether the baby searched for it. His book on it came out in English in 1954 as The Construction of Reality in the Child.
Piaget put the understanding at around 8 to 12 months. Later studies by Renée Baillargeon measured how long babies looked at impossible events instead of asking them to search, and argued that younger babies understood more than their hands could show. Peekaboo is the everyday example: Wikipedia calls it a prime example of an object permanence test.