Age: 4 Months Old
To play this game you’ll need something new and exciting that your child will want to touch (I often use a set of keys) and a baby blanket. If you show your 4-month old baby a shiny set of keys, they will probably want to reach out and grab them. But if you show them the keys and then hide them under a blanket they will stop looking for them. It’s as if the keys suddenly cease to exist.
This tells you that the sophisticated idea that objects are still around even when they’re out of sight – what psychologists call “object permanence” – doesn’t make sense to them yet. By the time they’re about 10 months old it will. If you put the attractive item under the blanket a baby this age will simply reach under the barrier to find it.
They get it. Objects (and people) can be hidden and still exist.
