Where did the monkey toy go?
When a 5 months-old child is shown a toy; he looks at it and tries to grab it. However, if a screen is placed in front of the toy, the child looks away. He doesn’t push the screen away to get at the toy because at this point the child behaves as if things that are out of sight no longer exist. However, beginning at around 9 months, a child learned that things out of sign still exist and are worth looking for. He looks for a thing that is out of sight because he is learning a new concept – permanence. Object to the understanding that objects or events still continue to exist, even if they can no longer be heard, touched or seen.
At the end of the sensor motor period, the infant will search long and hard for lost of disappeared objects, indicating a fully develop the concept of object permanence. From about 2 years to 7 years; children learn to use a symbol, such as worlds or mental images, to think about things that re not present and to help them solve simple problems. For instance, the child can talk about things that are not physically present, he can represent things by drawing, and he can pretend such as pretending that a shoe box is a car. Although a child uses and manipulates symbols in speech and play, his thinking has a number of interesting limitations that make it different from an adult’s.