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C00002 00002	timoth[f86,jmc]		notes on Timothy's development
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timoth[f86,jmc]		notes on Timothy's development

1986 dec 9
	Timothy acquires words in an order that seems mysterious.
So far we have bye-bye, dog, bird, cracker, Big Bird, bang, light.

	His ability to manipulate objects begins with a subroutine for
picking things up.   As far as I can remember putting what was picked
up in his mouth always represented a separate act, as did waving the
thing around and inspecting it.  All this is indicated by his reaction
to light switches.  Sometimes he would operate the switch, but this
was clearly a by-product of the routine for picking it up.

	If babies were to be given switches --- to operate lights
in their rooms, for example --- the switches should be handles that
are pulled with a separate pull for turning the light off.

	At close to a year he got a subroutine for putting one
object into another, e.g. putting the pen into its cap.  Very
shortly he could do some of the tasks that involve putting
an object into a correspondingly shaped hole.

	The general observation is that the ability to make elementary
movements follows the ability to make certain compound movements.

Dec  7
	The Kotowski's brought T a set of Melmac dishes including
big and little plates, a cup and a fork and spoon.  T played with
them in the sense of bringing the cup to his lips, holding the
fork and spoon by the handles and scraping them over the plate.
When T is carried to the front door from the outside he tries
to push the buttons on the combination lock.  Clearly he can now
try to imitate many procedures he has observed.

	The theoretical models of learning to achieve goals are
too narrow for good success, and nature has evolved better ones.
Nature's models involve separation of skill acquisition from
achieving goals.  Imitation and play are important.  If children
practiced a skill only at times when the skill was relevant to
achieving a goal, they would learn far less than they do.
Another important feature of human and animal mentality is the
formation of intermediate states that become independent of
their causes.  For example, when one animal is angry at another,
it may attack even though it is likely to suffer injury or
death.  Correspondingly, love acquires an existence and force
independent of what triggered it.  We need an evolutionary
model of these phenomena, but they give a decisiveness to
human and animal action that would not be present if each
situation were optimized separately on the basis of survival,
food and other ``basic drives''.