Becoming symbol-minded

No facet of human development is more crucial than becoming symbol-minded. To participate fully in any society, children have to master the symbol systems that are important in that society. Children today must learn to use more varieties of symbolic media than ever before, so it is even more important to understand the processes involved in symbolic development. Recent research has greatly expanded what we know about early symbol use. We have learned, for example, that infants initially accept a wide range of entities as potential symbols and that young children are often confused about the nature of symbol–referent relations. During the first few years of life, however, children make rapid progress towards becoming competent symbol users.