Bornstein M H, Sigman M D
Child Dev. 1986 Apr;57(2):251-74. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8624.1986.tb00025.x.
In this essay we document moderate continuity in mental development beginning in infancy and extending into childhood. Psychological opinion in the past has tended to favor discontinuity theories of cognitive development from infancy. In recent years, however, the foundations on which discontinuity positions were originally established have themselves come under question and new findings grounded in new assessment procedures have appeared, necessitating revision of opinion on this significant psychological and developmental issue. Our essay has several aims. We first review briefly the bases for contemporary discontinuity theories of mental development. Second, we present current findings that support the alternative proposition of continuity: Recent research demonstrates that infants who more efficiently encode visual stimuli or more efficiently recollect visual or auditory stimuli tend to perform more proficiently on traditional psychometric assessments of intelligence and language during childhood. Third, we scrutinize the assessment methods from which these continuity results derive. Fourth, we offer several models that help to explain the continuity findings. Fifth, we discuss critically the origins and the maintenance of continuity in mental development as it is coming to be conceptualized currently. Finally, we reflect on implications of continuity for the future of infant assessments specifically and for theories of early mental development generally.
在本文中，我们记录了从婴儿期开始并延续至童年期的心理发展中的适度连续性。过去的心理学观点倾向于支持婴儿期认知发展的不连续性理论。然而，近年来，不连续性理论最初建立的基础本身受到了质疑，基于新评估程序的新发现不断涌现，这使得人们有必要重新审视这一重要的心理学和发展问题上的观点。我们的文章有几个目标。首先，我们简要回顾当代心理发展不连续性理论的基础。其次，我们展示支持连续性这一替代观点的当前研究结果：近期研究表明，在视觉刺激编码或视觉或听觉刺激回忆方面更高效的婴儿，在童年期传统的智力和语言心理测量评估中往往表现得更出色。第三，我们仔细研究得出这些连续性结果所采用的评估方法。第四，我们提供几个有助于解释连续性研究结果的模型。第五，我们批判性地讨论当前正在形成概念的心理发展中连续性的起源和维持。最后，我们思考连续性对婴儿评估未来的具体影响以及对早期心理发展理论总体的影响。
