New research reveals that infants and toddlers learn by testing hypotheses, analyzing statistics, making causal inferences, observing what happens, and conducting experiments . In other words, as Alison Gopnik, a researcher at the University of California at Berkeley (USA) explains today in the journal Science, children often use scientific reasoning in their games and interactions with other subjects. To verify this, Gopnik carried out a series of experiments with machines that played music. After asking the children to operate them, they observed that they first hypothesized about how to operate the devices – which were activated by simultaneously operating two blocks – and then they found out which of them was more plausible.
"The everyday game is a form of experimentation with the world, obtaining data and drawing new conclusions", clarifies Gopnik, who assures that it is necessary to let them learn by themselves doing "tests" like scientists instead of telling them what they have to know. Intuitive experimentation, adds the researcher, allows us from a very early age to discover the causes and effects behind what is happening around us better than any other method. Hence, he recommends changing the teaching method of preschoolers, which tends to underestimate their intellectual abilities.
