Symbolic Understanding II: Displaced Reference

A key milestone in symbolic understanding is displaced reference, which appears around 12 months.

It allows infants to use words to represent objects that are not in view.

This helps toddlers learn more about the world through communication.

By 12 to 13 months, infants respond to the name of an absent toy by looking and pointing toward its usual location.

The ability to use displaced reference grows as memory and vocabulary develop.

At first, toddlers struggle to use language to gain new information about absent objects, which limits symbolic learning.

In one study, 19- and 22-month-olds learned the name "Lucy" for a stuffed frog toy. Then, Lucy was hidden, and the children were told that it had gotten wet.

Later, they were shown three stuffed animals—a wet frog, a dry frog, and a pig—and asked, “Get Lucy!”

All 19-month-olds remembered Lucy was a frog, but only the 22-month-olds picked the wet frog, showing they could update their mental image using language.

This shows that children use language more flexibly as a symbolic tool from the end of the second year into the third year.