Agents and recipient objects in the development of early symbolic play.

The development of 2 components of early symbolic play--children's symbolic transformations of agents of action and recipient objects of action--was assessed in 48 children from 14 to 25 months of age. A 5-step sequence was predicted based on a combined weighting of agent substitutions and recipient object substitutions in each step. Children observed an adult model who pretended to talk into a telephone using each agent and object substitution in all combinations and then were allowed to demonstrate their own imitative pretending for each step. Based on the children's profiles of steps passed and failed, the sequence was found to form a Guttman scale and be age related. 2 types of possible underlying sequences were discussed.