ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the general characteristics of science, and some specific paradigms that are useful when studying infants. Infants no more need to know formal grammar to speak than scientists need to know philosophic underpinnings and first principles to do science. To appreciate the strengths of a scientific stance toward infants, it is helpful to consider its primary qualities. Infants involve all, centrally and emotionally, individually and as species. This is one reason why studying them can be so challenging, and why, by way of inoculation, it is important to be aware of the characteristics of a scientific stance toward their study. The chapter considers three particular scientific strategies—naturalistic observation, systematic observation, and experimental manipulation—that have contributed considerably to an understanding of infants’ communication development. A number of issues are raised in this brief excerpt from Charles Darwin, including the age at which infants are capable of imitation and the order in which their means of communication develop.
