Les conduites temporelles chez le jeune enfant (lacunes et perspectives de recherche)

Summary : Timing behavior in the young child : a critical overview (research deficiences and perspectives). The main purpose of this critical overview of current knowledge in the field of the development of timing behavior in young children is to pave the way of future research. Traditional psycho-physiological methods have supplied coherent data on the estimation and perception of duration in children over age six. Only a few unsystematic studies have dealt with early temporal conditioning. To determine whether complex temporal regulations in the adult human are the resuit of a continuous process, deriving from elementary forms of temporal organization of activity, much more data are needed on infant adaptation to time, as well as on the role of language and capacities for inhibition in the evolution of temporal behavior. Furthermore, studies on the physiological bases of internai timing mechanisms and the ontogenesis of temporal regulation in young animais should help to assess the relative weight of early experience, maturation and cognitive development in the child.