Object Permanence #1
What it is, why it matters and how it can go wrong...
Image © Jonny Matthew 2025 (Made with DALL-E)
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Introduction
A 13 year old anxious toddler?
I recently observed a young man in a residential setting who seemed genuinely unable to leave his carers alone.
If they got up to go into the kitchen (or anywhere else for that matter) he followed.
When they went to the bathroom, he would stand outside and talk to them through the door!
He stood uncomfortably close during conversations or even if there was no discussion going on at all - often just standing with the side of his body right up against the adult’s body, rather than at a discreet distance or across the room.
He did lots of hugging, including spontaneously walking across a room to hug a person who’d been there the whole time, as if physical contact was necessary to convince him they were there and all was well.
He is a ‘school-refuser’, (not a term I like) preferring to stay at home. When the home tutor comes to work with him he likes a member of care staff in the room, too. And on it went…
My conclusion? That (among other things) he had not properly developed what psychologists call ‘object permanence.’
What Is Object Permanence?
Object permanence (OP) is the understanding that objects (including people) continue to exist even when they are not visible. It is an early, fundamental milestone in cognitive development that infants largely acquire in the months before they can speak - usually by the time they’re around 8 months to a year old.
If a child’s development is such that they are not able to acquire object permanence - at least not fully or in a balanced way - this can lead to problems later. In a general sense, this may leave them insecure, anxious and/or with memory or learning problems. More on this later…
The Development of Object Permanence in Infants
Sensorimotor Stage (Birth to ~2 years): According to Jean Piaget, infants develop object permanence during the early part of the sensorimotor stage, which lasts from birth to around two years of age. More recent studies suggest OP may be at least partially developed as early as 3-4 months old (e.g. Baillargeon & De Vos, 1991). Whichever is right, there is wide agreement that it’s development is early - within the first year.
Progression:
Birth to 4 Months: Infants primarily interact with people and objects through reflexive actions and do not yet understand that they exist before and/or after that immediate moment. So we may be playing with a teddy bear: the child has little or no sense of the teddy existing (or had ‘being’) before the play began or after it ends. It’s here now and that’s all there is.
4 to 8 Months: Babies begin to recognise that objects have continuity; they may reach for partially hidden items for example, indicating an emerging awareness and the beginning of cause and effect reasoning (i.e. ‘I can’t see all of the teddy, but what I can see suggests there’s more there that I can’t see’; ergo the whole teddy exists).
8 to 12 Months: Infants start to actively search for completely hidden objects, demonstrating a developing sense of object permanence - e.g. the pre-verbal equivalent of, ‘I can’t see the teddy but I think it might be in this toy box.’ The teddy popping up and making the child jump - i.e. during a game of ‘peekaboo’) is no longer funny when the child knows that the teddy is being held behind the parent’s back; that knowing is object permanence.
In other words, at this point, the child’s reaction - or lack of it - is a clear demonstration that they have attained some mental representation of the teddy (it’s not a visual recognition because the teddy is visible, but it is now held in mind - a mental representation), despite not being able to see it. That’s why the teddy’s reappearance during peekboo just isn’t funny any more!
OK, so that’s broadly what OP is. Lets look at what it’s absence might bring.
Image ©LouiseMichelleBomber.org
Impact of Not Developing Object Permanence
Though on it’s own, object permanence is just one aspect of child development, failure to develop it can contribute to challenges in cognitive and emotional development, for example (as always, nowhere near an exhaustive list!):
Attachment Issues: Difficulty in forming secure attachments due to an unstable perception of the caregiver's presence. This can then extend into later development, bringing with it relationship difficulties like problems with trust, a tendency not to ask for help or perceiving adults (particularly in caregiving roles) as unreliable.
Separation Anxiety: Without understanding that caregivers continue to exist when out of sight, infants may experience heightened distress during separations. Again, it’s the absence not only of the adult themselves (physically and visually) but of any mental representation of the adult, that leaves the child that bit more bereft.
Cognitive Delays: Children may experience delays in the development of memory and perception of the environment. Difficulty in forming and retaining mental representations of objects and people can hinder problem-solving skills and abstract thinking later on. It can also impact the development of working memory - if a child struggles to form mental representations of things and people, then keeping them in mind - remembering - can also be affected.
Learning Difficulties: In extremis, a chronic lack of object permanence (and associated attachment and other issues) may contribute to learning difficulties, such that they struggle with tasks which relay on working memory and/or spatial awareness. These are likely to be less obvious at first - than separation anxiety, for example - but may develop over time and become apparent later on. If you can’t employ working memory very well, then your ability to take full advantage of learning (both at home and in school) is also compromised, potentially.
So, those are some of the broad areas that can be affected if the milestone of object permanence isn’t achieved in a timely way. Now to look at a few ideas for what we can do to support children and caregivers where this might be an issue - with a particular emphasis on teenagers (cos that’s my thang!).
Final thoughts
Separating out one aspect of child development like we have here isn’t ideal because children develop across a range of domains all at the same time. But understanding single aspects, like OP, can help us to help kids more effectively.
Another of my conclusions from observing the 13 year old toddler I mentioned in the introduction, was that his behaviour was absolutely exhausting for his carers - they got very little peace and neither did he. But understanding his needs in a developmental way like this, meant they were more able to remain patient and put in place some strategies to help him recover the lost ground from his early years.
To this end, in the next post, I’m going to share some ideas and strategies we can use at work or at home, that can help kids to recover some of the ground they’ve lost or missed around this.
See you in the next one!
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More information:
MORE ABOUT PIAGET: …from Wikipedia about the man(link) …and his theory (link)
PAPER: Object Permanence in Young Infants: Further Evidence by Baillargeon & De Vos (1991 - link to abstract)
BOOK: What About Me - Inclusive Strategies to Support Pupils With Attachment Difficulties Make it Through the School Day by Louise Bombèr (link)
WEB PAGE: The Fostering Network - providing advice and information to prospective and approved foster carers (link)
WEB PAGE: CoramBAAF (formerly the British Association for Adoption and Fostering - link)
WEB ARTICLE: Simply Psychology article on object permanence and Piaget’s blanket and ball study (hidden toy) - (link)
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