The Construction of Executive Function in Early Development: The Pragmatics of Action and Gestures

Abstract

The position I take in this paper is that investigation of the construction and development of executive function (EF) and cognitive self-regulation must give children the opportunity to behave with initiative, as the agents they are. It must be based on children’s goal-directed behaviours and the challenges they face to achieve their own goals from the last third of the first year of life. It must consider children’s interests, the ecological validity of the situations, and the social context. Investigation into the origin and early development of cognitive self-regulation must be firmly anchored within a developmental framework. I will suggest that such a developmental framework is provided by the functional turn developed in the School of Geneva in the 1970s and its influence on the Pragmatics of the Object perspective. According to this pragmatic approach, actions and (private) gestures are central in the emergence and construction of EF.