Promoting Imagination and Creativity in Early Childhood

Imagination and creativity are "higher mental abilities." They require the capacity for "representational" thought (the ability to form images in one's mind and to store and retrieve them over time). A child typically will begin to form mental images toward the end of the first year, and generally will achieve the total capacity for representational thought by the end of the second year. However, it usually is not until the third year that she will be adept and comfortable enough with the p...