Summary. An investigation was carried out to determine whether cognitive development in the Down's Syndrome (DS) infant is identical in nature with that of the Normal (N) infant, even though manifesting a general retardation. Longitudinal investigation was carried out of Object Permanence development in a group of 8 DS infants and a group of 26 N infants. As expected, DS infants manifested delayed achievement of all steps in the sequence. In addition, however, DS infants were less likely than N infants to repeat an achieved success on the following test session. Further, and in contrast to the N infants, errors committed by the DS infants tended not to conform to the “characteristic” error pattern theoretically predicted for each task. It was concluded that identity in development across the two populations holds at the level of first achievement only. Cognitive development in the DS infant must be considered not merely “slow” but rather, in important respects, different from that in the normal infant.

Four infants with Down's syndrome (aged 19-33 months) were presented with a restructured version of an object-permanence task. Restructuring consisted of the embedding of single trials of the task within a sequence of simpler, related steps. Following failure on a standard presentation of the task, three Down's syndrome (DS) infants demonstrated success on trials embedded in the training sequence. Comparison was made with the performance of normal infants (aged 14-19 months) matched in terms of failure on the pre-test. Only two out of nine normal infants registered success on the embedded trials. Results are discussed in terms of the differences between the DS infant and the normal infant, and the former's reliance on the deliberate structuring of his learning environment by a parent or educator.

Deconstruction is an intellectual style which has exerted considerable influence in literary theory and in social theory but rather little influence to date within psychology. This paper discusses the extent to which developmental psychology in particular has been and could be influenced by deconstruction. Deconstruction is an emerging feature of contemporary critical work within developmental psychology. Some characteristic techniques of deconstruction are summarized, after which available applications are surveyed. It is concluded that deconstruction presents a serious challenge to orthodox developmental psychology, and offers a stimulating set of ideas for those involved in theoretical work in the discipline.

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