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

Connaître c’est transformer la réalité afin de comprendre comment un certain état se produit. […] je m’oppose à cette analyse de la connaissance qui la réduit à la copie inerte de la réalité.

To know is to transform reality in order to understand how a particular state occurs […] I am opposed to this analysis of knowledge, which reduces it to an inert copy of reality. (Piaget, 1973/1977, p. 39)

The position I take in this paper is that the study of the origin and construction of executive function (EF), that is, the ability to control one’s own behaviour and thinking and to give oneself challenging goals from the end of the first year of life, should be based on psychological development, on children’s interests, and on what they are able to do in their everyday life. This implies that the focus has to be placed on children’s goal-directed behaviours together with the challenges they must solve to achieve their own goals. In this process, actions and gestures become two crucial protagonists. This also implies that children are seen as active intentional agents capable of using the cultural instruments provided by social semiotic constructions to achieve their objectives. As researchers, we need to understand what goals children give themselves, their degree of complexity, and what children do and how. This action-based pragmatic proposal about the origin and construction of EF takes its roots in the school of Geneva, in the functional turn that occurred in the 1970s, as well as the arrival of Vygotsky’s ideas at that time.

In the following pages, I will first refer briefly to some of the new ideas introduced by the functional turn in Geneva. The focus was on psychological processes. The interaction of the subject with the environment was in the foreground. Cognitive self-regulation was among the main concerns of the Geneva School at that time. From that, I will refer to the first manifestations of EF at the end of the first year of life. I will also question the use of standardized tasks and language as assessment methods. Then, I will propose a pragmatic perspective, with the child as an agent, for studying the construction and development of EF. Children’s actions, goals, and gestures have centre stage.

The article concludes with three case studies conducted at family homes and early years schools. These are paradigmatic observations that illustrate what happens when children (two boys and one girl) have the opportunity to behave like the agents they are, the types of goals they give to themselves, as well as the means they use to achieve them despite the difficulties they encounter.

I arrived at the Geneva School in June 1979, at the age of 21, 1 year before Piaget’s death in August 1980. In the mid-1980s, together with Christiane Moro, we began to develop the perspective of the pragmatics of the object (PO), the core idea of which concerns the construction of the social meaning of objects in early development. Objects are not only governed by causal relationships; they are also part of material culture and are included in a socially consensual, normative, and semiotic network (Moro & Rodríguez, 2005; Rodríguez & Moro, 1999). We began to wonder how children came to use artifactual objects and instruments according to their customary function in their everyday life. The functional use of objects is an important basis of the subject’s adaptation to the environment, which includes agreements with others about the meanings of objects. We started from the hypothesis that the adult makes the functions of objects understandable for the child, especially at the beginning. This idea led us to analyse communication and semiotic exchanges within the triangle formed by adults, children, and objects (see synthesis in Rodríguez, 2007).

Something surprising that we had not been looking for became apparent. Sometimes children, especially when they already knew the function of the object but faced difficulties in using it, stopped their action and turned the object or instrument towards themselves. It seemed that they were showing the object to themselves in order to help them think about why it wasn’t working and to better organize what to do next (Moro & Rodríguez, 2005). The interesting part is that they thought with the “difficult object” about the “difficult object.” The object thus took on a double status as signifier and signified. Contrary to action, which is centrifugal, now the orientation was centripetal: it was self-directed. Trying to solve the difficulties they encountered, children, from a certain point, tried to understand the situation. It was not enough for them just to reach a goal. This is how our interest in the pragmatics of the object for early processes of cognitive self-regulation was born. I will now briefly refer to its roots in the functional turn that occurred in Geneva.

We, the Geneva students of the 70s, were extensively nourished by the functional turn in which objects and their material properties acquired a new relevance, as did their processes of functioning and construction. Essential aspects of cognitive self-regulation and equilibration (awareness, problem solving, and distinction between successfully performing a task and understanding why) were among the main concerns of the Geneva School at the time.

The first significant change was related to the Centre International d’Epistémologie Génétique [the International Centre of Genetic Epistemology]. It was Piaget’s “second period,” with new objectives; the focus was no longer on the genesis of the subject’s structures (the most published part of his work), but on the functional aspects of development, the dynamics of cognitive functioning, the mechanisms of change, “the processes that create intelligence and knowledge” (Ducret, 2000, p. 19).

Several of Piaget’s texts refer to the “functional turn.” I will highlight Les ExplicationsCcausales [Understanding Causality] Piaget and García (1971), La Prise de Conscience [The Grasp of Consciousness] Piaget (1974a), Réussir et Comprendre [Success and Understanding] Piaget (1974b), and what is generally considered the most important text of this period, L’équilibration des Structures Cognitives, Problème Central du Développement [The Equilibration of Cognitive Structures: The Central Problem of Intellectual Development] Piaget (1975). For Piaget, equilibration and self-regulation processes were the central problems of development. Concepts of self-organization and emergence in dynamic systems theories (Pascual-Leone, 2012; Thelen & Bates, 2003; Thelen & Smith, 1994) owe much to Piaget’s equilibration model (van Geert, 2000).

To understand the subject, the object had to be considered. The main argument of constructivism was strengthened: knowledge is not found in the object but in the action of the subject on the object.¹ Nevertheless, Piaget’s interest in equilibration was not new. It was already present in La Naissance de L’intelligence chez L’enfant [The Origins of Intelligence in Children] (1936) and in La Construction du Réel chez L’enfant [The Construction of Reality in the Child] (1937). According to Piaget, the categories of object, space, time, and causality depend on the progressive balance between assimilation and accommodation. As we will see below, these are brilliant works for understanding the early development of executive functions, starting with the appearance of the first intentional behaviours (i.e., the distinction between means and ends and its implied reversal of consciousness).

Another key figure in Geneva’s functional turn was Bärbel Inhelder. As she recalls, her interest in functional aspects was constant. In 1954, when she presented results of her functional analyses in the United States during a research stay (see Hsueh, 1998), she aroused a “real interest in particular” in Bruner and Miller, who were committed to the cognitive revolution at that time (Inhelder, 1992, p. 14). Upon returning to Geneva, however, she “postponed to later, proceeding with this type of investigation.” It took until the 70s for Inhelder’s functional interests to consolidate, when she led the Groupe de Stratégies et Résolution de Problèmes [Strategies and Solving Problems Group].

The Groupe (as it was called in Geneva) was formed in the early 1970s. It consisted of Annette Karmiloff-Smith, Alex Blanchet, Edith Ackermann, Helga Kilcher, Madelon Saada-Robert and André Boder. However, Karmiloff-Smith was already part of the diaspora when I arrived in 1979; in fact, the Groupe dispersed in the late 1980s when the University of Geneva was unable or unwilling to support it (Rodríguez & Martí, 2012). Also, Guy Cellérier was a main figure. In contrast to Piagetian research on general cognitive structures (macrogenesis), the Groupe’s research on procedures of discovery when solving tasks was an important re-orientation. It included microgenetic analyses entailing temporal restrictions and elaboration of the details of the processes (Blanchet, 1994). The time had come “[…] to be interested, above all, in the subject’s processes of invention or discovery [emphasis added] during his search for solutions to well-differentiated particular problems” (Inhelder et al., 1976, p. 58–59). The Groupe tried to understand how children made sense of specific tasks, how they got objects to talk to them (Karmiloff-Smith, 1992), by analysing the means that children created to use what they already knew (Ackermann, 1992), rather than describing levels of cognitive development. According to Karmiloff-Smith and Inhelder (1975):

What still seemed to be lacking were experiments on children’s spontaneous organizing activity in goal-oriented tasks with relatively little intervention from the experimenter. The focus is not on success or failure per se but on the interplay between action sequences and children’s “theories-in-action,” i.e., the implicit ideas or changing modes of representation underlying the sequences. (p. 196, emphases added)

For Inhelder (1978), the strategies were discrete, repeatable, and transferable procedures, which constituted means to achieve a subject’s objective. The focus was on understanding “the child’s planning, monitoring, self-repairs, and spontaneous comments […] as it occurred in the space of a single session” (Karmiloff-Smith, 2013, p. 49). However, studying strategies was an important theoretical and methodological challenge. At first, says Karmiloff-Smith (1992), all they could do to convey to others the richness of what they had found was to take them by the hand and sit them in front of their screens. “I even thought that it would never be possible to communicate these works by writing” (p. 11). This change of focus required the introduction of a microgenetic methodology that could capture the subtlety of the subject’s actions. Nowadays, few people would doubt the importance of microgenesis in showing that developmental changes are not abrupt (van der Steen et al., 2019) as cross-sectional studies suggest. On the contrary, throughout development, there are multiple periods of high variability or regression. In situ learning is highly non-linear (Ackermann, 2013).

Those of us who were in Geneva during those years saw the intense activity of the Groupe. However, outside of Geneva, there was little diffusion of their works. Most of them were published in French. Only the most cited article of Karmiloff-Smith and Inhelder (1975), If You Want to Get Ahead, Get a Theory, was published in English. It was not until 1992 that the work synthesizing these investigations, Le Cheminement des Découvertes de L’enfant [The Paths of Discovery in Children], was published; this book has still not yet been translated into English.

I was immensely fortunate to participate as a third-year student in the research of Madelon Saada-Robert (1985). She allowed me to participate in the work of the Groupe from the moment of my arrival in Geneva. This experience marked me forever.

Thanks to Madelon, I understood the great importance of interaction with objects as a source of knowledge and creativity. To study the subject, it was necessary to seriously deal with the object, and not as a mere reference. Madelon transmitted to me her preference for observing real subjects in real time. She (like the other members of the Groupe) was not interested in the “children’s mistakes”; all behaviours were significant; they were part of a process of discovery. This was far from the Piaget of large structures, where interaction with the experimental material basically served to determine the children’s operational level. However, it agreed in many ways with the picture of sensorimotor development established by Piaget in the 1930s. As a researcher, the Groupe positioned me in a “freedom situation” that I have always used when studying children.

Another root of our work on early executive functions lies in sociocultural theory. Vygotsky’s ideas arrived in Geneva in the mid-70s (Bronckart, 1996; Doise, 1979) and mixed with Piaget’s in a unique way. Even though the Vygotskian theses were adopted, Piaget was always present: the subject as an agent, the important status of objects and interaction, the stages, the strategies and the microgenesis, the processes of self-regulation or the grasp of consciousness (Ackermann, 2015; Martí, 2012; Saada-Robert, 2012). Thanks to Vygotsky, we brought the object and the child out of Geneva’s solitude by introducing communication and semiotics into early cognitive development. This social and semiotic perspective provides the ground for my research today on the early development of EF, as I will show in detail later.

In line with the many Genevan approaches to cognitive control and self-regulation, no one today would question the importance of being able to control our own behaviour and thinking in our lives. EF is the core of all constructive, creative, socially useful, and personally engaging activities (Lezak, 1982). According to Capilla (2007), Piaget’s sensorimotor stage IV can be seen as the most rudimentary stage of planning and problem solving, which can be considered to be EF. They require an internal representation of the goals and means to achieve them, as well as their manipulation and monitoring (Capilla, 2007). Even if goal-directed behaviours seem evident from an adult’s perspective, they are “difficult” for children and imply challenges that they have to solve. In the same way, Diamond (2006), inspired by Piaget, places the origin of EF in intentionally goal-directed (i.e., executively controlled) behaviours:

My own work suggests that Piaget had this exactly right. Between 8 and 12 months of age, one sees the emergence of detour reaching (first around an opaque barrier and then around a transparent one […]). Detour reaching requires holding a goal in mind, planning, and inhibiting the strong tendency to reach straight for the goal. Indeed, it requires reaching away from the goal object at the outset of the reach. (p. 71)

In the last 20 years, research about EF development has expanded dramatically (see review in Müller & Kerns, 2015). However, there are no systematic investigations that explore their process of emergence (Cuevas & Bell, 2014), perhaps because of the particular challenges implied in the measurement of EF during infancy “as tasks must be sensitive to limitations in young participants’ motor skills as well as their receptive and productive language abilities” (Cuevas et al., 2018, p. 12).

A remarkable number of investigations at early ages are based on those carried out with adults, characterized by (a) a hegemonic role of language and (b) the use of standardized tasks. I will begin the discussion of early EF by questioning both the use of language when the experimenter gives verbal instructions to children and the use of standardized tasks in which the experimenter decides what to do, when and how. In this approach, children neither have the initiative nor the possibility to set their own goals. And language is too complex to be understood by young children. Both the use of language and standardized tasks are inappropriate, as they become obstacles when studying the construction of EF from its beginnings.

In fact, both of these criticisms are not new. According to Müller and Kerns (2015) “[T]he field is too task-focused, at the expense of developing a comprehensive and integrated account of the development of EF” (p. 1130). The use of language to evaluate early EF has also been questioned due to its semiotic complexity (Neale et al., 2018; Rodríguez et al., 2017). Let us have a closer look at this below.

Vygotsky and the sociocultural tradition are a paradigmatic example of the hegemonic status of language² in the control of one’s behaviour. Ever since Vygotsky established its foundations in the 30s, sociocultural tradition has been very influential in the investigation of self-regulation social origins. This tradition continued with Luria’s work in the following decades.

However, not all of Vygotsky’s assumptions are helpful to lay the foundations of a theory of the origins of self-regulation (Rodríguez et al., 2018). For example, some problematic ideas are the division into lower and higher psychological functions with language as a border or the idea that the functional use of a sign (which) is “simpler than the word, appears in the child much later and is absolutely inaccessible to a child of one and a half years old” (Vygotsky, 1934/1985, p. 139). Vygotsky was not Vygotskian when it came to early development. He ignored or did not have time to consider, given his short life (he died in 1934, 2 years before the publication of Piaget’s The Origins of Intelligence in Children), the early semiotic development that happens before language (Béguin, 2016; Bruner, 1975). Recently, van der Veer (2021) noted that “Vygotsky overestimated the role of language acquisition in the socialization of the child, which blinded him to nonverbal forms of communication” (p. 6).

According to Luria (1973/1974), the distinguishing feature of human conscious regulation of activity is that it “occurs with the close participation of language” (p. 92). He considered the frontal cortex responsible for most complex forms of activity, but that it “was silent” during childhood and only reached full maturity in adolescence (Moriguchi, 2018). In 1959, Luria published The Directive Function of Speech in Development and Dissolution, where he presented various studies on cognitive control in early development (from 12 months of age) that had been little cited. Even though he focused on analysing the influence of language on self-regulation (first, the language that the adult directed at the child, and then, the one that the child directed at himself), he also considered non-linguistic behaviours. For example, he noted that when the experimenter named an object, a 12-month-old gave it to him. However, children had difficulties in doing so if another striking object was placed nearby. This conflict disappeared by 16 months. Luria also used the A-not-B error (although he never mentioned Piaget). He hid the object first in place A and then in place B in the sight of the child. Luria explained that the child’s difficulty in switching to the new hiding place (B) and in following the “immediate visual signs” is due to the influence of “motor stereotypy.” The directive function of language is consolidated by 24 months of age. However, the language that precedes the action and organizes it, acquires, according to Luria (1959), a regulatory function only towards the third or fourth year of life.

Part of the sociocultural tradition has assumed the distinction between the natural and the cultural line of development – lower versus higher psychological functions (Fernyhough, 2009 is a paradigmatic example). However, there is a growing interest in prelinguistic sign systems that could contribute to cognitive self-regulation. In the excellent volume edited by Winsler et al. (2009), Private Speech, Executive Functioning, and the Development of Verbal Self-Regulation, Delgado et al. (2009) analysed the parallelism between private pointing and private speech in children from 12 to 24 months. Winsler (2009) referred to private signs based on the works of Rodríguez and Palacios (2007): “[…] self-regulation and the use of signs for one’s own purposes appear, at least in some, preverbally, earlier than previously thought. Clearly, this is an area of research that will likely blossom in the years to come” (p. 11). Luria (1973/1974) himself opened the door to other levels of self-regulation when he stated that “simpler forms of behaviour can occur without the aid of language” (p. 92). Gottwald et al. (2016) emphasized the role of action in the origin, and Neale et al. (2018) proposed an “object-based task” with a familiar object without resorting to language. Winsler’s forecast seems to be coming true.

There is a vast literature on the cognitive status of gestures in adults. They play an important role in learning and problem-solving situations (Goldin-Meadow et al., 2012; see also Schwartz & Black, 1996). Gestures improve inhibition, working memory, and cognitive flexibility during the processing of mathematical concepts (Khatin-Zadeh et al., 2022) and are an important resource in the acquisition of a second language (Gullberg et al., 2010). Kita et al. (2017) proposed the gesture-for-conceptualization hypothesis, where self-directed representational gestures have a cognitive function. According to these authors, self-directed representational gestures activate, manipulate, and explore motor-space information to speak and think. O’Neill and Miller (2013) found that gestures facilitate EF and vice versa in children between 2¹/₂ and 6 years of age performing executive tasks. Vallotton (2008) believes that children can use gestures and words as tools for self-regulation.

In early development, the role of private gestures in self-regulation is consolidating (Kuvalja et al., 2013). One gesture that has received lots of attention is private pointing. Delgado et al. (2010) found that two children between 8 and 24 months produced private pointings for contemplating objects in order to sustain their attention or precede their action with objects (see also Español & Rivière, 2000). These results partially converge with the classic works of Bates et al. (1975). For these authors, self-directed pointing gestures allowed the child to fix attention on novel objects and were precursors of other-directed pointing gestures. In a case study, following an infant from 6 to 14 months of age, Carpendale and Carpendale (2010) found that private pointing gestures were a first manifestation of self-attention and that they emerged from tactile exploration of close-by objects. They come before the child progressively starts to address others.

Self-directed symbolic gestures have also been identified. Konishi et al. (2018) found that children between 11 and 27 months used symbolic gestures during their routines in a childcare situation (diaper change and separation from parents) to self-regulate their emotions. Rodríguez (2009) referred to the case of Elisa, who was part of a longitudinal study. At 13 months, she interacted with her mother and a replica phone with a face drawn on the front. The mother pointed to the phone’s nose while naming it. Then, without looking at her mother, the child opened her mouth while looking attentively and touching the toy’s face. Her mouth, as part of her body, was a substitute for something else (a part of the material object). Her mother interpreted her gesture as an “external thought” and said “Yes, the mouth” while pointing and touching the toy’s mouth. This situation resembles observation 180, described by Piaget (1936) with his 16-month-old daughter, when she opened her mouth (motor indication as a symbol) to represent the inside of a matchbox that she was trying to open to get a watch out of it. This is “a plastic reflection” given the “inability of the child to think out the situation in words” (Piaget, 1936, p. 338).

Also, private ostensive gestures – self-directed gestures that entail presenting the object to oneself (see review in Guevara & Rodríguez, 2022) – are gaining ground. Several longitudinal studies (Dupertuis & Moro, 2016; Moreno-Núñez et al., 2020; Moro et al., 2015) have found private ostensive gestures from the end of the first year of life. They are related to the practical objectives that children set for themselves when they try to use objects according to their everyday function. Thus, private ostensive gestures function as instruments of reflection before acting.

Piaget presents important clues to distinguish action with the object from reflection with and about the object. This is a fundamental distinction in the origin of cognitive control. Piaget says that faced with new objects, children examine them in order to “understand” them since they cannot set precise goals yet. Although Piaget (1936) never explicitly referred to private gestures in his descriptions of sensorimotor development, there are some paradigmatic observations of private ostensive gestures with the function of understanding:

[W]hen the 8-month-old child examines a cigarette case or a hanging necktie, everything transpires as though such objects presented a problem to his mind, as though he were trying to “understand.” Not only does he look at such objects for a much longer time than the 4- to 5-month-old child before proceeding to act, but furthermore, he engages in an ensemble of exploratory movements relating to the object and not to himself. He feels, explores the surface, the edges, turns over and slowly displaces, etc., and the last behaviour patterns are very significant of a new attitude. The unfamiliar obviously represents to the child an external reality to which he must adapt himself […] it is as though the child said to himself when confronted by the new object: “What is this thing? I see it, hear it, grasp it, feel it, turn it over, without recognizing it: what more can I do with it?” […] such behaviour patterns constitute the functional equivalent of “definitions through use” so important to a child’s verbal intelligence. (p. 258–259, emphases added)

The repeated alternation gesture – use – gesture – use that Piaget introduces is what Guevara et al. (2020) found in an early years school with a girl of 9 months and 27 days. The girl selects a rattle from a basket and alternates private ostensive gestures (she presents the rattle to herself, observing and rotating it for 3 s) with rhythmic-sound uses, using the rattle in a conventional way (she hits it against her right hand). Then, she completely stops her activity and returns to contemplate the rattle with a new private self-directed ostensive gesture. Similar sequences could be observed in the same session with various novel objects (bell, necklace, etc.) made available to her by the teacher.

The use of standardized tasks designed for adults but adapted to children entails some difficulties. First, it seems paradoxical that, in order to investigate the development of cognitive control, it is the experimenter who presents the task, states the objective, and says what has to be done. And to measure flexibility or inhibition, it is also the experimenter who introduces changes or says what not to do. There are few studies with children under 2 years of age, and the results are not very conclusive. For example, Bernier et al. (2010), Miller and Marcovitch (2015), and Devine et al. (2019) found little evidence of internal consistency across EF measures. And Johansson et al. (2016) found few longitudinal correlations (see in Cuevas et al., 2018, a selected overview of infant EF tasks, and in Müller & Kerns, 2015, a summary section on working memory and flexibility).

The A-not-B error deserves a special mention. Inspired by Piaget’s work on the construction of object permanence, Diamond (1985) devised an experimental task such that if the child succeeds in the task, it implies that the requirements of executive control are met. After Diamond’s studies, many researchers have drawn on the A-not-B error in their studies on early manifestations of EF at an early age (Miller & Marcovitch, 2015). Johansson et al. (2015) added eye tracking, and Sun et al. (2009) compared full-term children with large preterm infants. Marcovitch and Zelazo (2009) developed a computational model of the A-not-B error. According to them, the search for hidden objects contains all the elements of a typical measure of executive function: there is inhibition (not to continue searching in A), flexibility (to change and search in B), and updating (the object is no longer in A but in B). Other authors have also added modifications to the A-not-B, such as Smith et al. (1999) (see discussion in Rodríguez & Moreno-Llanos, 2020, about their discrepancies with Piaget’s interpretation of object permanence).

Despite the indisputable advances that these works have brought, the problem in the experimenter giving the objectives is that children’s own goals are not usually considered. The active role is the experimenter’s. In fact, little is known about the goals children give themselves (Barker et al., 2014) and how these goals develop. Significant challenges that children set for themselves in everyday life should be analysed rather than just the “challenges” set by the experimenter (Barker & Munakata, 2015). This lack of interest in children’s objectives has not gone unnoticed. As Chévalier and Clark (2018) state, “the very function of EF is to ensure goal attainment,” and it is “a major force driving EF development” (p. 34). Children also have difficulties identifying goals during an experimental task, “what should be done” (Chévalier, 2015, p. 363) and yet, this has been considered trivial even in early development. Recently, Doebel (2020) considers the development of executive function as the development of skills in using control in the service of specific goals.

This disregard for children’s goals is paradoxical as goal setting is a key issue in EF. For example, in The Working Brain, Luria (1973/1974) emphasized the active nature of human behaviour, as it is not determined only by past experience, but also “by the plans and designs that articulate the future” (p. 13) and that can subordinate present behaviour to them. From the beginning, Luria was interested in describing the brain systems involved in building the “goal-directed conscious activity” (p. 16). Humans do not react passively to received information; rather, we create intentions, formulate action plans, allow the effect of the action taken on the future action, and inspect its execution, verifying that it follows the proper course.

Lezak (1982) pointed out the paradox of studying cognitive control in the clinical area with adults based on objectives given by the researcher. She referred to the absurd situation of the examiner who, in order to study the most important EF, such as the initiation of goal-directed behaviours, places the patient in a structured situation where he tells him what to do, with what and when. In experiments about memory, Goldberg (2001) highlighted the fact that the examiner is the one that makes the choice when he says which words should be remembered: “By shifting the decision-making process from the individual to the examiner, we remove the role of the frontal lobes, and the memory task is no longer a working memory task” (p. 73). Providing goals carries another risk: that the goals set by the experimenter are not significant problems for the child. More and more authors claim that it is fundamental that the problems to be solved during tasks are significant for children (McGuigan & Núñez, 2006; Moro, 2012; Müller & Kerns, 2015; Whitebread & Basilio, 2012).

In another work (Rodríguez & Moreno-Llanos, 2020), we have referred to the paradox of Piaget being cited for the A-not-B error in research on the origin of executive function in infancy, yet his work on sensorimotor development has gone unnoticed. In this work, he describes the detailed progression of his children’s goals from the second half of the first year of life, when they begin to distinguish between means and ends, intentionally coordinating their schemes. There is “to a higher degree the ‘reversal’ in the consciousness which constitutes intention” (Piaget, 1936, p. 213) between the mental order (where the ends go first) and the causal order (where the means need to be put first).

According to Piaget (1936), the child pursues “an end not immediately attainable and tries to reach it by different intermediate “means” (p. 212–213). The awareness that characterizes intentionality comes from external obstacles that prevent the immediate realization of action. “It is therefore the dissociation of means and ends, due to intervening obstacles, which creates intention […]” (Piaget, 1936, p. 226). Here is one of the keys to the construction of cognitive control. Another key is the existence of behaviours meant to “understand,” whose function is the reflection and not the direct success. We will talk about them later.

Reconsidering Piaget’s developmental and constructive perspective can be very helpful today. However, his approach presents two important difficulties: (a) it does not consider the influence that other persons could have on the origin of intentional action (Rodríguez, 2006); and (b) it does not contemplate the public, socially shared meanings of the objects involved in intentional action, which lead the members of the same community to manifest similar intentions with the same objects. This begins to happen in the last third of the first year of life. Both the influence of others and the conventions about the use of the materiality – the objects and instruments that can be acted upon – are issues in the context of understanding the origin of EF.

Investigation of the origin and development of cognitive self-regulation and EF must be anchored in psychological development. It must give the child the opportunity to behave as the agent he is (Ackermann, 1992; Karmiloff-Smith & Inhelder, 1975; Lezak, 1982; Luria, 1973/1974). It must be based on the child’s actions, objectives, and initiative. And it must consider children’s interests (Doebel, 2020). During the last third of the first year of life, there are important developmental achievements. As discussed above, one of the most significant is the appearance of the first intentional behaviours. Children begin to give themselves objectives that can be clearly distinguished from the means they use to achieve them (Piaget, 1936). Children also begin to use the objects for their function, in a canonical way (Rodríguez & Moro, 1999). And soon, they started to use the first tools.

Canonical or functional uses of objects (and instruments) have a pivotal status. Once children use objects and instruments according to their social function in everyday life, these objects become members of classes – using any cup as a cup, any telephone as a telephone – and not mere units. A functional, socially shared, permanence of objects appears then. The “everyday doing things in a user’s community,” the permanence by function, might be a pragmatic link in the origin of concepts (Rodríguez, 2012). This functional and social conceptual root might be significant in EF development. Once an object has functional permanence and becomes a class member, new, more complex types of uses appear, such as symbolic uses with familiar objects (Palacios & Rodríguez, 2015; Palacios et al., 2018) or metacanonical uses. Metacanonical uses are rooted in functional uses. In metacanonical uses, the object is momentarily efficiently used to do something functional for which it was not designed. The object enables a function that does not belong to it. These are very flexible and creative uses. They confirm that object and use do not coincide (see in Rodríguez et al., 2018 a detailed account of types of uses in early development).

At the end of their first year, children start to communicate intentionally with others through gestures (Bates et al., 1979; Butterworth, 2003; Tomasello, 1999), which include pointing gestures, symbolic and ostensive gestures of giving and showing (Carpendale et al., 2021). By then, as shown above, they already produce self-directed gestures: private pointing gestures (Delgado et al., 2010), self-directed symbolic gestures (Konishi et al., 2018; Rodríguez, 2009) and private ostensive gestures (Dupertuis & Moro, 2016; Guevara et al., 2020; Moreno-Núñez et al., 2020; Moro et al., 2015). Furthermore, analysing self-directed gestures can shed a lot of light on how children resolve their difficulties.

Exploring development based on action implies analysing the characteristics of children’s challenges when trying to accomplish an objective and the means they use to do so. Thus, it is not the same thing to set an objective whose solution involves using tools as to set one that does not (Rodríguez et al., 2017). Nor is it the same thing to set an objective that involves using an object for its function as to set one that requires symbolic uses. The semiotic complexity of the goal is expected to increase with development. It does not seem likely that it will be the same at 12 or 15 as it was at 9 months old. It is also essential to consider which materiality promotes or slows down the establishment of significant goals.

Another focus is to consider the moment when children begin to evaluate their own performance (Basilio & Rodríguez, 2017) or to involve others in the achievement of their own goals (Basilio & Rodríguez, 2011; Rodríguez & Moreno-Llanos, 2020), as well as the moment when, later on, words acquire a self-regulatory function (Winsler et al., 2009). A theory on the origin of executive functioning must consider these important milestones, as well as the semiotic systems involved (Moro, 2012).

If children’s action and initiative are the starting point, the observation of everyday situations must be one of the methods. Once again, the Geneva School offers a perspective to keep in mind here. For example, Gillièron (1985) argued that observation, as a method, does not consist of a stage prior to experimentation, the latter being the only way of validation. She noted that in experimental situations, the experimenter was more concerned with controlling the situation than with “offering [the subject] the real opportunity to intervene as an agent” (p. 242). Giving the child the opportunity to behave as an agent is particularly relevant in the investigation of EF development. Ajuriaguerra (1978), one of Wallon’s disciples, said that ethologists have looked more at animals than we have at children. Qualitative studies in everyday contexts help to see the complexity of real-life interactions (Bremner, 1988/1999). The ecological validity of a situation (Barker & Munakata, 2015; Doebel, 2020), and the specific contexts in which behaviours occur (Chévalier & Clark, 2018) must be taken seriously when investigating EF.

Focussing on children’s objectives and initiatives, which are present from the end of the first year of life, implies focussing on their actions. Consequently, (a) the uses of objects and instruments and (b) the gestures are of undeniable importance. Gestures and uses of objects and instruments – what children do and how they do it in goal-directed actions – are the keys to understanding the origin of the construction of EF. EFs are then inferred from infant’s goal-directed actions. This is our hypothesis. Focussing on children’s challenges and goal-directed actions implies analysing how persistence, sustained attention, flexibility when looking for solutions, or inhibition of inappropriate behaviours are manifested. The semiotic complexity of the type of uses as well as the type of gestures produced must be considered. All that implies a dialectical movement between top-down and bottom-up processes. Action and gestures feed representations (bottom-up), and in return, representations influence future action (top-down). That is what we will deal with next.

Before moving forward, I will clarify some terms used in this article. The reader will have noticed already that EF, cognitive control, and self-regulation are used interchangeably. This is for several reasons: first, although the idea of EFs three core components (flexibility, inhibition, and updating), proposed by Miyake et al. (2000), prevails in the literature, there coexist multiple definitions of EF. The literature also questions “the true nature of executive functions” (Karr et al., 2018, p. 1177), as they may not be as differentiated in infants and children as in adults. It is not clear what constitute components of EF at different points in development. Second, the classic distinction between the “cognitive focus” in EF research versus the “emotional, motivational, and social focus” in the self-regulation research has been disappearing. For example, Hoffmann et al. (2012) defend the growing proximity between two separate research areas: EF and self-regulation; there is also evidence of connection between social interaction and EF (Carlson, 2009; Lewis & Carpendale, 2009). Landry et al. (2009) talk about problem-solving and its correlation with different skills, including EF. Diamond (2013) addresses the controversies about the relation between EFs and self-regulation. Third, if we go back to Luria, the father of the concept of executive function,³ it can be confirmed that he speaks of self-regulation. Finally, this article has defended Piaget’s important contribution to the area. He refers to equilibration as the central problem of development. This entails progressive control of one’s behaviour and thought through development.

These are the main reasons for using the terms EF, cognitive control, and self-regulation indistinctly to refer to the behaviours of children when they have to solve difficulties in order to reach their goals. The challenge consists of inaugurating a developmental approach to the origin of executive functions/self-regulation based on the goals that children pose to themselves. From there, we analyse what they do and how. Here, the three nuclear components of EF – flexibility, inhibition, and updating – are not identified through specific tasks that would measure each of them separately. The alternative that we present is to analyse the processes involved, focussing on the succession of actions, uses, and gestures that children use to solve the difficulties they encounter. For example, flexibility appears when a child stops an action to make a private gesture, or inhibition happens when a child stops performing a non-canonical use (which takes him/her away from his/her goal) in favour of a canonical one (which brings him/her closer to it). Let us see these aspects in the following section through the three illustrations presented.

In order to know what happens when children have the opportunity to behave like the agents they are, and to illustrate the status of action and gestures at the origin of EF, we present three paradigmatic examples. They come from three case studies of children whose ages ranged from 8 to 18 months. Observations took place during interaction with parents (Rodríguez & Palacios, 2007) at home, or with teachers in the early years school (Rodríguez et al., 2017; Rodríguez & Moreno-Llanos, 2020). Children faced difficulties when their goal consisted in trying to use everyday objects and instruments for their customary function. They were clearly involved in what they were doing: their action was persistent, attention was sustained, they flexibly sought creative solutions, and they inhibited behaviours that diverted them from their goal. The adults – parents and teachers – intervened in a limited and sensitive way and so, they left the children with enough space and time to act and reflect.

N., a girl with Down syndrome, was studied at her family home. At 18 months, she self-regulated with private ostensive and pointing gestures when trying to achieve a difficult goal. In our research group in Madrid, we were originally investigating N.’s construction of the public function of objects and symbols from 12 to 18 months (Cárdenas et al., 2014). One of the everyday objects used in the study was a set of rings of decreasing size that had to be placed on a post. At 12 months, N. neither placed the rings on the post nor even tried to. She did not understand her mother’s pointing gestures to the post. The situation changed as N. began constructing the social meaning of the object – “what should be done with it” – with the help of her parents. On the last day of filming, N. was 18 months old. By then, it was obvious that the object had become a sign of its use (Moro & Rodríguez, 2005). She knew that the rings had to be placed on the post, and she tried to do so, again and again, without much success. Then, something striking happened. Instead of seeking help, N., in a very attentive way, started to alternate between (a) trying to place the ring (centrifugal orientation of the action) and (b) presenting it to herself (centripetal orientation; see video in online suppl. material at www.karger.com/doi/10.1159/000526340). Initially, the presentations of the object did not seem to serve any function. It was a stopping of her action and an apparently inefficient behaviour since it was not necessary or practical for reaching the objective. However, when we analysed the sequence microgenetically, it was evident that very different things happened when she presented the ring to herself (see detail in Rodríguez & Palacios, 2007). Sometimes she looked at the ring very carefully; other times she passed it from one hand to the other, turned it over, and so on. She tried again to place the ring. As she could not get it on the post, she presented it to herself again in another way. It soon became clear that the presentations of the ring were private ostensive gestures. They were an external consciousness that allowed N. to think about the object and helped her solve difficulties (Fig. 1). The ring no longer triggered the non-canonical inference “if ring, then I suck it” (see Rodríguez & Moro, 1999 about inferences and uses), but another socially shared inference, that is, a canonical use, “if ring, then I place it on the post.” This change of understanding involved an important construction that placed N. in a new world of shared meanings about materiality (the rings and their relationship with the post) with adults, which in turn affects how they can communicate. It also implied a relationship of need to use – N. already knew the object was used this way – which explains the persistence of her behaviour despite repeated failures.

N. also performed private touch-pointing gestures (Fig. 2). She repeatedly pointed to the post before trying to place the ring. With this behaviour, she seemed to tell herself, “I have to place it around here.” She indicated to herself the place that her mother had pointed to her since she was 12 months (although without success then). She had appropriated her mother’s gesture, and now it helped her to make a challenging use. The pointing gesture not only seemed to have the function of directing attention (Delgado et al., 2010), but it prepared and directed N.’s future action: the functional use. It was in the service of planning.

Another characteristic of private gestures is that, although they serve self-regulation and are internally oriented, they are also public as they occur on the outside, that is, they are visible to others (Moro et al., 2015; Rodríguez, 2009). N. knew what she had to do; she had a clear representation of her goal. The target use she pursued was considered conventional within the semiotics of objects, which means it transcended the single case. There was already a functional permanence (Rodríguez, 2006). The materiality formed a system of signs, a nonverbal discourse, a material culture parallel to the discursive one (Doménech et al., 2003). As Sinha (1988) states, objects are invested with significance. They become, for the child, material representations and signifiers of the rules, norms, values, rituals, needs, and goals of the entire […] matrix within which they are embedded. In short, they become part of a meaningful system of signs (p. 204).

In conclusion, these results indicate that the planning of goal-directed activities comes from situations in which adults initially introduce children into their action plans. Mental processes and functional systems are built along the ontogeny through the participation of others (Luria, 1973/1974). EFs do not develop in a social vacuum (Hughes & Ensor, 2009; Lewis & Carpendale, 2009; Vernon-Feagans et al., 2016). They require the influence of adults (Conway & Stifter, 2012).

In two other longitudinal studies carried out at home, it was confirmed that children between 11 and 18 months of age (Basilio & Rodríguez, 2011, 2017) used private gestures to help themselves understand and looked for alternative solutions when they tried to use attractive objects and instruments according to their function. Private gestures were stable at 14 and 16 months, and then increased at 18 months. The most frequent ones were private ostensive gestures, followed by symbolic gestures. Private pointings were the least frequent. Private gestures fulfilled different functions. Children used private gestures, especially private ostensive gestures, but also indicial and symbolic ones, to plan and monitor their actions. They positively evaluated themselves with applauses and with private pointing gestures after achieving their objectives. It has been shown that self-directed gestures (Español & Rivière, 2000; Konishi et al., 2018) are effective instruments of self-regulation.

In this case study (Rodríguez et al., 2017), something exceptional happened in an everyday context. Usually, the complexity, exceptionality, or beauty of an observation appears when we analyse the videos. However, that day I realized the importance of what was happening while filming. I was fascinated! Y. gave himself the challenge of eating with a spoon (i.e., with an instrument). This was a very complex task for him because he had never eaten with a spoon by himself before, neither at home nor at school. To achieve this, he had to self-regulate.

Philosophers such as Bergson, Hegel, Marx, or Engels have highlighted the importance of the use and manufacture of instruments (Martí, 2022). Early developmental psychology has devoted great attention to the use of tools since Köhler’s pioneering work with chimpanzees. The shift from using objects to using instruments marks an important milestone in ontogenesis (Piaget, 1936), regardless of whether the cultural status of instruments is considered (such as Vygotsky, inspired by Engels) or not, such as Piaget (see discussion in Rodríguez, 2006). Once again, Piaget is a reference on this subject.

For Piaget, the origin of the use of tools was in Stage V of sensorimotor development. When he wondered how children acquired “the conquest of the first instrument,” he did not offer a conclusive answer regarding the developmental process it followed. His son Laurent discovered the stick late; it could be “a sudden mental construction” at the level of systematic intelligence of the VI stage (Piaget, 1936, p. 297). However, his daughters used the stick earlier from “active experience.” Lucienne at 1;2,7 “happens to make a notable discovery: while playing at hitting a pail with a stick she is holding (all this without preliminary goals), she sees the pail move at each blow and then tries to displace the object […]” (Piaget, 1936, p. 298).

In Western culture, a spoon is one of the first instruments that children use (McCarty et al., 2001). Several studies describe how they come to use the spoon for its function. In their pioneering work, Gesell and Ilg (1937) found that children from 12 to 15 months could use the spoon to eat with, but with very ineffective strategies. Connolly and Dalgleish (1989) analysed the development of the use of the spoon in children between 12 and 23 months at home. They distinguished between the goal to be achieved (intentional dimension) and how the goal was reached (operational dimension). Ishiguro (2016) analysed in microgenesis the transition of a child from eating with help to being able to self-regulate and eat by himself in a day-care situation in Japan. The novelty of this study is that the teacher promoted self-regulation at 15 months. Belza et al. (2019) analysed the use of tools at breakfast in the early school years and the role of adults as mediators.

In the case of Y. (0;11,7), the sequence started at the meal’s beginning, when the teacher posed a challenge to the child. She asked him “what do you think?” while placing the plate of puree and a spoon within his reach. Y. produced several gestures to her (imperative pointing gestures, symbolic “yam, yam” gestures to show how hungry he was and vocalizations of anger) trying to get her attention in order to feed him. Since the teacher did not react quickly to his request, he looked for a solution. (a) He gave himself a goal: eat with the spoon. He reoriented his intentional action and assumed responsibility for achieving the goal. This was a real challenge, because he had to solve several successive problems. The first was (b) how to hold the spoon. He produced successive sketches or incomplete attempts to grasp the spoon. This behaviour was noteworthy because children take objects without difficulty by 11 months old. What apparently happened here was that Y. was anticipating the desired use: he intended to hold the spoon in a specific way, in order to eat. Once Y. picked up the spoon, he faced another challenge (c) of how to fill it. To achieve this, he alternated between private gestures with the spoon – he presented it to himself again and again, passed it from hand to hand, re-presented it, “studied” the spoon’s position, and so forth (Fig. 3a–c), and protocanonical uses consisting of dragging the spoon on the plate from side to side (Fig. 3d, e) or on the table. These are uses that are not yet effective, but which are improved through successive modifications. Protocanonical uses and private gestures allowed Y. to think while he acted. Judging by his persistence, he was constantly monitoring the “distance” that separated him from the intended represented goal.

The last challenge faced by Y. was (d) how to put the full spoon in his mouth. This happened during the dessert. The private ostensive gestures with the spoon were still present; however, they decreased as Y. sometimes achieved his purpose: to eat with the spoon (Fig. 3f). The child alternated between ineffective protocanonical uses and effective canonical ones. The final conquest of the canonical use of the spoon instrument still requires a long process of improvement that will take several months and more processes of self-regulation.

From the beginning, the route that Y. follows is paradigmatic. He knew his goal because he previously got to know the canonical use of the spoon. It was already a sign of its use (if spoon, then I use it to eat). That knowledge supported his representation of the goal and explains the persistence of his behaviour despite the difficulties. The spoon was already a member of the “spoons” class, most likely at the origin of concept formation (Rodríguez, 2012). Y. only requested the teacher’s intervention at the beginning. During the rest of the meal, he focused his attention exclusively on his own action, inhibiting any potential distractors. His action was flexible when we consider the distance that separates it from the goal. The means he used were private gestures of different semiotic complexity. The most frequent were ostensive gestures, although he also produced private pointing and symbolic gestures. A novelty in this study was the important status of protocanonical uses. They are dynamic “intermediate” uses that act as “facilitators or springboards” of the objective. They are modified and refined according to the represented goal, and their degree of effectiveness is evaluated by the child.

A main fact that enables Y.’s decision to eat by himself and his persistence in doing so, is of course that Y. has been a spoon user for several months already, thanks to the initiative and intentional action of others (parents and teacher) when they feed him. It seems unlikely that without that prior knowledge about the function of spoons, he would have given himself the challenge.

Although it is not always possible to find a camera in the right place at the right time, this type of everyday situation allows us to analyse EF while considering children’s psychological development, interests, and objectives. We also need to highlight the teacher’s action. She presented the challenge at the right time, when she knew (or sensed) that the child was able to achieve it and gave him two very important things: enough time and a spoon.

This last illustration is particularly clarifying. The study (Rodríguez & Moreno-Llanos, 2020) began when the child, Ils., was 8 months and 7 days old and ended at 17 months. We wondered what happened with EF when it was the child who set the challenges (Chévalier & Clark, 2018) and determined what to do, how, and when in order to achieve his goals. We analysed the development of executive control in Ils. through his actions. Objects and instruments were part of the materiality made available in the classroom by the teacher. In addition to the strategically positioned material, the teacher also provided the required time and space (Flecha, personal communication, 2021). We filmed “what was happening in the classroom.” Neither objects nor tasks were directly presented or proposed to Ils. We selected the sequences in which Ils. obviously took the initiative and gave himself a difficult goal (the teacher took the initiative once, but the child quickly appropriated the objective). We analysed in microgenesis the process followed by the child in his search for solutions. The longitudinal design highlighted the increasing semiotic complexity of his actions. These were the main features of our findings:

1. The semiotic complexity of the challenges increased. From 8 to 17 months, the challenges were increasingly complex, involving three types of uses. In the first session, at 8 months, Ils.’ challenge was to perform (a) a functional rhythmic-sound use with a musical instrument. However, the most frequent challenges were (b) using the objects for their function – that is, for their canonical uses. This was very challenging for the child since it required a process of construction. Only in the last session, at 17 months, was Ils.’s challenge to make (c) symbolic uses. Research conducted in nursery schools shows that symbolic play promotes self-regulation. For example, Elias and Berk (2002) described how complex sociodramatic play predicted the development of self-regulation in children aged 3–4 years (see also Bodrova et al., 2013; Kroll, 2017). The progression of Ils.’s challenges from rhythmic-sound, to functional and then to symbolic uses (see also Guevara et al., 2022; Moreno-Llanos et al., 2021, Moreno-Llanos et al., 2022 about self-regulation in the early school years) is consistent with the development of the types of uses of objects during the first 2 years of life (synthesis in Rodríguez et al., 2018).

2. Materiality is important. At 8 months, Ils. gave himself two challenges with very different characteristics. The first was to ring a bell after his teacher had rung it and placed it near him. It was a rhythmic-sound use with a musical instrument. The only gestures Ils. produced were private ostensive gestures, presenting the bell to himself for analysis. He alternated between private ostensive gestures and protocanonical uses of the bell, when he grabbed it by the skirt (which was not effective), and canonical uses of different degrees of effectiveness depending on whether he hit it against the ground (intermediate efficiency) or held it by the handle and shook it (maximum efficiency). His action was flexible because he alternated between gestures and uses, or between different types of uses. He also inhibited several sketches of non-canonical uses that were discordant with his goal (to ring the bell), such as trying to suck the bell. His attention alternated between moments of attention on to the bell and two moments of ceasing to attend, attention off. However, when his attention deviated from its target, the bell (attention off), he activated inhibition to return to it (see details in Rodríguez & Moreno-Llanos, 2020).

It is noteworthy that Ils. decided to make a rhythmic-sound use with a musical instrument at 8 months old. Even if there are still many questions about early rhythmic-sound-musical development, it is known that children already make these type of uses from 4 months of age, usually in interaction with their parents (Moreno-Núñez et al., 2015, 2017; Rodríguez & Moro, 2008; see also Jáñez et al., 2021 with premature babies).

A second challenge that Ils. set himself at 8 months, was to reach a red token that had rolled away from him, out of his reach. To achieve this, he used another yellow token as an instrument (Fig. 4). The tokens were meant to be inserted into a piggy-bank, a very attractive object for the child. Ils. was flexible when trying to reach the token. He used three strategies: the least effective was when he made a sketch of gripping in the opposite direction to the place where the target was (Fig. 4a). Two others were more effective – he changed the hand that served him as support, or the hand he used to try to reach the red token (Fig. 4b, c). Ils. also produced private ostensive gestures when he presented the yellow token to himself as an instrument for thinking (Fig. 4d). This confirms the relevance of private gestures as instruments of reflection (top-down processes), as well as gesture development, since ostensive gestures – sign and referent coincide – are the least complex gestures (see gesture development in Guevara et al., 2020). Ils. persists in his goal for 4 min, 46 s. There were alternations between attention on (to the target) and off. He also inhibited both less-effective strategies, and distractors. The goal – to reach the red token – guided his actions throughout (Fig. 4e).

It is noteworthy that both sequences occurred in the same session. As the objects and objectives were very different, the dynamics followed by Ils. varied significantly. The specific actions, time spent, and uses were very different too. However, there were also some common features. In both cases, the goals were selected by the child; he was persistent while trying to achieve them, produced private ostensive gestures, was flexible in his actions, inhibited inappropriate behaviours and alternated between periods of attention to the object and away from it. This shows that the materiality involved in early executive functioning is very relevant. If objects were not interesting and meaningful for Ils., he would not have insisted so much, he would not have employed this diversity of strategies to reach the solution.

3. Private uses to understand. In addition to private gestures, at 13 months, Ils. produced clearly identifiable private uses. After having successfully inserted different balls into a vertical artifact, he stands up and shakes the artifact while looking at it intently. This use does not pursue efficiency but seeks to understand the functioning of the artifact. It is related to the understanding and reflection about the conventional use (top-down processes). Basilio and Rodríguez (2011) also found private conventional uses, such as the one produced by a boy filmed at 11 and 15 months of age who repeatedly and slowly took out and placed back the same ball from the hole through which it had to be inserted in the same or another hole, and private uses with the instrument hammer in a girl of 15 months of age who uses the hammer without applying the required strength to insert the balls (then keeps it under her arm without showing frustration for not inserting them). These are inefficient uses that are detached from immediate effectiveness and fulfil a function of reflection. Unlike conventional uses that are usually fast and meant for efficacy, private uses are slow and ineffective. They serve to think with and have a self-declarative, epistemic function (see also Basilio, 2014). They have the child’s full attention and serve to update their mental representation of objects. Private uses and private gestures are similar in their function. Piaget (1937/1977, 1974a)’s distinction between succeeding (réussir) and understanding (comprendre) sheds much light on these processes.

4. The child involved the teacher in his challenges. Initially, Ils. tried to solve his challenges by himself. However, from 15 months on, he started to involve the teacher while maintaining control of the situation. Ils. determined what the teacher had to do, how and when. At 15 months, he repeatedly urged his teacher to read him the book he had chosen. By 17 months, he engaged her in a symbolic play scenario in which he repeatedly “fed her with a spoon” (EFs are promoted when children and teachers play together in collective imaginary situations; Fleer et al., 2020). This agrees with the results of previous studies that found that children used gestures to request the help from their parents (Basilio & Rodríguez, 2011; 2017; Moreno-Núñez et al., 2020).

One of the challenges that research on self-regulation and EF faces is to analyse their processes of construction and development from the second half of the first year of life. Following the functional turn that occurred in the Geneva School in the 1960s–90s, with the Piaget of the sensorimotor development and with the pragmatics of the object perspective, the approach we take to investigating the first forms of self-regulation is based on the action and objectives that children give themselves. Action and gestures with and through materiality provide the semiotic foundation that enables the first manifestations of EFs.

Two central axes guide this approach. First, knowledge does not come from the object but from action on the object. Therefore, in the observation situation, children must have the opportunity to behave with initiative, like the agents they are. Second, to come from action (Moro, 2012; Moro et al., 2015; Neale et al., 2018) and not from language (Luria, 1973/1974; Zelazo, 2015) means, to some extent, the revitalization of Piaget’s theory of sensorimotor development at the origin of EFs. It allows anchoring the origin of EFs in psychological development. From the last third of the first year of life, important constructions take place, such as the intentional goal-oriented behaviours with distinction between means and ends, the use of tools, the production of gestures directed to others and self, and the first symbols. At the end of the first year, children begin to conventionally use objects and instruments according to their social function (Rodríguez et al., 2018). Their entry into the world of shared uses is not obvious, nor immediate, nor banal. On the contrary, their entry plays a substantial role in the process of adaptation of the subject to the environment. Getting to know the material world involves deploying considerable efforts and activating EF through non-linguistic signs.

Children produce intentional behaviours and set themselves complex objectives from approximately 8 months of age. Sustained attention, flexibility, inhibition, and persistence despite difficulties are present when they face their challenges. However, some questions remain to be answered. For example, what types of objectives do children give themselves, what types of object uses are involved, and what semiotic complexity do these uses have? The results shown in this paper highlight the socially shared functional uses of the materiality (i.e., objects and instruments) in everyday life as outstanding challenges for children. This includes percussive rhythmic-sound uses with musical objects or instruments. Objectives involving symbolic uses appear later.

Analysing what children do and how they do it is presented here as a fruitful research line that needs to be developed and promoted. The uses of the materiality take on a central status at the origin of EF.

When looking for solutions to solve their difficulties, children resort to two main strategies:

1. The uses of objects. Although it might seem paradoxical, it is not. If a subject has a problem achieving a certain goal, it is reasonable that he/she uses the object or instrument as a means of solving the difficulty. It is precisely in this search for solutions that the second strategy appears.

2. Self-directed private gestures. To achieve a certain goal, children not only perform actions that seek effectiveness but also seek to understand their actions and their goals. The Piagetian distinction between succeeding and understanding is central to interpreting what children do in a continuous bottom-up and top-down movement.

Children’s search for understanding reveals itself in their private gestures, especially in their private ostensive gestures, as well as in their self-directed private uses (and to some extent in protocanonical “intermediate” uses). Private gestures and private uses are internally oriented signs that do not seek efficacy but reflection (Basilio & Rodríguez, 2011; Moro, 2016; Rodríguez & Palacios, 2007). Their function is to “understand,” which, in turn, has an impact on future action and so on. Private gestures and private uses help children to mentally orient themselves, to become aware, to overcome difficulties and obstacles, to reflect and to think. They are gestures and uses for themselves that serve as the most intimate supplement to children’s thinking (Rodríguez & Moreno-Llanos, 2020).

Analogous to Vygotsky (1934/1985)’s movement from thought to word and from word to thought, the development of object understanding is a process that goes from thought to gesture/use and from gesture/use to thought. Another analogy with private speech is that it is an inner language that is accessible to direct observation and experimentation. It is an internal process by its nature but external in its manifestations. The same thing happens with private uses and gestures. They are an internal process by their nature but external in their manifestations.

All this implies that materiality, action and gestures must be re-signified and placed in their rightful place at the origin of self-regulation and executive functioning. Goal-directed behaviours can be planned and accomplished through non-linguistic signs. Children have a certain semiotic knowledge about the social meaning of their own gestures and about the conventional uses of objects and instruments towards which they often apply these gestures. Private gestures serve to think about pieces of reality whose uses are shared by the community. As a consequence of all this, it can be said that the uses of the materiality (objects and instruments), and (private) gestures play an important role in the social origin of consciousness.

I would like to thank Eduardo Martí for his valuable suggestions during the elaboration of this article. I would also like to thank the directors, teachers, and parents of the “La Cigüeña María” infant school for the generosity of allowing their children to participate in the studies presented here. I also thank N.’s parents for allowing her child to participate in the study presented here as a paradigmatic example. I would like to thank Cynthia Lightfoot and Ulrich Müller for their valuable suggestions.

No ethical approval was required for the preparation of this manuscript. At the time of collection of Figures 1 and 2 and the online supplementary video, no local ethics committee existed. Verbal consent for publication of images was obtained from parents. Figures 3 and 4 were collected under approval from the Local Ethics Committee at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, and consent was obtained from teachers, directors, and parents at the Infant School. Figure 4 was first published by Horsori (Rodríguez et al., 2021). Consent for publication was obtained from Horsori.

The author declares that she has not known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

This research was funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, Project 2020 I+D+i -PGC- PID2020-119147GB-I00.