The Development of Coordination

Abstract

My concern in this paper is to provide a framework for analyzing the development of coordinated action systems. By emphasizing the general theme of pattern formation in coordinated action, attention is drawn to dual problems of establishing separable dimensions of action that are in turn combined into higher-order configurations. During development processes of differentiation and integration are combined to make coordinated action possible. The rules by which this is accomplished, however, are still poorly understood. The perspective offered here is that to understand the development of coordinated action it is valuable to seek relative degrees of continuity-discontinuity and change-stability from several complementary perspectives. This avoids unnecessarily simple “unit„ concepts of coordinated action, and thereby provides the flexibility necessary to clarify underlying developmental pathways.