Cognitive structure stage three (about 4 to 8 or 9 Months onward.)

Patterns of causality.

The third stage in Greenspan and Shanker's theory concerns the emergence of intention. With the coming of intention the child goes from having no control to having some control. Although the child previously had some control over its own actions it did not know it, for it had no intention of causing things to happen. However, at this stage as it begins to notice the connection between actions and outcomes as intention to act emerges. This is where intention arises out of the important recurring patterns of causality. The infant perceives patterns in the connections with caregivers and becomes motivated to influence those patterns. It becomes motivated to extend the duration of certain pleasurable patterns, to initiate some pleasurable patterns and to terminate unpleasant patterns.

 Signaling. 

To accomplish their intentions infants begin to experiment with signaling their intentions and trying to decipher caregiver intentions. Caregivers, for their part have to, try to decipher what the infant intends and encourage the new infant activity. This becomes a two way back and forth signaling between infant and caregiver. Many different signaling mechanisms are involved. Vocal tone and intonation, facial expression, and motor gestures all have to be interpreted and ultimately deciphered. Embedded in this are the beginnings of imitation and empathic experience, as the infant comes to understand what the caregiver might be feeling. Emotion becomes thus thus the cornerstone on which all future signaling will be based. In their book "The First Idea" Greenspan and Shanker explain:

"...emotions now become transformed into signals for communication. For this to happen, however, caregivers need to read and respond to the baby's signals and challenge the baby to read and respond to theirs. Through these interactions, the baby begins to engage in back and forth emotional signaling, which develops throughout infancy, but especially rapidly between four and ten months, as opening and closing circles of communication. The six-month-old smiles eagerly at her mother, gets a smile back, then smiles again. By smiling again, the baby is closing a circle of communication. Different motor gestures - facial expressions, vocalizations - become part of the signaling. By eight months, many of these exchanges occur in a row."    

 Causality. 

A new kind of logic also begins to emerge as infants begin to realize that causality might be extended from its original patterns of interactions with caregivers to interactions with things other than people in the external world. This understanding of causality leads to motor planning whereby complex intentions can be satisfied.

In their book "The First Idea" Greenspan and Shanker continue:

"The beginnings of 'causal' (logical) interactions, as the baby purposefully smiles to get a smile back, vocalizes happiness to get a happy sound back, and reaches for father's nose to get a funny 'toot-toot' sound back, means that from now on causality and logic an play a role in all new learning. For example, these new lessons in logic are gradually applied to the spatial world as well as to plan actions (motor planning). When the rattle falls to the ground, the baby follows it with his eyes as though he were looking for it. He looks at and touches his father's hand because it just hid the rattle."

The sense of self. 

The sense of self is further defined as the causality logic the infant now employs indicates that causality acting on itself is very different from causality acting on others. In their book "The First Idea" Greenspan and Shanker elaborate:

"A sense of self also now becomes more defined. There is a 'me' doing something to a 'not me' or a 'you.' (The baby smiles [the 'me'] to get a smile back from the caregiver [the 'not me'].) But the 'me and the 'not me' are not yet defined in the baby's mind as full persons. They are defined only in terms of smiles or sounds being exchanged. In other words 'parts' of 'me' (the self) that become involved in causal intentional interactions are forming. Each part of 'me', or a self, is experienced as a separate entity."

Reality patterns. 

With intention, the clumps of conjectures slowly coalescing, get kicked into high gear as the infant actively looks for patterns associated with possible outcomes and tries to induce some into existence. Thus the beginning of understanding of causality shapes purpose and with it the precursor of a model of reality. The previously formless chaos of patterns begin to take on some vague shifting semblance of a working model of the world. This site refers to these patterns as reality patterns. Though they are still separate and still provide no overall structure that could be called reality they are while in consciousness of the infant the reality of the infant at that moment and thus reality patterns. In their book "The First Idea" Greenspan and Shanker say:

"The beginning sense of causality marks a beginning sense of 'reality' because an appreciation of reality is based on understanding the actions of others as purposeful rather than random."