Perceptual and Motor Skills, 2012, 114, 1, 29-42. © Perceptual and Motor Skills 2012 DOI 10.2466/10.22.27.PMS.114.1.29-42 ISSN 0031-5125 OBJECT AND SIZE AWARENESS IN PRESCHOOL-AGE CHILDREN 1, 2, 3 CAROLINE E. BOYER, ABBY G. CARLSON, AND ROBERT PASNAK George Mason University Summary.—Self-awareness is a skill developed during the frst few years of life. Although some research demonstrates that this ability may be incomplete in toddlers, there is litle to no literature relating to preschoolers. This study tested 44 preschool-age children on 8 tasks to assess their awareness of the structural charac- teristics of their own size and weight as well as the size and weight of external ob- jects. The most frequently observed behavior was for children to make an atempt at something that was inappropriate for their size and weight, but overall participants showed a beter understanding of their own bodies than other objects. Both the number of atempts required to solve the problems and accuracy of their solutions demonstrated these task diferences. These results indicate that the development of body awareness skills is far from complete for 3- and 4-year-olds. Self-awareness is the understanding of oneself as an active agent in- teracting with other objects in the world. It is an understanding of the self as I, the subject of experience, and me, the object of knowledge (Bullock & Lutkenhaus, 1990). Self-awareness is believed to develop over the course of the frst several years of life. Observations of children’s behaviors in front of a mirror have sug- gested the development of an objective self occurs in stages (Amsterdam, 1972; Brooks-Gunn & Lewis, 1984; Lewis, Sullivan, Stanger, & Weiss, 1989). Children ages 6 through 12 months treated the image as a social playmate, suggesting that they had not yet developed an awareness of self. Children ages 13 through 24 months expressed self-consciousness or self-admira- tion, suggesting they had begun to develop an awareness of self, as one would not exhibit such behaviors unless one was aware that the image was oneself (Brooks-Gunn & Lewis, 1984). Between 20 and 24 months of age, children identifed the image as themselves, from which one might infer that they had developed an awareness of their objective selves. Although a number of researchers have conducted either a mirror rec- ognition study or some variation, this is only one aspect of self-awareness. A separate characteristic of general self-awareness is body self-awareness, an understanding of one’s body as an object which can operate in relation 1 Address correspondence to Caroline Boyer, Department of Psychology, George Mason Uni- versity, 4400 University Drive 3F5, Fairfax, VA 22030 or e-mail (cboyer1@gmu.edu). 2 The research reported here was supported by the Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. De- partment of Education, through Grant R305B070542. The opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not represent views of the Institute or the U.S. Department of Education. 3 The authors are grateful for the gracious cooperation of the children, parents, teachers, and administrators of the Alexandria Head Start program.