Children between 19 and 31 months of age from a daycare center in the Metropolitan region of Recife were video recorded in order to identify their most frequent strategy to initiate and maintain a cooperative coordinated action as well as to reflect about their ability of sharing intentions with peers. Through a qualitative analysis of play episodes in two different conditions (big group and triplet group), one may conclude imitation is the main strategy to engage in a cooperative coordinated action. Yet the children have also used complementary actions and verbal language to build up this type of play. The data highlighted children's skills of understanding others as an intentional agent while negotiating and coordinating a common topic of play. Child-child interactions appear as an instigator of the constant use of such abilities.
Plays; cooperation; intentionality; social interaction; children's coordinated actions