Human intelligence is often described as an individual ability, yet research in education shows that children think and learn through the support of different forms of mediation that appear in their everyday activity (Vygotsky, 1978). In mathematics education, studies have highlighted how gestures, materials and representations help children construct and communicate meaning (Bartolini Buss & Mariotti, 2008; Bartolini Bussi & Baccaglini-Frank, 2015). Building on findings from the Norwegian projects DiCoTe and VERDI, we propose that children’s intelligent behaviour is shaped by a broader range of mediational processes than those traditionally considered in semiotic theories.
The study is based on 21 video observations (15 from one project and 6 from the other), each lasting on average about 40 minutes, complemented by detailed field notes. Children engaged in mathematical exploration and technological play, and the material was interpreted through an inclusive research approach (Johnson & Walmsley, 2003) in which teachers, students and co-researchers with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (IDD) work together (Granone et al., 2023; Granone, 2025). This approach made it possible to identify how children use not only signs and representations, but also bodily movement, spatial orientation, touch, rhythm, dialogue and technological tools to test ideas, solve problems and explain their thinking.
Across the two projects, these multiple mediations were visible in children’s problem-solving with coding toys (Granone & Reikerås, 2023), their spatial reasoning during activities with digital and physical artefacts (Granone & Knudsen, 2024), and in the ways they interacted with adults in supportive and dialogic environments (Granone & Pollarolo, 2025). These observations suggest that intelligent behaviour does not emerge only from internal cognitive processes but from participation in rich, multimodal and relational situations.
We discuss that supporting human intelligence requires recognising and valuing these layered forms of mediation. Expanding the concept of mediation helps us better understand how children think and offers new directions for designing inclusive and cognitively supportive learning environments in early childhood education.
