Along with the relationship with language acquisition, object permanence is also related to the achievement of self-recognition. This same study also focused specifically on the effects that Down syndrome has on object permanence. They found that the reason why the children that participated were so successful in acquiring object permanence, was due to their social strength in imitation. Along with imitation being a potential factor in the success, another factor that could impact children with Down syndrome could also be the willingness of the child to cooperate. Other, more recent studies suggest that the idea of object permanence may not be an innate function of young children. While, in reference to Piaget's theory, it has been established that young children develop object permanence as they age, the question arises: does this occur because of a particular perception that already existed within the minds of these young children? Is object permanence really an inbred response to the neural pathways developing in young minds? Studies suggest that a multitude of variables may be responsible for the development of object permanence rather than a natural talent of infants. Evidence suggests that infants use a variety of cues while studying an object and their perception of the object's permanence can be tested without physically hiding the object. Rather, the object is occluded, slightly obstructed, from the infants view and they are left only other visual cues, such as examining the object from different trajectories. It was also found that the longer an infant focuses on an object may be due to detected discontinuities in their visual field, or the flow of events, with which the infant has become familiar.