In studies involving various kinds of tool use, children are much better imitators than chimps, explained Michael Tomasello, professor of psychology at Emory and affiliate scientist at Yerkes.
Children copy the way that adults do it, but chimps mainly figure it out for themselves.
Tomasello's research focuses on how children and chimps communicate and learn from others. Tomasello conducted some experiments in which children and chimpanzees were given rake-like tools that could be used in two ways to rake in objects or food. Then both the children and chimps observed a human adult use the rake in both an efficient and inefficient way. The chimpanzees, on the other hand, mostly ignored the demonstrator, devising their own individual strategies no matter what they observed. And that's what children specialize in-taking advantage of skills and knowledge that other people have.