feldman / child development, 5th edition copyright © 2010 chapter 6 cognitive development in...

Feldman / Child Development, 5th EditionCopyright © 2010

Chapter 6Cognitive Development in

Infancy

Child DevelopmentFIFTH EDITION

Robert S. FeldmanUniversity of Massachusetts at Amherst


Chapter 6 Key Questions

• What are the fundamental features of Piaget’s theories of cognitive development?

• How do infants process information?• How is infant intelligence measured?• By what processes do children learn to use

language?• How do children influence adults’ language?


Piaget’s Approach to Cognitive Development

• Piaget argued that infants do not acquire knowledge from facts communicated by others, nor through sensation and perception.

• Instead, he suggested that knowledge is the product of direct motor behavior.

• ACTION = KNOWLEDGE• Stage theorist• Qualifies a child’s learning, not the quantity of

content


Key Elements ofPiaget’s Theory

• Piaget assumed that all children pass through a series of four universal stages in a fixed order from birth through adolescence: – Sensorimotor = Knowledge is product of direct

motor behavior– Preoperational = Symbolic thinking– Concrete operational= Use of logical thought– Formal operational = Use of abstract thought


• Movement from one stage to the next occurs with appropriate level of physical maturation and relevant experiences

• Piaget believed that the basic building blocks of the way we understand the world are mental structures called

• , organized patterns of functioning, that adapt and change with mental development.



• Piaget suggested that two principles underlie the growth in children’s schemes: assimilation and accommodation.

• Assimilation The process in which people understand an experience in terms of their current stage of cognitive development and way of thinking (Given a toy)

• Accommodation Changes in existing ways of thinking that occur in response to encounters with new stimuli or events (Flying squirrel is a bird with a tail)



The Sensorimotor Period: Six Substages of Cognitive Development

Sensorimotor stage (of cognitive development) • Piaget’s initial major stage of cognitive

development, which can be broken down into six substages, as summarized in Table 6-1 on page 144.


Piaget’s Six Substages ofthe Sensorimotor Stage


Substage 1: Simple Reflexes = First Month

• During this time, the various inborn reflexes are at the center of a baby’s physical and cognitive life, determining the nature of his or her interactions with the world.

• At the same time, some of the reflexes begin to accommodate the infant’s experience with the nature of the world. Sucking reflex causes infant to repeatedly suck at anything

• Circular Reactions = Schemes of repetitive actions


Substage 2: First Habits and Primary Circular Reactions = 1-4

months

• In this period, infants begin to coordinate what were separate actions into single, integrated activities.

• If an activity engages a baby’s interests, he or she may repeat it over and over, simply for the sake of continuing to experience it.

• Considers only self in work around him/her• Looking at items and Grasping items


Substage 3: Secondary Circular Reactions = 4-8 months

• During this period, infants begin to act upon the outside world.

• The major difference between primary circular reactions and secondary circular reactions is whether the infant’s activity is focused on the infant and his or her own body (primary circular reactions), or involves actions relating to the world outside (secondary circular reactions).

• Grasping rattle and shaking


Substage 4: Coordination of Secondary Circular Reactions =

8-12 months

• Infants begin to employ goal-directed behavior, in which several schemes are combined and coordinated to generate a single act to solve a problem. Push a toy to get to something.

• Object permanence The realization that people and objects exist even when they cannot be seen (8-12 months)


Substage 5: TertiaryCircular Reactions=12-18

months

• During this period infants develop what Piaget labeled tertiary circular reactions, schemes regarding the deliberate variation of actions that bring desirable consequences.

• Rather than just repeating enjoyable activities, as they do with secondary circular reactions, infants appear to carry out miniature experiments to observe the consequences.

• Dropping a toy to see where it falls


Substage 6:Beginnings of

Thought=18months-2 years

• The major achievement of Substage 6 is the capacity for mental representation, or symbolic thought.

• Mental representation An internal image of a past event or object (Ball rolls under a table and can figure out it will emerge from other side)

• Deferred imitation An act in which a person who is no longer present is imitated by children (Parent driving a car)


Appraising Piaget:Support and Challenges

• Most developmental researchers would probably agree that in many significant ways, Piaget’s descriptions of how cognitive development proceeds during infancy are quite accurate.

• Yet, there is substantial disagreement over the validity of the theory and many of its specific predictions. (Pages 147-149-Review!!!!!!!)


Information-Processing Approaches to Cognitive Development

• Information-processing approach - The model that seeks to identify the way that individuals take in, use, and store information

• Taking this perspective, cognitive growth is characterized by increasing sophistication, speed, and capacity in information processing.

• Quantitative Change


Information Processing

The operate together so info can be processed

Environment and heredity influence the processing of infohttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_v16w_0xYc = Video


Encoding, Storage, and Retrieval: The Foundations of Information Processing

Information processing has three basic aspects: • Encoding is the process by which information is

initially recorded in a form usable to memory.• Storage refers to the placement of material into

memory. • Retrieval is the process by which material in

memory storage is located, brought into awareness, and used.


Automatization

• Automatization is the degree to which an activity requires attention.

• Some activities are more automatic than others. (Kicking a mobile versus reading a book cover)

• Infants and children develop an understanding of concepts, categorizations of objects, events, or people that share common properties.


• Research suggests that infants have an innate grasp of certain basic mathematical functions and statistical patterns. (page 151)

• This inborn proficiency is likely to form the basis for learning more complex mathematics and statistical relationships later in life.

Automatization


Memory Capabilitiesin Infancy

• Memory The process by which information is initially recorded, stored, and retrieved

• Infants can distinguish new stimuli from old stimuli, and this implies that some memory of the old must be present.

• Researchers generally believe that information is processed similarly throughout the life span, even though the kind of information being processed changes and different parts of the brain may be used.


The Duration of Memories

• Infantile amnesia The lack of memory for experiences that occurred prior to 3 years of age (This is due to limited verbal language)

• Although early research supported the notion of infantile amnesia, the lack of memory for experiences occurring prior to 3 years of age, more recent research shows that infants do retain memories.

• The question of how well memories formed during infancy are retained in adulthood remains not fully answered.


The Cognitive Neuroscience of Memory

• Advances in brain-scan technology, as well as studies of adults with brain damage, suggest that there are two separate systems involved with long-term memory.

• Explicit memory is conscious memory that can be recalled intentionally.

• Implicit memory is memory that is recalled unconsciously-motor skills (Earliest memories occur here)

• Explicit and implicit memory emerge at different rates and involve different parts of the brain.


Individual Differences in Intelligence: Is One Infant Smarter Than Another?

• Although it is clear that different infants show significant variations in their behavior, the issue of just what types of behavior may be related to cognitive ability is complicated.

• How is Infant Intelligence Measured?• What is the basis of infant intellectual growth?• Speed with which a task is learned? Age at

which child crawls, or walks?


What Is Infant Intelligence?

• Educators, psychologists, and other experts on development have yet to agree upon a general definition of intelligent behavior, even among adults.

• However, developmental specialists have devised several approaches (summarized in Table 6-2, page 153) to illuminate the nature of individual differences in intelligence during infancy.


Approaches Used to Detect Differences in Intelligence (page

153)


Developmental Scales

• Developmental quotient (Formulated by Arnold Gesell) An overall developmental score that relates to performance in four domains: motor skills, language use, adaptive behavior (alertness), and personal–social behavior (feeding and dressing)


Bayley Scale

• Bayley Scales of Infant Development A measure that evaluates an infant’s development from 2 to 42 months (Table 6-3, page 154)

• Mental Scale *Motor Abilities ScaleSenses, perception, memory,

learning, problem solving

and language


Sample Items from the Bayley Scales - page 154


How are these scales helpful?

*Provide a good snapshot of infant’s current developmental level*Can objectively measure if an infant is ahead of his/her same-age peers.*Useful in identifying infants who may be developmentally behind and need immediate attention.


Caution! When using these Scales!

*These scales are not predictors for future course of development.

*If a child shows developmental delays at 1 year of age-this does not necessarily mean slow development at age 5


Information-Processing Approaches to Individual Differences in

Intelligence

• Contemporary approaches to infant intelligence suggest that the speed with which infants process information may correlate most strongly with later intelligence.

• However, even though there is an association between early information processing capabilities and later measures of IQ, the correlation is only moderate in strength.


• Other factors, such as the degree of environmental stimulation, also play a crucial role in helping to determine adult intelligence.

• Consequently, we should not assume that intelligence is somehow permanently fixed in infancy.

• Both tools provide snapshot of current development

• Not useful as future predictors

Information-Processing Approaches to Individual Differences in

Intelligence


Assessing Information-Processing Approaches

• Both Piagetian and information-processing approaches are critical in providing an account of cognitive development in infancy.

• Coupled with advances in the biochemistry of the brain and theories that consider the effects of social factors on learning and cognition, the two help us paint a full picture of cognitive development.


The Fundamentals of Language: From Sounds to Symbols

• Language The systematic, meaningful arrangement of symbols, which provides the basis for communication

• Language has several formal characteristics that must be mastered as linguistic competence is developed. They include:– Phonology (Phonemes are letters)– Morphemes (words)– Semantics (Rules - the study of how meaning

in language is created by the use and interrelationships of words, phrases, and sentences


Development of Language

Linguistic Comprehension = understanding of speech

Linguistic Production = use of language to Communicate

Comprehension precedes Production (22 words per month) (9 words per month)


Early Sounds and Communication

• Prelinguistic communication is communication through sounds, facial expressions, gestures, imitation, and other nonlinguistic means.

• Cooing

Babbling Making speech-like but meaningless sounds

• Babbling typically follows a progression from simple to more complex sounds and differentiated language.


First Words

• First words generally are spoken somewhere around the age of 10 to 14 months, but may occur as early as 9 months of age.

• Holophrases One-word utterances that stand for a whole phrase, whose meaning depends on the particular context in which they are used (Ma = Pick me up! or I want something to eat)

• Culture has an effect on the type of first words spoken.


First Words - page 160


First Sentences

• The explosive increase in vocabulary that comes at around 18 months is accompanied by another accomplishment: the linking together of individual words into sentences that convey a single thought.

• Telegraphic Speech = Speech in which words not critical to the message are left out (Table 6-5)


Children’s Imitation of Sentences


Use of Words and Language

• Underextension The overly restrictive use of words, common among children just mastering spoken language

• Overextension The overly broad use of words, overgeneralizing their meaning (CAR = anything with 4 wheels)

• Referential style A style of language use in which language is used primarily to label objects

• Expressive style A style of language use in which language is used primarily to express feelings and needs about oneself and others


Learning Theory Approaches: Language as a Learned Skill

• Learning theory approach The theory that language acquisition follows the basic laws of reinforcement and conditioning

• The learning theory approach doesn’t seem to adequately explain how children acquire the rules of language as readily as they do.


Nativist Approaches: Language as an Innate Skill

• Difficulties with the learning theory approach have led to the development of an alternative, championed by the linguist Noam Chomsky and known as the nativist approach.

• Nativist approach The theory that a genetically determined, innate mechanism directs language

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdonf-4nkeE = Chomsky describes


• Universal grammar Chomsky’s theory that all the world’s languages share a similar underlying structure

• Language-acquisition device (LAD) A neural system of the brain hypothesized to permit understanding of language

• The view that language is an innate ability unique to humans also has its critics.

Nativist Approaches: Language as an Innate Skill


The Interactionist Approaches

• The interactionist perspective suggests that language development is produced through a combination of genetically determined predispositions and environmental circumstances that help teach language.

• More likely, different factors play different roles at different times during childhood.

• The full explanation for language acquisition, then, remains to be found.

• https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=574021659351062&set=vb.100002296999205&type=2&theater = Ella


Infant-Directed Speech

• Infant-directed speech A type of speech directed toward infants, characterized by short, simple sentences

• Characterized by short, simple sentences, infant-directed speech plays an important role in infants’ acquisition of language.

• (Review page 163 and 164)


Features of Infant-Directed Speech

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