Transcript Cognitive Development in Infancy and Early Childhood

Cognitive Development in
Infancy and Early Childhood
Chapter 4
Cognitive Development
Basic principles
Children as scientists creating theories about
how the world works
Schemes: psychological structures organize
the world
Infancy schemes involve actions
Post-infancy schemes involve relationships
Schemes change over time
Cognitive Development
Assimilation
New experiences incorporated into existing
schemes
Grasping scheme extended to new objects
Accomodation
Schemes modified based on experience
Some objects require two hands to lift
Cognitive Development
Equilibration: reogranization of schemes to
maintain balance between assimilation &
accomodation
Analogy of a scientist changing her theory due
to inconsistent findings
Changes occur according to Piaget at 2, 7, 11
4 stages of cognitive development
Sensorimotor Thinking
(0-2 years)
Exercising reflexes (0-1 months)
Learning to adapt (1-4 months)
Primary circular reaction: recreation of
pleasant bodily experiences
No object permanence
Making interesting events (4-8 months)
Secondary circular reaction: novel actions
repeated with objects
Sensorimotor Thinking
(0-2 years)
Behaving intentionally (8-12 months)
Means & end
Experimenting (12-18 months)
Tertiary circular reasoning: old schemes with
new objects
Using symbols (18-24 months)
Talk, gesture and anticipate actions mentally
Full object permanence
Preoperational Thinking
(2-7 years)
Egocentrism
Believe everyone sees the world as they do
Centration
Psychological tunnel vision
Focus on one feature of problem at a time
Lack of conservation
Appearance as reality
Final 2 Piagetian Stages
Concrete Operations (7-11 years)
Conservation of physicality
Formal Operations (> 11 years)
Reasoning includes abstract thinking,
hypotheticals
Evaluating Piaget
Teaching implications
Scheme construction key
Gradual development
Scheme growth enhanced by inconsistencies
Evaluating Piaget
Critiques
Findings based in part on specific
procedures used by Piaget
Language sensitivity explains some findings
Procedural changes modified results
Performance not as consistent as Piaget
predicts
Information Processing
Attention
Infants have orienting responses to strong or
unfamiliar stimuli
Staring, eye fixation, physiological changes
Habituation also occurs
Diminished response to familiar/constant S
Both adaptive responses for infants
Information Processing
Learning
Infants learn constantly via many forms
Classicial conditioning
Neutral S paired with powerful S evokes a R
Bell + food eventually bell causes salivation
Operant conditioning
Behavior produces consequences (+/-)
Likelihood of future behavior depends on nature
of the consequences
Information Processing
Learning
Imitation: learning by watching others
Common form of learning
Babies as young as 2 weeks old can imitate
Information Processing
Memory
Babies can recall events for a few
days/weeks & memory cue can retrieve
forgotten memories
Memory improves dramatically in first two
years
Due to brain growth
Amygdala, hippocampus (initial storage): 6
months
Frontal cortext (retireval): 2 years
Language
First word typically spoken at year 1
Long process of learning language
Perceiving speech
Infants capable of distinguishing phonemes
Unique sounds making up words (consonants)
Language independent at first (bio prepared)
Language specific eventually
Word identification eventually occurs via stress &
other cues
Language
Steps to speech
2 months: vowel sounds (oooooo ahhhhh)
6 months: babbling speech like sounds (dah)
8-11 months: stress, pitch varies and nature
depends on language
10-14 months: connect spoken words with
objects
Year 1: first word and vocab increases rapidly
18 months symbolic understanding of words
Fast mapping
Language
Development facilitated by
Hearing language
Reading books
TV