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Chapter 5
Cognitive Development During the
First Three Years
Behaviorist Approach
Born with ability to sense. Maturation is the
limiting factor in learning.
Classical Conditioning
Whenever a picture was taken, the flash went off and
the baby blinked. After several pictures, the baby
blinks when sees the camera, before picture taken
or flash.
Learns to make a reflex/involuntary response
(blinking) to the stimulus of the camera; the
camera did not originally provoke the response.
The infant anticipates the event before it happens
by forming associations between stimuli (camera
and flash).
The association will be extinguished if not
reinforced. The learner is passive, absorbing and
reacting to the stimuli.
Operant Conditioning
Baby learns that smiling brings attention. The
learner acts, operates on the environment.
Infant memory
Infantile amnesia: brain simply not
developed enough for storage and recall.
Recency effect plays a role. The more
recent the event, the more the infant recalls
the situation and reacts accordingly.
Psychometric Approach
Testing to measure the factors believed reflect
intelligence (comprehension, reasoning) and
to predict future performance.
Intelligent behavior is inferred. Assumed to
be goal-orientated and adaptive.
Intelligence adjusts to the circumstances and
conditions of life; enables people to acquire,
remember, and use knowledge; to
understand concepts and relationships; and
to solve everyday problems.
IQ (Intelligence Quotient)
Various tests
Fostering competencies of Infants
• Provide sensory stimulation (not
overstimulation)
• Create environment that fosters learning
• Respond to babies’ signals
• Power to effect changes (light switch, faucet)
• Freedom to explore
• Talk to babies!
• Join whatever they are doing/saying
• Arrange opportunities to learn basic skills
(labeling, comparing)
Fostering competencies of Infants
• Applaud new skills; help practice and expand
them
• Read in a warm, caring atmosphere
• Use punishment sparingly
Piagetian Approach: Piaget
The Sensorimotor Stage
• Focus on change in abstract reasoning.
• Viewed child as an active learner and the
architect of their own learning experiences.
• Cognitive development is the result of the child
using their own skills to make sense of their
experiences.
• Interaction with the environment leads to
qualitative changes in the way the child thinks.
• Adults cannot arbitrarily structure the child’s
thinking and behavior.
The direction of cognitive development is
genetically predetermined and lies within the
child.
Learning also plays a role. Play is very important.
Everyone, including infants, organize their
knowledge of the world into schemata or
schemes.
Schemes are sets of physical actions, mental
operations, concepts or theories people use to
organize and to acquire information about their
world.
Assimilation: is the process of actively molding
new information to fit existing schemes.
Accommodation: is the process of changing
existing schemes to fit new, discrepant
information.
Four factors that contribute to children’s cognitive
development:
maturation of inherited physical structures
physical experiences with the environment
social transmission of information and
knowledge
equilibration- innate tendency to keep our
cognitive structures in balance. It is a form of
self-regulation; of altering or adjusting our
cognitive structures in order to maintain
organization and stability in our environment.
Four distinct stages in Cognitive Development
Sensorimotor Stage (0-2 years) This is
experienced in the here and now (The active
child: infants develop goal-directed behavior,
means-ends thinking, and object permanence).
Schemes- organized patterns of behavior,
becoming more elaborate as development
proceeds. The baby will organize their activity
in relation to their environment via
organization, adaptation, and equilibrium (first
5 substages).
Substages:
a. Stage 1 (1st/2nd month): reflex activity.
Reflexes organize the newborn’s
interactions. Within 3 weeks, babies come
to expect certain coordinations among
perceptual events, such as sights and
sounds. Begin to exercises some control
over reflexes- even without normal
stimulus. Suck reflexes when lips are
touched; eventually searches for nipple
even when not touched; then sucks even
when not hungry but nipple present.
Cannot grasp object looking at.
Substages:
a. Stage 2 (2 to 4 months): Self-investigation.
Elaborates on existing schemes and integrates
simple schemes into more complicated behaviors.
Modification and repetition of scheme to achieve
interesting sensations: coordination of different
schemes (e.g., looking and grasping). Primarily
interested in own body. Repeats pleasant bodily
sensations first by chance, then repeats for
pleasure. Begins to suck different objects
differently.
Primary circular reactions: simple repetitive acts that
center upon the infant’s own body (e.g., thumb
sucking, hand clasping).
Substages:
c. Stage 3 (4 to 8 months): Coordination and
reaching out. Development of a variety of
schemes that produce interesting effects: a
more externally orientated, “cognitively
extroverted” approach. Do something that
produces a result, will repeat it.
Manipulating objects and learning about
their properties. Repeat actions that
produce interesting results (e.g., shaking a
rattle; coo when friendly face appears).
Substages:
c. Stage 3 (4 to 8 months): Coordination and reaching
out.
Secondary Circular Reaction: no longer focus on
infant’s own body, rather reaches out. Operant
conditioning, when immediate reinforcement
follows a spontaneous activity, the baby repeats
the activity. Kicks the mobile, it moves
interestingly, will do it again. Good at tracking
moving objects with eyes and reaching for things
to grasp. Retrieves a hidden toy under a
transparent cup. Searches for missing objects.
Substages:
d. Stage 4 (8 to 12 months): Goal-directed behavior.
Coordination of these schemes into intentional,
“intelligent” looking means-end sequences, in which
one scheme leads to another. Behavior is deliberate
and purposeful. Try out new schemes in order to
effect their environment. Combine sequences into
order. Some schemes serve as a means for others in
order to reach a goal. E.g., removes a barrier to get a
toy. Can also anticipate events that do not depend on
own immediate behavior (e.g., sees mother walking
toward door, begins to cry). Crawls across room to
get object. Baby is now a skillful imitator.
Substages:
d. Stage 4 (8 to 12 months): Goal-directed
behavior.
Play, that is, practicing sensorimotor schemes for
the sheer fun of it, becomes prominent here.
Play for longer periods of time engaging in
same behavior. Infants in this stage learn from
both play and imitation. Can retrieve object
hidden. Learn from past experience, modify
and coordinate previous schemes.
Substages:
e. Stage 5 (12 to 18 months): Experimentation.
Curious, trial and error experimentation,
often leading to the discovery of new means
to achieve goals; outer directed efforts to
learn about the world. Experiments with
hands or mouth. Explores new properties
of objects by trial and error, systematically
testing different approaches as if thinking
“Lets see what happens if…”
Substages:
e. Stage 5 (12 to 18 months): Experimentation.
Varies approaches. This is the last “pure”
sensorimotor stage. Still deals with only the
“here and now”. Cannot yet imitate events
that have occurred earlier or elsewhere.
Imprisoned in own cognitive world by limited
ability to communicate.
Substages:
e. Stage 5 (12 to 18 months): Experimentation.
Tertiary (third-order) circular reactions: child begins to
actively experiment with things in order to discover
how various actions will affect an object or outcome.
(e.g., sitting in highchair, dawdling over oatmeal,
drops handful over side. Does it again with more
force, delighted in the splash; learns things fall
down, not up; the force determines the degree of
splash; can make an interesting patter on the floor
with the oatmeal; and oatmeal is on the finer things
in life!)
Substages:
f. Stage 6 (about 18 to 24 months): mental
combinations and problem solving.
Representational ability- to mentally visualize
objects and actions in memory. Anticipates
consequences. Invention of new means thorough
internal, mental combinations; first appearance of
deferred imitation, symbolic play, and speech.
This is the transitory stage between sensorimotor and
conceptual intelligence. Beginning of the
representational intelligence and preoperational
thought, which occur in the preschool years.
Changes include the ability to represent objects and
events in thought by symbols and to act on those
symbols. Demonstrates insight!
Substages:
f. Stage 6 (about 18 to 24 months): mental
combinations and problem solving.
Can contemplate a problem, pause to think, and then act
to solve it, without trial and error. Able to visualize
own actions and thus use mental trial and error.
Toddlers in this stage have not mastered symbolic
thought, but do have mental images and apparently
are able to use them in solving problems.
E.g.: play with shape box; searching for right hole for
the shape before trying; succeeding!
Object Permanence
Objects have an existence of their own (object
permanence). Occurs between 8-12 months.
Takes 2 years to fully develop. 4-8 months:
drop something, will look, then forget. 8-12
months: will look where they first found it
after seeing it being hidden, even if it seen it
move to another location (does not recall
where moved to). 12-18 months, look where
last seen. 18-24 months- will look for object
even if did not see it placed somewhere.
Object Permanence
Requires ability to have mental representations of
the world and objects. Without mental images,
symbols, or depictions to represent an object,
you would be unable to think about it, because
you have no internal was of representing it. In
other words, without object permanence, “out
of sight, out of mind”.
Spatial Knowledge
Development of object concept and spatial
knowledge linked to self-locomotion and
coordination of visual and motor information.
Causality
4-6 months and 12 months- discovery of effects
of own actions and then effects of outside
forces. That one event causes another. Allows
to predict and control own world.
Numbers
18-24 months- may begin to manipulate and recognize
small numbers.
Categorization
18-24 months- Depends on representational thinking.
Dividing the world into meaningful categories.
Imitation
Invisible imitation- 9 months; mental representation- 1824 months.
SUMMARY
• Preverbal
• Childs begins to construct basic concept of
object permanence (approximately 8-9
months)
•
Play primarily involves imitation and copying
the actions of others without understanding
the purpose of the actions
•
Self-concept is limited to a physical
awareness that one has a body
Criticisms of Piaget
• Limitations in early cognitive abilities may be
related to immature linguistic and motor skills
rather than cognitive abilities.
•
Toddlers more cognitively competent than
Piaget imagined. Infants perceptions are far
ahead of motor abilities- Piaget believed
motor skills preceded perceptions/cognitive
abilities.
Other Approaches
Information-Processing Approach
Approaches cognitive development by analyzing
processes involved in perceiving and handling
information.
Habituation
Learning in which repeated or continuous
exposure to a stimulus reduces attention to
that stimulus. (e.g., first few times say
something, paid attention. The tenth time, did
not even notice it.
Visual Preference
Ability to make visual distinctions and amount of time
spends looking at it.
Visual recognition memory: measured by showing two
stimuli side by side, one new and one familiar. A
longer gaze at the new stimulus indicates that the
other is one they have seen before. May exist at
birth. Piaget saw this developing later.
Cross-modal transfer- ability to use information gained
from one sense to guide another. (feels objects in
dark room, familiarity, and then locates own
position) as early as 1 month!
Information processing as predictor of intelligencehabituation and attention-recovery during first 6-12
months moderately predictive of childhood IQ.
Catagorization: found that 3 month olds begin this
process- Piaget said it occurred at 18 months.
Object permanence: violation of expectations- when
change an event, infant looks longer for the object in
the specific place noticed at 3½ months versus
Piaget’s 8-12 months. However, the fact that the
infant stares longer may simply be noticing that
something is different, not necessarily that a specific
object is missing.
Violation of Expectations
• Phase 1: Familiarization
–
Infant watches as events happen normally
• Phase 2: Violation of Expectation
–
The event is changed in a way that conflicts
with past procedure
• If infant watches the conflict event longer,
then it is interpreted as noticing a change
Cognitive Neuroscience
Neurological maturation is major factor in cognitive
development.
Memory
Explicit memory- conscious or intentional recollection
(facts, names, events)
Implicit memory- remembering that occurs without
conscious effort or even conscious awareness
(habits, skills)
Prefrontal cortex (large portion of frontal lobe) controls
much of cognition. Develops approximately 6
months. Responsible for working memory (shortterm storage and processing, mental representations).
Therefore, object permanence cannot occur before
12 months.
Social-Contextual Approach- from Interactions
to Caregivers
Guided participation- mutual interactions with
adults that help bridge gap between a child’s
understanding and an adult’s. Vygotsky
viewed learning as a collaborative process.
Language Development
Communication system based on words and
grammar, and cognitive development.
See Table 5-4 (page 177)
Sequence of speech
Early vocalization- crying is newborn’s only means to
communicate
Cooing- 1 ½ to 3 months
Babbling- repeating consonant-vowel strings (ma-mama) 6-10 months
Imitation of language- 9-10 months
Recognition of language sounds- begins in womb!
Gestures- 9-12 months, learned conventional social
gestures (waving, nodding head)
Sequence of speech
Representational gestures- waving cup when
thirsty- 13 months
Symbolic gestures (blowing when hot) about
when say first word (11 months)
Telegraphic speech- a few essential words
Syntax and complete sentences- 20-30 months
Theories of language development
Skinner- based on experience. Practice,
reinforcement, observation.
Chomsky- word combinations and nuances too
complex to be imitated or reinforced.
Nativism- active role of the learner
Innate capacity for acquiring language, and have
an inborn language acquisition device.
Universal principles that underlie all languages.