1. Cognitive Development in Early Childhood
Chapter 8

2. Cognitive Development based on Multiple Factors
Parallels the growth of the brain
Increased levels of myelinization
Continued pruning
Elaboration based on experience
Enhanced by the broader range of experience
Expanding peer networks
Greater diversity in interactions with adults
The child’s own increased mobility

3. Three Theoretical Perspectives
Piaget
Vygotsky
Information Processing

4. Piaget’s Perspectives
Transition from Sensorimotor into Preoperational Thought
Capable of using symbolic thought to perform mental tasks
According to Piaget’s work, lacks the ability to operate on those mental tasks
Mental operations may not be available for reflective consideration

5. Piaget’s Perspectives
Progression of mental capabilities
Use of language to represent symbols
Recognizes when stories are told out of order
Explanations are more complex
Use of art to represent symbols
Drawings tend to be more realistic as the child progresses across the early childhood years
Use of play to model roles and objects
Can use one object to represent other objects

8. Piaget’s Perspectives: Preoperational Thought
Intuitive thought
Based on personal experiences
Logic based on unanalyzed personal experiences (e.g. flag theory of wind and air conditioner theory of summer)

9. Piaget’s Perspectives
Egocentrism
Failure to take others’ perspectives
Sees others as having one’s own perspective
Animistic thought
Attributes animate qualities to inanimate objects
Artificialism
Attributes natural phenomena (sunsets, tides) to direct human action

10. Piaget’s Perspectives
Conservation
Ability to recognize the constancy of invariants (e.g. number, mass) in spite of transformations of variable attributes
Discontinuous fluids
Continuous fluids
Number
Mass

11. Piaget’s Perspectives
Centration
Tendency to isolate one attribute as a focus of attention and ignore other relevant aspects (e.g. height and diameter of a cylinder in the liquid conservation task)
Reversibility
Failure to mentally reverse the operations that led to the change in attribute or end point.
Static endpoints
Tendency to focus on beginning and end states regardless of the nature of the transformation

12. Vygotsky’s Perspective
Theoretical orientation reflected a Marxist dialectical view
Social speech—interaction with others—precedes private speech monologue by the child
Private speech precedes the internalization of the concept to a mental representation

13. Vygotsky’s Perspective
Development (for Vygotsky)
occurred in a social or intermental plane first and then on an internal or intramental plane
required the presence of a more competent other
required the more competent other to mediate the process of learning and development

14. Vygotsky’s Perspective
Concepts for Application:
Zone of Proximal Development: more competent other assists the child in moving from what the child can do independently to that which the child can do only with support
Scaffolding: the process of supporting the child across the zone of proximal development
Impacts on educational practices:
Teacher as a coach or facilitator
Emphasis on cooperative learning with mixed ability groups

15. Information Processing Theory
Encoding—initial input of information from environment (sense organs; perception; attention)
Transformation—processes operating on that information (strategies—depth of processing)
Storage—retention of the information (network models—schema structures)

16. Information Processing Theory
Retrieval—recall or recognition of the information from memory (strategies—search of memory)
Executive function—management, monitoring, and control of cognitive domain (metacognition; cognitive monitoring; selection and use of strategies;

17. Developmental Considerations
Capacity increases—amount of information one can process
Maturation of the CNS (central nervous system)
Increased practice at particular tasks (e.g. naming, answering questions)
Rehearsal strategies (e.g. rote vs. meaningful)

18. Developmental Considerations
Efficiency increases—amount and /or complexity of processing by unit time
Maturation of the CNS
Acquisition of more efficient strategies
Transition from controlled to automatic processing

19. Developmental Considerations
Controlled Processes
Conscious (child is aware of the steps)
Each step is monitored (child knows outcomes)
Requires additional processing resources (limited capability for parallel tasks—multitasking)
Examples:
Early reading behavior
Early mathematics computation
Learning to drive a manual transmission

20. Developmental Considerations
Automatic Processes
Steps largely outside of awareness (Child is not aware of discrete processes)
Overall progress is monitored (outcomes of each step likely not monitored but overall task success is monitored)
Requires fewer conscious processing resources (multi-tasking is possible)
Examples:
Reading familiar texts
Simple arithmetic computations
Driving a manual transmission car after practice

21. Developmental Considerations
Transition from automatic to controlled processes occurs through
Practice
Acquisition of knowledge base
Acquisition of more efficient strategies

22. Developmental Considerations
Controlled Attention—ability to sustain focus of mental resources
Early on, young children typically require an adult or more competent individual to help sustain attention (ala Vygotsky)
As CNS matures and more effective strategies are acquired, child is able to manage own focus (pruning, mylination, elaboration)

23. Developmental Considerations
Metacognition
Executive function
Monitors ongoing mental processing
Controls strategic thinking
Can manage attention
Becomes able to assess performance on relatively simple mental tasks
Tends to develop rapidly across early childhood
Tend to overestimate their knowledge—unclear whether the overestimation is a true overestimation or a desire to please an adult questioner

24. Developmental Considerations
Theory of Mind (ToM)—Attributing mental states to oneself and other
Appearance—reality distinction (Maynard the cat who wore a dog mask)
Younger children were sure Maynard became a dog
Older children did not succumb to the prank
Recognizing the difference between one’s own feelings and others’ is key to understanding mental states differ
Maturation, experience with language, opportunities to communicate specifically but one’s mental states seem to be linked to development of ToM.

25. Language Development across Early Childhood
Vocabulary Development occurs through:
Exposure and reinforcement
Repetition
Child’s own analysis and construction of rules and structures

26. Language Development across Early Childhood
Syntactic Development
Syntactic structure learned through exposure & attempts
Telegraphic speech is an early syntactic form
Noun (agent) verb (predicate); object implied
Verb (predicate) noun (object); agent implied
Noun (agent) noun (object); predicate implied

27. Language Development across Early Childhood
Syntactic Development
Rules can be overregularized
Child recognizes a rule should be applied
Application of a rule is syntactically appropriate but incorrect (e.g. runrunned instead of ran)
Indicates the child is constructing rules and structures
Errors typically reflect syntactic rather than semantic errors (errors in structure, not meaning)

28. Language Development across Early Childhood
Pragmatic Development—rules of usage
What cognitive resource or capability might be required?
Perspective taking
Recognizing non-verbal cues and emotional expression
Domains of Pragmatic Development
Turn taking
Context dependent vs. context independent language
Answer obvious questions (Do you have to make that much noise?)
Deference to authority

29. Language Development across Early Childhood
Bilingual Children
Three models
Simultaneous
Both languages learned simultaneously
Most effective if each parent consistently uses one language
Tend to be more fluent in both
Additive
One language is learned first
Second language is learned following some fluency in first language
Most common in the USA culture

30. Language Development across Early Childhood
Bilingual Children
Three models
Subtractive
First language is learned to some fluency
Second language is learned as a preferential language or as a replacement for the first language
Cultural norms and bilingualism
Cultures that value bi or multilingualism tend to have either simultaneous or additive bilingualism
Cultures that devalue one of the two languages tend to have subtractive bilingualism
True bilingualism (simultaneous or additive) tends to be related to more astute language users

31. Early Childhood Education
Child Care
Nature of Program
Structured Curriculum
Play and Free Activities
Entry Criteria
Readiness Assessment
Open Access
Placement w/in Program
Placement Tests
Some Age Leveling
Movement across levels
Advancement based on achievement
Social Skills

32. Early Childhood Education: National Programs
Head Start/ Abecedarian/High-Scope
Ages of service range from birth—five years depending on the program
Typically comprehensive—health, parental involvement, educational
Typically includes home visits for parental education

33. Early Childhood Education
Factors impacting success rate
Population served
Teacher training (VPK vs. Certified Teachers)
Staff turnover
Comprehensive nature of the program
Staff development
Parent training
Follow-up beyond exit from program (Project Follow Through)

34. Early Childhood Education
Kindergarten Readiness
DAIL-3
Motor
Gross Motor—jumping, catching;
Fine Motor—block building, copying’
Language
Answering personal questions (name, age, sex)
Articulation (for referral to speech assessment)
Concepts
Naming body parts
Counting
Naming parts of a house

35. Early Childhood Education
Kindergarten Readiness
DAIL-3
Self-Help
Skills at feeding, grooming, hygiene
Dressing oneself
Social
Play with other children
Compliance with adult-given instructions
Following rules

36. Early Childhood Education
Educational issues around Readiness Levels
Many of those who test as not ready for kindergarten can be accommodated in regular kindergarten classes
Old-for-grade tends to be more predictive of problems than movement into kindergarten with some additional support
Schools might be reconstrued as being ready for children vs. children as being ready for schools