1. Chapter 6 Infancy: Cognitive Development

2. Infancy: Cognitive Development Truth or Fiction?
For 2-month-old infants, “out of sight” is “out of mind,”
A 1-hour-old infant may imitate an adult who sticks out his or her tongue.

3. Infancy: Cognitive Development Truth or Fiction?
Psychologists can begin to measure intelligence in infancy.
Infant crying is a primitive form of language.

4. Infancy: Cognitive Development Truth or Fiction?
You can advance children’s development of pronunciation by correcting their errors.
Children are “prewired” to listen to language in such a way that they come to understand rules of grammar.

5. Cognitive Development
Jean Piaget

6. Cognitive Development – Jean Piaget
Focus on development of children’s way of perceiving and mentally representing the world
Schemes
Concepts
Assimilate
“Fit” new ideas into existing schemes
Accommodate
Modify schemes to accept new ideas

7. What is the Sensorimotor Stage of Cognitive Development?
Development through sensory and motor activity
Birth through 2 years
Progress from reflex responses to goal oriented behavior
Form mental representations
Hold complex pictures of past events in mind
Solve problems by mental trial and error

8. What are the Parts or Substages of the Sensorimotor Development?
Simple Reflexes
Birth to 1 month
Modify reflexes based on experience
Primary Circular Reactions
1 to 4 months
Primary = focus on infant’s own body
Circular = repeated behaviors
Secondary Circular Reactions
4 to 8 months
Secondary = focus on objects or environmental events
Track moving objects until they disappear from view

9. What are the Parts or Substages of the Sensorimotor Development?
Coordination of Secondary Schemes
8 to 12 months
Coordinate schemes to attain specific goals
Begin to imitate others
Tertiary Circular Reactions
12 to 18 months
Deliberate trial and error behaviors
Invention of New Means Through Mental Combinations
18 to 24 months
External exploration is replaced by mental exploration.

10. Lessons in Observation: Piaget’s Sensorimotor Stage
Describe Jean Piaget’s sensorimotor period of cognitive development. How do sensory and motor activities interact in the development of cognitive skills, according to Piaget?
Describe the behaviors of 1-week old Aiden and 2-month-old Giuseppina. Are their behaviors purposeful? Discuss differences in their behaviors with regard to Piaget’s concept of the circular reaction.

11. Lessons in Observation: Piaget’s Sensorimotor Stage
Describe the behaviors of 6-week-old Aislynne and 5-month-old James. Do their behaviors illustrate primary or secondary circular reactions? Why?

12. Lessons in Observation: Piaget’s Sensorimotor Stage
Which infant presented in the video illustrates Piaget’s concept of the coordination of secondary schemes? Describe the infant’s behavior. How old is the infant?
Which infant illustrates a tertiary circular reaction? Describe the infant’s behavior. Approximately how old is this infant?

13. Lessons in Observation: Piaget’s Sensorimotor Stage
Outline the development of object permanence by describing the behaviors of 2-month-old Giuseppina, 6-month-old Anthony, and 20-month-old Tess with respect to hidden objects. What do their behaviors indicate regarding their mental representation abilities? Which of them has developed object permanence?

14. How Does Object Permanence Develop?
Neonates show no response to objects not within their immediate grasp
2 month - show surprise when a screen is lifted after an object was placed behind a screen and now is not there
6 month - try to retrieve a preferred object partially hidden
8 to 12 month - try to retrieve objects completely hidden
Commit A not B error
After 12 months no longer show A not B error
More recent research – object permanence in some form as early as 2 1/ /2 months

15. Figure 6.2 Object Permanence Before 4 Months of Age?
Figure 6.2 Object Permanence Before 4 Months of Age? Renee Baillargeon (1987) used the technique shown here to demonstrate that knowledge of object permanence may exist prior to 4 months of age.
Figure 6.2 Object Permanence Before 4 Months of Age?

16. What are the Strengths of Piaget’s Theory?
Comprehensive model
Confirmation from research of others
Pattern and sequence appear cross culturally

17. What are the Limitations of Piaget’s Theory?
Stages are more gradual than discontinuous
Underestimate infants’ competence
Emergence of object permanence
Deferred imitation
Computational concepts

18. Counting in the Crib? Findings from a “Mickey Mouse” Experiment
A Closer Look
Counting in the Crib?
Findings from a “Mickey Mouse” Experiment

19. Information Processing

20. What are Infants’ Tools for Processing Information?
Memory
Neonates show memory for previously exposed stimuli
By 12 months dramatic improvement in encoding and retrieval
Rovee-Collier (1993) studies of infant memory

21. What are Infants’ Tools for Processing Information?
Imitation
Deferred imitation – 9 months
Neonates imitate adults who stick out their tongue
Not present in older infants
May indicate reflexive response

22. Individual Differences in Intelligence Among Infants

23. How do we Measure Individual Differences in the Development of Cognitive Functioning?
Scales of infant development or intelligence
Bayley Scales of Infant Development
178 mental-scale items
111 motor-scale items
behavior rating scale based on examiner observation
Screening for handicaps
Brazelton Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale
Denver Developmental Screening Test

24. How Well do Infant Scales Predict Later Intellectual Performance?
Overall infant scale scores do not predict school grades or IQ of schoolchildren
Visual recognition memory – ability to discriminate previously seen objects from novel objects
Good predictive validity for IQ and language ability

25. Language Development

26. What are Prelinguistic Vocalizations?
Prelinguistic vocalizations do not represent objects or events
Examples of prelinguistic vocalizations
Crying
Cooing – vowel-like, linked to pleasant feelings
Babbling – combine vowels and consonants
Echolalia – repetition of vowel/consonant combinations
Intonation – patterns of rising and falling melody

27. Developing in a World of Diversity
Babbling Here, There,
and Everywhere

28. How Does Vocabulary Develop?
Receptive vocabulary outpaces expressive
First word – typically 11 to 13 months
3 or 4 months later – 10 to 30 words
First words generally nominals
general (class nouns) and specific (proper nouns)
18 to 22 months rapid increase from 50 to more than 300 words

29. Teaching Sign Language to Infants
A Closer Look
Teaching Sign Language to Infants

30. Styles in Language Development
Referential language style
Use language to label objects
Expressive language style
Use language as means for engaging in social interactions
Overextensions
Extend meaning of one word to refer to things or actions for which the word is not known

31. How do Infants Create Sentences?
Telegraphic speech
Brief expression with the meanings of sentences
Mean length of utterance (MLU)
Average number of morphemes used in sentence
Holophrases
Single words used to express complex meanings
Two word sentences
18 to 24 months telegraphic two word sentences begin
Demonstrate syntax

32. Figure 6.6 Mean Length of Utterance in Three Children
Figure 6.6 Mean Length of Utterance for Three Children. Some children begin speaking earlier than others. However, the mean length of utterance (MLU) increases rapidly once speech begins.
Figure 6.6 Mean Length of Utterance in Three Children

33. Developing in a World of Diversity
Two-Word Sentences Here, There, and…

34. How do Learning Theorists Account for Language Development?
Imitation
Children learn from parental models
Does not explain utter phrases that have not been observed
Reinforcement
Sounds of adults’ language are reinforced
Foreign sounds become extinct
Use of shaping

35. Developing in a World of Diversity
Talking to Infants

36. Language Development
The Nativist View

37. What is the Nativist View of Language Development?
Innate or inborn factors cause children to attend to and acquire language in certain ways
Psycholinguistic Theory
Interaction between environmental influences and inborn tendency to acquire language

38. Language Acquisition Device
The inborn “prewired” tendency to acquire a language
Evidence for LAD
Universality of language abilities
Regularity of early production of sounds, even among deaf children
Invariant sequences of language development, regardless of language
Chomsky – children are “prewired” to perceive and use a “universal language”

39. What Parts of the Brain Are Involved in Language Development?
Key structures for most people are based in left hemisphere
Broca’s area
Wernicke’s area
Aphasia – caused by damage in either area
Broca’s aphasia – slow laborious speech with simple sentences
Wernicke’s aphasia – impairment comprehending speech of others and expressing their own thoughts
Angular gyrus
Translates visual information into auditory sounds
Impairment can cause reading difficulties and dyslexia

40. Figure 6.7 Broca’s and Wernicke’s Areas of the Cerebral Cortex
Figure 6.7 Broca’s and Wernicke’s Areas of the Cerebral Cortex. Broca’s area and Wernicke’s areas of the (usually left) hemisphere are most involved in speech. Damage to either area can produce an aphasia – an impairment in the ability to understand or produce language.
Figure 6.7 Broca’s and Wernicke’s Areas of the Cerebral Cortex

41. What is Meant by a Sensitive Period in Language Development?
Plasticity of brain provides a sensitive period of learning language
Begins about 18 to 24 months and continues through puberty
Left hemisphere injuries
Children recover good deal of speech, utilizing right hemisphere
Case studies
Genie
Simon and ASL

42. A Closer Look
Motherese