1. Infants, Children, and Adolescents
Eighth Edition
Chapter 9
Cognitive Development in Early Childhood

2. Learning Objectives (1 of 3)
9.1 Describe advances in mental representation, and limitations of thinking, during the preoperational stage.
9.2 What does follow-up research imply about the accuracy of Piaget’s preoperational stage?
9.3 What educational principles can be derived from Piaget’s theory?
9.4 Describe Vygotsky’s perspective on the social origins and significance of children’s private speech.
9.5 Describe applications of Vygotsky’s theory to education, and evaluate his major ideas.

3. Learning Objectives (2 of 3)
9.6 How do attention, memory, and problem solving change during early childhood?
9.7 Describe the young child’s theory of mind.
9.8 Summarize children’s literacy and mathematical knowledge during early childhood.
9.9 Describe the content of early childhood intelligence tests and the impact of home, preschool and kindergarten programs, child care, and educational media on mental development.

4. Learning Objectives (3 of 3)
9.10 Trace the development of vocabulary, grammar, and conversational skills in early childhood.
9.11 Cite factors that support language learning in early childhood.

5. Piaget’s Preoperational Stage
Ages 2 to 7
Sensorimotor activity leads to internal images of experience, which children then label with words.
Advances in mental representation:
Development of make-believe play
Gains in understanding of symbol–real-world relations

6. Development of Make-Believe
With growing symbolic mastery, play
detaches from real-life conditions associated with it.
becomes less self-centered.
includes more complex combinations of schemes.
By the end of the second year, children engage in sociodramatic play with peers.

7. Benefits of Make-Believe
Leads to gains in social competence.
Strengthens cognitive capacities:
Sustained attention
Inhibition of impulses
Memory
Logical reasoning
Language and literacy
Imagination, creativity, perspective taking
Imaginary companions enhance pretend play.

8. Enhancing Make-Believe Play in Early Childhood
Provide sufficient space and play materials.
Encourage children’s play without controlling it.
Offer a variety of realistic materials as well as materials without clear functions.
Ensure that children have many rich, real-world experiences to inspire positive fantasy play.
Help children solve social conflicts constructively.

9. Dual Representation
Viewing a symbolic object as both an object in its own right and a symbol
Mastered around age 3
To support children’s dual representation,
point out similarities between models and real- world spaces.
expose young children to symbols (picture books, drawings, make-believe, maps).

10. Limitations of Preoperational Thought
Egocentrism
Animistic thinking
Inability to conserve:
Centration
Irreversibility
Lack of hierarchical classification

11. Egocentric and Animistic Thinking
Egocentrism:
Failure to distinguish others’ symbolic viewpoints from one’s own
Demonstrated by Piaget’s three-mountains problem
Animistic thinking:
Belief that inanimate objects have lifelike qualities
Magical thinking: assigning human purposes to physical events

12. Some Piagetian Conservation Tasks
Figure 9.2: Some Piagetian conservation tasks
Figure 9.2

13. Piagetian Class Inclusion Problem
Lack of hierarchical classification also demonstrates preoperational children’s centration and irreversibility:
Q: “Are there more red flowers or flowers?”
A: “Red flowers.”
Children center on the overriding feature (red) and do not think reversibly, moving from the whole class (flowers) to its parts (red, blue).

14. A Piagetian Class Inclusion Problem
Figure 9.3: A Piagetian class inclusion problem
Figure 9.3

15. Follow-Up Research on Preoperational Thought (1 of 2)
Egocentrism:
On simplified tasks with familiar objects, 3-year-olds show clear awareness of others’ vantage points.
Perspective taking develops gradually throughout childhood and adolescence.
Animistic and magical beliefs:
Even infants have begun to distinguish animate from inanimate.
Preschoolers’ notions of magic are flexible and appropriate.

16. Follow-Up Research on Preoperational Thought (2 of 2)
Logical thought:
On simplified, relevant tasks, preschoolers display logical thinking.
Preschoolers engage in impressive reasoning by analogy about physical changes.
Categorization:
Preschoolers flexibly organize knowledge into nested categories.
Children’s categories differentiate into basic-level categories and subcategories.

17. Children’s Questions: Catalyst for Cognitive Development
Majority of children’s questions are information- seeking, not requests:
Answers to questions provide precise knowledge when children need it.
Content of questions is related to children’s cognitive development.
Questions are influenced by context.
Adults alter complexity of their answers based on children’s maturity.

18. Piaget and Education Educational principles derived from Piaget:
Discovery learning: opportunities for spontaneous interaction with environment
Sensitivity to children’s readiness to learn: building on children’s current thinking
Acceptance of individual differences: activities for individual children and small groups

19. Children’s Private Speech
Piaget called children’s self-directed utterances egocentric speech.
Vygotsky viewed self-directed speech as foundation for all higher cognitive processes.
Private speech
is used for self-guidance, especially when tasks are in zone of proximal development.
gradually changes into whispers and silent lip movements.
is used more and over a longer period by children with learning problems.

20. Relationship of Private Speech to Task Difficulty Among 5- and 6-Year-Olds
Figure 9.4: Relationship of private speech to task difficulty among 5- and 6-year-olds
Figure 9.4
(Adapted from Fernyhough & Fradley, 2005.)

21. Social Origins of Early Childhood Cognition
Intersubjectivity: process by which two participants arrive at shared understanding of a task
Scaffolding: adjusting support offered during a teaching session to fit child’s current level of performance
Guided participation: shared endeavors between more and less expert participants, varying across situations and cultures

22. Vygotsky and Early Childhood Education
Vygotskian classrooms promote assisted discovery:
Teachers guide children’s learning with explanations, demonstrations, and verbal prompts.
Children with varying abilities engage in peer collaboration, working together in groups.
Challenges to Vygotsky’s theory:
Verbal dialogues are not the only means through which children learn.
Vygotsky says little about how basic motor, perception, attention, memory, and problem-solving skills contribute to higher cognitive processes.

23. Children in Village and Tribal Cultures Observe and Participate in Adult Work
Western cultures:
School prepares children for adult work.
Parents focus on preparing children for school success.
Emphasis is on child-focused activities.
Village/tribal cultures:
Children receive little formal schooling.
Learning comes from observing adults at work.
Children assume adult responsibilities early.
Children make more decisions for themselves.
Make-believe play and scaffolding are limited.

24. Information Processing: Attention
Sustained attention improves in toddlerhood and early childhood.
Children gain in ability to inhibit impulses and focus on a competing goal.
Gains in working memory permit more complex play and problem-solving goals.
Adult scaffolding of attention supports gains in language and executive function.

25. Information Processing: Planning
In early childhood, children become better at planning.
Effective planning is mastered around age 5, with gains in inhibition and working memory.
Children learn from parental encouragement and cultural tools that support planning.

26. Miniature Zoo Used to Assess Children’s Planning
Figure 9.6: Miniature zoo used to assess children’s planning
Figure 9.6
(Based on McColgan & McCormack, 2008.)

27. Information Processing: Memory
Recognition
Recall
Easier for young children and adults
Nearly perfected by age 4 or 5
Much poorer than recognition in young children
Associated with language development
Hindered by limited working memory, lack of skill at using memory strategies

28. Memory for Everyday Experiences
Episodic memory: memory of everyday experiences
Scripts: memory of familiar, repeated events
become more elaborate and spontaneous with age.
help children interpret and predict everyday experiences.
assist children in recall, make-believe play, and planning.

29. Autobiographical Memory
Two styles of caregiver–child communication:
Elaborative style leads to better recall and more organized, detailed personal stories one to two years later.
Elaborative Style
Repetitive Style
Follows child’s lead
Asks varied questions
Adds information
Volunteers own recollections
Provides little information
Keeps repeating same questions
Ignores child’s interest

30. Problem Solving in Early Childhood
According to overlapping-waves theory, children
try a variety of strategies to solve challenging problems.
observe which strategies work best, which work less well, and which are ineffective.
gradually select strategies on the basis of accuracy and speed.

31. Overlapping-Waves Pattern of Strategy Use
Figure 9.7: Overlapping-waves pattern of strategy use in problem solving
Figure 9.7
(From R. S. Siegler, Emerging Minds: The Process of Change in Children’s Thinking. Copyright © 1996 by Oxford University Press, Inc. Adapted by permission of Oxford University Press, Inc.)

32. The Young Child’s Theory of Mind
Theory of mind, or metacognition: coherent set of ideas about mental activities
Milestones in awareness of mental life:
Age 1: Babies view people as intentional beings who can share and influence one another’s mental states.
Age 2: Children display clearer grasp of others’ emotions and desires.
Age 3: Children realize that thinking is internal, but focus only on desires, not beliefs.
Age 4: Children realize that both beliefs and desires determine behavior, and become aware of false beliefs.

33. Example of a False-Belief Task
Figure 9.8: Example of a false-belief task
Figure 9.8

34. Factors Contributing to Preschoolers’ Theory of Mind
Language and verbal reasoning about mental states: Left prefrontal cortex plays a crucial role.
Executive function: Several aspects of executive function predict false-belief mastery.
Make-believe play: Make-believe offers a rich context for thinking about the mind.
Social interaction: Social experiences promote understanding of the mind.

35. Autism and Theory of Mind
Autism is characterized by
limited ability to engage in nonverbal social behaviors.
delayed, stereotyped language.
much less make-believe play than other children.
narrow, intense interests.
Impaired theory of mind linked to autism may be due to several brain-based deficits.

36. Early Literacy Development
Preschoolers’ understanding of written language begins before they learn to read or write.
Emergent literacy: children’s active efforts to construct literacy knowledge through informal experience:
Children gradually figure out the symbolic function of print.
Phonological awareness strongly predicts emergent literacy.
Informal literacy experiences contribute to earlier and better literacy.

37. Supporting Emergent Literacy in Early Childhood
Provide literacy-rich home and preschool environments.
Engage in interactive book reading.
Provide outings to libraries, museums, parks, zoos, and other community settings.
Point out letter–sound correspondences, play language– sound games, read rhyming poems and stories.
Support children’s efforts at writing, especially narrative products.
Model literacy activities.

38. Reading Readiness Skills at Kindergarten Entry by SES
Figure 9.10: Some reading readiness skills at kindergarten entry by SES
Figure 9.10
(Adapted from Lee & Burkham, 2002.)

39. Early Childhood Mathematical Reasoning
Mathematical reasoning builds on informal knowledge.
Toddlers display beginning grasp of ordinality.
By age 3½ to 4, most children grasp cardinality.
An understanding of basic arithmetic makes estimation possible.

40. Individual Differences in Mental Development
Early childhood intelligence tests:
Verbal questions and nonverbal tasks
Effects of cultural bias
Environmental factors:
Home environment
Quality of preschool or kindergarten (child-centered
vs. academic)
Value of high-quality early intervention for at-risk preschoolers
Exposure to educational and entertainment media

41. Features of a High-Quality Home Life for Preschoolers: The HOME Early Childhood Subscales
Availability of toys, games, and reading material
Regular parent–child conversations
Clean, uncluttered rooms
Parental pride, affection, and warmth
Stimulation of academic behavior
Modeling and encouragement of social maturity
Opportunities for regular outings
Avoidance of physical punishment

42. Types of Preschool and Kindergarten
Child-centered programs: Teachers provide activities from which children select; most of the day is devoted to play.
Academic programs: Teachers structure children’s learning through formal lessons, often using repetitive drills.
Montessori education: This child-centered approach places equal emphasis on academic and social development.

43. Early Intervention for At-Risk Preschoolers
Project Head Start:
The program currently serves nearly 1 million U.S. families.
Parent involvement is central to its philosophy.
Benefits:
Higher IQ and achievement scores in the early school years
Less special education and grade retention
More high school graduation, college enrollment

44. Child Care
Substandard child care can impair cognitive and social skills and psychological well-being.
Good child care enhances language, cognitive, and social development, especially for low-SES children.
Center-based care is more strongly linked to cognitive gains than home-based care.

45. Signs of Developmentally Appropriate Early Childhood Programs
Safe, clean, richly equipped physical setting
No more than 18–20 children with 2 teachers
No more than 8–10 children with each teacher
Small-group and individual activities chosen by children
Positive adult–child interactions
Specialized, college-level teacher preparation
Encouragement of parent observation and participation
State licensing and voluntary accreditation (NAEYC, NAFCC)

46. Educational Television
TV remains dominant form of youth media.
Time spent watching educational programs (such as Sesame Street) leads to
gains in early literacy and math skills.
academic progress in elementary and high school.
Background TV viewing
impairs sustained attention.
decreases quantity and quality of parent–child interaction.
delays acquisition of reading skills.

47. Computer Learning Computers can have rich educational benefits.
Computer-learning centers in early childhood classrooms encourage language, literacy, and arithmetic skills.
Simplified computer languages introduce programming skills and promote problem solving and metacognition.
Most of young children’s time on computers and other screen media is spend on entertainment, especially game playing.

48. Vocabulary Development in Early Childhood
Fast-mapping: connecting new words with underlying concepts after only a brief encounter
Mutual exclusivity bias: assumption that words refer to entirely separate categories
Syntactic bootstrapping: discovering word meanings by observing how words are used in syntax

49. Grammar Development in Early Childhood
Overregularization: applying rules to words that are exceptions
Semantic bootstrapping: relying on word meanings to figure out grammatical rules
Persisting controversy over the existence of a universal, built-in language-processing device

50. Conversation Around age 2, preschoolers begin to master pragmatics.
Presence of sibling helps children acquire pragmatics.
By age 4, children adapt language to social expectations.
From ages 4 to 8, telephone talk improves significantly.

51. Supporting Language Learning in Early Childhood
Recasts: restructuring incorrect speech into correct form
Expansions: elaborating on children’s speech, increasing its complexity
Role of adults:
Listening attentively
Elaborating on what children say
Modeling correct usage
Stimulating children to talk further

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