Cognitive Development in Infancy Chapter 5 Robert S. Feldman Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

Looking Ahead What are the fundamental features of Piaget’s theories of cognitive development? How do infants process information? How is infant intelligence measured? By what processes do children learn to use language? How do children influence adults’ language?

PIAGET’S APPROACH TO COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT

Key Elements of Piaget’s Theory Action = Knowledge Four universal stages in fixed order Development = physical maturation and exposure to relevant experiences Schemes adapt and change

What principles underlie this cognitive growth? Assimilation Accommodation Will you do better on the next test if you assimilate or accommodate the material?

Earliest Stage of Cognitive Growth Sensorimotor Period Invariant order of stages Individual differences in rate Transitions include characteristics of both stages

A Closer Look Substage 1: Simple Reflexes First month of life Various inborn reflexes At center of a baby’s physical and cognitive life Determine nature of infant’s interactions with world At the same time, some of reflexes begin to accommodate the infant’s experiences

A Closer Look Substage 2: First Habits and Primary Circular Reactions 1 to 4 months of age Beginning of coordination of what were separate actions into single, integrated activities. Activities that engage baby’s interests are repeated simply for sake of continuing to experience it Circular reaction Primary circular reaction

A Closer Look Substage 3: Secondary Circular Reactions 4 to 8 months of age Child begins to act upon outside world Infants now seek to repeat enjoyable events in their environments that are produced through chance activities Infant activity involves actions relating to the world outside

A Closer Look Substage 4: Coordination of Secondary Circular Reactions 8 months to 12 months Beginning of goal-directed behavior Several schemes are combined and coordinated to generate single act to solve problem Means to attain particular ends and skill in anticipating future circumstances due in part to object permanence

Come out, come out, wherever you are!

Object Permanence

A Closer Look Substage 5: Tertiary Circular Reactions 12 to 18 months Development of schemes regarding deliberate variation of actions that bring desirable consequences Carrying out miniature experiments to observe consequences

A Closer Look Substage 6: Beginnings of Thought 18 months to 2 years Capacity for mental representation or symbolic thought Mental representation Understanding causality Ability to pretend Deferred imitation

Assessing Piagetian Theory PROS Descriptions of child cognitive development accurate in many ways Piaget was pioneering figure in field of development Children learn by acting on environment Broad outlines of sequence of cognitive development and increasing cognitive accomplishments are generally accurate CONS Substantial disagreement over validity of theory and many of its specific predictions Stage conception questioned Connection between motor development and cognitive development exaggerated Object permanence can occur earlier under certain conditions Onset of age of imitation questioned Cultural variations not considered

Another View of Infant Cognition Robert Siegler Siegler suggests cognitive development proceeds not in stages but in “waves” Although one strategy may be used most frequently at a given age, children still may have access to alternative ways of thinking Cognitive development seen is in constant flux

Review and Apply REVIEW Jean Piaget’s theory of human ____development involves a succession of stages through which children progress from ____ to ____. As humans move from one stage to another, the way they ____ the world changes. The ____ stage, from birth to about 2 years, involves a gradual progression through simple ____, single ____ activities, interest in the outside world, purposeful combinations of activities, manipulation of actions to produce desired outcomes, and ____ thought. The sensorimotor stage has ____ substages.

Review and Apply REVIEW Piaget is respected as a careful ____ of children’s behavior and a generally accurate interpreter of the way human ____ development proceeds, though subsequent research on his theory does suggest several limitations

Review and Apply APPLY Think of a common young children’s toy with which you are familiar. How might its use be affected by the principles of assimilation and accommodation? In general, what are some implications for child-rearing practices of Piaget’s observations about the ways children gain an understanding of the world? As a caregiver, would you use the same approaches in child-rearing for a child growing up in a non-Western culture? Why or why not?

INFORMATION-PROCESSING APPROACHES TO COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT

What is information-processing? Identifies the way that individuals take in, store, and use information Involves quantitative changes in ability to organize and manipulate information Increases sophistication, speed, and capacity in information processing characterizes cognitive growth Focuses on types of “mental programs” used when seeking to solve problems

What are the foundations of the IP approach? Encoding—storage—retrieval

How do you compute? Take a few minutes to write down an example of how you do each of the following: Encoding Storage Retrieval

What automatic processes are being engaged as you listen to this lecture? (Remember…sleep is NOT an automatic process!)

Automatization Degree to which activity requires attention Helps with initial encounters with stimuli through easy and automatic information processing

What do you think? Infants cannot remember…anything?

Memory Capabilities in Infancy Getting a kick out of that! Kicking research demonstrates increase with age in memory capacities

Is infant memory qualitatively different from that in older children and adults? Information is processed similarly throughout life span Kind of information being processed changes and different parts of brain may be used

Does your family have a special story about your early childhood?

How long do memories last? Researchers disagree on the age from which memories can be retrieved Early studies  infantile amnesia Myers  clear evidence of early memory Physical trace of a memory in brain appears to be relatively permanent Memories may not be easily, or accurately, retrieved

What role does language play in determining the way early memories are recalled? What role does language play in determining the way early memories are recalled?

So…do infants remember? Theoretical possibility for interfered memories to remain intact from a very young Most cases memories of personal experiences in infancy do not last into adulthood Memories of personal experience seem not to become accurate before age 18 to 24 months

Individual Differences in Intelligence Information-Processing Approaches Infant information-processing speed may correlate most strongly with later intelligence

What is infant intelligence?

Do, Re, Me…..Intelligence! Developmental Scales Gesell: Developmental quotient Performance compared at different ages for significant variation from norms of given age Four domains: motor skills, language use, adaptive behavior, personal-social

Do, Re, Me…..Intelligence! Developmental Scales Bayley: – Bayley Scales of Infant Development – Developmental Quotient – 2 to 42 months – Two areas – (See Table 5-3)

Are developmental scales useful? YES Provide a good snapshot of current developmental level Provide objective assessment of behavior relative to norms NO Do not provide good prediction for future development Maybe?

What characterizes a “fast” baby?

And so…what does IP research reveal? Relationship between information processing efficiency and cognitive abilities Correlate moderately well with later measures of intelligence More efficient information processing during the 6 months following birth is related to higher intelligence scores between 2 and 12 years of age and other measures of cognitive competence

What about the multimodal approach? Cross-modal transference Ability to identify a stimulus previously experienced through only one sense by using another sense is associated with intelligence

Assessing the IP Approach PROS Often uses more precise measures of cognitive ability Critical in providing information about infant cognition CONS Precision makes it more difficult to get overall sense of cognitive development

From Research to Practice Taking the Einstein Out of Baby Einstein Kaiser Family Foundation Report Marketing of educational media for infants is far outpaced by research on its effectiveness Correlational studies Company reluctance to test claims

Beyond (or creating) Teletubbies! What does the research reveal? Effect on language learning Infants do not learn language from rote repetition; social interaction and context needed

What constitutes appropriate use of educational media for infants?

Questions to Consider Do you think that educational media for infants is worth a try, despite the lack of scientific research supporting its use? Why? Under what conditions might its use actually have undesirable consequences? Why do you think parents generally do not seem to be concerned about the lack of scientific evidence for the effectiveness of educational media for infants?

Review and Apply REVIEW ____ ____ approaches consider quantitative changes in children’s abilities to organize and use information. Cognitive growth is regarded as the increasing sophistication of encoding, storage, and ____. Infants clearly have memory capabilities from a ____ ____ age, although the ____ and ____ of such memories are unresolved questions. Traditional measures of infant intelligence focus on ____ ____, which can help identify developmental delays or advances but are not strongly related to measures of adult intelligence. Information-processing approaches to assessing intelligence rely on variations in the ____ and ____ with which infants process information.

Review and Apply APPLY What information from this chapter could you use to refute the claims of books or educational programs that promise to help parents increase their babies’ intelligence or instill advanced intellectual skills in infants? Based on valid research, what approaches would you use for intellectual development of infants? In what ways is the use of such developmental scales as Gesell’s or Bayley’s helpful? In what ways is it dangerous? How would you maximize the helpfulness and minimize the danger if you were advising a parent?

THE ROOTS OF LANGUAGE

From Sounds to Symbols Fundamentals of Language Phonology Morphemes Semantics Comprehension and production

Another Look – Comprehension Precedes Production

Early Sounds and Communication Prelinguistic Communication Babbling Universal Repetition of sounds and best of all…spit bubbles!

See what I say… Infants with hearing impairments Babble with hands instead of voices Gestural and verbal babbling activate same neural centers

What comes after “ba-ba-ba-ba”? Progression from Simple to Complex Exposure to speech sounds of particular language initially do not influence babbling At 6 months babbling reflects of language of culture Distinguishable from other language babbling Combinations of sounds and gestures used to communicate

First Words Increase at rapid rate 10 to 14 months = first word 15 months = 10 words 18 months = one-word stage ends 16 to 24 months = language explosion equally 50 to 400 words

What did that baby say? What were your first words? Look at Table 5-4 for the top 50 infant words. Were you a top 50 baby?

Table 5-4

First Sentences First sentences Created around 8 to 12 months after first words Indicate understanding of labels and relationships between these Often observations rather than demands Use order similar to adult speech with missing words

Telegraphic Speech Revealed

Other Early Language Characteristics Underextensions Overextensions

Speaking in style and stylish speaking Referential styleExpressive style Can you think of an example of each?

How does proficiency in language occur?

Origins of Language Development Learning Theory Approaches: Language as a Learned Skill Language acquisition follows the basic laws of reinforcement and conditioning Through the process of shaping, language becomes more and more similar to adult speech

Counter-Arguments to Learning Theory Approach Does not adequately explain how children readily learn rules of language Does not account for how children move beyond specific heard utterances to produce novel phrases, sentences, and constructions Does not explain how young children can apply linguistic rules to nonsense words

Origins of Language Development Nativist Approaches: Language as an Innate Skill Genetically determined, innate mechanism that directs the development of language Children are born with innate capacity to use language, which emerges, more or less automatically, due to maturation (Chomsky’s universal grammar and LAD)

Assessing Chomsky’s Approach PRO Specific gene related to speech production identified Language processing in infant brain structures similar to those in adult speech processing

Assessing Chomsky’s Approach CON Uniqueness of speech countered by primate researchers Even with genetic priming, language use still requires significant social experience to be used effectively

Origins of Language Development Interactionist Approaches: Language as a Social Device Specific course of language development is determined by the language to which children are exposed and reinforcement they receive for using language in particular ways Social factors are key to development

Infant-Directed Speech Style of verbal communication directed toward infants Short, simple sentences Higher pitch, increased range, varied intonation Repetition of words and restricted topics Sometimes amusing sounds that are not even words Little formal structure, similar to telegraphic speech

How does this speech change? Infant-directed speech changes as children become older Around the end of the first year, takes on more adult- like qualities Sentences become longer and more complex, although individual words are still spoken slowly and deliberately Pitch used to focus attention on important words

Does Cootsy-Coo Work? Infant-directed speech plays an important role in infants’ acquisition of language Occurs all over the world, though there are cultural variations Preferred by newborns Babies who are exposed to a infant-directed speech early in life seem to begin to use words and exhibit other forms of linguistic competence earlier

Developmental Diversity Do people everywhere say “ba-ba-boo” to their infants? Words differ but ways spoken are similar Basic similarities across cultures and in some facets of language specific to particular types of interactions Quantity of speech differ by cultures

What then do these similarities in infant-directed speech mean?

Let’s Pretend Turn to a classmate. One of you is a 8-month-old infant; the other is a parent. As the parent, ask your “infant” classmate: “Would you like a cookie?”

Boys will be boys and girls will be…sweethearts? Boys More firm, clear, and direct responses Gender differences: Parental language varies by child gender Girls More diminutives More warm phrases More diversionary responses

Do you think men and women use different sorts of language?

Becoming an Informed Consumer of Development Infant cognitive development may be promoted by: Providing infants the opportunity to explore the world Being responsive to infants on both a verbal and a nonverbal level Asking questions, listening to their responses, and providing further communication Reading to infants Keeping in mind that you don’t have to be with an infant 24 hours a day Not pushing infants and don’t expect too much too soon

Review and Apply REVIEW Before they speak, infants ____ many adult utterances and engage in several forms of prelinguistic communication, including the use of ____ ____, ____, and ____. Children typically produce their first words between ____ and ____ months, and rapidly increase their vocabularies from that point on, especially during a spurt at about ____ months. Children’s language development proceeds through a pattern of ____, ____ ____ combinations, and ____ speech.

Review and Apply REVIEW ____ theorists believe that basic learning processes account for language development, whereas ____ like Noam Chomsky and his followers argue that humans have an ____ language capacity. The interactionists suggest that language is a consequence of both ____ and ____ factors. When talking to infants, adults of all cultures tend to use ____- ____ speech.

Review and Apply APPLY What are some ways in which children’s linguistic development reflects their acquisition of new ways of interpreting and dealing with their world? What are some implications of differences in the ways adults speak to boys and girls? How might such speech differences contribute to later differences not only in speech, but also in attitudes ?

EPILOGUE Before we proceed to social and personality development in the next chapter, turn back to the Prologue of this chapter, about Jake Bausman’s apparent eagerness to view Baby Einstein and other education media, and answer the following questions. Is Anita Bausman correct to assume that her infant son Jake is “happy watching” educational videos just because he eagerly spends time in front of the television? If a certain minimum amount of stimulation is necessary for an infant’s cognitive development, does that necessarily mean that extra stimulation will accelerate the process

EPILOGUE In what ways might Anita Bausman unwittingly be limiting Jake’s cognitive development if she relies too heavily on Baby Einstein videos to keep him occupied? Do Anita Bausman’s claims about the benefits to Jake of Baby Einstein videos ring true, or do they seem exaggerated? How might Jake’s true intellectual capacity be more accurately assessed?