The Emergence of Thought and Language: Cognitive and Development in Infancy and Early Childhood Chapter 4

Piaget’s Account Learning Objectives -How do schemes, assimilation and accommodation provide the foundation for cognitive development throughout the life span? -How does thinking become more advanced as infants progress through the sensorimotor stage? -What are the distinguishing characteristics of thinking during the preoperational stage? -What are the strengths and weaknesses of Piaget’s theory? -How have contemporary researchers extended Piaget’s theory?

Basic Principles of Cognitive Development Children make sense of the world through schemes Children adapt to their environment as they develop by adding and refining their schemes Schemes change from physical to functional, conceptual and abstract as the child develops

Assimilation and Accommodation -new experiences fit into existing schemes -required to benefit from experience Accommodation -schemes have to be modified as a consequence of new experiences -allows for dealing with a completely new data or experience

Equilibration Equilibrium -balance between assimilation and accommodation Disequilibrium -more accommodation the assimilation Equilibration -inadequate schemes are replaced with more advanced and mature schemes -occurs three times during development -4 stages of cognitive development

Period’s of Cognitive Development Sensorimotor Period (0-2 years) -Infancy Preoperative Period (2-7 years) -Preschool and early elementary school Concrete Operational Period (7-11 years) -Middle and late elementary school Formal Operational Period (11 years and up) -Adolescence and adulthood

Senorimotor Thinking 1-4 months reflexive response to stimuli 8 months deliberate intentional behavior develops, moves Father’s hand to grasp toy 12months - active experimenters – may shake objects to produce sounds

Senorimotor Thinking Object permanence – not fully understood until age 18 momths Using symbols – 18months uses gestures and words

Preoperational Thinking 2-7 yrs. Egocentrism Animism Centration Conservation Appearance as reality

Preoperational Thinking 2-7 yrs. Egocentrism – sees objects from their vantage point only Animism – credit inanimate objects with lifelike properties Centration – focus on only one aspect of an object Appearance as reality – confuse appearance with reality – ie sibling with makeup

Criticism’s of Piaget’s Theory Piaget underestimates cognitive ability in infants and overestimates in adolescents Piaget is vague about mechanisms and processes of change.Accomodation and assimilation too vague to test. He does not account for variability in children’s performance His theory undervalues the influence of sociocultural environment

Children’s Naïve Theories Core knowledge hypothesis – infants are born with a rudimentary knowledge of the world based on children’s experiences

Children’s Naïve Theories Naïve Physics -Studies that investigate the age at which children learn there is conflict between current understanding and the true nature of objects. Infants understand permanence much younger than Piaget believed.

Children’s Naïve Theories Naïve Biology -4 year olds know that living things move, grow, and heal themselves,and inherit traits, understand illness can be transmitted to others -know that inanimate objects have to be move, do not grow, and have to be fixed

Children’s Naïve Theories Teological explanations – children believe that living things and parts of living things exist for a purpose Essentialism – children believe that all living things have a essence that can’t be seen but gives a living thing it’s identity. Learned by observation and culture (from parents) Do not believe plants are alive because they do not move until 7-8 years of age

Information Processing Learning Objectives What is the basis of the information- processing approach? How well do young children pay attention? What kinds of learning take place during infancy? Do infants and preschool children remember? What do infants and preschoolers know about numbers?

Information Processing: General Principles Human thinking is understood along a computer model Mental hardware are neural and mental structures that enable the mind to operate Mental software are mental programs that allow for the performance of specific tasks

Information Processing: Attention -sensory information that receives additional cognitive processing -orienting response - emotional and physical reactions to unfamiliar stimulus Habituation -a lessening of the reaction to a repeated stimulus

Information Processing: Learning Forms Classic Conditioning -A neutral stimulus becomes able to elicit a response that was previously caused by another stimulus Operant conditioning -Behaviors are affected by their consequences Imitation -Older children learn by observing others

Information Processing: Memory Studies show that as early as 2-3 months children remember past events, forget them over time, and remember them again with cues Memory improves over the development of the hippocampus and amygdala the first 6 months and the rest of the hippocampus and prefrontal cortes over 24 months

Information Processing: Memory During the preschool years, children develop autobiographical memory for significant events in their own past Autobiographical memory depends on sense of self, language skills, conversations with parents about past, present, and future and basic memory skills

Preschoolers on the Witness Stand Children’s responses to questioning about facts are quite vulnerable to suggestion and leading questions Preschoolers have limited ability to use source monitoring skills: the ability to remember the source of the information they recall This may lead to answers that reflect their memories without regard to whether they experience the event, or were told about it

Information Processing: Learning Number Skills Infants can distinguish 2 objects from 3 Notice when the wrong number appear from behind the screen Can perform simple addition and subtraction Can compare ratios

Information Processing: Learning Number Skills Mastered by age three One-to-one principle: -There is only one number name for each object counted Stable order principle: -Number names must be counted in the same order Cardinality principle: -The last number in a counting sequence denotes the number of objects

Mind and Culture: Vygotsky’s Theory Learning Objectives What is the zone of proximal development? How does it help explain how children accomplish more when they collaborate with others? Why is scaffolding a particularly effective way of teaching youngsters new concepts and skills? When and why do children talk to themselves as they solve problems?

Leo Vygotsky (1896-1934) - Russian psychologist, sociacultural theorist -cognitive development is an apprenticeship in which children advance by interaction with others more skilled. - he died young and did not fully develop his theory beyond childhood

Leo Vygotsky (1896-1934 Intersubjectivity – mutual, shared understanding among participants in an activity Guided participation – cognitive growth results from children’s involvement in structured activities with others who are more skilled Basic premise – cognition develops first in a social setting and only gradually comes under the child’s independent control

Mind and Culture: Vygotsky’s Theory: Major Contributions Zone of Proximal Development -The difference between what children can do with and without help from a more experienced guide -Teachers should attempt to keep students in this zone in order to achieve maximum achievement Scaffolding -a style in which teachers gauge the amount of assistance they offer to match the learner’s needs -Studied show that students do not learn as well when told everything to do, nor when left alone to discover on their own

Mind and Culture: Vygotsky’s Theory: Major Contributions Private Speech Children talk to themselves as they go about difficult tasks The speech is not intended for others, but for self guidance and regulation Eventually this private speech becomes internalized and becomes inner speech _Vygotsky’s term for thought

Language Learning Objectives When do infants first hear and make speech sounds? When do children start to talk? How do they learn word meanings? How do young children learn grammar? How well do youngsters communicate?

Language: The Road to Speech Perceiving Speech -Phonemes -the smallest sound -as early as of 1 month old infants can distinguish between sounds -Different languages use different sets of phonemes -Children practice all phonemes, gradually restricting their use to only those phonemes to which they are exposed -Eventually, they lose the ability to distinguish unused phonemes

Language: Indentifying Words Children learn to pay more attention to often repeated and emphasized words Parents use infant-directed speech in which they speak slowly and exaggerate changes in pitch and volume Sometimes call motherese because it was first observed in mothers

Language: Steps to Speech At 2 months, infants begin cooing, early vowel like sounds Around 6 months, toddlers begin babbling At 8-11 months, children incorporate intonation, or changes in pitch that are typical of the language they hear Babies understand words before they can talk

Language: Words as Symbols First Words and Many More Around the 1 year, children use their first words, usually consonant-vowel pairs such as “dada” or “wawa” By 2 years, children have a vocabulary of around a few hundred words By age 6, children know around 10,000 words Some children use a referential style vocabulary to name objects, persons, or actions Other children use an expressive style to make statements resembling single words

Language: Fast Mapping of Words Connecting new words to that which they refer helps to infer the meaning of the new word Parents pay attention to what children are attracted to and provide guidance, which is called joint attention Children seem to understand constraints on word names that help to infer meaning

Types of constraints on word names include: -If an unfamiliar word is heard in the presence of objects that already have names and objects that don’t, the word must refer to one of the objects that doesn’t have a name -Names refer to the whole object and not just a part of it -When a second name is give to an object that name refers to a subcategory - Given several category members a word applied consistently to only one is a proper noun

Children use sentence cues to infer the meaning of unfamiliar words i Children use sentence cues to infer the meaning of unfamiliar words i.e. An unfamiliar verb refers to the subject of the sentence. Know that adjectives precede the word they modify. Cognitive factors, such as better attentional and perceptual skills, assist in learning language. Intention is also an important motivator to learn language. Learn that shape is a way to learn words. Ie all balls are round. Round objects are balls.

Language: Fast Mapping of Words Naming errors result from underextension (defining words too narrowly) ie car for only the family car, and overextension (defining words too broadly) ie dog for all 4 legged animals.

Language: Individual Differences in Word Learning Vocabulary ranges from 25 to 250 words at 18 months Factors in differences in naming explosion age: Heredity Phonological Memory -the ability to remember speech sounds briefly correlates with size of vocabulary Language environment single most important factor in vocabulary size

Language: Individual Differences in Word Learning Bilingual: children are slower at first, but soon catch up and know more words when both languages are considered. Better understand that words are arbitrary symbols, better at switching between tasks and inhibiting inappropriate responses.

Language: Individual Differences in Word Learning Word learning styles: Referential Style -Mainly naming objects, persons, or actions Expressive Style – uses phrases as single words -Includes social phrases such as go away, I want it, What’d you want? Most children are a blend of styles

Language: Encouraging Language Growth Parents assist in learning language by: -Speaking to children frequently -Naming objects of children’s attention -Using speech that is more grammatically sophisticated -Reading to them, naming pictures and asking questions as they read -Encouraging watching television programs with an emphasis on learning new words such as Sesame Street

Language: Speaking in Sentences Two and three word sentences, called telegraphic speech, begin at 18 months Children may leave out grammatical morphemes, or words and endings that make a sentence correct The application of rules to words that are exceptions to the rules is called overregulation i.e. saying mans for men

How do Children Acquire Grammar? The Behaviorist answer -Imitation B.F.Skinner Problems: Most children’s language is novel Children do not imitate adult grammar Grammatical rules are too complex for children

How do Children Acquire Grammar? The Linguist answer -Born with “grammar learning processor, innate mechanisms that simplify the task of learning grammar, By 2 specific regions of the brain (left hemisphere) are activated when sentences break simple grammatical rules. Chimps learn two word grammar only with difficulty, if grammar not mastered by 12 it is never truly mastered. Grammar is naturally learned with words. Mastery of grammar is closely related to vocabulary growth

How do Children Acquire Grammar? The Cognitive answer Look for patterns, detect irregularities, create rules, store rules in memory The Social-Interactive answer -Eclectic use of all of the explanations to describe language development. Emphasis on environment from behaviorists, linguists that children are born with mechanisms that simplify learning grammar, cognitive that children have powerful cognitive skills.

Language: Communicating with Others Effective communication requires: -Taking turns as speaker and listener learned by age 2 -Making sure to speak in language the listener understands -Paying attention while listening and making sure the speaker knows if he/she is being understood

Speaking Effectively Attempts to communicate begin at about 10 months with gestures and noises Begin to use speech at 12 months Toddlers begin talking about themselves and soon include objects in their environment Preschoolers clarify their messages Elementary scholars master elements involved in determining whether a message is consistent and clear.