1. Cognitive Development
Learning, Reasoning and Language Development over the Life Span

2. Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development
Jean Piaget ( ) Swiss psychologist who became leading theorist in 1930’s
Piaget believed that “children are active thinkers, constantly trying to construct more advanced understandings of the world”
These “understandings” are in the form of structures he called schemas

3. Development of Schemas
Schemas are frameworks that develop to help organize knowledge
Assimilation - process of taking new information or a new experience and fitting it into an already existing schema
Accommodation - process by which existing schemas are changed or new schemas are created in order to fit new information

4. Piaget’s approach
Primary method was to ask children to solve problems and to question them about the reasoning behind their solutions
Discovered that children think in radically different ways than adults
Proposed that development occurs as a series of ‘stages’ differing in how the world is understood

5. Sensorimotor Stage (birth - 2)
Information is gained through the senses and motor actions
In this stage child perceives and manipulates but does not reason
Symbols become internalized through language development
Object permanence is acquired

6. Object Permanence
The understanding that objects exist independent of one’s actions or perceptions of them
Before 6 months infants act as if objects removed from sight cease to exist
Can be surprised by disappearance / reappearance of a face (peek-a-boo)

7. Preoperational Stage (2-7 years)
Emergence of symbolic thought
Centration
Egocentrism
Lack the concept of conservation
Animism
Artificialism
These are speaker notes

8. Conservation
Number
Keywords piaget, conservation
Figures from Gray (3e)
In conservation of number tests, two equivalent rows of coins are placed side by side and the child says that there is the same number in each row. Then one row is spread apart and the child is again asked if there is the same number in each.

9. Conservation
Length
In conservation of length tests, two same-length sticks are placed side by side and the child says that they are the same length. Then one is moved and the child is again asked
if they are the same length.
Keywords piaget, conservation
Figures from Gray (3e)

10. Conservation Substance
In conservation of substance tests, two identical amounts of clay are rolled into similar-appearing balls and the child says that they both have the same amount of clay. Then one ball is rolled out and the child is again asked if they have the same amount.
Keywords piaget, conservation
Figures from Gray (3e)

11. Concrete Operational Stage (7-12 years)
Understanding of mental operations leading to increasingly logical thought
Classification and categorization
Less egocentric
Inability to reason abstractly or hypothetically

12. Formal Operational Stage (age 12 - adulthood)
Hypothetico-deductive reasoning
Adolescent egocentrism illustrated by the phenomenon of personal fable and imaginary audience

13. Piaget’s Theory Challenged
New studies indicate infants do more than sense and react
One study had 1 month old babies suck one of two pacifiers without ever seeing them
When shown both pacifiers, infants stared more at the one they had felt in their mouth
This requires a sort of reasoning
Study was done by Meltzoff and Borton, Figure is from Myers 5e

14. Critique of Piaget’s Theory
Underestimates children’s abilities
Overestimates age differences in thinking
Vagueness about the process of change
Underestimates the role of the social environment
Lack of evidence for qualitatively different stages

15. Information-Processing Perspective
Focuses on the mind as a system, analogous to a computer, for analyzing information from the environment
Developmental improvements reflect
increased capacity of working memory
faster speed of processing
new algorithims (methods)
more stored knowledge

16. Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Perspective
Emphasized the child’s interaction with the social world (other people) as a cause of development
Vygotsky believed language to be the foundation for social interaction and thought
Piaget believed language was a byproduct of thought

17. Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Perspective
Vygotsky - children learn from interactions with other people
Zone of proximal development - what a child can do by interacting with another person, but can’t do alone.
Critical thinking based on dialouge with others who challenge ideas
Piaget - focused on children’s interaction with the physical world

18. Language Development Preview
Universal Characteristics of Human Language
Course of Development
Supports for Language Development
Language Learning among Nonhuman Apes

19. Universal Characteristics of Human Language
Language development similar across cultures. What are the common elements?
Morphemes - smallest meaningful units of language
content morphemes (e.g., nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs)
grammatical morphemes (e.g., articles, conjunctions, some prefixes and suffixes)

20. Universal Characteristics of Human Language
Phonemes - elementary vowel and consonant sounds
Grammar - rules of language
phonology - how phonemes can be combined to make morphemes
morphology -how morphemes can be combined to make words
syntax - how words can be combined to make phrases and sentences

21. Language Development
Infant preference for human speech over other sounds
before 6 months can hear differences used in all languages
after 6 months begin to hear only differences used in native language
Cooing - vowel sounds produced 2-4 months
Babbling - consonant/vowel sounds between 4 to 6 months
Even deaf infants coo and babble

22. Language Development MONTH Speech Characteristic 2 Cooing vowel sounds
4 Babbling consonant/vowel
10 Babbling native language sounds
12 One-word stage
24 Two-word stage
24 + Sentences
Table adapted from Myers (5e)

23. Features of Young Children’s Speech
Telegraphic
Overextension
Underextension
Mean length of utterance (MLU)

24. Supports for Language Development
Chomsky’s language-acquisition device (LAD) - innate foundations for grammar and learning the unique rules of a culture’s language
Language-acquisition support system - aspects of the social world that help infants acquire language (e.g., parentese)

25. Animal communication
Can animals learn language? Depends on definition of language.
primate studies--because of articulatory difficulties, many were taught sign language
can acquire vocabulary with much effort, similar to a child’s learning of first words
cannot acquire grammar
do not understand turn-taking in conversation
answer questions with words contained in the questions