1. Cognitive Development in Infancy
Chapter 6:
Cognitive Development in Infancy
McGraw-Hill
© 2006 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

2. Piaget’s Theory of Infant Development

3. Piaget proposed that Physical bodies can adapt to the world
Humans build mental structures to aid adaptation
Humans interactive with their environment
Children think differently at various points in their development

4. Schemes are patterns of actions and thoughts that organize knowledge.
Actions are behavioral schemes. Their development characterizes infancy, such as that of simple actions and reflexes.
Thoughts are cognitive activities or mental schemes, which develop in childhood, such as classifying objects by size, color, or shape.

5. Assimilation incorporates new information into existing knowledge.
Accommodation adjusts existing knowledge to fit new information.
Organization is Piaget’s concept of grouping isolated behaviors into a higher-order system
The child becomes skilled at using tools over time, one at a time until experiences become skills

6. Equilibration:
Piaget’s mechanism to explain how children shift from one stage of thought to another
It is lost when children have cognitive conflicts
Achieved when assimilation and accommodation are used together to resolve a conflict
Piaget’s 6 substages of the sensorimotor stage of infant development last from birth to 2 years of age

7. Piaget’s 6 Substages of Sensorimotor Development
Description
Simple reflexes
birth–1 month
Coordinates sensations, reflexes
First habits, primary circular reactions
1–4 months
Coordination of sensations, habits, and primary circular reactions; body is still main focus of infant
Secondary circular reactions
4–8 months
Infant becomes more object-oriented, repeats interesting/pleasurable acts
Coordination of secondary circular reactions
8–12 months
Coordination of vision and touch, eye–hand coordination, intentional acts, coordination of schemes
Tertiary circular reactions, novelty, & curiosity
12–18 months
Infants intrigued by properties of, and things done with, objects; experiments with new behaviors
Internalization of schemes
18–24 months
Infant develops ability to use primitive symbols, forms lasting mental images
Figure 6.1

8. At the end of sensorimotor stage:
Object permanence is understood
Infant understands a differentiation between self and world
At around 5.5 and 6.5 months of age, an infant can understand simple causal factors
Piaget’s work is criticized as
Being too vague
Underestimating infant ability
Being based mostly on his children’s infancy

9. Learning and Remembering

10. Conditioning:
Consequences following a behavior affects whether behavior is repeated
Rovee-Collier showed infants have memory of conditioned experiences
Attention:
Infants can scan and fixate on objects
4-month-olds show selective attention
Infant attention governed by novelty and habituation, respond to changed stimuli

11. Meltzoff: imitation abilities are biological because infants can imitate facial expressions within a few days after birth
Piaget: deferred imitation occurs at about 18 months but Meltzoff showed that it occurred at 9 months

12. Memory: retention of information over time
Implicit memory is performed automatically without conscious recollection
Explicit memory is conscious memory of facts and experiences; occurs in infants after 6 months
Infantile or childhood amnesia:
Inability to recall memories of events that occurred before 3 years of age
May be caused by immaturity of prefrontal lobes of the brain

13. Differences in Intelligence
Individual
Differences in
Intelligence

14. Individual differences in infant cognitive development are important:
Development testing emphasizes “norms”
Infants assessed mostly based on assessment scales and intelligence tests
Identifying an infant’s development as slow, normal, or advanced has advantages:
If slow – provide more enrichment
If advanced – provide more stimulating toys

15. Types of infant cognitive assessment:
Gesell’s developmental quotient (DQ) has 4 categories of behavior: motor, language, adaptive, and personal–social
Bayley Scales of Infant Development have three components to predict later development: mental scale, motor scale, and infant behavior profile

16. Fagan Test of Infant Intelligence focuses on infant’s ability to process information
Estimates a baby’s intelligence by comparing amount of time spent looking at an object with amount of time spent looking at familiar object
Infant intelligence tests are valuable in assessing effects of maternal deprivation and environmental stimulation; but not highly correlated with later childhood IQ scores

17. Language
Development

18. Wild or feral children are raised in isolation and unable to recapture normal language development despite intensive intervention later
For example:
Victor, Wild Boy of Aveyron
Genie: 13-year-old found in 1970 in Los Angeles
Both cases raise questions about biological and environmental determinants of language
Language is a system of words, symbols, and gestures that create shared communication that transcends time (future, present, and past)

19. Language’s five systems of rules:
Phonology: sound system of language, with phoneme being smallest unit of sound with meaning
Morphology: units of meaning in word formation, with morpheme being the smallest unit of meaning
Syntax: how words are combined
Semantics: the meanings of sentences and words
Pragmatics: use of appropriate language in different contexts

20. Language develops in infants throughout the world along a similar path and sequence
Infant’s ability to recognize native language, for English speakers this includes distinguishing “r” from “t”
On average, a child
Understands about 50 words at age 13 months
Speaks first word at 10–15 months of age
Can speak about 50 words at 18 months of age

21. Variation in Language Milestones27 24 21 18 15
Age in months 12 9
First words
Vocabulary spurt
Language Milestone
Figure 6.9

22. Average 2-year-old can speak about 200 words
Vocabulary spurt begins at approximately 18 months of age
Two-word utterances occur at about 18–24 months
Overextension and underextension of words are common
Telegraphic speech is use of short and precise words

23. Some Language Milestones in Infancy
Birth
Crying
1 to 2 months
Cooing begins
6 months
Babbling begins
8 to 12 months
Use of gestures (showing and pointing); comprehension of words appears
10–15 months
First word spoken
18 months
Vocabulary spurts starts
18 to 24 months
Use of two-word utterances; rapid expansion of understanding of words
Figure 6.10

24. Specific regions of the brain are predisposed to be used for language
There is evidence that
Language has a biological basis
Everyone “knows” its rules and has ability to create infinite numbers of words and sentences
Specific regions of the brain are predisposed to be used for language
Broca’s Area
Wernicke’s Area

25. Broca’s Area and Wernicke’s Area
Figure 6.11

26. Chomsky: humans are prewired for language
Chomsky’s language acquisition device (LAD) is a theoretical construct only
Behaviorists claim language is a complex learned skill acquired through responses and reinforcements
Studies found link between size of child’s vocabulary and mother’s talkativeness
Young children’s vocabularies are linked to family socioeconomic status

27. Level of Maternal Speech and Infant Vocabulary
800
High
Mother’s level of speech
600
400
Infant’s vocabulary size (words)
Medium
200
Low 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26
Infant’s age (months)
Figure 6.12

28. Language Input in Professional and Welfare Families, and Young Children’s Vocabulary Development
800
Professional
600
400
Parent utterances to child per hour
Welfare
200 10 14 18 22 26 30 34 38
Age of children (months)
Figure 6.12 (a)

29. Language Input in Professional and Welfare Families, and Young Children’s Vocabulary Development
1200
1000
Professional
800
600
400
Welfare
Children’s cumulative vocabulary (words)
200 10 14 18 22 26 30 34 38
Age of children (months)
Figure 6.12 (b)

30. Three strategies to enhance child’s acquisition of language other than child-directed speech
Recasting: rephrasing something the child has said
Expanding state: repeating what the child has said but in correct structure
Labeling: identifying the names of objects
Children vary in their ability to acquire language

31. The End