1. The First Two Years: Cognitive Development
cognition = “thinking”
“thinking” in a very broad sense includes…
language
learning
memory
intelligence

2. Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development
Senori-motor Stage (0 – 24 months)
Infants learn through senses and motor actions
Sensorimotor period is subdivided into 6 stages
Primary Circular Reactions
Stage 1 – Reflexes
Stage 2 – First Acquired Adaptations
Secondary Circular Reactions
Stage 3 – An awareness of Things
Stage 4 – New Adaptation and Anticipation
Tertiary Circular Reactions
Stage 5 – New means through active experimentation
Stage 6 – New means through mental combinations

3. Piaget and Research Methods
Piaget’s sensorimotor intelligence actually occurs earlier for most infants than Piaget predicted.
Piaget used observation to make his conclusions
More extensive experimental methods have determined that he was not always correct. This technology was not available to Piaget.
Habituation, the process of getting used to (i.e., bored with) a stimulus after repeated exposure. An infant can show this by looking away.
If a new object appears and the infant reacts (change in heart rate, sucking), it is assumed they recognize the object as something different.
fMRI also indicate that information is being noticed and processed by infants at an earlier age than believed.
Thinking develops before motor skills can execute thought.

4. Information Processing Theory
a perspective that compares human thinking processes to computer analysis of data
including sensory input
connections
stored memories
output

5. Information Processing Theory
perception = the mental processing of information that arrives at the brain from the sensory organs
= the 1st step of information processing
Two people can have very different perceptions of the same situation (actually observe it differently)
Eleanor and James Gibbs – perception is far from automatic, it is a cognitive accomplishment that requires selectivity.

6. Information Processing Theory
The environment offers or affords many opportunities for perception and for interaction with what is perceived.
Affordances = these opportunities for action provided by the environment
We do not perceive things we perceive how we can interact with them
Depends on four factors:
sensory awareness
immediate needs and motivation
current developmental level
past experiences

7. Information Processing Theory
Research on Early Affordance
Information processing improves over the first year infants become quicker to recognize affordances
Experiences affect which affordances are perceived

8. Information Processing Theory
Sudden Drops
visual cliff = an apparatus to measure depth perception (further study has found that not crossing the visual cliff is not completely about depth perception)
Mothers could encourage 6 month olds to wiggle across the visual cliff.
Once kids can crawl they realize that crawling over the visual cliff affords falling.
the cliff “affords” danger for older infants who have had experience with falling – they would not cross the visual cliff.

9. Information Processing Theory
Movement and People
All infants have:
dynamic perception
primed to focus on movement and change
a people preference
a universal principle of infant perception, consisting of an innate attraction to other humans, which is evident in visual, auditory, tactile, and other preferences

10. Information Processing Theory
Memory
Developmentalists now agree that even very young infants can remember under the following circumstances:
experimental conditions are similar to “real life”
motivation is high
special measures are taken to aid memory retrieval

11. Information Processing Theory
Reminders and Repetition
reminder sessions
a perceptual experience that is intended to help a person recollect an idea, a thing, or an experience, without testing whether the person remembers it at the moment

12. Information Processing Theory
after about 6 months infants can retain information for longer periods of time… with less training or reminding
Around 1 many kinds of memory is apparent (ex. deferred imitation)
by the middle of the 2nd year toddlers can remember and reenact more complex sequences

13. Information Processing Theory
Memory is not one “thing”
brain-imaging techniques reveal many distinct brain regions devoted to particular aspects of memory
implicit memory is memory for routines and memories that remain hidden until particular stimulus bring them to mind
explicit memory is memory that can be recalled on demand

14. Language: What Develops in the First Two Years?
Language = the most impressive human accomplishment
The Universal Sequence
Around the world children follow the same sequence of early language development

15. Language child-directed speech
Listening and Responding
infants begin learning language before birth
infants prefer speech over other sounds
child-directed speech
the high-pitched, simplified, and repetitive way adults speak to infants
Newborns
2 month olds
3 – 6 month olds

16. Language Babbling (6 – 10 mos.) Babies also use hand gestures
repeating certain syllables (e.g., da-da-da).
all babies babble, even deaf babies (although later and less frequently).
babbling is a way to communicate.
Babies also use hand gestures

17. Language
First Words
usually around 1 year the average baby speaks, or signs a few words
they are often familiar nouns
by 13 months spoken language increases very gradually
6 to 15 month-olds learn meaning rapidly and comprehend about 10 times as many words as they speak

18. Language The Naming Explosion
a sudden increase in an infant’s vocabulary, especially in the number of nouns begins at about 18 months
Once vocabulary reaches about 50 expressed words it continues to build rapidly at a rate of 50 to 100 per month, 21 month-olds saying twice as many as 18 month-olds

19. Language Cultural Differences
the ratio of nouns to verbs and adjectives show cultural influences.
one explanation is the language itself
another explanation is social context (toys and objects)
every language has some concepts encoded in adult speech that are very hard for infants to understand

20. “Dada!” “Dada?” and “Dada.”
Language
Beginning Sentences
“Dada!” “Dada?” and “Dada.”
each is a holophrase, a single word that expresses a complete, meaningful thought.
intonations varying in tone and pitch is extensive in babbling and again in holophrases at about 18 months
Are communicating with others

21. Language
grammar--all the methods that languages use to communicate meaning. Word order, prefixes, intonation, verb forms,… are all aspects of grammar.
Obvious when 2 word communication begins
Grammar correlates with the size of the vocabulary.
Comprehension correlates with vocabulary and grammar.

22. Language Theories of Language Learning
There are 3 theories of how infants learn language:
they are taught (view of B. F. Skinner)
they teach themselves (view of Noam Chomsky)
social impulses foster learning

23. Language Theory One: Infants Need to Be Taught
Approximately 50 years ago the dominant learning theory in North America was behaviorism
B. F. Skinner (1957) noticed that spontaneous babbling is usually reinforced… a grinning mother appears, repeating, praising, giving attention to the infant
Parents are expert teachers, other caregivers help
Frequent repetitions is instructive when linked to daily life
Well-taught infants become well-spoken children

24. Language Theory Two: Infants Teach Themselves
a contrary theory is that language learning is innate--adults need not teach it
Norm Chomsky (1968,1980) felt that language is too complex to be mastered merely through step-by-step conditioning

25. Language Theory Two: Infants Teach Themselves
universal grammar--all young children master basic grammar at about the same age
Universal grammar = evidence that humans are born with a mental structure that prepares them to seek some elements of human languages
Language acquisition device (LAD)
a term used for a hypothesized mental structure that enables humans to learn language, including the basic aspects of grammar, vocabulary and intonation from the speech they hear every day.

26. Language Theory Three: Social Impulses Foster Infant Language
a third theory called social-pragmatic perceives the crucial starting point to be neither vocabulary reinforcement (behaviorism) nor innate connection (epigenetic), but rather the social reason for language; communication
Infants communicate in every way they can because humans are social beings and depend on one another for survival and joy
Language is acquired as a by-product of social interactions with adults.

27. Language A Hybrid Theory
the integration of all three perspectives… notably in a monograph based on 12 experiments designed by 8 researchers
their model an emergentist coalition… combing valid aspects of several theories about the emergence of language during infancy
Children learn language to do numerous tasks.
Some aspects of language are best learned one way and some another.