Cognitive Development

Piaget’s Cognitive-Developmental Theory

  • Sensorimotor stage
  • Key concepts
  • Schemes: action-based versus mental
  • Adaptation
  • Assimilation
  • Accommodation
  • Organization

The Sensorimotor Stage: Answer the following while viewing the video, "Infancy: Beginnings in Cognition."

  1. What are circular reactions?
  2. Identify the key characteristics of each of the following substages:

Substage 1: Reflexive Schemes

 

Substage 2: Repetitive actions/Primary Circular reactions

 

Substage 3: Actions with people & objects/Secondary Circular Reactions

 

Substage 4: Goal-directed Actions/Coordination of Secondary Circular reaction

 

Substage 5: Experimentation/Tertiary Circular Reactions

 

Substage 6: Mental/Symbolic Representation

 

 

Recent Research on Sensorimotor Development

  • Age of acquisition: underestimated
  • E.g., object permanence
  • Mental representation
  • Problem solving
  •  

Evaluation of Sensorimotor stage

 

Language Development

Theories:

  1. Behaviorist Perspective
  • Skinner: operant conditioning
  1. Nativist Perspective
  • Chomsky: Language acquisition device
  1. Interactionist Perspective

Stages of Language Development

  • Cooing & babbling
  • Becoming a communicator
  • First words
  • Underextension
  • Overextension
  • Two-word utterance phase
  • Telegraphic speech

Individual & Cultural Differences

    • Referential versus expressive style

Supporting Language Development

 

Information Processing

  • Structure of the system
  • Sensory register
  • Working/short-term memory
  • Long-term memory
  • Infant capacities
  • Attention
  • Memory
    • Recognition
    • Recall
  • Categorization
    • Perceptual versus conceptual
  • Evaluation of information-processing

 

The social context of early cognitive Development

Evaluating individual differences in early development

    • Intelligence tests
    • Early environment
    • Early intervention for at-risk infants/toddlers

 

 

Chapter Objectives

  1. Explain Piaget’s view of what changes with development and how cognitive change takes place.
  2. Name Piaget’s 6 sensorimotor substages, and describe the major cognitive achievements in each.
  3. Discuss recent research on sensorimotor development and its implications for the accuracy of Piaget’s sensorimotor stage.
  4. Describe the structure of the information-processing system: the development of attention, memory, and categorization during infancy and toddlerhood; and the contributions and limitations of this approach to our understanding of cognitive development.
  5. Explain how Vygotsky’s concept of the zone of proximal development expands our understanding of early cognitive development.
  6. Describe the mental testing approach, the meaning of intelligence scores, and the extent to which infant tests predict later performance.
  7. Discuss environmental influences on early mental development, including home, child care, and early intervention for at-risk infants and toddlers.
  8. Describe 3 major theories of language development, indicating the emphasis each places on biological and environmental influences.
  9. Describe how infants prepare for language, and explain how adults support their emerging capacities (be familiar with questions related to video, "Language Development.").
  10. Describe toddlers’ first words and 2-word combinations, and explain why language comprehension develops ahead of production.
  11. Describe individual differences in early language development and factors that influence these differences.
  12. Explain how child-directed speech, conversation, and reading to young children support early language development.