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Chapter 5. COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT IN INFANCY. Learning Objectives. PIAGET ’S APPROACH TO COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT. Key Elements of Piaget 's Theory. Action = Knowledge Four universal stages in fixed order Development = physical maturation and exposure to relevant experiences - PowerPoint PPT Presentation
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COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT IN INFANCY
Chapter 5
Learning Objectives
PIAGET’S APPROACH TO COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT
Key Elements of Piaget's Theory
• Action = Knowledge• Four universal stages in fixed order• Development = physical maturation and exposure to
relevant experiences• Schemes adapt and change
What principles underlie this cognitive growth?
• Assimilation• Accommodation• Schemes
Will you do better on the next test if you assimilate or accommodate the material?
Piaget's Six Substages of the Sensorimotor Stage
Earliest Stage of Cognitive Growth
Sensorimotor Period•Invariant order of stages and six substages•Individual differences in rate•Transitions include characteristics of both stages
Cognitive Transitions
A Closer Look
A Closer Look
A Closer Look
A Closer Look
Figure 5-2Object Permanence
Before an infant has understood the idea of object permanence, he will not search for an object that has been hidden right before his eyes. But several months later, he will search for it, illustrating that he has attained object permanence. Why is the concept of object permanence important?
A Closer Look
A Closer Look
Assessing Piagetian Theory
PROS•Descriptions of child cognitive development accurate in many ways
– Piaget was pioneering figure in field of development
– Children learn by acting on environment
– Broad outlines of sequence of cognitive development and increasing cognitive accomplishments are generally accurate
CONS•Substantial disagreement over validity of theory and many of its specific predictions
– Stage conception questioned– Connection between motor
development and cognitive development exaggerated
– Object permanence can occur earlier under certain conditions
– Onset of age of imitation questioned
– Cultural variations not considered
Review and Apply
Review and Apply
Review and Apply
INFORMATION-PROCESSING APPROACHES TO COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT
What is information-processing?
• Identifies the way that individuals take in, store, and use information
• Involves quantitative changes in ability to organize and manipulate information
• Increases sophistication, speed, and capacity in information processing characterizes cognitive growth
• Focuses on types of “mental programs” used when seeking to solve problems
Information Processing
Encoding—storage—retrieval
The process by which information is encoded, stored, and retrieved.
How do you compute?
Take a few minutes to write down an example of how you do each of the following:•Encoding•Storage•Retrieval
Unexpected Expertise
• Infants have the ability to learn subtle statistical patterns and relationships
• These results are consistent with a growing body of research showing that the mathematical skills of infants are surprisingly good
• Infants as young as five months are able to calculate the outcome of simple addition and subtraction problems
Figure 5-4 Mickey Mouse MathResearcher Dr. Karen Wynn found that five-month-olds like MichelleFollet, pictured here, reacted differently according to whether the number of Mickey Mouse statuettes they saw represented correct or incorrect addition. Do you think this ability is unique to humans? How would you find out?
Automatization
• Degree to which activity requires attention
• Helps with initial encounters with stimuli through easy and automatic information processing
What automatic processes are being engaged as you listen to this lecture?
(Remember…sleep is NOT an automatic process!)
What do you think?
Infants cannot remember…anything?
Memory Capabilities in Infancy
Getting a kick out of that!•Kicking research demonstrates increase with age in memory capacities•Infants who have learned the association•between a moving mobile and kicking•showed surprising recall ability when they•were exposed to a reminder (Bearce & Rovee-Collier, 2006; DeFrancisco & Rovee-•Collier, 2008; Moher, Tuerk & Feigenson, 2012)..
Is infant memory qualitatively different from that in older children and adults?
• Information is processed similarly throughout life span
• Kind of information being processed changes and different parts of brain may be used
Does your family have a special story about your early childhood?
How long do memories last?
• Researchers disagree on the age from which memories can be retrieved – Early studies infantile amnesia– Myers clear evidence of early memory
• Physical trace of a memory in brain appears to be relatively permanent– Memories may not be easily, or accurately, retrieved
So…do infants remember?
• Theoretical possibility for interfered memories to remain intact from a very young
• Most cases memories of personal experiences in infancy do not last into adulthood
• Memories of personal experience seem not to become accurate before age 18 to 24 months
Cognitive Neuroscience of Memory
• Advances in brain scan technology, as well as studies of adults with brain damage, suggest that there are two separate systems involved with long-term memory: explicit and implicit memory
• Explicit and implicit memories emerge at different rates and involve different parts of the brain
• The earliest memories seem to be implicit, and they involve the cerebellum and brain stem
Cognitive Neuroscience of Memory(continued)
• The forerunner of explicit memory involves the hippocampus, but true explicit memory doesn't emerge until the second half of the first year
• When explicit memory does emerge, it involves an increasing number of areas of the cortex of the brain
What Is Infant Intelligence?
Developmental specialists have devised several approaches to illuminate the nature of individual differences in intelligence during infancy
Do, Re, Me…..Intelligence!
Do, Re, Me…..Intelligence!
Sample Items from the Bayley Scales of Infant Development
Are developmental scales useful?
YES•Provide a good snapshot of current developmental level•Provide objective assessment of behavior relative to norms
NO•Do not provide good prediction for future development
Maybe?
Information Processing Approaches to Individual Differences in Intelligence
• Using IP approach suggests relationship between information processing efficiency and cognitive abilities
• Moderately strong correlation between early information processing capabilities and later IQ measures
• Predicting child may do well on IQ tests later in life is not same as predicting child will be successful
• More recent information processing approaches continuous manner from infancy to the later stages of life
And so…what does IP research reveal?
Relationship between information processing efficiency and cognitive abilities•Correlate moderately well with later measures of intelligence
•More efficient information processing during the 6 months following birth is related to higher intelligence scores between 2 and 12 years of age and other measures of cognitive competence
What about the multimodal approach?
Cross-modal transference•Ability to identify a stimulus previously experienced through only one sense by using another sense is associated with intelligence
Assessing the IP Approach
PROS•Often uses more precise measures of cognitive ability•Critical in providing information about infant cognition
CONS•Precision makes it more difficult to get overall sense of cognitive development
Taking the Einstein Out of Baby Einstein
• Whether parents actively engaged their children with the DVD or just passively watched it, those children did not learn the words significantly better than the control group.
• Only the children who were learning the words from their parent (with no DVD) learned them better than the control group
• Babies learn vocabulary best when they initiate the learning and when they choose the object to be labeled.
Review and Apply
Review and Apply
Review and Apply
THE ROOTS OF LANGUAGE
The Fundamentals of Language
Comprehension Precedes Production
Early Sounds and Communication
Prelinguislic communication•Babbling
– Universal– Repetition of sounds– and best of all…spit bubbles!
Broca's Area
Areas of the brain that are activated during speech, left, are similar to areas activated during the production of hand gestures, right.
See what I say…
Infants with hearing impairments•Babble with hands instead of voices
•Gestural and verbal babbling activate same neural centers
What comes after “ba-ba-ba-ba”?
Progression from Simple to Complex•Exposure to speech sounds of particular language initially do not influence babbling
– At 6 months babbling reflects of language of culture– Distinguishable from other language babbling
•Combinations of sounds and gestures used to communicate
First Words
Increase at rapid rate•10 to 14 months = first word•15 months = 10 words•18 months = one-word stage ends•16 to 24 months = language explosion equally 50 to 400 words
The Top 50:The First Words Children Understand
First Sentences
First sentences •Created around 8 to 12 months after first words•Indicate understanding of labels and relationships between these•Often observations rather than demands•Use order similar to adult speech with missing words
Children's Imitation of Sentences Showing Decline of Telegraphic Speech
Other Early Language Characteristics
• Underextensions
• Overextensions
Speaking in style and stylish speaking
Can you think of an example of each?
THE ORIGINS OF LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT
Learning Theory Approaches: Language as a Learned Skill
• Language acquisition follows the basic laws of reinforcement and conditioning
• Through the process of shaping, language becomes more and more similar to adult speech
Counter-Arguments to Learning Theory Approach
• Does not adequately explain how children readily learn rules of language
• Does not account for how children move beyond specific heard utterances to produce novel phrases, sentences, and constructions
• Does not explain how young children can apply linguistic rules to nonsense words
Nativist Approaches: Language as an Innate Skill
• Genetically determined, innate mechanism that directs the development of language
• Children are born with innate capacity to use language, which emerges, more or less automatically, due to maturation– (Chomsky's universal grammar and LAD)
Assessing Chomsky's Approach
PRO•Specific gene related to speech production identified•Language processing in infant brain structures similar to those in adult speech processing
CON•Uniqueness of speech countered by primate researchers•Even with genetic priming, language use still requires significant social experience to be used effectively
Interactionist Approaches: Language as a Social Device
• Specific course of language development is determined by the language to which children are exposed and reinforcement they receive for using language in particular ways
• Social factors are key to development
Infant-Directed Speech
How does this speech change?
• Infant-directed speech changes as children become older– Around the end of the first year, takes on more adult-
like qualities– Sentences become longer and more complex,
although individual words are still spoken slowly and deliberately
– Pitch used to focus attention on important words
Does Cootsy-Coo Work?
• Infant-directed speech plays an important role in infants’ acquisition of language– Occurs all over the world, though there are cultural
variations– Preferred by newborns – Babies who are exposed to a infant-directed speech
early in life seem to begin to use words and exhibit other forms of linguistic competence earlier
Developmental Diversity
Do people everywhere say “ba-ba-boo” to their infants?•Words differ but ways spoken are similar
•Basic similarities across cultures and in some facets of language specific to particular types of interactions
•Quantity of speech differ by cultures
What then do these similarities in infant-directed speech mean?
Let's Pretend
Turn to a classmate. One of you is a 8-month-old infant; the other is a parent.
As the parent, ask your “infant” classmate:“Would you like a cookie?”
Boys will be boys and girls will be…sweethearts?
Gender differences: Parental language varies by child gender
Do you think men and women use different sorts of language?
Infant cognitive development may be promoted by:
• Providing infants the opportunity to explore the world• Being responsive to infants on both a verbal and a
nonverbal level• Asking questions, listening to their responses, and
providing further communication• Reading to infants• Not pushing infants and don't expect too much too soon
• Keeping in mind that you don't have to be with an infant 24 hours a day
Review and Apply
Review and Apply
Review and Apply
EPILOGUE
Before we proceed to social and personality development in the next chapter, turn back to the prologue of this chapter, about Amelie Hawkins's conversations with her three-month-old daughter, and answer the following questions.
•Is Amelie correct that her daughter is learning from the baby talk that Amelie directs at her?
•When can Amelie expect that “exciting day” when she hears her daughter's first word? What is that word likely to be?
EPILOGUE
• If you were to advise Amelie, what would you tell her to expect in terms of her daughter's language development over time?
• What milestones in cognitive development can Amelie expect her daughter to achieve in the coming year?
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