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Cognitive Developmental Theory
Early Childhood
2
PREOPERATIONAL STAGE The preoperational stage is the second
stage. Rapid growth in representational, or
symbolic, activity Language is the most flexible means of mental
representation. Stage characterized by a lack of mental
operations…hence the name! Operations: Mental representations of actions
obeying logical rules
PREOPERATIONAL STAGE
Two Substages:
Symbolic Function 2-4 yrs Can represent an object not present
Intuitive Thought 4-7 yrs Primitive reasoning accompanied by lots of questions Know things but not do not know how things work Thought is not rational, logical
PREOPERATIONAL STAGE
What does the development of mental representations allow children to accomplish?
Language Make-believe play
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Make-Believe Play
Increases dramatically during early childhood
Through pretending, young children practice and acquire representational schemes.
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Sociodramatic Play
Appears around age 2 1/2 and increases until 4 to 5 years.
Preschoolers who use sociodramatic play Have advanced intellectual development Are more social
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Limitations of Preoperational Thought
Children’s thinking is rigid, limited to the way things appear at the moment. Preoperational!
Egocentrism Inability to distinguish the symbolic viewpoints of
others from one's own Single point of view
Do not revise faulty reasoning
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Demonstration of Egocentrism Three Mountain Problem Animistic Thinking
Inanimate objects have lifelike qualities. Egocentric speech
Children speaking to themselves Related to a lack of perspective taking Cognitive maturity and experiences bring an end
to egocentric speech.
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Limitations of Preoperational Thought
Inability to conserve Conservation
Physical characteristics of objects remain the same, even when outward appearance changes.
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Piagetian Conservation Tasks
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Inability to Conserve
WHY? Centration
Focus on one aspect and neglect others Perception-bound
Easily distracted by concrete appearance of objects States versus transformations
The initial and final state of problem are unrelated. Irreversibility
Inability to follow series of steps in a problem and return to starting point
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Limitations of Preoperational Thought
Lack of hierarchical classification Organization of objects into classes on the basis of
similarities and differences Piaget illustrated difficulties in the class-inclusion problem.
blue flowers yellow flowers
Flowers
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Research on Preoperational Thought Piagetian problems confusing
Preschoolers' responses may not reflect abilities.
If visual display includes familiar objects 4-year-olds are aware of others’ vantage points.
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THE SOCIAL CONTEXT OF EARLY CHILDHOOD DEVELOPMENT Vygotsky
Infants are endowed with basic skills Perceptual, attention, memory
At 2 years, language acquisition profoundly changes the nature of thought
Complex mental functions originate in social interaction.
Important developmental constructs Scaffolding Zone of proximal development
Children’s Private Speech Piaget’s View
Piaget called children’s utterances to themselves egocentric speech.
Vygotsky’s View Children speak to themselves for self-guidance and
self-direction. Language is the foundation for all complex mental
activities. As children get older and tasks become easier, their
self-directed speech declines and is internalized.
Private Speech Research
Private speech is used more often when
tasks are difficult after a child makes an error when a child is confused about how to proceed
With age private speech changes from utterances spoken out loud into whispers and silent lip movements.
Almost all research findings support Vygotsky’s view.
Make Believe Play
Piaget’s View A symptom of increasing representational
sophistication.
Vygotsky’s View A unique zone of proximal development for
children to try out challenging activities and acquire competencies
Social Origins of Early Childhood Cognition: Research Parents who are effective scaffolders have
children who use more private speech and are more successful when asked to do a similar task by themselves.
Children’s planning and problem solving show more improvement when their partner is either an “expert” peer or an adult.
Information Processing
Early Childhood
Early Childhood
Attention
During early childhood, attention becomes more planful. Planning involves thinking out a sequence of acts ahead of time and allocating attention accordingly to reach a goal.
Even when young children do plan, they often fail to implement important steps.
Development of the prefrontal cortex
Memory
Recognition Preschoolers’ recognition memory is remarkably
good.
Recall Young children are less effective at using memory
strategies, deliberate mental activities that improve the likelihood of remembering Rehearsal Organizing information
The Young Child’s Theory of Mind
As children start to reflect on their own thought processes, they begin to construct a theory of mind, or set of ideas about the mental activities. This understanding is often called metacognition.
The Young Child’s Theory of Mind
“Think,” “remember,” and “pretend” are among the first verbs to appear in children’s vocabularies.
Between ages 3 and 4, children figure out that beliefs and desires determine behavior.
By age 4, children realize that people can hold false beliefs that combine with desire to determine behavior.
They know that people have an internal mental life, but seem to view the mind as a passive container of information.
The Young Child’s Theory of Mind
How Does a Theory of Mind Develop? Various findings suggest that language,
cognitive, and social experiences contribute to developing a theory of mind. Language. Cognitive abilities. Make-believe play and reasoning about imaginary
situations. Social interaction.
Autism and Theory of Mind?
Early Literacy and Mathematical Development
Mathematical Reasoning
Ordinality is displayed by toddlers.
Cardinality principle, grasped between the ages of 4 and 5
Cross-cultural research: basic arithmetic knowledge emerges universally
Early Literacy
Emergent literacy
Move from direct representation to symbolic representation
Development related to quantity of literacy related experiences
SES correlation
Language Development
Early Childhood
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Early Childhood Vocabulary
By 6, around 8000-14000 words Fast mapping
Quickly connecting a new word with an underlying concept
Preschoolers acquire labels for objects, action words next, and then modifiers.
Grammar Between 2 and 3, English-speaking children use simple
sentences that follow a subject-verb-object order. Overregularization
Application of regular grammatical rules to words that are exceptions
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Conversation
Pragmatics Practical, social side of language; how to
engage in appropriate communication Children take turns, respond to partner, and maintain
a topic over time. Are able to talk about things that are not present Preschoolers' speech is less mature in demanding
situations.
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