Chapter
6
INFANCY
COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT
“I wish I could travel down by the
road that crosses the baby’s mind where reason makes kites of her laws and
flies them.”
-
Rabindranath
Tagore
Bengali Poet, Essayist,
20th century
Overview
of Piaget's Theory
n
Schemes (organized cognitive structures, ideas)
n
Assimilation
n
Accommodation
n
Four Stages of Cognitive Development
The
Stage of Sensorimotor Development
n
Birth to about 2 years of age.
n
Characterize an infant’s ability to organize and coordinate
sensations with physical movements and actions.
n
During the sensorimotor stage, infants and toddlers
“think” with their eyes, ears, hands, and other sensorimotor equipment
Substages
1.
The simple reflex (0-1 month)
n
Reflexive
behaviors (rooting and sucking).
2.
The first habits and primary circular reactions (1-4 months)
n
Refined
and coordinated reflexes.
n
A habit is a scheme based on simple reflex.
n
A
primary circular reaction: Reproduction of an interesting or pleasurable event.
3.
The secondary circular reactions (4-8 months
n
Object-oriented
n
Moving beyond preoccupation
4.
The coordination of secondary circular reactions (8-12 months)
n
Coordination
of schemes and intentionality.
5.
Tertiary circular reactions (12-18 months)
n
Purpose,
curiosity, exploration, and novelty are the characteristics of this stage.
6.
Internalization of schemes (18-24 months)
n
Use of primitive symbols, images, words
Apply:
Seven-month-old Mimi banged her rattle on the tray of her highchair.
Then she dropped the rattle, which fell out of sight on her lap.
She did not try to retrieve it. Does
Mimi know that the rattle still exists? Why
doesn’t she search for it? Use
research findings to explain your answer.
Conditioning
n
The consequences of the behavior produce changes in the
probability of the behavior’s occurrence.
n
Both classical and operant conditioning have been demonstrated
to occur in infants.
n
If an infant’s behavior is followed by a rewarding stimulus,
the behavior is likely to recur.
n
Operant conditioning has been helpful to researchers in their
efforts to determine what infants perceive.
n
Studies have demonstrated that infants can retain information
from the experience of being conditioned.
Object
Permenence
n
Understanding that objects and events continue to exist.
HABITUATION AND DISHABITUATION
n
Habituation is
the repeated presentation of the same stimulus that causes reduced attention to
the stimulus.
n
Dishabituation
is an infant's renewed interest in a
stimulus.
IMITATION
n
Infants can imitate expressions.
n
Study of Deferred Imitation
by Meltzoff.
MEMORY
n
Retention of information over time.
n
Information about perceptual-motor actions.
n
Memory does not occur until the second half of life.
Implicit
Memory
n
Memory without conscious recollection.
Explicit
Memory
n
An ability to consciously recall the past.
n
Infantile amnesia:
inability to remember anything from the first three years of life.
REFLECT:
n
Describe your earliest autobiographical memory.
How old were you when the event occurred?
Do your responses fit with research on infantile amnesia?
INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES IN
INTELLIGENCE
1.
Gesell's developmental test
n
Concept of developmental quotient (DQ),
n
Motor, language, adaptive, and personal-social domains.
2.
The Bayley Scales of Infant Development
n
Assessment of infant development.
n
Mental scale, a motor scale, and an infant behavior profile.
3.
The Fagan Test of Infant Intelligence
3.
The Fagan Test of Infant Intelligence
n
It focuses on the infant’s ability to process information.
The Fagan test uses the amount of time babies look at a
new object compared with how long they look at a familiar object to
estimate their intelligence.
n
This test elicits similar performances from infants in
different cultures and is correlated with measures of intelligence in older
children.
APPLY
:
n
Fifteen-month-old Joey’s developmental quotient (DQ) is 115.
His mother wants to know exactly what this means, and what she should do
at home to support his mental development.
How would you respond to her questions?
Language
Development
n
Language is a form of communication, whether spoken, written,
or signed, that is based on a system of symbols.
n
All human languages have some common characteristics such as
infinite generativity and organizational rules.
n
Infinite generativity is the ability to produce an endless
number of meaningful sentences using a finite set of words and rules.
Milestones
in infant language include:
n
Crying
n
Cooing (1-2 months)
n
Babbling (3-6 months)
n
Gestures (8-12 months)
n
Language production
n
Language comprehension (Receptive vocabulary)
n
The holophrase hypothesis: a single word can be used to imply
a complete sentence.
n
Telegraphic speech: Use of short and precise words to
communicate.
Vocabulary
spurt (occurs around 18 months)
Biological
Influences on Language
n
Universal sequence of developmental milestone
in language.
n
Importance of brain, nervous system and vocal apparatus in
language development.
n
Language acquisition device: This view assumes that children
are born with a biologically-based system–called the language acquisition
device (LAD) for mastering language.
Behavioral
and Environmental Influences
n
Learning of language by imitation.
n
Environmental influences help the acquisition of competent
language skills.
n
Adults teach language to children through various means:
Language Areas in the Brain
n Humans
have evolved specialized regions in the brain that support language skills.
n Broca’s
area, located in the frontal lobe, controls language production.
n Wernicke’s
area, located in the temporal lobe, controls language
comprehension.
n Rather
than the brain being innately programmed for language, language-learning
experience seems to lead certain brain areas to become dedicated to language
1.
Infant-directed speech
2.
Recasting
3.
Echoing
4.
Expanding
5.
Labeling