Cognitive Development in Infancy and Childhood

1. Cognitive Development in Infancy and Childhood

2. Piaget’s Cognitive Stages • Jean Piaget – swiss psychologist • Interested in incorrect responses to questions on intelligence tests • Children at a given age had similar mistakes

3. Piaget’s Cognitive Stages • Piaget believed that the way kids think and solve problems depends on their stage of cognitive development • Cognition = all the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing and remembering • He also thought all people (even infants) constantly face and adapt to environmental challenges

4. Schemas • Piaget – we adapt to environmental challenges by developing schemas • Schemas = concepts or mental frameworks that organize and interpret information • EX: you have a schema for how to get into a car – tell me it • How do you develop schemas?

5. Schemas • We develop these mental plans using 2 different experiences: • Assimilation – adding information to an existing schema • eg: a girl has a schema for what a four legged animal is – dog. When she sees a cat and calls it a dog, she is trying to assimilate the schema for a cat into her schema for a four-legged animal – a dog

6. Assimilation • Assimilation is like adding air into a balloon. You just keep blowing it up. It gets bigger and bigger. For example, a two year old's schema of a tree is "green and big with bark" -- over time the child adds information (some trees lose their leaves, some trees have names, we use a tree at Christmas, etc.) - Your balloon just gets full of more information that fits neatly with what you know and adds onto it.

7. Schemas • Accommodation – adapting your current schemas to incorporate new information • eg: you have a schema for driving an automatic. When you try to drive a standard you cannot try to assimilate the schema for driving a standard into your schema for driving an automatic. You must change/adapt your schema  accommodate

8. Accommodation • Accommodation is when you have to turn your round balloon into the shape of a poodle. This new balloon "animal" is a radical shift in your schema (or balloon shape). • Start to have conceptualization (schema) of trees as a source of political warfare, a commodity, a source of income for some people, we know that people sit and live in trees to save them; in other words, trees are economic, political, and social vehicles. This complete change in the schema involves a lot of cognitive energy, or accommodation, a shift in our schema.

9. Examples When a child learns the word for dog, they start to call all four-legged animals dogs.  This is assimilation.  People around them will say, no, that's not a dog, it's a cat.  The schema for dog then gets modified to restrict it to only certain four-legged animals.  That is accommodation. A child learns his father is called Daddy, so he calls other males ( e.g. the mailman) Daddy.  This is assimilation. He is quickly told that the other man is not Daddy, he is _______.  Again, the schema for Daddy is modified.  This is accommodation. What about 9/11? Stereotypes?

10. 4 Stages Piaget believed we all pass through 4 stages of cognitive development • Sensorimotor • Preoperational • Concrete operational • Formal operational

11. Sensorimotor Stage • Birth – age 2 • Experiencing the world through senses and actions – looking, touching, mouthing and grasping • Key developmental event: object permanence • Awareness that things continue to exist even when you cannot see or hear them – ex: hide a toy • Is a milestone because it’s evident of a working memory

12. Preoperational Stage • 2yrs – 6/7yrs • Can use language but cannot think logically • Able to participate in pretend play (can represent things with words and images) • Lack conservation: an understanding that properties like mass, volume and number remain the same despite changes in the forms of objects • Example of Water and Clay to come. . .

13. Other examples….

14. Preoperational Stage • Although they have developed language, it is quite egocentric • Egocentrism = inability to take another’s point of view • Ex: How many brothers and sisters do you have? How many do your parents have? • Why is grass green? Why does the sun shine? • However – you will see some kids develop earlier • Animism – Child thinks all objects have life

15. Which row has more circles? • Row A : 000000 • Row B : 0 0 0 0 0 0

16. Which is heavier? • A pound of feathers? • A pound of rocks?

17. Object Permanence • A toy is hidden beneath a blanket. The child has no idea where the toy has gone. Where is it in this child’s mind?

18. Clay • Lump of clay is rolled into a ball • Same lump is rolled into a Snake • Which has more clay? The Lump of the Snake?

19. Concrete Operational Stage • 7-11 years approx. • Children think logically about concrete events • Understand that change in shape does not affect quantity • Can understand mathematical transformations • Reversibility – Operations that go in the other direction ( + or - ) • Conservation – Objects can change shape without other changes in characteristics

20. Reversibility • When working with a 6 or 7 year old, ask the child to perform a simple arithmetic problem. “What is 8 plus 4?” Assuming you get the right response, then ask “What is 12-4?” Does the child need additional time to answer the second question after correctly answering the first?

21. Formal Operational Stage • 12yrs and over • Being to think logically about abstract concepts • Ex: Words like ‘truth’ or ‘justice’ • Begin to form strategies • Can hypothesize and solve hypothetical problems • Can begin to play monopoly and chess with strategies