John W. Santrock

1. Children 7 Cognitive Development in Infancy John W. Santrock

2. Cognitive Development In Infancy • What Is Piaget’s Theory of Infant Development? • How Do Infants Learn and Remember? • How Are Individual Differences in Infant Intelligence Assessed? • What Are Some Early Environmental Influences on Cognitive Development? • What Is the Nature of Language and How Does It Develop in Infancy?

3. What Is Piaget’s Theory of Infant Development? Images of Children • The stories of Laurent, Lucienne, and Jacqueline • Piaget’s children are the “models” for his theory • Observations and cognitive development

4. What Is Piaget’s Theory of Infant Development? What Is Piaget’s Theory of Infant Development? • Adaptation: adjusting to new environmental demands • We build mental structures that help us to adapt • Children actively construct their own cognitive worlds

5. What Is Piaget’s Theory of Infant Development? Processes of Development • Schemes: actions or mental representations that organize knowledge • Assimilation: incorporating new information into existing schemes • Accommodation: adjusting schemes to fit new information and experiences

6. What Is Piaget’s Theory of Infant Development? Processes of Development • Assimilation and accommodation operate in very young infants • Piaget’s theory of infant development unifies biology and experience • Cognitive changes qualitative in each stage

7. What Is Piaget’s Theory of Infant Development? Sensorimotor Stage • First of Piaget’s stages • Lasts from birth to about 2 years of age • Infants construct understanding of the world by coordinating sensory experiences with physical, motoric actions; use of symbols

8. Sensorimotor Substages Figure 7.1

9. What Is Piaget’s Theory of Infant Development? Understanding Physical Reality • Object Permanence • Understanding that objects and events continue to exist even when they cannot be seen, heard, or touched • one of infant’s most important achievements, assessed by violation of expectations • Understanding of causality

10. Object Permanence (a) (b) Fig. 7.2

11. (a) (b) (c) The Infant’s Understanding of Causality Fig. 7.3

12. What Is Piaget’s Theory of Infant Development? Evaluating Piaget’s Sensorimotor Stage • New way of looking at infants • Piaget’s views need modification; his explanations of cause are debated • Object permanence occurs earlier • Distinguishing objects by 3 to 4 months • AB error: infant selects familiar hiding place (A) rather than new hiding place (B)

13. How Do Infants Learn and Remember? Conditioning • Consequences of behavior produce • Rovee-Collier experiment, conditioning • Classical conditioning: infant can develop lifelong fears • Operant conditioning: rewarding stimulus increases probability of that behavior reoccurring

14. How Do Infants Learn and Remember? Attention • Focusing of mental resources; improves cognitive processing • Habituation: decreased responsiveness to stimulus after repeated presentations • Dishabituation: habituated response recovered after a change in stimulation • “Short lookers” versus “long lookers”

15. How Do Infants Learn and Remember? Imitation • Meltzoff: • Infant can imitate facial expression within a few days after birth; biologically based • Deferred imitation: 9-month-olds can imitate actions they saw 24 hours earlier; consisted of unusual gestures

16. How Do Infants Learn and Remember? Memory • Central feature of cognitive development • Individual retains information over time • First Memories • Implicit memory: lacks conscious recollection • Explicit memory: conscious ability for recall • Infantile Amnesia • Most remember little from first 3 years • Immaturity of prefrontal lobe

17. How Do Infants Learn and Remember? Concept Formation and Categorization • Concepts: grouping objects, events, characteristics on common features • Perceptual categorization: 3-month-olds can form categories on basis of perceptual features • Size, color, movement, object parts, voices

18. How Are Individual Differences in Infant Intelligence Assessed? Infant Intelligence • Infant testing movement grew • Gesell: distinguish normal from abnormal babies • Developmental quotient (DQ): overall developmental score, combines domains • Motor • Language • Adaptive • Personal-social

19. How Are Individual Differences in Infant Intelligence Assessed? Bayley Scales of Infant Development • Widely used in assessment of infant development; has three components: • Mental scale; auditory and visual attention • Motor scale • Infant behavior profile • Assesses infant, predicts later behavior

20. How Are Individual Differences in Infant Intelligence Assessed? Infant Intelligence • Fagan Test of Infant Intelligence • Infant testing valuable for assessing effects of • Malnutrition, drugs, maternal deprivation • Environmental stimulation • Cognitive development is both continuous and discontinuous

21. What Are Some Early Environmental Influences on Cognitive Development? Nutrition • Affects physical development • Malnutrition limits cognitive development • Early nutritional supplements, proteins and calories, have positive long-term effects

22. What Are Some Early Environmental Influences on Cognitive Development? Poverty • Positive effects sought by manipulating children’s early environments • Emphasis on prevention, not remediation • Early intervention programs vary • Many low-income parents cannot provide intellectually stimulating environment

23. 60 50 40 Children retained in grades (percent) 30 20 10 0 Control Intervention Treatment Group Early Intervention and Retention in School Fig. 7.7

24. What Is The Nature of Language and How Does It Develop in Infancy? What Language Is • Language: form of communication (verbal, written, gestures) based on system of symbols; highly organized • Infinite generativity: ability to produce endless number of meaningful sentences using finite set of words and rules

25. What Is The Nature of Language and How Does It Develop in Infancy? Language’s Rule Systems • Phonology • Sound system of language • Basis and sequences for sets of words • Phoneme: smallest unit of sound • Morphology • Units of meaning in word formation • Morpheme: smallest unit of meaning

26. What Is The Nature of Language and How Does It Develop in Infancy? Language’s Rule Systems • Syntax • Ways words combine to form acceptable phrases and sentences • Semantics • Meanings of words and sentences • Pragmatics • Appropriate use of language in context

27. What Is The Nature of Language and How Does It Develop in Infancy? How Language Develops in Infancy • Babbling and other vocalizations • Crying: present at birth, signals distress • Cooing: begins about 1 to 2 months • Babbling: occurs in middle of first year, strings of consonant-vowel combinations • Gestures: begins about 8 to 12 months; about same for hearing and deaf children

28. What Is The Nature of Language and How Does It Develop in Infancy? Recognizing Language Sounds and Word Barriers • Birth to 6 months • “Citizens of the Word”: recognize most sound changes in any language • After 6 months, learn own language • Gradually lose ability to recognize sound changes in other languages • 8 to 9 months: detect word boundaries

29. What Is The Nature of Language and How Does It Develop in Infancy? First Words • First words at 10 to 15 months • First words name important people, familiar animals and objects, body parts, greetings • Infants understand about 50 words at 13 months (receptive vocabulary) but unable to say them until about 18 months (spokenvocabulary)

30. 27 24 21 Age (months) 18 15 12 9 First words Vocabulary spurt Language Milestone Variation in Language Milestones Fig. 7.10

31. What Is The Nature of Language and How Does It Develop in Infancy? Language Growth • Vocabulary spurt: 18 months to 2 years • 50 words at 18 mos, 200 words at 2 years • Overextension: applying words too broadly • Underextension: applying word too narrowly • Two-Word Utterances • Telegraphic speech: use of short and precise words without grammatical markers

32. What Is The Nature of Language and How Does It Develop in Infancy? Biological and Environmental Influences • Biological • Evolution of CNS and vocal apparatus • Human language about 100,000 years old • Brain regions involved

33. What Is The Nature of Language and How Does It Develop in Infancy? Biological and Environmental Influences • Brain’s Role in Language • Aphasia—Brain damage that involves a loss of ability to use words • Broca’s area—Brain’s left frontal lobe that directs the muscle movements involved in speech production • Wernicke’s area—Brain’s left hemisphere; involved in language comprehension

34. Broca’s Area Wernicke’s Area Broca’s Area and Wernicke’s Area Fig. 7.12

35. What Is The Nature of Language and How Does It Develop in Infancy? Language Acquisition Device (LAD) • Chomsky • Humans biologically prewired for language • Children born with LAD; biological ability to detect features and rules of language • Theoretical; not physical part of brain • Supporters cite uniformity of language milestones across languages and cultures

36. What Is The Nature of Language and How Does It Develop in Infancy? Is There a Critical Period for Learning Language? • Critical period advocates cite • Isolation/abuse cases like “Genie” • Brain development studies • Preschoolers’ rapid language learning • Behaviorists, critical period opponents • Learning continues beyond preschool

37. What Is The Nature of Language and How Does It Develop in Infancy? Is There a Critical Period for Learning Language? • Behaviorial view • Language is complex skill; learned and reinforced • Biology cannot explain creativity, motivation to learn proper syntax • Biology cannot fully explain orderliness of language; individual differences exist

38. What Is The Nature of Language and How Does It Develop in Infancy? Environmental Influences on Language • Environmental Influences • Parents’ talkativeness, vocabulary, and level of language linked to children’s vocabulary growth and SES • Child-directed speech • Spoken in higher pitch than normal with simple words and sentences • Holds attention, maintains communication

39. 800 High 600 Mother’s level of speech 400 Medium 200 Low 0 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 Infant’s age (months) Level of Maternal Speech and Infant Vocabulary Infant’s vocabulary size (words) Fig. 7.13

40. What Is The Nature of Language and How Does It Develop in Infancy? Environmental Influences • Other strategies used naturally: • Recasting: rephrasing what child says • Expanding: sophisticated restating of what the child says • Labeling: assigning, identifying objects by name

41. What Is The Nature of Language and How Does It Develop in Infancy? How Parents Can Facilitate Infants’ Language Development • Stimulate: be an active conversational partner • Self-fulfilling prophecy: talk as if infant understands what you are saying • Affect is important: use comfortable language style

42. What Is The Nature of Language and How Does It Develop in Infancy? How Parents Can Facilitate Toddlers’ Language Development • Remember to listen • Use comfortable language, but expand language abilities • Adjust to child’s idiosyncrasies • Avoid sexual stereotypes • Resist making normative comparisons

43. 800 Professional 600 Parent utterances to child per hour 400 200 0 10 14 18 22 26 30 34 38 Age of children (months) Language Input in Professional and Welfare Families and Young Children’s Vocabulary Development Welfare Fig. 7.14 (a)

44. 1200 1000 Professional 800 Children’s cumulative vocabulary words 600 400 Welfare 200 0 10 14 18 22 26 30 34 38 Age of children (months) Language Input in Professional and Welfare Families and Young Children’s Vocabulary Development Fig. 7.14 (b)

45. What Is The Nature of Language and How Does It Develop in Infancy? Interactionist View of Language Development • Biology and sociocultural experiences contribute to language development • Parents and teachers construct LASS— language acquisition support system • Children acquire native language without explicit teaching

46. Children 7 The End