Warm Up

1. Warm Up Do you have an imaginary friend? If not make one up…. Write a scenario where your imaginary friend helped you out of a situation.

2. Cognitive and Emotional Development!

3. How do we change what we know? • Schema: Conceptual framework a person uses to make sense of the world. • Assimilation: The process of fitting objects and experiences into one’s schemas. • Accommodation: The adjustment of one’s schemas to include newly observed events and experiences.

4. Wow that was confusing, so here’s a big example: • Suppose an infant encounters a new block. The block fits his schema for other blocks he has encountered before. • He may fit it into his “stacking schema.” The infant has stacked blocks before and can easily assimilate the new block into an existing schema.

5. More… • Assimilation and Accommodation work together to produce intellectual growth. • When events do not fit into existing schemas, new and grander schemas have to be created. • Therefore, a child begins to see and understand things in new ways!

6. Object Permanence • An infant’s understanding of things lies totally in the here and now. • The sight of a toy, the way it feels, and the sensation it produces in an infants mouth are all he/she knows. • He or she cannot and does not imagine it, picture it, think of it, or even remember it. • When an infants toy is hidden from them, they act as if it no longer exists.

7. As they get older things change… • If you take an infants toy and hide it under a blanket while they are watching, they will look under the blanket for it. • However, if you then take the toy from under the blanket and hide it behind your back, the infant will continue to look under the blanket. • Piaget called this object permanence: A child’s realization that an object exists even when he or she cannot touch it. • “Things continue to exist even though they cannot be seen or touched”

8. Object Permanence

9. Representational Thought • Representational Thought: The intellectual ability of a child to picture something in his or her mind. • Once this is achieved, a child’s intelligence is no longer based on actions only. • In other words, a child can now think of something, rather than having to see it first!

10. The Principle of Conservation • The principle that a given quantity does not change when its appearance is changed. • What?? • For example, you take two identical short wide jars filled with water. • Then you pour the contents of one of these jars into a tall, thin jar. • A child under 5 will say that the tall jar contains more water than the shorter jar.

11. Cont… • If you pour the water back into the short jar to show the amount has not changed, the child will still say that there is more water in the taller container. • Children under 5 can’t think two dimensionally (height and width). This happens because children are egocentric. • Egocentric: a young child’s inability to understand another person’s perspective.

12. So lets meet the man who said all this! • Jean Piaget • 1896 – 1980 • Born: Switzerland • Question: How does knowledge grow? • He studied his own 3 children and thousands of other children! • He created the different levels of cognitive development!

13. Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development! • According to Piaget, there are “4” stages of cognitive development! • Stage One (0-2 years): Sensorimotor Stage. During this stage the infant uses schemas that primarily involve his/her body and sensations. • Stage Two (2-7 years): Preoperational Stage. During this stage, the child begins to use mental images or symbols to understand things.

14. Stage Three (7-11 years): Concrete Operations. During this stage, children are able to use logical schemas but their understanding is limited to concrete objects or problems. Stage Four (11-upward): Formal Operations Stage. During this stage, a person is able to solve abstract problems. According to Piaget, a person’s development through these four stages depends on both the maturation of his or her nervous system and on the kinds of experiences that he or she has had. Everyone goes through the stages in some order, but not necessarily at the same age.

15. Emotional Development • As children develop their abilities to use their bodies, think and express themselves they are also developing emotionally. Children become attached to specific people and begin to care about what they think and feel.

16. Experiments with Animals • Experiments with baby birds and monkeys have shown if the infant is too young or too old, the attachment usually cannot be formed, but the attachment itself is a kind of learning. If the attachment is not made, or a different attachment is made, the infant will develop in a different way.

17. So what does this mean? • Lorenz (1903-1989) became a pioneer in the field of animal learning. He discovered that baby geese become attached to their mothers in a rapid, virtually permanent learning process called imprinting. • Imprinting: Inherited tendencies or responses that are displayed by newborn animals when they encounter new stimuli in their environment. • After a few hours the baby geese are out of their shells, and ready to start waddling after the first thing they see that moves…do you see a problem here?

18. Lorenz substituted himself or some moving objects like a green box being dragged along the ground, the goslings would follow that. Goslings are especially sensitive just after birth, and whatever they learn during this critical period, about 13 to 16 hours after birth, makes a deep impression that resist change.

19. What is a Critical Period? • Critical Period: A specific time in development when certain skills or abilities are most easily learned.

20. The Importance of Mothers • Separation Anxiety: Occurs whenever a child is suddenly separated from his or her mother. If the separation persists, the child may develop psychological disorders. • Soft “monkey mom” example.

21. Wrap up • What are your impressions about imprinting? Explain.

22. Activity Time • Please Partner Up with the person nearest to you. • When you get the worksheet please put both of your names on it. • I will put up a chart to help you answer some questions about Types of Attachments in Children. You may use the chart, your notes and your own knowledge. • Depending on time I may pair you up with another group to go over the answers, if not I will collect the sheet and grade it.

23. Chapter concepts Transparencies, strategies, and activities • Pg 12