Cognitive Development

1. Cognitive Development Chapter 7

2. Does the child reason and remember the same way that you do? How do you know? • If the answer to the first question is “no,” make a list of some of the specific differences between the way that you think and the way that the child thinks

3. Cognition – refers to the inner processes and products of the mind that lead to “knowing” • Three main approaches to cognitive development • Piaget’s cognitive developmental theory • Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory • Information processing

4. Imagine: • You are playing with a six-month-old infant and suddenly leave the room to answer the telephone. • You take a four-year-old child’s small cup of juice and empty it into a larger cup. • While trying to settle a fight over the TV between a seven-year-old and a 12-year-old, you flip a coin. The seven-year-old loses.

5. Piaget’s Cognitive Developmental Theory • Genetic epistemology • What is intelligence? • helps an organism adapt • Cognitive equilibrium

6. Piaget’s Cognitive Developmental Theory • Gaining Knowledge: Schemes and Processes • Schemes: mental patterns (thought/action) • Constructivist approach

7. Piaget’s Cognitive Developmental Theory • Adaptation • Assimilation • Accommodation • Equilibration • Organization

8. Piaget’s Cognitive Developmental Theory • Stage theory • Invariant and Universal • Order is genetically determined, but many factors affect the speed • May not reach highest level • Qualitatively different representational and reasoning abilities

9. Piaget’s Cognitive Developmental Theory • The Sensorimotor Stage (Birth to 2 years) • Coordinate sensory inputs and motor skills • Transition from being reflexive to reflective

11. Piaget’s Cognitive Developmental Theory • Sensorimotor Stage • Development of Object Permanence • Objects continue to exist when they are no longer visible/detectable • Appears by 8-12 months of age • A-not-B error: search in the last place found, not where it was last seen • Complete by 18-24 months

12. You are playing with a six-month-old infant and suddenly leave the room to answer the telephone.

14. Piaget’s Cognitive Developmental Theory • Two important features of mature thought • symbolic/mental representation • Intentionality • Visual displacements • Invisible displacements • Defer imitation • Make believe play

15. Identifying Substages • Juan accidentally pushes his stuffed toy and it makes a noise as it is squeezed. Juan laughs and does it again, and again, and again. • Linnea is sitting in her highchair. She holds her right arm high above her head and drops her spoon on the floor. Her mother giggles, picks it up, and hands it to her. Linnea then holds her right arm straight out from her body and drops her spoon. After her mother retrieves it, she holds her arm straight out in front of her and drops her spoon.

16. Noelle wants to go outside to play. She is carrying her cup of water in one hand and her doll (it goes everywhere with her) in the other. She realizes that she cannot push the door open because both of her hands are full. Consequently, she places her doll under her arm and uses her free hand to open the door. • Lionel is watching his new little sister, Sybil, sleep. He notices that her burp cloth has fallen off the changing table and is near her face. He reaches down to remove the burp cloth and in doing so, the burp cloth gently brushes Sybil’s face. Sybil turns her head towards the burp cloth and opens her mouth.

17. Kendall and her mother play a game where they touch each other’s noses and giggle. Kendall’s mother touches her nose and then Kendall touches her mother’s nose. One time, Kendall’s mother places a handkerchief between her face and Kendall’s face. Kendall swipes the handkerchief away with one hand and touches her mother’s face with the other. • Isaac and his mother are playing a game of hide-and-seek. Isaac’s mother places his toy car under a pillow and Isaac giggles as he retrieves it. One time Isaac’s mother pretends to place the toy car under the pillow but instead places it under the blanket. Isaac picks up the pillow and becomes upset when he realizes that the car isn’t there.

18. Phil is just lying on his back when he manages to grasp his foot. He smiles and lets go. His mother watches as he wiggles around until he manages to grasp his foot again.

19. Piaget’s Cognitive Developmental Theory • Challenges to Piaget’s Sensorimotor Stage • Neo-nativism – • Innate knowledge • Require less time/experience • Object permanence, memory • Baillargeon • Object permanence

22. Piaget’s Cognitive Developmental Theory • Theory theories • Combination of neo-nativist and Piagetian perspective • Infants are prepared at birth to make sense of some information • Beyond this, Piaget’s constructivist approach is generally accurate

23. Piaget’s Cognitive Developmental Theory • Preoperational Stage (2-7 years) • Characterized more by what children can’t do • Operation • Now mental what was once physical

24. Piaget’s Cognitive Developmental Theory • Preoperational Stage (con’t) • Symbolic/ representational activity • Make-believe play • Thinking is rigid

25. Piaget’s Cognitive Developmental Theory • Preoperational Stage (con’t) • Illogical schemes – transductive reasoning • Egocentrism

27. Piaget’s Cognitive Developmental Theory • Preoperational Stage (con’t) • Animism • Four characteristics of thought • Centered • Perception bound • Irreversibility • Focus on states rather than transformations

29. Piaget’s Cognitive Developmental Theory • Preoperational Stage (con’t) • You take a four-year-old child’s small cup of juice and empty it into a larger cup. • What do you think will happen? Why? • Hierarchical classification • Class inclusion problem

30. Piaget’s Cognitive Developmental Theory • Preoperational Stage (con’t) • Challenges to the Preoperational Stage • Egocentrism • Flavell • Existence • Need • Inference • Two levels of perspective taking • Level 1 • Level 2

31. Piaget’s Cognitive Developmental Theory • Preoperational Stage (con’t) • Challenges • Conservation • Animism • Categorization

32. A Brief Vacation from Piaget… • Theory of Mind • children begin to understand that the same world can be experienced in different ways by different people

33. A Brief Vacation from Piaget… • Theory of Mind (con’t) • the ability to infer mental states in others is proof that children have a theory of mind – which is a coherent understanding of their own and other’s mental lives • Research with 2 y/o

34. A Brief Vacation from Piaget… • Theory of mind (con’t) • Henry Wellman (1990) • False belief tasks

35. A Brief Vacation from Piaget… • Theory of Mind (con’t) • Harris (1989) suggests that the acquisition of a theory of mind involves three major developments: • self-awareness • the capacity for pretense • the ability to distinguish reality from pretense

36. …Back to Piaget… • Concrete Operational Stage (7-11 years) • logical, rule-bound, and integrated • limited to tangible things • Piaget regarded conservation as the single most important achievement of the concrete operational stage because it provides clear evidence of operations • Decentration • Reversibility

37. Piaget’s Cognitive Developmental Theory • Concrete Operational Stage (con’t) • Horizontal decalage • More adept at Classification • Mental seriation • Challenges – experience

38. Piaget’s Cognitive Developmental Theory • Formal Operational Stage (11+) • no longer earthbound and concrete • abstract and speculative • While trying to settle a fight over the TV between a seven-year-old and a 12-year-old, you flip a coin. The seven-year-old loses. • can now evaluate short and long range consequences • necessary for achieving identity, formulating ideological goals, and for selecting an occupation

40. Piaget’s Cognitive Developmental Theory • Formal Operational Stage (con’t) • Hypothetico-deductive reasoning • Reflective thinking • Interpropositional logic

41. Piaget’s Cognitive Developmental Theory • Formal Operational Stage (con’t) • Limitations to Formal Operational Thought • Adolescent Egocentrism • Imaginary audience • Personal fable

42. Challenges to Piaget’s Theory • Underestimated children’s capabilities • Failed to distinguish competence from performance • Does cognitive development occur in stages? • Does Piaget “explain” cognitive development? • Little attention to social and cultural influences

43. Strengths of Piaget’s Theory • Vivid and detailed description of cognitive development • Highlight interactive nature of cognition and environment • Children are active constructors of knowledge

44. Vygotsky • the child and the environment work together to shape cognition in culturally adaptive ways • development proceeds through social interaction and entails gradual internalization of cultural knowledge and processes for manipulating thought

45. Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Perspective • Language • Piaget  egocentric speech • Vygotsky  self-guidance and self-direction • Private speech  inner speech

46. Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Perspective • Zone of proximal development • Two important characteristics • Intersubjectivity • Scaffolding

47. Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Perspective • Evidence for social origins of cognitive development?

48. Vygotsky vs. Piaget? • Agreed children are active constructors of knowledge • Vygotsky’s  wide variation of cognitive skills across cultures • Piaget  universal cognitive change

49. Vygotsky vs. Piaget? • Vygotsky’s theory doesn’t give us everything • Vygotsky placed a huge emphasis on language