Infancy: Cognitive Development

Chapter 5
Development Across the Life Span
 Piaget’s Approach to Cognitive Development
Who was Piaget?
one of the most influential
developmental theorists of the 20th century
 Carefully observed children-especially
his own young son-and used this
information to form the theory that
human cognition develops not so
much through traditional learning
processes as through changes in the
way children approach problems
(believed that infants learn by doing!)
Piaget continued..
 Believed that knowledge is the product of
direct motor behavior in infants
 Both quantity and quality of knowledge
increase
 Believed that cognitive development occurs
in an orderly and gradual fashion
 His theory is thus based on a stage
approach to development
Transitions…
Infants do not suddenly shift between stages of
cognitive development. Instead Piaget argues that
there is a transition period in which some behaviors
reflect one stage, some the next stage (GRADUAL
change!)
Piaget believed that …
All children pass through a series of
universal stages in a fixed order.
A. sensorimotor
B. preoperational
C. concrete operations
D. formal operations
(we will elaborate on these more later…)
 During these stages..
A. Both quantity and quality of knowledge
increase.
B. Focus is on the change in understanding
that occurs as child moves through
stages.
C. Movement through stages occurs with
physical maturation and experience with
environment.
Piaget believed that infants have mental structures
called SCHEMES
(organized patterns of sensorimotor functioning)
 Newborn schemes differ from adult
schemes
 Reflexes (sucking & rooting)
 Schemes become more sophisticated as
motor capabilities advance
 Piaget considered this a signal of potential for
more advanced cognitive development
 Two principles
underlie children's schemes:

1) ASSIMILATION is when people understand an

experience in terms of their current stage of
cognitive development and way of thinking.
 sucking on every toy the same way,
calling all animals dogs
(principles underlying children's schemes)

2) ACCOMMODATION is change in existing

ways of thinking that occur in response
to encounters with new stimuli or
events.
 sucking on things based on shape,
calling all flying animals birds
SENSORIMOTOR STAGE OF COGNITIVE
DEVELOPMENT (table in text)
 The initial, major stage of cognitive
development in Piaget’s theory!
 Can be broken down into 6 substages:
 Substage 1: simple reflexes
 first month of life
 various reflexes determine the
infant's interaction with world.
 Sucking reflex (provides info about
the world = cognitive development)
 (Piaget’s SENSORIMOTOR STAGE OF COGNITIVE
DEVELOPMENT continued)
 Substage 2: first habits and primary circular
reactions
 From 1-4 months of age
 coordination of actions
 A CIRCULAR REACTION is an activity that
permits the construction of cognitive schemes
through repetition of a chance motor event.
 Primary circular events occur
 primary circular reactions are the infants repeating
of interesting or enjoyable actions on his or her
own body.
(Piaget’s SENSORIMOTOR STAGE OF
COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT continued)
 Substage 3: secondary circular reactions
 4-8 months of age
 begins to act on world (e.g., rattles rattle)
 secondary circular reactions are repeated
actions meant to bring about a desirable
consequence on the outside world.
 vocalization increases and imitation begins
(Piaget’s SENSORIMOTOR STAGE OF COGNITIVE
DEVELOPMENT continued)
 Substage 4: coordination of secondary
circular reactions
 8-12 months of age
 Employs GOAL-DIRECTED BEHAVIOR, where
several schemes are combined and
coordinated to generate a single act to solve a
problem.
 development of OBJECT PERMANENCE, the
realization that people and objects exist even
when they cannot be seen.
Cognitive Development Continues…
Before object permanence develops, the infant will
not search for an object.
 (Piaget’s SENSORIMOTOR STAGE OF COGNITIVE
DEVELOPMENT continued)
 Substage 5: tertiary circular reactions
 12-18 months of age
 tertiary circular reactions involve the
deliberate variation of actions to bring
desirable consequences
 Miniature “experiments” to observe
consequences
 Interest in understanding the
unexpected
 Piaget’s SENSORIMOTOR STAGE OF
COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT continued)
 Substage 6: beginning of thought
 18-24 months of age
 capacity for MENTAL
REPRESENTATION, an internal image of
a past event or object.
 permits child to understand causality
 child gains ability to pretend and DEFERRED
IMITATION, in which a person who is no longer
present is imitated by children who have
witnessed a similar act.
Developmentalist’s thoughts on Piaget…

 Most developmentalists agree that

Piaget's descriptions of how cognitive
development proceeds during infancy
are accurate.
 Piaget considered a master observer.
 Studies show that children do learn
about the world by acting on objects
in their environment.
However, specific aspects of Piaget's theory
have been criticized.
1) Some developmentalists question the stage
concept, thinking development is more
continuous.
2) Piaget's notion that development is grounded in
activity ignores the importance of infant's
sensory and perceptual abilities.
3) Imitation and object permanence may occur
earlier than Piaget suggested
4) Some development is universal, and some
appears to be subject to cultural variations.
INFORMATION-PROCESSING APPROACHES
to Cognitive Development

 seek to identify the way that individuals

take in, use, and store information
 Information Processing has 3 basic
aspects:
1) Encoding is the process by which
information is initially recorded in a
form usable to memory.
(The 3 basic aspects of
Information Processing continued)

2) Storage refers to the maintenance of

material saved in memory.

3) Retrieval is the process by which

material in memory storage is located,
brought into awareness, and used.
Information Processing Approaches to
Cognitive Development
(INFORMATION-PROCESSING APPROACHES
to Cognitive Development, continued)

 Automatization is the degree to which an activity

requires attention.
 Processes that require little attention are
automatic.
 Processes that require large amounts of
attention are controlled.
A. Automatization processes help children in their
initial encounters with the world by
"automatically” priming them to process
information in particular ways
(affects encoding, storage, and retrieval of info!)
(INFORMATION-PROCESSING APPROACHES
to Cognitive Development, continued)

 Cognitive architecture refers to the

basic, enduring structures and
features of information processing
that are relatively constant over the
course of development.
 Refers to the specific steps through
which material is processed as it
travels through the mind
INFORMATION-PROCESSING APPROACHES
to Cognitive Development: Memory )
 MEMORY is the process by which information is
initially recorded, stored, and retrieved.
 The ability to habituate implies some memory.
 Infant's memories improve with age.
 Research suggests that memory during infancy
is dependent upon the hippocampus and that at
a later age involves additional structures of the
brain
INFORMATION-PROCESSING APPROACHES
to Cognitive Development: Memory, continued )
 Research supports the notion of INFANTILE
AMNESIA, the lack of memory for experiences
that occurred prior to three years of age.
 Although memories are stored from early
infancy, they cannot be easily retrieved.
 Early memories are susceptible to interference
from later events.
 Memories are sensitive to environmental context
INFORMATION-PROCESSING APPROACHES
to Cognitive Development:
INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES IN INTELLIGENCE

 Infant intelligence, like adult

intelligence, is difficult to define.
 Developmental specialists have
devised several approaches
 (table in text)
Approaches used to detect differences in
intelligence during infancy…
1) the DEVELOPMENTAL QUOTIENT

2) BAYLEY SCALES OF INFANT

DEVELOPMENT

3) VISUAL-RECOGNITION MEMORY
measurement
(Approaches used to detect differences
in intelligence during infancy, continued)
 Arnold Gesell formulated the
  DEVELOPMENTAL QUOTIENT,
 an overall developmental score that relates to
performance in four domains and is the
earliest measure of infant development based
on hundreds of babies; it compared their
performance at different ages to learn what
behaviors were common to a certain age.
 Assesses performance in 4 domains
(DEVELOPMENTAL QUOTIENT-- Approaches used to
detect differences in intelligence during infancy,
continued)

 motor skills (balancing, sitting)

 language use (speaking, sounds)
 adaptive behavior (alertness,
exploration)
 personal-social (feeding, dressing)
(Approaches used to detect differences
in intelligence during infancy, continued)

 BAYLEY SCALES OF INFANT

DEVELOPMENT are a measure
that evaluates an infant's
development from 2 to 30 months.

 Focuses on 2 areas:
mental and motor abilities…
 (BAYLEY SCALES OF INFANT
DEVELOPMENT, continued)
 Mental Scale
 Assesses senses, perception, memory,
learning, problem solving, language
 Social smile, reaching, using words

 Motor Scale
 Assesses gross motor skills, fine motor skills

 Lifts head, sits with support, walks alone

(see table of sample items)

 (Approaches used to detect differences
in intelligence during infancy, continued)
 VISUAL- RECOGNITION MEMORY
measurement
-  A contemporary approach to infant
intelligence
 measures how quickly infants process
information
 a measure of memory and recognition of a
stimulus that has been previously seen.
One more approaches used to detect differences
in intelligence during infancy:

 CROSS-MODAL TRANSFERENCE is
the ability to identify a stimulus that
has previously only been
experienced through one sense
using another sense.
 Information processing measures
correlate moderately well with later
measures of intelligence.
 Cognitive Development in Infancy:
Language…from sounds to symbols

 LANGUAGE is the systematic, meaningful

arrangement of symbols, and provides the
basis for communication.

 Language has several formal characteristics

that must be mastered as linguistic
competence is developed…
Formal characteristics of language mastery…

 Phonology refers to the basic sounds

of language, called phonemes, that
can be combined to produce words
and sentences.
 Morphemes are the smallest language
unit that has meaning.
 Semantics are the rules that govern
the meaning of words and sentences.
 Language is closely tied to the way
infants think and how they understand
the world
A. Linguistic comprehension is the
understanding of speech.
B. Linguistic production is the use of
language to communicate.
C. Comprehension of language precedes
production of language
Throughout infancy,
speech comprehension precedes speech production
Infants show PRELINGUISTIC COMMUNICATION
through sounds, facial expressions, gestures,
imitations, and other non-linguistic means.
 BABBLING is when infants make speech-like but
meaningless sounds at about 2-3 months
continuing to about 1 year.
 Babbling is a universal phenomenon.
 Babbling begins with easy sounds (b - p) and
proceeds to more complex sounds (d - t).
 By age 6 months, babbling differs according
to the language to which the infant is exposed.
First words are generally spoken between
10-14 months.

 First words are typically

HOLOPHRASES, one-word
utterances that depend on the
particular context in which they are
used to determine meaning.
 Some more things to know about language
development in infants…
 By 15 months the average child has a vocabulary
of 15 words.
 Between 16 and 24 months a child's vocabulary
increases to 100 words.
 by 18 months, infants are linking words in
sentences using TELEGRAPHIC SPEECH where
words not critical to the message are left out.
 UNDEREXTENSION, using words too restrictively, is
common.
 OVEREXTENSION, using words too broadly, is also
common.
 Linguists are divided on the origins of language

 LEARNING THEORY APPROACH posits that language

acquisition follows the basic laws of reinforcement and
conditioning.
 Through the process of shaping, language
becomes more and more similar to adult speech.
 This theory does not explain how children learn
grammar.
 It does not explain how children produce novel
phrases, sentences, and constructions, such as
nonsense words using correct grammar.
An alternative theory of the origins of language
has been proposed by Noam Chomsky
 Chomsky argues that there is a genetically
determined, innate mechanism that directs the
development of language.
 Chomsky argues that all the world's languages
share a similar underlying structure called
UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR.
 The brain is wired with a LANGUAGE-
ACQUISITION DEVICE (LAD), a neural system of
the brain hypothesized to permit the
understanding of language.
 Speaking to children: The language of infant-
directed speech
 INFANT-DIRECTED SPEECH, a type of speech directed
towards infants, characterized by short, simple
sentences.
 This type was previously called motherese.
 Pitch of voice becomes higher.
 Intonation may be singsong.
 Typically only used during first year.
 Infants seem more receptive to this type of speech.
 Use of this type of speech is related to the early
appearance of words
 Gender differences…
Research shows that parents use different
language for boys than for girls!
 They use diminutives more with girls
(kitty/dolly vs. cat/doll) , warmer
phrases and more emotional referents
and tend to hear firmer, clearer
language.
 Diminishing Diminutives

The use of
diminutives
declines with age,
but women still
hear them more
consistently. What
is the cultural
significance of
this?
(“kitty, dolly, birdie, dolly”)
Do the differences in language directed at
boys and girls during infancy affect their
behavior as adults???
 No direct research evidence, but it is
CLEAR that men and women use different
language as adults
 Women tend to be more tentative and
use less assertive language as adults
Intriguing possibility that altering the
language we direct at young women
could change this!
 Is Infant-Directed Speech Similar Across Cultures?

 Although the words differ across languages, the

way the words are spoken are similar!
 Cross-cultural similarities are so great, patterns
can be realized.
 Pitch rises when a mother is attempting to
gain an infant’s attention
 Vowel sounds exaggerated
~ Deaf mothers use a form of infant-directed
speech too! Use slower tempo and repeat
signs more often.
Don’t forget:

 Read chapter 6 for next

time!