EPSY 202 Chapter 6 Notes PDF

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1 EPSY 202- Chapter 6: Cognitive Development in Infancy and Toddlerhood

Learning Questions  What occurs during Piaget’s sensorimotor stage of cognitive development?  What is the premise of the theory of core knowledge?  How do infants learn?  What cognitive processes develop during infancy?  What aspects of infant’s cognitive development are the best predictors of later intelligence?  How do infants develop language?  How can we ensure optimal cognitive and language development in infants? Jean Piaget (1896-1980)  Swiss psychologist, interested in epistemology o How we come to know and understand the world  Genetic-epistemology- the study of the development of knowledge through biological adaptation and development of the mind o Human beings as biological organism who must adapt successfully to their environment o The unique characteristics of human mind, with its capacity for reflection and understanding, and wondered how long it worked  Principles about cognitive development: o Intelligence is an active, constructive and dynamic process o Mistakes children make are usually meaningful because the mistakes give us insight into the nature of their thought processes o As children develop, the structure of their thinking changes, and their new modes of thought are based on earlier structures Schemas  Always actively trying to make sense of our experiences to adapt successfully to our environment and ensure our survival  Children organize information into schemas, cognitive frameworks that let us categorize concepts, objects or experiences  New experiences can fit easily into preexisting schemas through assimilation o If the schema does not fit the experience, this can cause disequilibrium  A state of confusion in which your schemas do not fit your experiences  We can also accommodate our schemas to adjust to new experiences o This causes equilibration, resolving the disequilibrium Piaget’s Four Stages  Think of the stages as approximations; some children reach the stages earlier than others  Each stage represents a new quality of thought but each builds on the cognitive abilities acquired during the previous stage  Stages can occur only in one order o The path of development moves in only one direction  Sensorimotor Stage o Infancy  Preoperational Stage o Early Childhood  Concrete Operations o Middle Childhood

2 EPSY 202- Chapter 6: Cognitive Development in Infancy and Toddlerhood

Formal Operations o Early Adolescence The Sensorimotor Stage  Four stages identified by Piaget o Sensorimotor is the first  In this stage, the infant understands the world as taken in through their senses o Little emphasis on internal processes  Four general trends in development: o From reflexes to goal-directed activity o From the body to the outside world o Development of object permanence o From motor action to mental representation  Learning begins as infant adapts reflexes to the environment  Circular Reaction- an infant’s repetition of a reflexive action that results in a pleasurable experience  Infants lack object permanence o The understanding that objects continue to exist when no one is interacting with them Six Substages of the Sensorimotor Period  Use of Reflexes o 0-1 Month o Automatic reflexes  Primary Circular Reactions o 1-4 Months o Adaptation of reflexes to the environment  Secondary Circular Reactions o 4-8 Months o Repetition actions that make interesting events last  Coordination of Reactions and Application to New Situations o 8-12 Months o Action schemas applied to new objects  Tertiary Circular Reactions o 12-18 Months o Intentional discovery of new means to explore  Invention of New Means of Exploration Through Mental Combinations o 18-24 Months o Use mental activity to guide exploration Motor Schemas  Motor Schema- infant’s organization of knowledge through action on the world  Basis for internal cognitive representation of the world  Motor schemas are internalized, and the infant can think of them instead of actually doing them Theory of Core Knowledge  The theory that basic areas of knowledge are innate and built into the human brain 

3 EPSY 202- Chapter 6: Cognitive Development in Infancy and Toddlerhood

Violation of Expectations-a research methodology based on the finding that babies look longer at unexpected or surprising events  According to Spelke& Kinzler (2007) infants have: o Knowledge that an object moves as a cohesive unit, it does not contact another object unless they are close to each other, and it moves on a continuous path o Knowledge that agents (people) act purposefully toward a goal o Knowledge (within limits) of number o Knowledge of spatial relationships  Woodward found that infants are more likely to understand other people’s intentions in reaching for objects they after they themselves have learned to intentionally reach for an object Learning  Young infants learn through the basic mechanisms of behaviorism: o Classical conditioning-the association with a stimulus with another, has been shown in young infants based on a reflexive response by all of us o Operant conditioning- the reinforcement of spontaneously produced behavior o Imitation-the thendency to imitate begins with newbornsm who often copy adults  to understand what we see in the world, we learn to group things together into categories Attention in Infancy  The way in which we take in information is information processing  Selective Attention-tuning in to certain things while tuning out others  Sustained Attention-maintain focus over a time o Decreases as an infant becomes familiar with an object o Increases in older infants when they are shown more complex stimuli  Habituation- the reduction in the response to a stimulus that is repeated o Rate of habituation itself does not indicate intelligence; rather, habituation is a basic ability that is essential for the development of higher level learning Memory in Infancy  After we have paid attention to something, we must move it into memory if we want to use that information in the future  Infants are much more likely to remember something when they are in the same circumstances in which they first encountered it o Infants can recover memory with a little reminder  Memory gradually increases between ages 1 and 2  Most people cannot recall events before age 3 because of infantile amnesia o Physical changes occurring in the brain o Psychological or cognitive explanations o Non-verbal and verbal process  Two areas necessary for memory processes are the hippocampus and the prefrontal lobe cortex. o Important parts only become function at 20 and 24 months of age Executive Function  That aspect of brain organization that coordinates attention and memory, and controls behavioral responses for the purpose of attaining a certain goal 

4 EPSY 202- Chapter 6: Cognitive Development in Infancy and Toddlerhood

Inhibition-the ability to stop more automatic behaviors in order to stay on task and ignore distractions o “use your words” o Develop during the first 2 years of life and are essential for learning Infant Intelligence  Being able to assess intellectual abilities can serve two purposes: o To determine whether infant abilities are predictive of layer intelligence o To offer services to infants whose development is not optimal before they reach school  Most tests of infants’ development assess physical, motor, sensory, and/or early language development Aspects of Language  Phonology – The study of sounds  Syntax – The grammar of language o “Play” becomes “played” for the past tense  Semantics – The meaning of words o “Nice jeans” vs. “Nice genes”  Pragmatics – The way we use language in a social context o “Hey, buddy!” vs. “Good morning, Professor”  When children develop the ability to communicate with language, they are developing all four of the aspects  Two basic units are central to the study of language and its development: o Morpheme-the smallest unit that has meaning in a language o Phoneme- the smallest distinct sound in a particular language Phonemes  Phonemes o Smallest distinct sounds in a particular language  g/o ch/e/ck sh/i/ne o Different languages have different sets of phonemes:  r/l in English is not found in Asian languages  d/d differentiation in Hindi is not found in English  Clicking noises not found in most modern languages Morphemes  The basic units of meaning o Cats = Cat/s  2 morphemes o Airplanes = Air/plane/s  3 morphemes o Help – 1 morpheme, Helped – 2 morphemes  Phonemes and Morphemes o Ps/y/ch/o/l/o/g/y – 8 phonemes o Psych/ology – 2 morphemes o G/o/l/d/f/i/sh – 7 phonemes o Gold/fish – 2 morphemes Theories of Language Development 

5 EPSY 202- Chapter 6: Cognitive Development in Infancy and Toddlerhood

Behaviorism o By imitation (Bandura) o By reinforcement and operant conditioning (Skinner)  Nativism o Brains are hardwired to learn language (Chomsky)  Universal grammar & Overregularization  Interactionism o Readiness to learn interacts with child’s experiences  Cognitive Processing Theory o Brain is constantly processing language, even during infancy Language and the Brain  Language-specific areas of the brain: o Broca’s area- involved in speech production, located near the motor center that produces movement of the lips and tongue  Damage in this area produces problems in producing speech and a tendency to use only essential words o Wernicke’s area- understanding and creating meaning in speech is located towards the auditory center of the brain  Damage in this area has no trouble producing words, but has difficulty making sense Receptive vs. Expressive Language  Receptive language – the ability to understand words or sentences  Expressive language – written or spoken language we use to convey our thoughts, emotions, or needs o Receptive language comes first 

o Throughout the lifespan, people generally understand more words than they produce  Almost universally, comprehension is always greater than production o Ever learned a new language? Which was easier for you – listening or speaking? Stages of Language Development – Prenatal  A fetus can hear many things in utero o Infants prefer the sound of their mother reading The Cat in the Hat when they heard her read it prenatally to the sound of her reading something else  Newborns also show a preference for the language that their mother speaks o Infants can cry with an “accent” Stages of Language Development – Preverbal Communication  Crying o Reflexive at first, becomes intentional/goal-oriented o Indicates a need for something o Difficult to tell why the baby is crying  Cooing – 2-4 months of age o No intelligible syllables o Start of conversational rules  Babbling – 4-6 months of age o Making syllables like “ma” and “da”

6 EPSY 202- Chapter 6: Cognitive Development in Infancy and Toddlerhood

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 Origins of “mama” and “dada” Development depends on parents responding Babies under 6 months of age can distinguish sounds made in all language o They lose most of this by 10 months (Best & McRoberts, 2003) o This facilitates mastering the primary language Adults teach language by talking to baby, having back-and-forth exchange Use of child-directed speech

 Gesturing and sign language shown to facilitate non-verbal communication  Babies younger than 6 months can distinguish the sounds made in all languages Development of Words and Growth of Vocabulary  Infants can understand words at 9 months, despite not saying words until 13 months  1 year – only a few words in vocabulary  2 years – between 200 and 500 words o Vocabulary Burst- the rapid growth of a child’s vocabulary that often occurs in the second year  Constraints- assumptions that language learners make that limit the alternative meaning that they attribute to new words  Whole Object Bias- assumptions that language learners make that a word describes an entire object rather than just one portion of it  Mutual Exclusivity Constraint- assumptions that language learners make that there is one and only one name for an object  Taxonomic Constraint- assumptions that language learners make that two objects that have features in common can have a name in common, but each object can also have its own individual name  Fast mapping – A process by which children apply constraints and their knowledge of grammar to learn new words very quickly, often after a single exposure  Syntactic bootstrapping – using syntax to learn new words o Example – “The thrulm (noun) progisted (verb) the car.”  Semantic bootstrapping – Using conceptual categories to create grammatical categories  Two-word phrases start around 2 years of age o “Mommy up” meaning “Mommy, pick me up.” Developmental Risks  Intellectual disability o Genetic conditions (Down syndrome, Fragile-X syndrome) o Infections o Malnutrition o Teratogens o Injuries, neglect or abuse  Poverty o Disorganization in a household linked to infant’s receptive and productive language (Vernon-Feagans, Garrett-Peters, Willoughby, & Mills-Koonce, 2012) Promoting Cognitive and Language Development in Infants  The Home Observation for Measuring the Environment (HOME) Inventory  Media use in infancy

7 EPSY 202- Chapter 6: Cognitive Development in Infancy and Toddlerhood

o Research shows that real-life interaction is better for development over TV or DVDs o Can actually develop a smaller vocabulary by watching DVDs instead of real-life interaction (Zimmerman, Christakis & Meltzoff, 2007) o “Unstructured playtime is more valuable for the developing brain than any electronic media exposure” (American Academy of Pediatrics, 2011) Early Intervention for Language and Cognitive Development  Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) provides early intervention programs for children up to age 3  Maternal, Infant and Early Childhood Home Visiting (MIECHV) provides funding for home-visiting programs  Visitation of high-risk parents during pregnancy shows positive long-term outcomes...