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Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2007
World of Children 1st ed
Chapter 8:Cognitive Development
in Early Childhood
Piaget’s Pre-operational Thought Vygotsky’s Sociocultural View Information Processing Language Development Early Childhood Education Kindergarten Readiness
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2007
Piaget’s Theory2nd stage (ages 2 to 7)
Preoperational thought – children use mental representations for objects and events that are not physically available to see, hear and touch.
Operations – logical processes that can be reversed – example: pouring liquid into a container
Children at this age do not think with operations – thus, preoperational
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Use of mental representation in language
Average 2 yr old knows 200 words
Average 6 yr old knows 10,000 words
Language development is based on children’s mental representational abilities.
Increased vocabulary gives children the ability to talk about things that are not present.
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Use of mental representation in play
Symbolic play – children use one object to stand for another
At 18 months, children can pretend to talk on a phone if they have a play phone
At age 2, they can use a banana as a phone
At age 5, they can use almost anything as a phone – object does not have to look anything like a phone
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Beginning of Intuitive Thought Intuitive thought : reasoning based on
personal experience rather than formal logic
Children reason on what “seems like”
ex: pg 258
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Evidence of Intuitive thought
Egocentrism: inability to take another person’s perspective
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Evidence of Intuitive Thought
Animism : inanimate objects have feelings
ex: sun is shining b/c it’s happy.
ex: putting pencil down b/c it’s tired. Artificialism : natural events are under people’s
control
ex: sun went down b/c someone switched it off.
ex: moon isn’t shining b/c someone blew it out.As children have more experiences, they move towards
logical thought.
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Piaget’s research
Conservation : the idea that certain properties of an object remain the same even if physical appearance changes
Piaget analyzed children’s responses to conservation problems to understand preoperational thought
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Piaget’s Theory
Why do preoperational children give “incorrect” answers?
Centration : focus on one aspect of a situation – height of liquid
Static endpoints : focus on beginning and end, not process in the middle
Lack of reversibility : cannot visualize reversing the process
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Piaget’s legacy
Piaget influenced education in many ways the development of interactive and
hands-on materials for active learners guidelines for when to introduce topics
based on cognitive development challenges to children’s existing cognitive
structures to help them grow in understanding
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Vygotsky’s Theory
Lev Vygotsky (1896 – 1934) born in what would be part of Soviet
Union firm believer in Marxism – equality for all wrote several books and articles before
death from tuberculosis at age 38 most of his work was not published until
long after his death
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2007
Vygotsky’s Theory
Central idea – children develop cognitive structures from their culture and their social interactions, mainly by listening to the language that is around them
Children listen to social speech – what is said to them, and turn it into private speech – the speech they say out loud to themselves
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Vygotsky’s Theory
ex: girl learning to draw a circle“Start your mark going around like this,
then bring it all the way around until the marks meet each other.”
Almost all children use private speech When learning a new or difficult task,
children rely on private speech Children who use private speech the
most do better in difficult tasks.
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Vygotsky’s Theory
internalization : the process of taking external speech and making it internal and mental.
as children master a concept they need less private speech
eventually they internalize the concept as silent inner speech.
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Vygotsky’s Theory
Mediation : the introduction of concepts, knowledge, skills and strategies to the child
Adults may break down the task into smaller steps, give hints on how to accomplish it, provide tips on what to look for, etc.
Successful mediation depends on making sure it is appropriate to the child’s level of understanding and ability.
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Mediation example
How would an adult mediate to a child on how to do a difficult puzzle?
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Vygotsky’s theory
Zone of proximal development : the range of problems that the child can solve with some assistance
The cognitive structures in this zone are ones that the child has started to internalize but have not been completely internalized.
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Vygotsky’s Theory
Effective instruction involves giving child challenges, along with help in solving them.
Adults provide scaffolding – temporary support for child while cognitive structure is being developed
Doing part of the task Simplifying difficult tasks Talking the child trough the task Giving reminders
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Peers also provide instruction and support during collaborative learning.
Help each other solve problems Share their knowledge & skills Discuss strategies & knowledge
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Piaget and Vygotsky
Piaget
pride in autonomy and independencebelieved that children construct their own cognitive structures as they adapt to environment
Vygotsky
cultures and society change over time and how that change influences cognitive developmentbelieved that children adopt cognitive structures of people around them
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Information Processing Theory
Central idea - that humans receive, process, sort, store and retrieve information similar to the way computers do
=
Key assumption – humans are limited in capacity to process information
We can only do so much!!!!!!
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Changes in cognitive processes
Older children are able to process more information,
process it faster, and control attention span better then
young children.
Processing capacity
amount of information that a person can remember or think about at one time – increased flexibility of thought
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Changes in cognitive processes
Processing efficiency speed and accuracy of processing information.
1. Operating space2. Storage space
Older children have better memories.
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Changes in cognitive processes
Automaticity : ability to perform task with little conscious effort – increased complexity of thought
Important for increasing processing efficiency. frees up more cognitive capacity for other tasks.
Learning to read
1. recognizing letters
2. forming words
3. reading sentences
4. reading with expression, comprehension, what will happen next?
5. Compare and contrast w/ other books
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Changes in cognitive processes
Attention : ability to focus on specific information without being distracted by other stimuli – increased accuracy
as children get older
1. maintain focus for longer periods of time
2. ignore distracting information
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Metacognition
Metacognition:the understanding that people have about their own thought processes and memory
Includes knowledge of Tasks- long list of words more difficult to
remember than short list Strategies- repeating telephone # will help
you remember it for a short time People- limits to what a person can
remember
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Metacognition
Rapid improvement after age 5 young children are optimistic about their
own memory abilities more accurate when estimating how
much a peer can remember
How is overestimating their abilities good for children?
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Theory of the Mind
Theory of the Mind : an integrated understanding of what the mind is, how it works, and why it works that way.
Research on children’s theory of mind has looked at:
1. What children know about thinking in general
2. How well they understand the thoughts of people
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Theory of the Mind
3 year olds know: -that mental objects are different from
real objects. - it is possible to carry out mental
activities that could not happen in the real world
- dreams are not real life - many believe that different people
have the same dream
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Theory of the Mind
Young children are still dev. their understanding of mental actvitties
Indicator of theory of mind – appearance-reality distinction
young children do not understand the difference between how something appears to be, and how it really is
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Theory of the Mind
Ex: Cat named Maynard had a dog’s mask put on his face. Children thought that Maynard was a dog.
Change in appearance changed reality
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Mastering Theory of the Mind
Children must learn that Other people have thoughts different
from theirs All people have different thought
processes
Talking to children about thinking, feeling, memory, etc. helps in the development of a theory of the mind
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Language Development
From age 2 to age 6, children learn approximately 7 new words every day.
How? Fast-mapping : the ability to learn a word after only one
exposure Syntactical bootstrapping : using what is known about
grammar to figure out meanings of new wordsex: Nina is pidding her food. action Nina threw her pid. object Imitation Reinforcement from adults
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Learning grammar
Children learn how to combine words and form sentences gradually
where Daddy?
where Daddy is?
where is Daddy?
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Learning grammar
Around age 3, children begin to add word endings such as –s, -ing, -ed
Overregularization : applying rules of grammar and producing incorrect forms of words
“foots” “go-ed”
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Learning social rules of language
Social rules of discourse: conventions (rules) that people use in conversation with others
turn taking answer-obviousness – if answer to
question is obvious, the question is actually a request or demand
“do you have to yell in the house?”
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Learning social rules of language
Rules of language differ between cultures
African Americans don’t use question demands
How might an African American child interpret,
“Must you jump on the bed?” Must take their turn and hold audiences
attention rather than waiting for someone to finish and they are given their turn
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More than one language
Bilingual : fluent in two languages
Additive bilingualism : second language is learned while first language is maintained
Subtractive bilingualism : second language is learned while fluency in first language is lost
Simultaneous bilingualism : two languages are learned at the same time, starting in infancy
Sequential bilingualism : one language is learned, and then 2nd language is learned.
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More than one language
Children who begin learning 2nd language before age 3 are usually just as fluent in both languages.
Older learners have trouble with accent, but learn vocabulary and grammar faster
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More than one language
In early stages, children may mix words from both languages – frequency decreases as each language gets stronger
Children understand the difference between the two languages and may restrict use of each to specific situations, but learn to switch back and forth easily
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Early Childhood Education
Project Head Start : federally funded program begun in 1965 to improve achievement in young children
Abecedarian Project : program to assess impact of full time high quality intervention beginning in infancy
High/Scope Perry Preschool : high quality part-day intervention during school year for 3 to 5 yr olds
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Effects of Early Education Programs
immediate gain in IQ which fades during elementary school
higher scores on reading and math tests fewer students placed in special ed
classes higher graduation rates better overall health
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Effects of Early Education Programs
Adapted with permission from L.J. Schweinhart, H.V. Barnes, & D.P. Weikart. (1993). Significant benefits: The High/Scope Perry Preschool study through age 27 (Monographs of the High/Scope Educational Research Foundation, Number 10); pp. xvi-xvii. Ypsilanti, MI: The High/Scope Press.)