1 The First Two Years: Cognitive Development cognition = “thinking” “thinking” in a very broad sense includes… –language –learning –memory –intelligence

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The First Two Years: Cognitive Development

cognition = “thinking”

•“thinking” in a very broad sense includes…–language–learning –memory –intelligence

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Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development

Senori-motor Stage (0 – 24 months)

Infants learn through senses and motor actions

Sensorimotor period is subdivided into 6 stages Primary Circular Reactions» Stage 1 – Reflexes» Stage 2 – First Acquired AdaptationsSecondary Circular Reactions» Stage 3 – An awareness of Things» Stage 4 – New Adaptation and AnticipationTertiary Circular Reactions» Stage 5 – New means through active experimentation

» Stage 6 – New means through mental combinations

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Piaget and Research Methods

• Piaget’s sensorimotor intelligence actually occurs earlier for most infants than Piaget predicted. – Piaget used observation to make his conclusions– More extensive experimental methods have determined that he was not always correct. This technology was not available to Piaget.

– Habituation, the process of getting used to (i.e., bored with) a stimulus after repeated exposure. An infant can show this by looking away.

– If a new object appears and the infant reacts (change in heart rate, sucking), it is assumed they recognize the object as something different.

– fMRI also indicate that information is being noticed and processed by infants at an earlier age than believed.

– Thinking develops before motor skills can execute thought.

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Information Processing Theory

• a perspective that compares human thinking processes to computer analysis of data– including sensory input– connections– stored memories– output

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perception = the mental processing of information that arrives at the brain from the sensory organs= the 1st step of information processing

Two people can have very different perceptions of the same situation (actually observe it differently)

Eleanor and James Gibbs – perception is far from automatic, it is a cognitive accomplishment that requires selectivity.

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• The environment offers or affords many opportunities for perception and for interaction with what is perceived.

• Affordances = these opportunities for action provided by the environment

• We do not perceive things we perceive how we can interact with them

•Depends on four factors:–sensory awareness–immediate needs and motivation–current developmental level–past experiences

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• Research on Early Affordance– Information processing improves over the first year infants become quicker to recognize affordances

– Experiences affect which affordances are perceived

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• Sudden Dropsvisual cliff = an apparatus to measure depth perception (further study has found that not crossing the visual cliff is not completely about depth perception)

– Mothers could encourage 6 month olds to wiggle across the visual cliff.

– Once kids can crawl they realize that crawling over the visual cliff affords falling.

– the cliff “affords” danger for older infants who have had experience with falling – they would not cross the visual cliff.

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• Movement and People –All infants have:•dynamic perception–primed to focus on movement and change

•a people preference–a universal principle of infant perception, consisting of an innate attraction to other humans, which is evident in visual, auditory, tactile, and other preferences

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• Memory– Developmentalists now agree that even very young infants can remember under the following circumstances:•experimental conditions are similar to “real life”

•motivation is high•special measures are taken to aid memory retrieval

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•Reminders and Repetition–reminder sessions•a perceptual experience that is intended to help a person recollect an idea, a thing, or an experience, without testing whether the person remembers it at the moment

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–after about 6 months infants can retain information for longer periods of time… with less training or reminding

–Around 1 many kinds of memory is apparent (ex. deferred imitation)

–by the middle of the 2nd year toddlers can remember and reenact more complex sequences

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–Memory is not one “thing”•brain-imaging techniques reveal many distinct brain regions devoted to particular aspects of memory–implicit memory is memory for routines and memories that remain hidden until particular stimulus bring them to mind

–explicit memory is memory that can be recalled on demand

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Language: What Develops in the First Two Years?

• Language = the most impressive human accomplishment

• The Universal Sequence–Around the world children follow the same sequence of early language development

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Language

• Listening and Responding•infants begin learning language before birth

•infants prefer speech over other sounds

–child-directed speech•the high-pitched, simplified, and repetitive way adults speak to infants

Newborns

2 month olds

3 – 6 month olds

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• Babbling (6 – 10 mos.)–repeating certain syllables (e.g., da-da-da).•all babies babble, even deaf babies (although later and less frequently).

•babbling is a way to communicate.

Babies also use hand gestures

Language

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• First Words– usually around 1 year the average baby speaks, or signs a few words•they are often familiar nouns

– by 13 months spoken language increases very gradually

– 6 to 15 month-olds learn meaning rapidly and comprehend about 10 times as many words as they speak

Language

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• The Naming Explosion –a sudden increase in an infant’s vocabulary, especially in the number of nouns begins at about 18 months

–Once vocabulary reaches about 50 expressed words it continues to build rapidly at a rate of 50 to 100 per month, 21 month-olds saying twice as many as 18 month-olds

Language

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• Cultural Differences–the ratio of nouns to verbs and adjectives show cultural influences.

–one explanation is the language itself

–another explanation is social context (toys and objects)

–every language has some concepts encoded in adult speech that are very hard for infants to understand

Language

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• Beginning Sentences

“Dada!” “Dada?” and “Dada.”

– each is a holophrase, a single word that expresses a complete, meaningful thought.

– intonations varying in tone and pitch is extensive in babbling and again in holophrases at about 18 months

– Are communicating with others

Language

Language

• grammar--all the methods that languages use to communicate meaning. Word order, prefixes, intonation, verb forms,… are all aspects of grammar.

• Obvious when 2 word communication begins

• Grammar correlates with the size of the vocabulary.

• Comprehension correlates with vocabulary and grammar.

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• Theories of Language Learning–There are 3 theories of how infants learn language:•they are taught (view of B. F. Skinner)

•they teach themselves (view of Noam Chomsky)

•social impulses foster learning

Language

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• Theory One: Infants Need to Be Taught

– Approximately 50 years ago the dominant learning theory in North America was behaviorism

– B. F. Skinner (1957) noticed that spontaneous babbling is usually reinforced… a grinning mother appears, repeating, praising, giving attention to the infant

– Parents are expert teachers, other caregivers help

– Frequent repetitions is instructive when linked to daily life

– Well-taught infants become well-spoken children

Language

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• Theory Two: Infants Teach Themselves– a contrary theory is that language learning is innate--adults need not teach it

– Norm Chomsky (1968,1980) felt that language is too complex to be mastered merely through step-by-step conditioning

Language

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• Theory Two: Infants Teach Themselves

– universal grammar--all young children master basic grammar at about the same age

– Universal grammar = evidence that humans are born with a mental structure that prepares them to seek some elements of human languages

– Language acquisition device (LAD) •a term used for a hypothesized mental structure that enables humans to learn language, including the basic aspects of grammar, vocabulary and intonation from the speech they hear every day.

Language

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• Theory Three: Social Impulses Foster Infant Language– a third theory called social-pragmatic perceives the crucial starting point to be neither vocabulary reinforcement (behaviorism) nor innate connection (epigenetic), but rather the social reason for language; communication

– Infants communicate in every way they can because humans are social beings and depend on one another for survival and joy

– Language is acquired as a by-product of social interactions with adults.

Language

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• A Hybrid Theory– the integration of all three perspectives… notably in a monograph based on 12 experiments designed by 8 researchers

– their model an emergentist coalition… combing valid aspects of several theories about the emergence of language during infancy

– Children learn language to do numerous tasks.

– Some aspects of language are best learned one way and some another.

Language

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1 The First Two Years: Cognitive Development cognition = “thinking” “thinking” in a very broad sense includes… –language –learning –memory –intelligence