CHAPTER FIVE COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT IN INFANCY. Copyright © 2009 Pearson Education Canada 5-2 I. COGNITIVE CHANGES Changes in cognitive skills over the

CHAPTER FIVE

COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT IN INFANCY

Copyright © 2009 Pearson Education Canada 5-2

I. COGNITIVE CHANGES

Changes in cognitive skills over the first 2 years are highly consistent across environments

Two-year-olds are still a long way from cognitive maturity, but they have taken several important steps toward that goal


A. Piaget’s View of the First 2 Years

Sensorimotor stage:

– Piaget’s first stage of development, in which infants use information from their senses and motor actions to learn about the world

– Primary, secondary and tertiary circular reactions: the infant progressively gains experience of himself and his surroundings

– By age 18-24 mo., the infant has the beginnings of mental representation

– Refer to Table 5.1 (next slide)(continued)


Substages of Piaget’s Sensorimotor Stage


Piaget’s View of the First 2 Years (continued)

Object permanence: the understanding that objects continue to exist when they can’t be seen– 2 months – rudimentary expectations shown by

surprise when an object disappears– 6 – 8 months – looking for a missing object for a

brief period of time– 8 – 12 months – reaching for or searching for a toy

that is hidden

(continued)


Piaget’s View of the First 2 Years (continued)

Imitation– 2 months – can imitate actions they can see

themselves make– 8 – 12 months – can imitate other people’s facial

expressions– 1 year – imitation of any action that wasn’t in the

child’s repertoire begins– 18 months – deferred imitation (a child’s imitation

of some action at a later time) begins


B. Challenges to Piaget’s View

(continued)

Piaget underestimated the cognitive capacity of infants

He may have wrongly equated the infant’s lack of physical ability with lack of cognitive understanding

Object permanence occurs much earlier, and is more complex, than he predicted


Challenges to Piaget’s View (continued)

Object Permanence– Babies as young as 4 months show clear signs of

object permanence (Baillargeon et al, Rosander & von Hofsten)

– Some theorists (Meltzkoff et al) believe that infants can establish mental representations of objects before they develop object permanence

(continued)


Challenges to Piaget’s View (continued)

Imitation– Piaget’s proposed sequence of imitation skill has

been supported• Imitation of a hand movement starts at 1 – 2 months• Imitation of 2-part actions starts around 15-18

months– Imitation of facial gestures and deferred imitation

occur earlier than Piaget proposed– Infants learn through modeling– Many more skills than Piaget thought may be

inborn


C. Alternative Approaches

Object Concept: an infant’s understanding of the nature of objects and how they behave– 3 month old infants displayed a knowledge of

objects and how they behave that is much more sophisticated than previously thought

– This ability may be innate, or it may be that the strategies for learning are innate

– Another controversy is whether infants understand the concepts being demonstrated (such as the support required to keep an object stable) or are only responding to the novelty of the situation

(continued)


Spelke’s Violation of Expectancy Procedure


Baillargeon’s Learning Strategies Research


Alternative Approaches (continued)

Object Individuation: the process by which an infant differentiates and recognizes distinct objects based on their mental images of objects in the environment– 4 month olds can individuate based on spatio-

temporal information– 10 month olds can individuate based on an object’s

property information– 9 to 12 month olds can individuate based on the kind of

objectUnderstanding of objects seems to develop gradually

over the first 3 years


II. Learning, Categorizing, Remembering and IntelligenceLearning denotes the permanent changes in

behaviour that result from experienceBabies show evidence of learning from their first

moments, and they organize their interactions with the forces in their environment


A. Conditioning and Modeling

Research evidence (Gunther) supports the presence of classical conditioning– babies who felt smothered by the left breast learned to

refuse the left breastResearch evidence (Moon & Fifer) supports the

presence of operant conditioning– sounds of mother’s voice or heartbeat, sweet liquids

increased the sucking response and head turning– The mother’s voice is an effective reinforcer for all

babies


B. Schematic Learning

The organization of experiences into expectancies, or “known” combinations

Categories – By 7 months infants actively use categories to process

information– Cannot process levels of categories

• Superordinates (higher level categories) contain lower level categories

• Babies respond differently to animals and furniture but not to dogs and birds

Hierarchical categories appear by 2 years but are not well developed until about age 5


C. MemoryInfants appear to remember some auditory stimuli

they hear while asleepRovee-Collier showed that 3 month old infants can

remember specific objects and their own actions with those objects as long as a week

Young infants are more cognitively sophisticated than Piaget supposed, while supporting his view of systematic gains in memory

Early infant memory is strongly tied to context


D. Measuring Intelligence in InfancyWhile difficult to measure, it’s useful to try to identify

children who require special interventionsThe Bayley Scales of Infant Development measures

sensory and motor skills, and some cognitionSuch tools are not predictive of later IQ or school

performanceHabituation tasks appear to have high potential as

measures of infant intelligenceFagan’s Test of Infant Intelligence can be used with

normal infants and those with problems such as cerebral palsy

Fagan’s Test has shown mixed results in attempts to correlate its results with later measures of intelligence


III. The Beginnings of Language

Many important developments precede the use of a child’s first words at about 12 months of age


A. Theoretical PerspectivesB.F. Skinner, the scientist who formulated operant

conditioning theory, suggested a behaviourist explanation of language development:– Infant babbles and the parents reinforce– Parents respond to grammatical use of words with

reinforcement and withhold reinforcement for nongrammatical words

– Correct grammar is reinforced and becomes more frequent

This view has been refuted by more recent research

(continued)


Theoretical Perspectives (continued)

The Nativist view as described by Chomsky describes the use of grammar rules as language is developed:– Children make rule-governed grammatical errors

– He proposes the existence of a Language Acquisition Device (LAD), an innate language processor which contains the basic grammatical structure of all human language

– All human languages have the same grammatical forms

(continued)



Another nativist, Slobin, assumes a basic language-making capacity in every child– Suggests that infants have “rules to listen by” such

as paying attention to sound rhythm, and stressed sounds or words

– Infants prefer speech in a particular pattern – motherese or infant-directed speech

(continued)



The Constructivist view:– Language development is part of a broader

process of cognitive development– Language is used to express only those meanings

the child has already formulated– New words are learned when they help to

communicate thoughts and ideas– Children, not mothers, initiate most verbal

exchanges– Language complexity develops at the same time as

increased complexity of sequencing in play activities


B. An Eclectic Approach to Explaining Language DevelopmentThe Nativist and Constructivist views can be

integratedChildren’s experiences in the earliest years

influence language– Poverty influences a substantial gap in vocabulary

by age 4 and widens over the school years.Being read to often is one of the most critical

experiencesChildren whose parents talk to them often

develop richer vocabularies and more complex sentences

(continued)


An Eclectic Approach to Explaining Language Development (continued)

Motherese may be important in helping the child learn language:– Speech in a higher pitch

– Adults repeat often, introduce minor variations, use slightly more elongated sentences

– Babies prefer motherese

– A baby more easily imitates a correct grammatical form “recast” from his own sentences by an adult

(continued)


An Eclectic Approach to Explaining Language Development (continued)

Integrating the Nativist and Constructivist Positions:– Both approaches may be true– Initially the child may use built-in operating

principles– Modification occurs as she receives new

information– All children share the same processing rules and

are exposed to very similar input – Language development diverges into different

languages as the child progresses


C. Speech Perception

As discussed in chapter 4, language perception develops rapidly– Single syllables– Double syllables and syllables hidden within other

soundsUp to 6 months, babies can accurately

discriminate among all the sounds that appear in any language

This ability begins to be lost after 6 months


D. Sounds, Gestures and Word MeaningsCooing vowel sounds appear at about one month,

usually to signal pleasureBabbling, with vowel and consonant sounds,

develops at about 6 monthsBabbling is related to the beginning of language

productionIntonal patterns are used

(continued)


Sounds, Gestures and Word Meanings (continued)

Babbling initially incorporates all sounds, but gradually only those heard in spoken language are used

Gesture-sound combinations emerge at about 10 months

Receptive language consists of about 20-30 words by 9 or 10 months

A language’s patterns and word stresses can help babies identify words


E. The First Words

Expressive language– The ability to produce words

– 12 months — babies begin to say first words

– Words are learned slowly in context with specific situations and cues

(continued)


The First Words (continued)

Holophrases – Combining a single word with gestures to make a

complete thought– Used between 12 and 18 months

Naming Explosion– Occurs between 16 and 24 months– 16 months old – 50 words in vocabulary– 24 months old – 320 words– Vocabulary grows in spurts– In English, most words are names for things or people

(nouns)


Vocabulary Growth in Infants


F. The First Sentences

Sentences appear when there is a threshold of 100 to 200 words at 18 – 24 months

Sentences are short, generally 2 or 3 words, and simple– Brown coined the term “telegraphic speech”

Sentences follow rulesUnderstanding this speech usually requires the

listener to know the context


Meaning in Early Sentences


G. Individual Differences in Language DevelopmentDifferences in Rate

– There is a wide range of normal variation

– More than half those who talk late eventually catch up

– Those who do not catch up also have receptive language problems, and may have other cognitive problems

– These children should receive professional help for diagnosis and treatment

(continued)


Differences in Rate


Individual Differences in Language Development (continued)

Differences in Style– Expressive style

• Early vocabulary linked to social relationships rather than objects

– Referential style• Early vocabulary made up of names of things or

people• Often advanced in understanding adult language


Some Differences Between Expressive and Referential Styles in Early Language


H. Language Development Across CulturesCooing, babbling, first words, holophrases, and

telegraphic speech are typically found in all languages at similar ages

The use of specific word order in early sentences is not the same.

Particular inflections are learned in highly varying order

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CHAPTER FIVE COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT IN INFANCY. Copyright © 2009 Pearson Education Canada 5-2 I. COGNITIVE CHANGES Changes in cognitive skills over the