Cognitive Developmental Theory

Early Childhood

2

PREOPERATIONAL STAGE The preoperational stage is the second

stage. Rapid growth in representational, or

symbolic, activity Language is the most flexible means of mental

representation. Stage characterized by a lack of mental

operations…hence the name! Operations: Mental representations of actions

obeying logical rules

PREOPERATIONAL STAGE

Two Substages:

Symbolic Function 2-4 yrs Can represent an object not present

Intuitive Thought 4-7 yrs Primitive reasoning accompanied by lots of questions Know things but not do not know how things work Thought is not rational, logical

PREOPERATIONAL STAGE

What does the development of mental representations allow children to accomplish?

Language Make-believe play

5

Make-Believe Play

Increases dramatically during early childhood

Through pretending, young children practice and acquire representational schemes.

6

Sociodramatic Play

Appears around age 2 1/2 and increases until 4 to 5 years.

Preschoolers who use sociodramatic play Have advanced intellectual development Are more social

7

Limitations of Preoperational Thought

Children’s thinking is rigid, limited to the way things appear at the moment. Preoperational!

Egocentrism Inability to distinguish the symbolic viewpoints of

others from one's own Single point of view

Do not revise faulty reasoning

8

Demonstration of Egocentrism Three Mountain Problem Animistic Thinking

Inanimate objects have lifelike qualities. Egocentric speech

Children speaking to themselves Related to a lack of perspective taking Cognitive maturity and experiences bring an end

to egocentric speech.

9

Limitations of Preoperational Thought

Inability to conserve Conservation

Physical characteristics of objects remain the same, even when outward appearance changes.

10

Piagetian Conservation Tasks

11

Inability to Conserve

WHY? Centration

Focus on one aspect and neglect others Perception-bound

Easily distracted by concrete appearance of objects States versus transformations

The initial and final state of problem are unrelated. Irreversibility

Inability to follow series of steps in a problem and return to starting point

12

Limitations of Preoperational Thought

Lack of hierarchical classification Organization of objects into classes on the basis of

similarities and differences Piaget illustrated difficulties in the class-inclusion problem.

blue flowers yellow flowers

Flowers

13

Research on Preoperational Thought Piagetian problems confusing

Preschoolers' responses may not reflect abilities.

If visual display includes familiar objects 4-year-olds are aware of others’ vantage points.

14

THE SOCIAL CONTEXT OF EARLY CHILDHOOD DEVELOPMENT Vygotsky

Infants are endowed with basic skills Perceptual, attention, memory

At 2 years, language acquisition profoundly changes the nature of thought

Complex mental functions originate in social interaction.

Important developmental constructs Scaffolding Zone of proximal development

Children’s Private Speech Piaget’s View

Piaget called children’s utterances to themselves egocentric speech.

Vygotsky’s View Children speak to themselves for self-guidance and

self-direction. Language is the foundation for all complex mental

activities. As children get older and tasks become easier, their

self-directed speech declines and is internalized.

Private Speech Research

Private speech is used more often when

tasks are difficult after a child makes an error when a child is confused about how to proceed

With age private speech changes from utterances spoken out loud into whispers and silent lip movements.

Almost all research findings support Vygotsky’s view.

Make Believe Play

Piaget’s View A symptom of increasing representational

sophistication.

Vygotsky’s View A unique zone of proximal development for

children to try out challenging activities and acquire competencies

Social Origins of Early Childhood Cognition: Research Parents who are effective scaffolders have

children who use more private speech and are more successful when asked to do a similar task by themselves.

Children’s planning and problem solving show more improvement when their partner is either an “expert” peer or an adult.

Information Processing

Early Childhood

Early Childhood

Attention

During early childhood, attention becomes more planful. Planning involves thinking out a sequence of acts ahead of time and allocating attention accordingly to reach a goal.

Even when young children do plan, they often fail to implement important steps.

Development of the prefrontal cortex

Memory

Recognition Preschoolers’ recognition memory is remarkably

good.

Recall Young children are less effective at using memory

strategies, deliberate mental activities that improve the likelihood of remembering Rehearsal Organizing information

The Young Child’s Theory of Mind

As children start to reflect on their own thought processes, they begin to construct a theory of mind, or set of ideas about the mental activities. This understanding is often called metacognition.

The Young Child’s Theory of Mind

“Think,” “remember,” and “pretend” are among the first verbs to appear in children’s vocabularies.

Between ages 3 and 4, children figure out that beliefs and desires determine behavior.

By age 4, children realize that people can hold false beliefs that combine with desire to determine behavior.

They know that people have an internal mental life, but seem to view the mind as a passive container of information.

The Young Child’s Theory of Mind

How Does a Theory of Mind Develop? Various findings suggest that language,

cognitive, and social experiences contribute to developing a theory of mind. Language. Cognitive abilities. Make-believe play and reasoning about imaginary

situations. Social interaction.

Autism and Theory of Mind?

Early Literacy and Mathematical Development

Mathematical Reasoning

Ordinality is displayed by toddlers.

Cardinality principle, grasped between the ages of 4 and 5

Cross-cultural research: basic arithmetic knowledge emerges universally

Early Literacy

Emergent literacy

Move from direct representation to symbolic representation

Development related to quantity of literacy related experiences

SES correlation

Language Development

Early Childhood

27

Early Childhood Vocabulary

By 6, around 8000-14000 words Fast mapping

Quickly connecting a new word with an underlying concept

Preschoolers acquire labels for objects, action words next, and then modifiers.

Grammar Between 2 and 3, English-speaking children use simple

sentences that follow a subject-verb-object order. Overregularization

Application of regular grammatical rules to words that are exceptions

28

Conversation

Pragmatics Practical, social side of language; how to

engage in appropriate communication Children take turns, respond to partner, and maintain

a topic over time. Are able to talk about things that are not present Preschoolers' speech is less mature in demanding

situations.