COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT INFANCY

SCHEMES

actions or mental representations that organize knowledge

Assimilation

occurs when children use their existing schemes to deal with new information or experiences.

Accommodation

occurs when children adjust their schemes to take new information and experi ences into account.

Organization

in Piaget’s theory is the grouping of isolated behaviors and thoughts into a higher-order system

disequilibrium

the child is constantly faced with counterexamples to his or her existing schemes and with inconsistencies, the child inevitably experiences cognitive conflict

equilibration

A mechanism that Piaget proposed to explain how children shift from one stage of thought to the next

sensorimotor stage

Piaget’s stage of development which lasts from birth to about 2 years of age. During this stage of cognitive development, infants construct an understanding of the world by coordinating sensory experiences (such as seeing and hearing) with physical, motoric actions

• Simple Reflexes

• First habits and primary circular reaction

• Secondary Circular Reactions

• Coordination of Secondary Circular Reactions

• Tertiary Circular Reactions, novelty, and curiosity

• Internalization of Schemes

Piaget divided the sensorimotor stage into six substages

Simple Reflexes

Piaget’s first sensorimotor substage, which corresponds to the first month after birth. In this substage, sensation and action are coordinated primarily through reflexive behaviors.

first habits and primary circular reactions

develops between 1 and 4 months of age. In this substage, the infant coordinates sensation and two types of schemes: habits and primary circular reactions. The focus is on the infant’s own body

habit

is a scheme based on a reflex that has become completely separated from its eliciting stimulus

circular reaction

is a repetitive action.

primary circular reaction

a scheme based on the attempt to reproduce an event that initially occurred by chance.

secondary circular reactions

develops between 4 and 8 months of age. In this substage, the infant becomes more object oriented, moving beyond preoccupation with the self

secondary circular reaction

an action repeated because of its consequences.

Coordination of secondary circular reactions

Significant changes during this substage involve the coor dination of schemes and intentionality. Infants readily combine and recombine previously learned schemes in a coordinated way

Tertiary circular reactions, novelty, and curiosity

In this substage, infants become intrigued by the many properties of objects and by the many things that they can make happen to objects.

Tertiary circular reactions

are schemes in which the infant purposely explores new possibilities with objects, continually doing new things to them and exploring the results.

Internalization of schemes

the infant develops the ability to use primitive symbols, Primitive symbols permit the infant to think about concrete events without directly acting them out or perceiving them

symbol

.For Piaget, a _____ is an internalized sensory image or word that represents an event

Object permanence

is the understanding that objects continue to exist even when they cannot be seen, heard, or touched.

A-not-B error

Error that occurs when infants make the mistake of selecting the familiar hiding place (A) rather than the new hiding place (B) of an object.

core knowledge approach

states that infants are born with domain-specific innate knowledge systems. Among these domain-specific knowledge systems are those involving space, number sense, object permanence, and language

Attention

the focusing of mental resources on select information, improves cognitive process ing on many tasks

infantile or childhood amnesia.

Most adults can remember little if anything from their first three years of life

deferred imitation

is when a child reproduces an observed behavior after a time delay, without the model being present. This means the child forms a mental representation of the action and stores it for later use.

Concepts

are cognitive group ings of similar objects, events, people, or ideas.

Language

is a form of communication—whether spoken, written, or signed—that is based on a system of symbols.

Infinite generativity

is the ability to produce and comprehend an endless number of meaningful sentences using a finite set of words and rules.

Phonology

is the sound system of the language, including the sounds that are used and how they may be combined

phoneme

is the basic unit of sound in a language; it is the smallest unit of sound that affects meaning

Morphology

refers to the units of meaning involved in word formation

morpheme

a minimal unit of meaning; it is a word or a part of a word that cannot be broken into smaller meaningful parts

Syntax

involves the way words are combined to form acceptable phrases and sentences

Semantics

The system that involves the meaning of words and sentences

Pragmatics

The system of using appropriate conversation and knowledge of how to effectively use language in context.

Crying, Cooing, Babbling

order of babies’ vocalizations

Cooing

are gurgling sounds that are made in the back of the throat and usually express plea sure during interaction with the caregiver, 2 to 4 months

Babbling

roduce strings of consonant-vowel combinations

7-15 MONTHS

Infants start using gestures, such as showing and pointing, at about _______ of age with a mean age of approximately 11 to 12 months.

vocabulary spurt

rapid increase in vocabulary that begins at approximately 18 months

Overextension

the tendency to apply a word to objects that are inappropriate for the word’s meaning by going beyond the set of referents an adult would use

Underextension

tendency to apply a word too narrowly; it occurs when children fail to use a word to name a relevant event or object.

18-24 months

By the time children are _______ of age, they usually speak in two-word utterances.

Telegraphic speech

is the use of short and precise words without grammatical markers such as articles, auxiliary verbs, and other connectives.

2 to 4 months

Cooing begins

5 months

Understands first word

6 months

Babbling begins

8 to 12 months

Uses gestures, such as showing and pointing

13 months

First word spoken

Broca’s area

an area in the left frontal lobe of the brain involved in producing words

Wernicke’s area

, a region of the brain’s left hemisphere involved in language comprehension

aphasia

is a loss or impairment of language processing

language acquisition device (LAD)

a biological endowment that enables the child to detect certain features and rules of language, including phonology, syntax, and semantics. Children are equipped by nature with the ability to detect the sounds of language, for example, and to follow rules such as how to form plurals and ask questions.

child-directed speech

language spoken with a higher-than-normal pitch, slower tempo, and exaggerated intonation, with simple words and sentences

Recasting

Recasting is rephrasing something the child has said that might lack the appropriate morphology or contain some other error. is rephrasing something the child has said that might lack the appropriate morphology or contain some other error. For example, if a 2-year-old says, “dog bark,” the adult can respond by saying, “Oh, you heard the dog barking!”

Expanding

is adding information to a child’s incomplete utterance. For example, a child says, “Doggie eat,” and the parent replies, “Yes, the dog is eating his food out of his special dish.”

Labeling

is naming objects that children seem interested in.

infancy

Behavioral schemes (physical activities) characterize ____________