Chapter 5 - Cognitive Development during the First Three Years

Behaviorist approach

concerned with basic mechanics of learning—how behavior changes in response to experience.

Psychometric approach

seeks to measure intelligence quantitatively.

Piagetian approach

describes qualitative stages in cognitive functioning—in how the mind structures its activities and adapts to the environment.

Information-processing approach

analyzes processes involved in perceiving and handling information.

Cognitive neuroscience approach

links brain processes with cognitive ones.

Classical conditioning

learning based on associating a stimulus that does not ordinarily elicit a response with another stimulus that does elicit the response.

Operant conditioning

learning based on association of behavior with its consequences.

Intelligent behavior

behavior that is goal-oriented and adaptive to circumstances and conditions of life.

IQ (intelligence quotient) tests

psychometric tests that seek to measure intelligence by comparing a test-taker’s performance with standardized norms.

Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development

standardized test of infants’ and toddlers’ mental and motor development.

Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment (HOME)

instrument to measure the influence of the home environment on children’s cognitive growth.

Early intervention

systematic process of providing services to help families meet young children’s developmental needs.

Sensorimotor stage

Piaget’s first stage in cognitive development, in which infants learn through senses and motor activity.

Schemes

Piaget’s term for organized patterns of thought and behavior used in particular situations.

Circular reactions

Piaget’s term for processes by which an infant learns to reproduce desired occurrences originally discovered by chance.

Representational ability

Piaget’s term for the capacity to store mental images or symbols of objects and events.

mental combinations

Emerges in the sixth sensorimotor substage

a transition to the preoperational stage of early childhood.

Object permanence

Piaget’s term for the understanding that a person or object still exists when out of sight.

Imitation

becomes increasingly valuable late in the first year as babies try new skills.

Substage 1: Use of Reflexes

substage where use of reflexes occur for neonates.

Birth to 1 month

Substage 2: Primary Circular Reactions

Babies learn to purposely repeat a pleasurable bodily sensation first achieved by chance.

These Activities focused on the body rather than the external environment

1-4 months

Substage 3: Secondary Circular Reactions

4-8 months

Coincides with a new interest in manipulating objects and learning about their properties.

Babies intentionally repeat actions to get rewarding results for the infant’s body

Visible imitation

develops first—using body parts such as hands or feet that babies can see.

Invisible imitation

follows at 9 months.

Imitation that involves part of the body they, babies cannot see

deferred imitation

reproduction of an observed behavior after some time by calling up a stored symbol of it.

symbolic development

ability to understand the nature of pictures.

By about 19 months, children demonstrate an understanding that a picture is a symbol of something else.

scale error

a momentary misperception of the relative sizes of objects.

Dual representation hypothesis

children under age 3 have difficulty grasping spatial relationships because of the need to keep more than one mental representation in mind at the same time.

Habituation

type of learning in which familiarity with a stimulus reduces, slows, or stops a response.

• Familiarity breeds loss of interest.

• The rate of habituation can be used to ask infants how interesting they think various objects are.

Dishabituation

increase in responsiveness after presentation of a new stimulus.

Visual preference

tendency of infants to spend more time looking at one sight than another.

Visual recognition memory

ability to distinguish a familiar visual stimulus from an unfamiliar one when shown both at the same time.

Joint attention

a shared attentional focus, typically initiated with eye gaze or pointing.

Develops between 10 and 12 months.

is fundamental to social interaction, language acquisition, and the understanding of others’ intentions and mental states.

Cross-modal transfer

ability to use information gained by one sense to guide another.

Categorization

• Infants at first seem to categorize based on perceptual features—shape, color, and pattern.

• By 12 to 14 months, categories become conceptualbased on real-world knowledge, particularly of function.

Causality

• Understanding of simple causality may appear as early as the fourth month.

• Experience is likely a factor in increasing sophistication.

Violation-of-expectations

research method in which dishabituation to a stimulus that conflicts with experience is taken as evidence that an infant recognizes the new stimulus as surprising.

Number

an abstract concept that can be represented across different sensory modalities.

Cognitive neuroscience

examines the hardware of the central nervous system to identify what brain structures are involved in specific areas of cognition.

Implicit memory

unconscious recall, generally of habits and skills; sometimes called procedural memory.

Explicit memory

intentional and conscious memory, generally of facts, names, and events.

Working memory

short-term storage of information being actively processed.

Guided participation

adult’s participation in a child’s activity that helps to structure it and bring the child’s understanding of it closer to the adults.

Social-Contextual Approach

Approach to the study of cognitive development taht focuses on environmental influences, particularly parents and other caregivers

Language

communication system based on words and grammar.

Nativism

theory that human beings have an inborn capacity for language acquisition.

Language acquisition device (LAD)

n Chomsky’s terminology, an inborn mechanism that enables children to infer linguistic rules from the language they hear.

Prelinguistic speech

utterance of sounds that are not words; a forerunner of linguistic speech.

Crying

a newborn’s first means of communication.

Cooing

begins between 6 weeks and 3 months.

Babbling

occurs between ages 6 and 10 months and is often mistaken for a baby’s first word.

holophrase

They may use one word as an entire sentence

Telegraphic speech

early form of sentence use consisting of only a few essential words.

syntax

rules for forming sentences in a particular language—gradually increases.

Code mixing

use of elements of two languages, sometimes in the same utterances.

Code switching

changing one’s speech to match the situation.

Child-directed speech (CDS)

form of speech often used in talking to babies or toddlers.

Slow, simplified speech, a high-pitched tone, exaggerated vowel sounds, short words and sentences, and repetition.

Literacy

the ability to read and write.