topic 4: cognitive and language development infancy and early childhood

Piaget’s theory of cognitive development — 3 assumptions

children are active seekers of information about their world: “little scientists”

• generate hypotheses

• performing experiments

• drawing conclusions form observations

children learn many lessons on their own, rather than depending on instruction from others

children are intrinsically motivated to learn, they don’t need rewards from other people

there is more empirical support for piaget’s infant- stage descriptions than for ________

his later stages

piaget is one of the clearest ___________ positions in the whole field: thinking doesnt just get bigger, it changes in kind, stage to stage

discontinuity

elements of piaget’s theory

scheme, assimilation, accommodation, equilibrium/disequilibrium, stage theory/discontinuity

children are constantly observing their environments and creating _________ in their heads to classify and predict them

schemes

ex of schemes

see photo of different dogs, what they encode as scheme (furry, four legged dogs are called doggies)

assimilation

fitting a new thing into an existing scheme (ex. a squirrel gets called a doggie)

accommodation

adjusting the scheme, or creating a new one (big doggie for the dog, little doggie for the squirrel)

younger babies ________ more than they __________

assimilate; accommodate

equilibrium

self regulatory process producing increasingly effective adaptations. three phases: children are satisfied with their understanding of a phenomenon.

disequilibrium

become aware of shortcomings in their existing thinking and are dissatisfied; they adopt a more sophisticated mode of thought that eliminates the old shortcomings

discontinuity — stage theory

children’s thinking develops in stages which are universal, hierarchical, qualitive change

development is the result of

the interaction of innate structures and experiences with the environment

steps of the staircase of discontinuity

sensorimotor

preoperational

concrete operational

formal operational

sensorimotor

0-2; the infant explores the world through direct sensory and motor contact. object permanence and separation anxiety develop during this stage

preoperational

2-6/7; the child uses symbols (words and images) to represent objects but does not reason logically. the child also has the ability to pretend. during this stage, the child is egocentric

concrete operational

7-12; the child can think logically about the concrete objects and can thus add and subtract. the child also understands conversation

formal operational

12-adult; the adolescent can reason abstractly and think in hypothetical terms

stage 1 —- sensorimotor stage 0-2

intelligence is expressed through sensory and motor abilities (what they see, do, touch)

begins at birth with reflexes then becomes interested in acting on objects (hitting a spoon on the highchair)

struggle with object permanence

“out of sight is out of mind”

prior to 8mo

e.g. show a toy, hide it behind screen, what do you think the baby does next?

piaget’s account of object permanence: the A not B error

by 8 mo, infants begin to understand object permanence: objects continue to exist even when out of sight

children dont consistently reach for B until 12 mo

a not b error

the tendency to reach for objects where they’ve been found before A rather than where they were last hidden B

stage 2 preoperational 2-6

intelligence is expressed through language, mental imagery, and symbolic thought

symbolic representation: sticks represent a gun, playing cards represent an iphone

egocentric thought

cant take the perspective of others

examples of egocentric thought

a child holding a picture book while on the phone might say, daddy do you like this picture not realizing dad cant see it

hide and seek

the 3 mountains task

centration

the tendency to focus on a few perceptual features of an object (e.g. higher = bigger)

this impairs understand of conservation

conservation

the idea that certain characteristics of objects remain the same even though their outward appearance changes

irreversibility of thought example

ask a boy “do you have a brother” “yes, jimmy” then “does jimmy have a brother” “no”

animism

attributing human characteristics to objects (e.g. the sun follows me home)

transductive reasoning

making illogical connections between events (noah, my 3y 2mo old: my belly hurts because my big brother is going to come out of his room)

stage 3 concrete operational stage 7-11yo

intelligence is expressed through logical reasoning about concrete objects and events; now has developed perspective-taking, conversation, reversibility, de-centration, logical reasoning, mathematical operations

challenge of stage 3 concrete operational: the pendulum problem

the challenge of this stage is thinking systematically

pendulum problem: determine the influence of weight, string length, and dropping point on how fast the pendulum swings. this stage would struggle to figure out how to approach the problem

stage 4 formal operational stage 11+ years

intelligence is expressed through logical reasoning about abstract and hypothetical situations

can think about justice, morality, truth; can test hypotheses

adolescent feeling of invulnerability

teens high in danger invulnerability are more likely to engage in risky behavior; teens high in psychological vulnerability report more mental health problems

strengths of piaget’s theory

provides good overview of children’s thinking at different points in development; includes countless fascinating observations; surveys a remarkably broad spectrum of development and covers the entire age span

weaknesses of piaget’s stage theory

underestimated young children’s abilities — later research shows some competencies emerge earlier than piaget’s own tasks suggested; stages less rigid than claimed; development may be more continuous than his abrupt stage model suggests; underestimated the role of social interaction, culture, and teaching; relied on small, unrepresentative sample — raising questions about how universal his stages really are

challenges to piaget’s thoery

vygotsky’s sociocultural theory

vygotsky’s theory

cognitive development is more social than piaget said, it cannot happen outside of social-cultural contexts

development is discontinuous, but there are not universal stages — development is culture dependent; infant play is scaffolded by parents and other experiences members of their society

vygotsky’s main beliefs

social interaction plays a fundamental role in cognitive development

growth in cognitive ability occurs when a child is in their zone of proximal development (ZPD) with aid from an experiences adult (or older child)

the skills a child learns are adaptive to their culture; language transmits culture

social scaffolding diagram

things the child can do on their own → ZPD (need little support/ need much support) → activities the child cannot yet do

adults (or older children) scaffold the child when they need more support

ZPD

what needs to be done to take the learner where he needs to be

ZAD

zone of achieved development

where the learner is right now

example of vygotsky’s culture belief

mexican children whose parents make pottery for a living aquire conservation skills much earlier than piaget suggested

piaget vs vygotsky

piaget:

children understand the world on their own

abrupt, qualitative changes in children’s thinking

vygotsky

children are social learners

gradual, continuous changes in children’s thinking

joint attention

infant and social partner intentionally focus on a common referent (e.g. pointing)

think of trying to teach an infant what a dog is without being able to point to one

difficulty with joint attention is an early marker of autism, autistic children may not monitor where others are looking, orient to their name, or point to show interest

information processing theories

analogizes children’s brains to computers

a computer is limited by its hardware (memory capacity, speed executing basic operations) and its software (strategies available for performing tasks)

people’s thinking is limited by

memory capacity, speed of thought processes (myelination, increased connectivity among brain regions), availability of useful strategies and knowledge

memory

the retention of information over time

3 ways the brain acts on memories:

encodes information into memory, stores it for the long term, retrieves information sometimes out of deep storage

working/short term memory

limited on both capacity and the length of time it can maintain information

retains information for 30s unless it is rehearsed

development of working and short term memory digit span

2 digits by age 2-3; 5 digits by age 7; 7 digits by age 12 (millers law)

long term memory

relatively permanent storage that holds huge amounts of information for as long as a lifetime

recall vs recognition

recall - remember from memory

recognition - remembering from a list

electronic toys study

compared to traditional toys, when moms interact with babies using electronic toys, moms: are less responsive and encouraging, teach less, provide less pretend-play scaffolding

touch screens

children over 2 can learn to find hidden objects and learn new words using touch screen apps

less is known about the risks and benefits of touch screens for infants under 2

babies learn best through active play

environmental theories — behaviorism and social learning

early theories emphasized the environmental role in language acquisition

behaviorism who

BF skinner

social learning who

bandura

behaviorism

language is learned through reinforcement and punishment

social learning

language is learned through imitation

problems with environmental theories

cant explain the great variety of sentances that children may create; adults rarely reinforce young children on their grammatical correctness, when they do, children do not get it

generativity

children can produce sentances they never heard before; language goes beyond imitation

nativist perspective — chomsky and the language acquisition device

children are born with a language acquisition device, an innate template for grammar or universal grammer that every human language draws on

poverty of the stimulus argument

kids produce and correctly use grammatical strcutures they were never explicitly taught or corrected on, which is hard to explain if grammar is learned purely from expousure

broca’s area

controls speech production

wernicke’s area

controls for speech comprehension

damage to either broca or wernicke’s area leads to

aphasia (loss or impairment of language)

problems with nativist perspective

grammatical universals are limited; much of syntatic abilities must still be learned form the social environments; if grammar is really built in, chomsky’s theory raises an obvious follow up question: is there a point at which that built in system is activated or does it stay available forever

critical period (eric lenneberg)

the age by which children must be exposed to language in their environment to fully aquire it, sometime between 5 and age puberty

case of genie

she was kept isolated by her parents and never talked to until she was 13. despite years of one on one effort, she never fully learned language, supporting a critical period before age 13

evidence for critical period

hemispheric specialization — certain functions become localized in the right or left hemisphere of the brain; aphasia is more treatable in children than adults; second language learning is easier for children; the earlier that a deaf child learn sign language, the more fluent they are; languages that are learned after ages 15-18 never become as fluent

fast mapping

children rapidly connect a new word to its meaning after just one or a few exposures, not slow trial and error; children rely on a handful of built-in strategies to make an educated guess about what a new word means

whole-object assumption

a new word refers to a whole object, not its color/size/texture/behavior

ex: point to goblin and toddler assumes goblin means the whole picture not the features that categorize a goblin

taxonomic constraint (shape bias)

how words applied to one object can be extended to new objects; extended to new objects of the same shape, but only if they are solid objects (does not apply to liquids, podwers, or gels)

mutual exclusivity

if a child hears a new word in the context of several objects, it probably refers to the one that doesnt already have a name

ex: knows ball and cup but not whisk, will identify whisk even without having heard the word before

syntactic bootstrapping

grammar itself gives clues to meaning; a word preceeded by a/an/the probably means an object; a word ending in -ed or -ing probably means an action

ex: this is dax versus she is daxxing: same nonesense word but different grammatical packaging tells us the child what kind of word it is

pragmatic cues

children pay attention to the social context in which a word is used, what the speaker is looking at, pointing to, or reaching for to figure out what a new word refers to

environment support for word learning

children learn best in an environment where they are exposed to a lot of spoken and written language

infant direct speech

(baby talk or motherese) higher pitched, slower, more sing song intonation

infants prefer and may learn more from it

joint attention

commenting on what the child is interested in

recasting the child (ex)

more milk. would you like more milk?

expanding the child

ball go? where did the ball go?

labeling

label objects in the environment

language and social economic status

hart and risley (2003) followed 42 children from professional, working class, and welfare families, audiotaping family interations for an hour a month over 2 years

children from different social classes experienced very different language environments, leading to a 30 million word gap by age 4

critique of the hart and risley study

worth flagging: the study only included white and black families no latino families and race and SES were confounded, 12/12 of the low income families were black, 7/10 working class families were black, but only 1/10 professional families were black

key takeaway: word gap finding has a caveat to keep in mind