Childhood and Adolescent Cognitive Development

Cognitive Development

Development of thinking across the lifespan

What makes up cognitive development?

Problem solving, reasoning, conceptualizing and categorizing, remembering, planning, object perception, language

Critical Period

Period of time in which you must receive certain inputs in order for development to proceed normally

Sensitive Period

A period in which we can most rapidly acquire a skill or characteristic

Quantitative Changes

Gradual changes in amount of something

Qualitative Changes

Stepwise changes in how we think/process information

What was one of Piaget's beliefs?

We don't get better or faster at thinking as we age, the way in which we think changes

What did Piaget wonder about schemas?

How they changed through development

Schemas

An internal framework that guides our thoughts and actions

Assimilation

New experiences are added to existing schemas

Accommodation

Schemas are changed by new experiences

Piaget's Sensorimotor Stage

Understanding and exploring the world through sensory and motor experiences from birth to age 2, object permeance is developed, symbolic thought starts to develop (using symbols to represent things)

Object Permanence

Understanding that objects continue to exist once out of sight

Separation Anxiety

Distress experienced by infants when separated from their primary caregiver. Typically starts in sensorimotor stage.

Piaget's Preoperational Stage

Symbolic thought established, using symbols, pretend play, from age 2-7. Egocentrism, centration, conservation are big during this stage

Egocentrism

Difficulty understanding the world through another person's perspective

Conservation

Principle that basic characteristics of objects stay the same even when outward form changes

Centration

Child only focuses on one aspect of a situation and ignores other aspects

Piaget's Concrete Operational Stage

Logical thinking about concrete events from age 7-12. Difficulty with hypotheticals and things that are not directly in front of them (abstract reasoning) Understands conservation.

Serial Ordering

Arranging objects along a continuum like smallest to biggest

Piaget's Formal Operational Stage

Forming hypotheses and testing them, starting at age 12, logical, abstract, flexible thinking

Criticisms of Piaget's Stages

Children reached milestones earlier than Piaget thought; development is more complex than stages, culture influences cognitive development

What does Vygotsky's Social Context Theory include?

Zone of proximal development

Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development

The gap between what children can do independently and with guidance

Information Processing Approaches

Cognitive development is a continuous, gradual process (rather than stages)

Information Search Strategies

Older children are more systematic and methodological in visual search tasks

Processing Speed

Older children process information faster with rapid increases from 8-12 years old

Attention Span and Inhibition

Older children have longer attention spans and are better at inhibiting irrelevant or distracting information and incorrect responses

Working Memory in childhood development

Older children can store more information in working memory than younger children, and are better with visuospatial information than younger children

Long-term Memory in childhood development

Older children are more likely to use strategies to remember things

Theory of Mind

To know another person has different thoughts than you

What test can be used to determine if a child has theory of mind?

Sally anne task

Adolescent Egocentrism

Self-absorbed, unrealistic view of one's own uniqueness and importance, associated with risky behavior "that will never happen to me"

Personal Fable

Overestimation of the uniqueness of feelings, thoughts, and experiences

Imaginary Audience

Heightened sensitivity to social judgment and evaluation, feeling like you're always being watched, scared to make mistakes

What rapidly increases in adolescence development?

Abstract reasoning abilities and information processing

At what point of adolescence does information processing speed and working memory at near adult capacity?

Middle adolescence (14-17)

When does the prefrontal cortex finish developing?

Mid 20's

What does the prefrontal cortex control?

Impulse control, executive functions, decision making, working memory

Development of Memory in Children

Older infants encode information faster and remember it for longer retention intervals

What are the principles of memory development in children?

Older infants use more varied retrieval cues than younger infants, and forgotten memories can reappear when a reminder is given

Cognitive Neuroscience

Declarative memory develops rapidly over the first two years

Why does declarative memory develop rapidly over the first two years?

Because of the increase in cognitive abilities like language, attention, knowledge, and due to brain changes

Areas of the brain involved with implicit memory

Striatum, cerebellum, brainstem

Areas of the brain involved with declarative memory

Hippocampus, parahippocampal cortex is formed before birth

Infantile Amnesia

Tendency for people to have few autobiographical memories from below the age of five

Developmental Changes - Declarative memory

Basic capacity, progressive improvement year-by-year in working memory components

Developmental Changes - Content Knowledge

Memory is generally better when learner can relate new information to stored knowledge

Developmental Changes - Memory Strategies

As we get older we use more effective strategies

Developmental Changes - Metamemory

Knowledge about your own memory and how it works, improves as we develop, preschoolers overestimate memory span by 5 items, 9 year old by 1 item

Developmental Changes - Verbatim and Gist Memory

Both improve throughout childhood, older children are more prone to errors in the DRM paradigm due to using gist processing (brain extracts key info instead of going through every detail)

Developmental Changes - Implicit Memory

No significant differences across childhood into adulthood, requires more basic-level processes, working memory capacity, content knowledge, memory strategies, metamemory less important in implicit memory

Infantile Amnesia

Tendency for people to have a few autobiographical memories from below the age of five

Cognitive Self

We can only form autobiographical memories after developing a sense of self

Social Cultural Theory

Language and culture play key roles in developing autobiographical memory, language is used to express memories, interactions with adults, elaborative reminiscing style