Studied by 1 PersonTags & Description
Why is it useful to have theories?
Developmental theories provide a framework for understanding important phenomena. 2)Developmental theories raise crucial question about human nature. 3) Lead to a better understanding of children
What is cognition?
Knowledge, reasoning, and problem-solving
What is cognitive development?
ability to think and reason
Piaget's Theory of Cognitive Development
infants and children actively try to organize and make sense of their world
The active child
children contribute to their own development
Constructive processes
generating hypotheses, performing experiments, and drawing conclusions from their observations
What is constructivism?
humans generate knowledge and meaning from an interaction between their experiences and their ideas
What are the four stages of development?
sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, formal operational
sensorimotor stage (birth-2 years)
Piaget: infants are BLANK slate
First 8 months..
ONLY sensory and motor abilities
NO enduring representations
Mental representations
FAIL Object Permanence
AT 8 months..
object permanence arrives
representations are FRAGILE
A not B error
A-not-B error
the tendency to reach for a hidden object where it was last found rather than in the new location where it was last hidden
deffered imitation
the ability to remember and copy the behavior of models who are not present
preoperational stage(2 to 7 years)
Major Accomplishment: Symbols
Language
Drawing/Art- from process to product to conventional representations
Maps
Pretend Play- using object substitution to sociodramatic play
sociodramatic play
pretend play in which children act out various roles and themes in stories that they create (family)
object substitution
an object is used as something other than itself (broom as horse)
Pre operational Limitations
Egocentrism, Centration, and Conservation
Egocentrism: 3 Mountains Problem
What does the doll see?
Younger pre-op children will pick own view
Older pre-op children will pick other view sometimes but get it wrong
Centration (Piaget)
Inability to incorporate multiple features, only focus on one feature
conservation of liquid
5 year old: fails conservation of liquid by saying they have more water, because a wide cup is shorter than a tall cup
7 year old: succeeds and answers same when person pours liquid into a different container
conservation of number
4/4 1/2 year olds fail to recognize the parents of objects doesn't necessarily change
Concrete Operational (7-12 years)
Logical Reasoning about concrete features of the world
Operations/Transformations
Has Conservation- if you pour it back, it's the same amount
Concrete operational limitations
-reasoning limited to concrete (observable) and specific situations
-reasoning about counterfactual hypotheticals- cant follow the logical set up
do not approach problems systematically- take in factors to account one at a time (pendulum problem)
pendulum problem concrete operational
Children under 12 perform unsystematic experiments and draw incorrect conclusions
Formal operational (12+)
New abilities:
Counterfactuals/hypothetical reasoning
Abstract reasoning
Systematic Approach to pendulum problem
Weaknesses of Piaget's Theory
vague about processes of change
underestimated children's abilities
social and cultural factors
dual representation
the ability to view a symbolic object as both an object in its own right and a symbol
information processing
nature and nurture, how change occurs
Focus on structure of cognitive system and mental activities to deploy attention and memory to solve problems
task analysis
breaking a task down into smaller components to understand children's failure/points of development
task analysis application to other tasks
Info-processing researchers are able to understand and predict behavior and test precise hypothesis on how development occurs
working memory
attending to, maintaining, and processing info relevant to a task
includes incoming info (through encoding) and from Long term memory(through retrieval)
LIMITED capacity
long-term memory
knowledge that people store over their lifetime
actual, conceptual, and procedural knowledge
UNLIMITED capacity
accessed by retrieval
executive functioning
Selection of content from LTM
Strategy selection & flexibility
Inhibition of behavior-- resisting temptation to external stimuli
basic processes
the simplest and most frequently used mental activities
rehearsal
conscious repetition of information (ex. repeating someone's phone number that was just given)
content knowledge
Knowledge about the actual subject matter that is to be learned or taught. (facts and concepts)
encoding
the processing of information into the memory system
ex. great knowledge of chess leads children to encode positions of several pieces relative to one another rather than each individual piece
sociocultural theories
development takes place through interactions with other people
guided participation
organizing activities so learners can succeed (sadie's mom holds up part of toy so sadie can screw in the other part. Cannot do alone)
Scaffolding
putting the support at the right level
temporary framework is provided to support children's thinking at a higher level than they could manage alone
intersubjectivity
the mutual understanding that people share during communication
BASIS FOR JOINT ATTENTION
joint attention
the ability to focus on what another person is focused on
Vygotsky sociocultural theories
-children are intent on participating in activities in their local setting
---> social interactions drive development
teaching & learning from one another are instincts (tomasello)
social interactions in transmitting culture
ex. one way that schooling can be improved is if we change the culture of schools
culture should be aimed at helping children understand by engaging in cooperative activities, creating a desire to learn more
core-knowledge theory
proposes that there us an existence of core concepts (innate or built-in) NOT BLANK SLATE
domain specificity
info about a specific content area
allows children to distinguish between inanimate and animate objects