1351+Chapter+6-+The+First+2+Years+Cognitive+Development

HDFS 1351: Lifespan Development

• Course Focus: Exploring different stages of human development throughout life.

Chapter 6: The First Two Years: Cognitive Development

• Overview of cognitive milestones and developmental processes in the first two years after birth.

Learning and Communication

• First Words: Inquiry into individual experiences with early vocal development.

The Eager Mind

• Infants show a natural curiosity and eagerness to learn.

  • Cognitive Process: Involves perceiving, hypothesizing, observing, and concluding as a scientific method.

  • Research Reference: Lucca & Wilbourn, 2018, suggest infants are pre-disposed to gather information.

Mirror Neurons

• Interactive Activity:

  • Pairs of students mimic each other's actions to understand emotional and cognitive connections.

  • Activities include:

    • Level 1: Faces - simple expressions

    • Level 2: Hands - gestures like waving

    • Level 3: Actions - actions like peek-a-boo

    • Level 4: Sounds - sounds matched with actions

    • Level 5: Complex Actions - multi-step actions

Language Development

• Listening and Responding: Language foundation before and after birth.

  • Gradual development in understanding and producing language.

• Preverbal Communication:

  • Crying as a reflexive behavior and later as a signal

  • Cooing and babbling as stages leading to language comprehension.

Age and Means of Communication

• Milestones: Breakdown of communication skills by age.

  • 0-2 months: Reflexive communication

  • 2-6 months: Various vocal sounds

  • 6-12 months: Babbling and comprehension of simple words.

  • 12-24 months: Vocabulary growth and first spoken words.

Holophrase

• A unique method of early communication where an infant expresses an entire thought with one word, supported by physical cues.

Putting Words Together

• By age two, children begin to combine words, indicating early grammatical structures.

• Mean Length of Utterance (MLU): A marker of a child's grammatical proficiency.

Cultural Variations in Language

• Diverse Influences: Differences in child-directed speech across cultures.

• Infants adapt and learn from their immediate linguistic environments.

Bilingualism

• Benefits and Preferences:

  • Early bilingual exposure enhances cognitive abilities and prompts preferences in language usage.

  • Bilingual babies may develop language skills differently compared to monolingual babies.

Language Learning Theories

• Behaviorist Perspective: Language is taught through reinforcement.

• Social Interactionist Perspective: Emphasis on the role of social interactions in language development.

• Cognitive Perspective: Infants have internal mechanisms for language acquisition.

Memory Development in Infants

• Infants can remember based on context, motivation, and reinforcement methods like reminders and cues.

• Distinction between Explicit Memory (conscious recall) and Implicit Memory (unconscious recall).

Piaget’s Sensorimotor Intelligence

• Stages of Development:

  • Stage 1: Reflexive actions (birth-1 month)

  • Stage 2: First adaptations (1-4 months)

  • Stage 3: Interest-driven reactions (4-8 months)

  • Stage 4: Anticipatory actions (8-12 months)

  • Stage 5: Experimental actions (12-18 months)

  • Stage 6: Internal effects (18-24 months)

• Examines the development of object permanence and other cognitive abilities.

Critique of Piaget

• Acknowledgment that some stages of development may occur earlier than suggested by Piaget, indicating the evolving understanding of cognitive development.