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Piaget’s Sensorimotor Stage of Cognitive Development

• Piaget proposed six substages within the sensorimotor stage that detail how infants learn and interact with the world.

  • Simple Reflexes

    • Birth to 1 month.

    • Infants use reflexes such as sucking and grasping as initial ways to explore the world.

  • Primary Circular Reactions

    • 1 to 4 months.

    • Infants repeat pleasurable actions centered on their own body, like thumb-sucking, which leads to new discoveries.

  • Secondary Circular Reactions

    • 4 to 8 months.

    • Infants start to interact intentionally with the environment, repeating actions that cause interesting results in the external world.

  • Coordination of Secondary Schemes

    • 8 to 12 months.

    • Infants combine actions to achieve goals, demonstrating problem-solving and intentional behavior.

  • Tertiary Circular Reactions

    • 12 to 18 months.

    • Infants experiment with new actions to see the outcomes, showing curiosity through trial-and-error approaches.

  • Invention of New Means Through Mental Combinations

    • 18 to 24 months.

    • Infants can solve problems mentally and think about their actions before executing them, reflecting symbolic thought.

Object Permanence

• For two-month-old infants, "out of sight" equates to "out of mind" because they have not yet developed the concept of object permanence.

• Object permanence is the understanding that objects continue to exist even when they cannot be seen, developed around 8-12 months through repeated interactions.

Critique of Piaget’s Theory

• Critics suggest that Piaget may have underestimated infants' capabilities and that cognitive development may be more continuous than his stage theory suggests.

• Some argue that clear signs of object permanence can be observed earlier than Piaget proposed.

Information Processing Approach

• Memory in Infants: Infants show memory capabilities, such as recognizing familiar stimuli and recalling past experiences.

• Imitation: Infants can imitate actions they have observed, which suggests cognitive engagement and social learning.

Measuring Infant Intelligence

• Researchers begin measuring intelligence in infants typically around 6-12 months using developmental scales like the Bayley Scales of Infant Development.

• Various measures exist, including language ability, problem-solving skills, and social interactions.

Visual Recognition Memory

• Visual Recognition Memory: This ability allows infants to recognize previously seen objects or faces, aiding in social interaction and bonding.

Prelinguistic Sounds

• Cooing: Early vocalization sounds (around 2-4 months) characterized by frequent consonant-vowel combinations.

• Babbling: More complex sound production (around 4-6 months) involving repetitive consonant-vowel combinations.

• Receptive Vocabulary: Understanding spoken language versus Expressive Vocabulary: the actual words used in speech. Receptive generally develops faster than expressive.

General Nominals vs. Specific Nominals

• General Nominals: Words that refer to objects or substances in a category (e.g., "dog," "cat").

• Specific Nominals: Words that refer to individual items or entities (e.g., "Fido," "Whiskers").

• Both types help children categorize and communicate but differ in specificity and function.

Referential vs. Expressive Language Styles

• Referential Language Style: Focused on naming objects and actions, common in early language development.

• Expressive Language Style: Emphasizes feelings and social relationships, including more personal and emotional speech.

• Children may gravitate toward one style based on environmental influences.

Sentence Development

• Mean Length of Utterance (MLU): Measures the average length of spoken sentences in morphemes, reflecting linguistic complexity.

• Morphemes: The smallest grammatical units in language.

• Holophrases: Single words that convey complex ideas or emotions at early stages of development.

Nature and Language Development

• Modeling plays a significant role, where children learn language by imitating adults and peers around them, highlighting the nature versus nurture debate.

Skinner’s Explanation of Language Acquisition

• Skinner suggested that language acquisition occurs through shaping, where reinforcement is used to reward correct language use in children, shaping their ability to speak.

Chomsky’s Environmental Influence

• Chomsky argued that environmental factors interact with innate capacities in the brain to influence language development, emphasizing the limits of behaviorist theories.

Brain Parts Involved in Language Development

• Parts of the brain such as Broca’s area (speech production) and Wernicke’s area (language comprehension) are crucial for language development.

• Learning language is most effective during sensitive periods due to heightened neuroplasticity.

Motherese

• Motherese: The slow, exaggerated speech and high pitch often used by caregivers when talking to infants.

• This form of speech aids language development by making sounds and words more distinct and engaging for infants.