1.
CHAPTER 5CHAPTER 5
Infancy: Cognitive DevelopmentInfancy: Cognitive Development

2.
Cognitive Development: Jean PiagetCognitive Development: Jean Piaget

3.
Cognitive Development – Jean Piaget
• Piaget hypothesized that cognitive processes develop in an orderly
sequence of stages (4).
• Stage 1: Sensorimotor
• Stage 2: Preoperational
• Stage 3: Concrete operational
• Stage 4: Formal operational

4.
Piaget Basics
• Schemes
-Children’s concepts of the world
• Cognitive development
-Way of perceiving and mentally representing the world
• Assimilation
-Absorbing new events into existing schemes
• Accommodation
-Modifying existing schemes when assimilation does not allow
the child to make sense of novel events

5.
Sensorimotor Stage
• Refers to 0-2 years of cognitive development
• First substage (1st month after birth)
-Dominated by assimilation of sources of stimulation
into inborn reflexes such as grasping, visual tracking.
• Second substage (1 to 4 months)
P

6.
My hands are fascinating!

7.
Sensorimotor Stage (cont’d)
• Third substage (4 to 8 months)
S

8.
Sensorimotor Stage (cont’d)
• Sixth substage (18 to 24 months)
-Transition between sensorimotor development and the
development of symbolic thought
-External exploration replaced by mental exploration
-Use imitation to symbolize or stand for a plan of action
• Object permanence
-Recognition that an object or person continues to exist when
out of sight
-Advances in the development of the object concept by about
the sixth month

9.
Fig. 5-1, p. 95

10.
Evaluation of Piaget
Confirmation
• Remains a comprehensive model of infant cognition
• Many of his own observations of his own infants have
been confirmed by others.
• Pattern and sequence of events he described have
been observed among American, European, African,
and Asian infants

11.
You have my attention

12.
Piaget Criticisms
– Cognitive development not as tied to discrete stages
– Emphasis on maturation with exclusion of adult and
peer influences on cognitive development
– Underestimation of infants’ competence
• Infants display object permanence earlier than Piaget
believed.
• Infants display deferred imitation as early as 9 months and
not 18 months as Piaget believed.

13.
Which book will I like best?

14.
Information ProcessingInformation Processing

15.
Information Processing
Memory
• Memory improves between 2 and 6 months of age.
• Older infants more capable of encoding than younger
ones
• Infant memory can be improved if infants receive a
reminder.
Deferred Imitation
-Imitation of actions after a time delay occurs as early as 6
months
-Imitation of neonates likely reflexive

16.
Object Permanence

17.
Fig. 5-2, p. 96

18.
Fig. 5-2, p. 97

19.
Mirror Neurons
• Activated when the individual performs a motor act or
observes another individual engaging in the same act
• Also connected with emotions in humans
– The frontal lobe is active when people experience
emotions such as disgust, happiness, pain, and also
when they observe another person experiencing an
emotion
• Has been suggested that mirror neurons are connected
with the built-in human capacity to acquire language

20.
Individual Differences inIndividual Differences in
Intelligence Among InfantsIntelligence Among Infants

21.
Individual Differences in Intelligence Among
Infants
• Understanding of infants’ intelligence based on scales of
infant development
• Bayley Scales of Infant Development
-Consists of 178 mental-scale items and 111 motor-scale
items
-Mental scale assesses verbal communication, perceptual
skills, learning and memory, and problem-solving skills
-Motor scale assesses gross and fine motor skills
-Behavior rating scale based on examiner
observation of the child during the test also used
• Testing used to identify handicaps

22.
Instability of Intelligence Scores Attained in
Infancy
• Scores obtained during first year of life correlated
moderately with scores obtained a year later.
• Bayley scales and socioeconomic status were able to
predict cognitive development among LBW children
from 18 months to 4 years.
• Bayley and other scales do not predict school grades or
IQ scores very well.
• Bayley scales are best at identifying gross lags in
development and relative strengths and weaknesses.

23.
Table 5-1, p. 98

24.
Use of Visual Recognition Memory
• Visual recognition memory
- Ability to discriminate previously seen objects from novel objects; procedure
based on habituation
• Children with greater visual recognition memory attained higher IQ
scores.
• Individual differences in capacity for visual recognition memory are
stable.
• Capacity for visual recognition memory increases over first year
after birth.
• Studies on visual recognition memory and later IQ scores show
good predictive validity for broad cognitive abilities throughout
childhood.

25.
Language DevelopmentLanguage Development

26.
Early Vocalizations
• Children develop language according to an invariant
sequence of steps or stages.
• Language begins with prelinguistic vocalizations.
-

27.
Table 5-2, p. 101

28.
Development of Vocabulary
• First word
-
• General nominals
-Similar to nouns
-Includes names of
classes of objects
• Specific nominals
-Proper nouns

29.
Overextension
• Overextension
– Children extend the meaning of one word to refer to
things and actions for which they do not have words.
– Overextensions gradually pulled back to proper
references

30.
Development of Sentences
• Telegraphic speech
-Brief expressions that have meanings of sentences
• Mean length of utterance (MLU)
-Average number of morphemes that communicators use in
their sentences
• Morphemes
-Smallest units of meaning in a language
-e.g. Walked is two morphemes:
walk = verb, -ed = past-tense suffix
• MLU increases rapidly once speech begins

31.
Fig. 5-5, p. 103

32.
Development of Sentences (cont’d)
• Holophrases
-Single words that are used to express complex meanings
-e.g., “Mama” means… “There goes Mama”
• Telegraphic speech
-Two-word sentences
-e.g., “That ball”; words is and a are implied
-Shows understanding of syntax
-Rules in a language for placing words in order to form
sentences

33.
Lots of words to learn

34.
Theories of Language Development
• Nurture view
-Holds that a child learns the language that the family speaks
1
-Children learn language, at least in part, by observation and
imitation.
2

35.
Theories of Language Development (cont’d)
• Nature
-Holds that children have inborn tendency in the form of
neurological “pre-wiring” to language learning
• Psycholinguistic theory
-Language acquisition involves interaction between
environmental influences.
-Innate tendency labeled language acquisition device (LAD)
-Inborn tendency supported by studies of deaf children and in
the language development among all languages

36.
Talking to your baby increases
language development

37.
Theories of Language Development (cont’d)
• Surface and deep structure
-On the surface, languages differ in vocabulary and grammar.
-However, languages share “universal grammar” allowing for
transforming ideas into sentences.
• Chomsky maintains children are genetically pre-wired to
attend to language and deduce the rules for constructing
sentences from ideas.

38.
Vocabulary can be fun

39.
Brain Structures Involved in Language
• Biological structures of LAD based in left hemisphere of
the cerebral cortex for nearly all right-handed people
and for 2 out of 3 left-handed
• Damage to Broca’s or Wernicke’s area called aphasia
-Disruption in the ability to understand or produce language
-Located left hemisphere
• Broca’s aphasia
-Can understand but not reproduce speech well
• Wernicke’s aphasia
-Can speak freely with proper syntax
-Have trouble understanding speech and finding the words to
express themselves

40.
Fig. 5-6, p. 107

41.
The Sensitive Period
• Language learning most efficient beginning at 18 to 24
months (sensitive period)
• During this period, neural development provides
plasticity of the brain.
• Damage to the brain easier to heal the younger the child
• Social contacts important in the development of
language
• Malnutrition and abuse can contribute to poor language
learning and ability.

42.
Walk to me