Chapter 10 - Cognitive Development Play Years Flashcards
Piaget’s Preoperational Stage
• Ages 2-6
• Children are able to think symbolically – Language is a symbolic system
– Images are symbols
• But, Piaget argued these children haven’t yet achieved logical thinking (perspective taking, conservation) due to the following limitatations: centration, focus on appearance, static reasoning, and irreversibility
Centration? Example
A focus on one aspect of a situation, ignoring all others
• Egocentrism is an example of centration – Piaget’s mountain task
Conservation
Understanding that amount is conserved despite changes in appearance (pouring juice in taller cup does not make more juice)
What did Vygotsky emphasize in importance unlike Piaget?
social interactions
Scaffolding
support given that takes into account the learner’s needs and abiliAes
Zone of proximal development?
Stuff that a learner can do with help/guidance
There are many concepts children can’t “____” for themselves and must rely on others
discover
Children are fairly good at deciding whom to trust by ~ age _
4
What is an example of overimitation? Example?
When a person imitates an action that is not a relevant part of the behavior to be learned. Box experiment
Most developmental psychologists today do not refer to children’s development in terms of ____ stages, why?
Piagetian, because his work underestimated children’s abilities
Piaget vs Vygotsky
Early accounts of cognitive development focused on processes internal to the child (Piaget) vs. development through social interactions (Vygotsky)
What is theory of mind?
ability to understand that other individuals have desires, beliefs, and intentions that are different from one’s own
Representational theory of mind
Achieved when the child recognizes that
mental states are not a replica of reality.
They understand that people can hold false
beliefs
Unexpected contents task?
Crayon box with candles.
False belief task? When do children usually pass this task?
Not being able to take on someone else’s view
4yrs
At what age to children get:
Inferring goals (~_ months) – Joint attention (~_ months) – Different desires (~_ months)
6, 9, 18
Diverse desires task
Understanding that individuals can have desires and preferences different from one’s own emerges around 18 months
What develops? Why do 5-year-olds pass and 3- year-olds fail?
– Theory-Theory: children construct theories to explain what they observe. Like scientific theories, they are subject to revision based on incoming information.
– Simulation theory: we simulate others’ mental states using our own cognitive resources (i.e., we put ourselves in another’s shoes)
– Inhibition accounts: children have difficulty inhibiAng what they know
Theory of mind and Autism
Impairments may be seen in joint akenAon, akenAon following (gaze/poinAng), pretend play, communicaAon
Pass rates for false belief task of children with autism? downs? typical developing?
Why did they include downs?
85% of typically-developing children
86% of children with Down syndrome
20% of children with autism
They wanted to make sure it wasn’t just an intellectual disability
Lying with kids? Who lies most? How are their lies?
5 year olds lie more than 3 year olds and 4 year olds
5 year olds lies are more sophisticated “oh my elbow knocked it” instead of “it just happened”
How does lying relate to theory of mind?
They think to themselves “what will they believe”
Correlations exist between ToM development and:
– Birth order
– Parenting style
– Parent-child conversation
– Attachment
Why do children with older sibs show earlier false belief understanding?
The child has been teased, tormented and deceived - exposed to more types of behaviors that a parent wouldn’t expose them to
Why do deaf children of hearing parents show delays in ToM development?
They’re not getting the language input that a hearing child/child of deaf parents would get
A representational theory of mind is usually achieved around age _
4
Levels of language
– Phonetics – Lexicon (vocabulary) – Semantics – Syntax/morphology – Pragmatics/Communication
Vocabulary size of __-___ words age 2 -> ___-____ words at age 6
100-2,000
5,000-30,000
Children eventually acquire ____ vocabulary > ____ vocabulary
RecepAve vocabulary > expressive vocab
Word learning is a major ____ problem
inductive
Whole object assumption
words typically refer to whole objects
Lexical constraints
– Basic level bias
• Superordinate level (animal)
• Basic level (dog)
• Subordinate level (labradoodle)
– Mutual exclusivity/contrast bias: novel words
refer to novel referents
• “Look at the dax!”
• If you don’t use a familiar label, you better have a good reason for it!
– Shape bias: in extending a label, children select
objects that are the same shape
– Taxonomic bias: In extending a label, children assume the same words refer to objects from the same taxonomic category rather than thematic category
• In non word-learning contexts, children select thematic matches. In word-learning contexts, select taxonomic matches.
Children also use cues in the social context to
infer intention of speaker like:
- Eye gaze
- Pointing
- Attention
Fast mapping
Concept is learned by a single exposure
Carey and Bartlek (1978) study
children were shown two trays (blue and olive green) and asked to get “the chromium one, not the blue one, the chromium one”. One week later, children recognized olive green as “chromium”
Infants track the statistical co-____ of
syllables to decide what’s a word
occurrence
Children have ____ knowledge of morphology
implicit
Adults usually correct ____, not ____
meaning
grammar
Overregularization
children extend regular grammatical patterns to irregular words
Children looked longer at the video that matched the sentence, suggesting ____ ____ knowledge
abstract syntactic
Theories of acquisition range from ___ (Chomsky’s universal grammar) to ____ (Tomasello’s item-based learning)
innate
learned
First school for the deaf opened in ___
1977
Homesigns
Made up signs by deaf kids to communicate
Together, the deaf children created a communicative system that was increasingly complex – they created a ____ ___.
linguistic code
_____ children are better at acquiring language, especially grammar.
younger
Two ingredients for language:
1) a community of speakers, and 2) a generational progression with younger speakers

Pragmatics
The social side of language, a suite of abilities
– Inferring speaker intention
– Communicating clearly, taking your listener’s perspective into account, adapting to your listener
– Communicating in socially appropriate ways (sociolinguistics)
– Following rules in conversation
Example of inferring speaker intention in pragmatics (literal and implied meanings)
Harry: How did the interview go?
Mike: I need a drink. Make it a double.
Ashley: Do you want to come to the concert tonight?
Taylor: I have an exam tomorrow.
Child: Can I have a cookie?
Mother: We’re having dinner soon.
Children’s comprehension often depends on the complexity of the situation, but some understanding of implied meanings by age -
3-4.
Children do or do not get confused by learning more than one language?
Do not, they are able to maintain separate lexicons and grammar
____ exposure is best (more difficult to learn a
second language in adolescence and beyond)
Early
Children show sensitivity both as listener and
speaker as young as ages -
3-4.
Referential communication task
Director says, “pick up the small candle”.
Which candle is she referring to?
Children must learn many things about their naAve language:
– The sound system (phonetics)
– Words and their meaning
– Grammar
– Social use of language/communication
And they have largely achieved this by the age of about 5!
Child-centred programs
directed by child’s individual interests; focused on exploration, creativity, imagination, discovery
Teacher-centred programs
focus is on acquiring basic academic skills (literacy and numeracy)
Bilinguals are less likely to develop ___ and ____and have stronger executive function abilities (constantly switching between languages, language inhibition)
dementia and Alzheimer’s
Reggio Emilia schools
arts, creativity, natural world; focus on individuality and self-expression
Montessori schools benefits
reading, math, ToM, some delayed benefits in socio-emotional skills
What is the approach in the Ontario early years curriculum?
since 2012 its play-based learning (child-centred)
Head Start
a federally funded intervention program for preschool children from low-SES homes
Word gap
there is a 30 million word gap between children from the wealthiest and poorest families
quality ECE has substantial long-term ____ for children
benefits
Symbolic thought
when an object or a word stands for something, it can be out of sight or imagined
animism
the belief that natural objects are alive
centration
focusing on one idea and excluding others
static reasoning
when a child thinks that nothing changes, whatever is now will always be
irreversability
a child thinks that nothing can be undone
private speech
talking to yourself out loud or in your head
social mediation
interaction that expands/advances understanding, often through words that are used to explain
theory-theory
when children begin to try to explain everything by constructing theories
