Chapter 6: First Two Years- Cognitive Development Flashcards
Primary Circular Reactions
This is involving infants body. Stage one (birth to 1 month), stage of reflexes. Stage two (1 to 4 months), first habits.
Secondary Circular Reactions
Interaction between baby and something else. Stage three (4-8 months), making interesting things last. Stage four (6-12 months), expecting a behavior to follow the action the infant put out.
Object Permanence
Realization that people and objects still exist if they can’t be seen or touched.
Tertiary Circular Reactions
Involving exploration and experimentation. Stage five (12-18 months), active exploration. Stage six (18-24 months), experimentation and imagination.
Little Scientist
Stage five toddler experimenting without balancing the results, trial and error.
Deferred Imitation
Where an infant sees someone else perform something for them and then performs the same action hours or days later.
Habituation
Process of becoming used to an event through repeated exposure, also allowing them to be less interested in it.
fMRI
Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging. To see how infants respond and get excited to stimulus.
Information-Processing Theory
Comparing human thinking with thinking of a computer. Input-Software Program-Output/ Sensation-Perception-Cognition.
Affordance
Opportunity for interaction offered by a person, place, or object in the environment. a cover or blanket for example.
Visual Cliff
Illusion of a drop-off between two surfaces.
Dynamic Perception
Perception focused upon movement and change.
People Preference
Infant perception, and attraction to other humans.
Reminder Session
Experience that helps a person recollect an idea or experience.
Child-Directed Speech
High-pitched voice parents use for their infants.
Babbling
Child’s repetition of syllables like ba-ba. Happens around 6 and 9 months.
Holophrase
Single word used to express a meaningful thought.
Naming Explosion
Increase in infants vocabulary especially in nouns. Happens at about 18 months.
Grammar
Methods of word order and verb forms languages use to communicate meaning apart from words themselves.
Mean Length of Utterance
Average number of words and sounds in a sentence, children don’t usually talk in sentences so they use this.
Language Acquisition Device
Chomsky’s term for a mental structure that allows people to learn language and all the terms with it.
Piaget’s Theory (Basic Principles)
- Children are active learners.
- Adaptation is core of intelligence.
- Cognition happens in four stages.
Piaget’s Theory (Sensorimotor Intelligence)
- How infants think during first stage of cognitive development.
- They use senses and motor skills.
Adaptation: Assimilation and Accommodation
- Assimilation is new experiences into old ideas.
- Accommodation is old experiences into new ideas.
Circular Reactions
Baby’s reinforcement encourages repetition of action. Thumb sucking is good, so keep doing it. Reactions keep going because infant finds pleasure in them at each stage.
Cognitive Milestones
Goal-directed behavior must have purposeful action, cause and effect, and using memory.
Evaluating Piaget’s Theory
Strengths- Infants active learners, several ways of thinking, infants process info different than adults.
Weaknesses- Small sample size, cognitive development is continual, motor and cognitive development may get confused.
Affordance (Gibson and Gibson)
Perception requires selectivity. We see what we are trained to see. Four factors of how it is perceived: sensory awareness, immediate motivation, current development, past experience.
Language Development
- Noises, gestures, and facial expressions are first signs of language.
- Timing to learn language varies, but it is unique in every culture.
Basics of Language
- 6 months infants are able to distinguish sounds and gestures in own language.
- 10 months they lose recognition of sounds in other cultures.
Cooing
First few months, repetition of vowel sounds (ahhh).
Gestures
Gestures are there before speech, and are at about 10 months.
Vocabulary
Words are learned dramatically: few words in first year, 6-15 months 10X what they knew, and 12 months holophrases.
Language Learning (B.F. Skinner) #1: Infants Need to be Taught
- Babbling is usually reinforced. Caregivers and parents must show them how to speak.
- Repetition of words is important, especially delightful ones.
1 Evidence
- Well taught infants become great speakers.
- If parents want infants who are well-educated, they must show them how to speak.
Language Learning (B.F. Skinner) #2: Social Impulses Foster Infant Language
- Infants communicate from humans evolving.
- Emotional messages of speech, not the words, bring early communication.
2 Evidence
- Each culture furthers social interaction through practices like talking.
- Babies learn whatever their culture provides.
Language Learning (Noam Chomsky) #3: Infants Teach Themselves
- Language learning is in born
- Language is experience-expectant.
3 Evidence
- Language is too complex to learn step-by-step.
- Language acquisition device (LAD) is in born.
