Child Development: Cognition and Intelligence Flashcards
What is cognition?
The mental processes by which knowledge is acquires, elaborated, stored, retrieved and used to solve problems.
What are the four stages of Piaget’s framework of cognitive development?
- Sensorimotor stage
- Preoperational Stage
- Concrete operation stage
- Formal operational stage
What is the sensorimotor stage?
Occurs from birth to 18 - 24 months. In this stage children learn by seeing and doing - they have direct experience of the world.
What is object permeance? When does it occur?
The child is interested in the object only is they can see it.
In their first year, they learn object permeance – they know to look for the object that has been moved out of their site.
This occurs at age 7-9 months?
What is the Rovee-Collier experiment?
The baby is placed in a crib and above her is a mobile. You then observe the number of leg kicks that the baby produces in a 3-minute period. When interested, this number increases. Then tie a string to the mobile and let the child become familiar with this – they quickly learn that if they move their legs, the mobile moves. The number of leg kicks can then be measured. This is repeated – the child doubles or triples the number of leg kicks compared to the baseline.
This can then be repeated a few days later. The memory system is developing but is weak, in this context at 2 months, the memory lasts for 24 hours (more than baseline).
3 months will kick more one week later. At 6 months, they kick for 6 months. Memory development develops quite quickly. Since object permeance occurs later, the issue is not the under development of memory systems but it instead something else.
What is self-recognition?
This occurs at 18 months. The child develops a sense of self and so can identify their image in a mirror, or can pick themselves our of a photograph. This occurs at the same time in a deaf child (they learn the sign for self). This can be tested using the mirror test. The investigator puts makeup or paint on the child shoulder. When in front of the mirror, they touch the shoulder.
What is the pre-operational stage?
During this stage (toddler through age 7), young children are able to think about things symbolically. Their language use becomes more mature. They also develop memory and imagination, which allows them to understand the difference between past and future, and engage in make-believe.
But their thinking is based on intuition and still not completely logical. They cannot yet grasp more complex concepts such as cause and effect, time, and comparison.
What is the mountain problem?
On the table are 3 3-D mountains. All are different colours with different objects on each mountain. They walk round the table and describe it form different perspectives. The researcher places a doll on the opposite side of the mountain to the child. They are then asked to describe what the doll can see. Before the age of 5, most children describe what they can see, rather than being able to mentally walk around the table.
Children show loss of egocentric thought at different stages. Centration gradually is eroded away.
How does pre-operational thinking align with conservation?
Conservation of mass. The child sees that two equal masses of clay – they are asked to check they are equal. One is shaped into a ball and the other into a tube. The child is then asked which has more mass – most children pick the longest object. Before the age of 7 most children pick the longer thinner mass. They do not understand that the mass of the object has not changed despite its appearance has changed. This is the same with volume of a liquid.
What is the concrete operational stage?
Children gain the ability to think logically and reversibly about things that are there. They are able to think in relation to things that are real or imaginary. There is a loss of egocentric thinking at this point and so children begin to understand the views of others and learn to understand external events. This occurs at age 7-11.
What is formal operational thinking?
Children learn to understand abstract thinking and can make predictions about things that are not there and things they haven’t experienced. This forms the basis of adult thinking. They are able to reason using symbolic terms, consider alternatives and plan ahead and can systematically test hypotheses.
Define centration.
Putting yourself at the centre of your world. Thinking about one idea at a time to the exclusion of others. Problems with conservation. Egocentric through – self-centred word. Difficulty taking another’s perspective
Define schemas.
Theories about how the physical and social world operate. Internalised theoretical model. These theories are changed according to new information.
What is assimilation?
Understanding a new object
What is accommodation?
Modifying a schema
