child language acquisition - cognitivism

Question 1

What is cognitivism?

Answer 1

• cognitive theory is a more psychological approach to language acquisition
• underlined by the idea that children must first be able to understand a concept before they can express is through language

Question 2

What are Jean Piaget’s key ideas?

Answer 2

• children have to form a mental model of the world - a schema
• before being able to articulate their comprehension through language
• active exploration and interaction with the environment was vital in shaping cognitive development

Question 3

What are Piaget’s stages of linguistic development?

Answer 3

1. sensorimotor = 0-2 years
2. preoperational = 2-7 years
3. concrete operational = 7-11 years
4. formal operational = 11+ years

Question 4

What is the sensorimotor stage?

Answer 4

• the child learns about the world using their sense + through exploring it
• object permanence develops by the end of the stage where the child realises that things exist even when they cannot see them

Question 5

What is the Blanket and Ball (1963) study?

Answer 5

• Piaget wanted to investigate the age at which children acquire object permanence
• whilst the child was watching him, he hid a children’s toy underneath a blanket and observed whether the child would search for the hidden toy or not
• 8 month old infants were able to search for the hidden toy, suggesting that at this age children acquired object permanence

Question 6

What is the preoperational stage?

Answer 6

• child moves from thinking about things based on the way they appear to understand logical reasoning
• language is egocentric

Question 7

What does egocentrism mean?

Answer 7

• children in the preoperational stage may have difficulty understanding perspectives other than their own
• they assume that others see, think, and feel the same way they do
• young children often engage in parallel play and here they will engage in self-talk/narrate their own activities

Question 8

What is the concrete operational stage?

Answer 8

• children use logical thinking although they still have difficulties with abstract thinking

Question 9

What are the stages of logical reasoning within the concrete operational stage?

Answer 9

1. conservation
2. classification
3. seriation
4. reversabillity
5. decentering

Question 10

What is meant by conservation?

Answer 10

• the understanding that something stays the same in quantity, even though its appearance changes

Question 11

What is meant by classification?

Answer 11

• the ability to identify the properties or categories/classes to one another, and use categorical information to solve problems

Question 12

What is meant by seriation?

Answer 12

• the ability to mentally arrange objects/situations along a quantifiable dimension

Question 13

What is meant by reversability?

Answer 13

• involves understanding that actions can be reversed, a fundamental part of logical thinking

Question 14

What is meant by decentering?

Answer 14

• the ability to simultaneously consider multiple aspects of a situation/problem

Question 15

What is the formal operational stage?

Answer 15

• children gain the ability to think in an abstract manner and scientific reasoning

Question 16

How can Piaget’s theory be seen in the real world?

Answer 16

• young people are taught appropriately in terma of their cognitive development stage
  e.g. children in the preoperational stage being taught how to understand abstract concepts, which they need to articulate themselves

Question 17

How does Vygotsky’s theory support Piaget?

Answer 17

• Vygotsky acknowledged the importance of cognitive development stages similar to those proposed by Piaget
• the ZPD and MKO working with the achieved developments of a child, whilst being mindful of what the child is yet to achieve