Cognitive and motor development

Question 1

Piaget’s theory of cognitive development (4 stages)

Answer 1

• sensorimotor
• pre operational
• concrete operational
• formal operational

Question 2

When and What is the sensorimotor stage?

Answer 2

0-2 years
children have no concept of object permanence

Question 3

When and What is the pre operational stage?

Answer 3

2-7 years
egocentric
don’t understand theory of mind

Question 4

When and What is the concrete operational stage?

Answer 4

7-12 years
understand that there viewpoint is one of many (theory of mind develops)

Question 5

When and What is the formal operational stage?

Answer 5

12+
can use deductive reasoning
know abstract ideas

Question 6

What is object permanence?

Answer 6

8-9 months
understand that objects don’t have temporal and spatial contiguity
(doesn’t travel through space and time)
allows us to perceive causal or intentionality

Question 7

Piaget’s findings of object permanence

Answer 7

children will not search for an object when hidden, act like object doesn’t exist

Question 8

Baillargeon et al (1985)

Answer 8

found that 5 month old infants looked for longer at impossible events

Question 9

Why do infants look for longer during impossible events?

Answer 9

infants are drawn to new stimuli (novelty preference)
lose interest in familiar input due to becoming habituated

Question 10

When does object permanence develop (Spelke)

Answer 10

we are born with an understanding of object permanence as innate knowledge

Question 11

When does object permanence develop (Baillargeon)

Answer 11

combination of innate knowledge then expand on it throughout development

Question 12

Onishi & Baillargeon (2005) study on theory of mind

Answer 12

nonverbal false belief task
1- familiarisation phase (actor plays with toy, hides it in box)
2- belief induction (infants witness a change, actor hold true or false belief where they either know location of toy or not)
3- test phase (actor searches for toy in either correct or incorrect box)

Question 13

Onishi & Baillargeon (2005) study findings

Answer 13

recorded looking times
infants looked longer when there was a mismatch between actors actions and beliefs
e.g knew right location but looked in wrong box

Question 14

What is abstract thinking?

Answer 14

ability to understand complex concepts that are symbolic or hypothetical e.g hope, justice

Question 15

When does abstract thinking develop (Susac et al)

Answer 15

mathematical reasoning improves between 13 and 17 years old

Question 16

Why is abstract thinking important?

Answer 16

used for long term planning
problem solving
science and theory building
social interactions

Question 17

What is cognitive bias?

Answer 17

the tendency to focus on concrete info which can bias our decisions
2 types:
anchoring bias
survivorship bias

Question 18

What is anchoring bias?

Answer 18

people’s tendency to rely too heavily on the first piece of information they receive on a topic

Question 19

What is survivorship bias?

Answer 19

drawing conclusions from incomplete data available
focusing on successful and ignoring unsuccessful

Question 20

What is symbolic play?

Answer 20

non-literal use of objects for fun
use an object as a symbol for something else

Question 21

McCune: symbolic play

Answer 21

found children start to show basic forms of symbolic play around 12 months

Question 22

Motor milestone chart

Answer 22

first couple of months: prone (face down), lifts head
middle months: sits without support, crawling
last few months: stands an walks alone

Question 23

Oudgenoeg-Paz et a (2012): motor development and vocab

Answer 23

found children who achieve unsupported sitting and independent walking show a higher level and larger rate of growth of productive vocab

Question 24

Why do early sitters and walkers have a larger vocab?

Answer 24

• they get different learning opportunities
• see the world differently

Question 25

Kretch (2022): posture and cognitive learning

Answer 25

how infants with typical motor development and motor delay use various postures during play
sample: children with motor delay (used Bayley-III motor scale, score lower than 2.4 S.D below mean)
gross motor: how well infant can move body
fine motor: how well infant can use fingers / hand

Question 26

Kretch (2022) coding of posture

Answer 26

supine
prone
supported sitting versus independent sitting
standing

Question 27

What does supine mean?

Answer 27

lying on the floor on back or side

Question 28

What does prone mean?

Answer 28

Face down

Question 29

Kretch (2022) findings

Answer 29

motor delayed children spent more time in supine and supported sitting
Typically motor developed children spent more time standing

Question 30

Soska & Adolph (2014): posturę and object exploration

Answer 30

sample: 29 infants around 4-7 months old
offered diff toy on each trial, experimenter moves child into diff posture
postures: supported sitting, supine, prone
exploration coding: fingering / rotating objects, transferring objects between hands, oral and visual exploration

Question 31

Soska & Adolph (2014) findings

Answer 31

more likely to rotate objects when in sitting posture
more likely to put objects in mouth when sitting or supine
sitting is best posture for learning opportunities (more multimodal object exploration)

Question 32

Kretch (2014): motor development and what children see

Answer 32

how infants visual experience differs whilst crawling or waking
camera on child’s head, caregiver infront holding a toy high or low
found walkers can see higher and more like to see parents face
crawlers can see things closer to themselves

Question 33

Karasik et al (2014): motor development and parents verbal responses

Answer 33

whether infants locomotor status (crawler or walker) and whether they are stationary or moving predicts type and frequency of mothers verbal responses
infants give objects to mother
mothers response type: affirmation, action directives, no response, referential utterance (provide info)

Question 34

Karasik (2014) findings

Answer 34

when stationary mothers don’t give much response
when they make more advanced movement the showing object, receive more feedback