Cognitive And Pragmatic Development Flashcards
Brain Development Order:
Lower Brain- Bodily Functions
Cerebellum & Basal Ganglia-Movement
Motor Cortex-Volitional Movement
Visual Cortex-Visual Processing
Limbic System-Emotions
Cerebral Cortex-Higher Thinking
myelination
myelin sheath is that fatty tissue tube which insulates the axon making sure that the impulse is sent quickly, efficiently and to a specified receiver.
Synaptogenesis
formation of synapses between neurons.
Neural Pruning
removal of neural pathways.
Sensation
Ability to register sensory information (light, touch, taste, sound, smell).
Overstimulation
If a touch or a sound is stronger or louder, the child responds in kind. This is because the cortex itself is immature, and firing on all cylinders, as they say.
Overstimulation
The state of agitation as a result of the inability to ignore stimuli.
Habituation
The only way in which infants begin to learn how to ignore stimuli is through habituation.
Habituation
Disregarding a stimulus because it is no longer “novel.”
If you’ve ever worked in fast food, you’ve likely experienced this. During the first few days of working, you will notice the beeping timers for fryers and other tools going off constantly. However, after a few days, or even a few hours for some, the timers begin to fade into the general music of the scene. Luckily, however, the alarms do not fade completely, or you’d miss a timer and burn an entire batch of fries.
Selective Attention
Once a child begins to be able to habituate to sounds which become less novel – or new to her - she now has the cognitive reserves to attend to just one thing.
selective attention:
The ability to focus on one stimulus and filter sensations to maintain a stable state.
It tends to be the things that are important to her, like in the “Cocktail Effect” where you hear your own name it a crowd, even though it was not said more loudly than anything else, you still attend to it because it is personally important.
Perception
Ability to integrate sensory information and prior experiences.
Discrimination
Ability to identify the salient characteristics of a stimulus.
Reflex Development
Children are born with reflexes, which in healthy children are developed in utero. For instance, thumb-sucking, blinking, as well as heart rate changes due to external stimuli all develop before birth.
Reflexes
involuntary neuro-motor responses to stimulation.
Primitive reflexes are those that are present at birth but disappear by 6 months as part of normal development. Typically their role is to support survival in the early weeks, until the child develops control over her muscles.
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In general, oral motor development is the first area of motor skill which infants really master. It begins with an up-down movement (as in aphasic bite) which gradually develops into front-to-back control, graded, rotational and lateral movement. The last of this sequence is made possible by the emerging ability of the child to separate jaw movement from the movement of the lips, tongue, and cheeks.
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Motor Speech
Planning, preparation, and execution of muscle movement for oral communication.
The sounds that they begin to make when they are not crying are called quasi-resonant nuclei, or QRN. These are back-of-the-throat sounds which are half consonant and half vowel. As they begin to gain some control, their sounds take on true vowels and consonants, and they begin to take turns with their vocalizations in “protoconversations.”
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Stimuli
In the beginning, a stimulus, or several stimuli occur.
Attention
Attention is the first active role a child has in learning. The stimuli that are attended to will have a chance to be “processed.” But, the stimuli not attended to will be ignored.
Perception
The next step is to compare stimuli to other experiences. If it is a stimulus that has been attended to before, it has a higher likelihood of being processed this time. Remember - human brains love patterns.
Discrimination
Relevant characteristics of the stimuli are identified. Think about a road sign. If you used the base of the sign (the wooden or metal sticks) to discriminate between them, you might get into an accident, because you were using the wrong characteristics. The salient characteristics are the words or images on the top shape. Discrimination means looking for what’s important in a stimulus. Combined, Perception and Discrimination constitute what is called “working” or “short term” memory.
Organization
Researchers have shown that we can maintain about 7-12 units of information in our mind at once. This is what we call our “working memory.” Have you ever tried to remember a shopping list that was longer than ten items, or remembered the names of more than ten new people at a party? There is a real, scientific reason why this is difficult, and it’s why the organization of information is so important. When you organize information, which we can also call “chunking,” we can turn 144 pieces of information into 12 chunked units of information. It’s a great thing to remember when you are studying for a test. Organization is the first half of creating a long term memory.
Memory (Recall)
Recall is the ability of your brain to send back out what it has taken in. Researchers say that while you learn 10% of what is taught by listening, 50% of what is taught by actively engaging in the material, and 90% of what is taught when you have to turn around and teach it yourself. That is one reason why presentations are part of all my courses, and why recalling information is so important for solidifying learning. When you hear a new name at a party, be sure to say the name, and recall it five minutes later—you will have processed it much better, and perhaps made a new friend or professional contact because of it.
Milestones in the Cognitive Development of Play:
Imitation, Causality (6 Months and Up), Object Permanence (8 Months) and Means-End (8 - 9 Months
Imitation
Doing what someone else does. It starts with mirror neurons prompting smile responses when an adult smiles. It’s also nurtured in the protoconversation activities at two months, and as children refine their motor ability they become better imitators of the world around them.
Causality (6 Months and Up
A child begins to notice that an action she made had an effect on something nearby - weather it was her waving arm knocking a bottle to the floor, or a reactionary scream bringing an adult near. It wasn’t on purpose, but she noticed the result.
Object Permanence (8 Months
Knowing something unseen still exists.
Milestones in the Cognitive Development of Play - Strategies:
Play, symbols, and know this progression
Play
If you didn’t have memory, you wouldn’t realize that you have attempted the same solution for the same problem, over and over. However, if you have some increased memory, paired with the drive to have an effect on the world, you now can try different strategies. This, in essence, is play.
Many of the two-year-olds I see in the intervention are missing this ability to create strategies. It often baffles parents when their child looks happy but does not talk. However, one of the painful conversations I sometimes have to have is that their child is never upset because they don’t remember their previous attempt and failure, or they don’t’ know what they are missing. It is really important that a child demonstrates some mild frustration at times because it demonstrates that they understand that they tried something and it didn’t work
Symbols
Once a child has Means-End behavior, based on the idea that they can have an effect on their world, and they know there is something they want that they don’t have, plus the ability to try multiple strategies, we finally see children trying to say words. Intention drives means-end behavior, object permanence provides a foundation for understanding that things can be represented even when they don’t exist. And finally, trying multiple strategies, multiple motor patterns, make it possible for a child to finally hit on the right combination at the right time and yell out “bottle!”
Know this progression
it’s key to unlocking the puzzles of young children in early intervention.
Mutual Gaze
when a caregiver and a child look at and look for each other, this becomes reinforcing every time their eyes meet. This look is called a Mutual Gaze. With this attachment, the infant begins to look for the mother’s eyes, and then follow them. The mother does the same. And then—which is most key—the caregiver implies the intention of the infant.
Deictic Gaze
When a person looks at an item or a direction and others do the same, this is a Deictic Gaze. For example, when a father sees his child look at a book and reinforces this look with at least a verbal response like “Oh, you want your book!” and he sometimes even pair it with an action or object (like giving her the book).
When we talk about toddler development later, you will see that this process is called “Deixis.” It supports the development of words like “this” and “that.”
Joint reference and joint action are two important features of pragmatic development in infancy are motivated by the necessity of learning to communicate in a social environment.
True
The resulting joint reference makes it possible for a child to learn a new word.
True
Joint Reference
Two or more individuals experiencing a common focus.
Imagine a parent and child looking at a toy box. What would happen if a child was looking at the shiny handle while the parent looked at the stuffed elephant and say, “Elephant!” Would that child be able to learn the language well?
In my work with children with visual impairment; strategies to combat a lack of joint reference are often the biggest support I can provide a family. We see limited joint reference in children with autism spectrum disorder as well, because of limited eye contact.
Joint Action
The active counterpart to joint reference is joint action. Joint action is made possible through the routines of a day, bath time, mealtime, getting dressed, and simple games.
Joint Action
two or more individuals experiencing a common set of actions
Here these routine actions, or rituals, create a structure built of actions paired with words from which a child may begin to extract meaning—when it’s done in repetition
Rituals are little play routines that caregivers often initiate with infants as they are progressing in their cognitive skills. As their memory improves, they begin to recognize the elements of the “game.”
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Rituals
Initiation, Mutual Orientation, Greeting, Play dialogue, Disengagement
Rituals
The most archetypical example is the game of “Peekaboo.” The game is initiated with a towel or hands covering the face. At this point, the two “players” are attending to the same event, or mutually-oriented. They greet each other when the cover is removed, and usually, there is some kind of phrase or play dialouge associated, such as “I see you” or “I got you.” These steps repeat until one of the players disengages.
Event-Based Knowledge
Think, also about how the context interaction matters. In the bathtub, a child might expect a certain set of actions and words—like, “wash” may be meaningful. However, then in the bed, “wash” may not be an expected content word. This “situational variation” is important for understanding why children learn words in particular contexts, and asking a child to perform meaning outside of that context gets them really confused—until their memory skills catch up.
We call the information that is contextually learned “Event-Based Knowledge.” Take a moment to watch the video here. See if you can identify the children who are further along with the cognitive skills progression, meaning that they are better at expecting the next step of the ritual. And most of all, enjoy the giggles!
Turn-Taking and Protoconversations are similar in which you pause to allow someone else to speak or participate.
True
Turn-Taking is pausing to allow another to participate, and then acting again and Protoconversations are taking turns vocalizing.
In essence, turn-taking can refer to any movement, but protoconversations are specifically related to a verbal/vocal communication event.
True
1 Month
Eye contact & Gazes
• Sounds and Movements
• Social smile
2 Months:
Person Function association
• Cooing
• Visual discriminate between people
• Stable state/attention
• Stimulus-response pairs
3-6 Months
Awareness of rituals
• Increased imitation
• Emotions in vocalizations
• More interest in objects
0-8 Months: Pre-Intentional
The infant happens to focus on something, and the caregiver implies intent to
that action.
8-12 Months: Intentional
The infant begins to use vocalizations and gestures to express intent
12+ Months: Symbolic
The child begins to use verbalization to express intent
Showing
Toddler holding object tightly so partner may view
Giving
Toddler holding object in open hand for partner to take
Pointing
Toddler point at object,m or event of interest
Requesting
Toodler learning and reaching for desired object
12-14 Months:
Joint attention supplemented by gestures
• Intonation contours
• Naming/labeling predominate
18-21 Months:
Presupposition
• Actions paired with object names
• Imperatives/requests/protests increase
24 Months:
Actions paired with objects are represented by words
One term re-introduced in this section is presupposition or the assumption of listener knowledge. When children enter toddlerhood, they seem to know what information is relevant instead of redundant. As we will see when we discuss syntax, toddlers can be remarkably successful communicating their intention in just one or two words, in part because they rely on their listener to fill in the blanks based on this presupposition
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Toddler Pragmatic Functions
Intentions
Examples
Demand
Gimme.
Request
I have it?
Protest
No!
Question
What that?
Name/Label
Doggy.
Statement/Comment
Doggy!
Answer Reply
Doggy.
Exclaim/Express
Doggy!
Greet/Farewell
Hi.
Repeat/Practice
Doggy go, doggy go, doggy go
Call
Doggy!
Dialogues and Topic Maintenance
Dialogues and conversations are communication events between two people, with both partners speaking. A conversation can be called a dialogue. When children enter preschool, they begin to attempt, but are not necessarily savvy at, maintaining a topic in conversation.
Dialogues and conversations are communication events between two people, with both partners speaking.
True
Topic maintenance is adding or responding with relevant comments. Preschoolers have learned that conversational turns are necessary to politely engage a partner. They want to use language to keep a partner engaged with them. However, the demand on their language processing skills still make topic maintenance a challenge. The end result is often that a preschooler will use repetition to maintain a topic and attention.
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Topic maintenance is just one of the improved skills we see in preschool. If you’ve ever spent any time in a preschool classroom, you will note that a child is pretty good at talking like a baby versus a mommy, use words to correct what they were trying to say, and omit information in a conversation that was redundant.
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some additional pragmatic developments that help preschoolers become better conversationalists.
Topic Introduction, Maintenance, & Closure: manipulating the cohesion of a conversation
Register: using features of language (pitch, loudness, politeness, syntax, etc.) to portray a role
Conversational Repair: using words to request clarification and explain; using varied strategies (not repetition) to refine a message
Presupposition: adapting to a listeners knowledge
Topic Introduction, Maintenance, & Closure:
manipulating the cohesion of a conversation
Register
using features of language (pitch, loudness, politeness, syntax, etc.) to portray a role
Conversational Repair:
using words to request clarification and explain; using varied strategies (not repetition) to refine a message
Presupposition
adapting to a listeners knowledge
Preschool Pragmatic Functions
Functions
Examples
Prohibition
Don’t do that.
Intention
I’m going to go.
Request permission
Can I have one?
Suggestion
Should we go?
Physical justification
I can’t reach it.
Offer
Do you want one?
Indirect request
Will you get it?
Theory of Mind is the ability to understand the minds of other people and to comprehend and predict their behavior. Having theory of mind means knowing that while you may have particular thoughts in your head, your conversational partner does not necessarily have the same thoughts. Think about a time when you absent-mindedly told a significant other to put a thing “there.” You presumed that that person had the same idea in mind at the time… but they just looked at you with a confused face –or even worse—put it in the wrong place.
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Theory of Mind and the Autism Spectrum
This is a common occurrence with children on the autism spectrum. A feature of the disorder is difficulty predicting what others will do based on someone else’s thinking. An individual with autism will often believe that everyone else does and should have the same perspective, ideas, and experiences to inform behavior.
Much of intervention in the school years for these children is based on helping them understand and recognize the perspectives of others. While you see some inklings of theory of mind appear in toddlerhood, the most robust part of this growth is in later preschool. And that is why you see these pragmatic functions develop to demonstrate an awareness and accommodation for the thoughts and preferences of others.
Heaps
In the toddler years, we tend to see some sets of unrelated statements called heaps. Heaps are pre-narrative sets of unrelated statements about a central stimulus. A heap might be something like “Daddy fuzzy. Doggie fuzzy. I go down—zip zip.”
Centering
At age three, centering sequences appear, adding some cohesion to the pre-narrative. Centering is linking entities to form a story nucleus, often by finding similar features. Centering is something like “Mommy and I drive. In Jude’s house I get candies. I said, “Gamma, I wanna go see Jude now. No, go to bed.”
Chaining
Around age four, before the end of preschool, we hear temporal event chains from children, which have sequential events, but no real causal links or a plot. Chaining is sequencing events that share attributes and lead directly from one to another
Chaining look like this, “When I went to Tan Tar A, I saw the animals still in a store barn. I said, “Open up.” And I got something dinosaur pills and they went, “ROOAAAAAAAAAAAR!”
As chains mature, we see a change from familiar events to past and imaginary ones, linguistic devices such as “Once upon a time” and “the end,” and an increase in causal relationships. But, we’ll save the more mature narratives for the school-age years.
Narratives are a type of monologue. You might be familiar with the term monologue from watching plays or listening to a lecture. However, narratives are only one type of monologue. They include specific structures and can be self-generated stories, familiar tales, re-tellings of a movie or TV program, or recounts of personal experiences.
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A key component of school-aged narratives is the event structure.
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This ability is a result of the development of the theory of mind. Children with high-functioning autism often need this story element explicitly taught. Most typically-developing children just know to include it once they are in the school-aged years.
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Indirect Requests
reading between the lines” of manipulating syntax to understand commands or give commands politely.
Think about these phrases: “Close the door.” “Could you get the door?” “Wow, it’s cold in here.” I personally remember quite distinctly the first time I realized that the appropriate grammatical response to my mother’s request, “Could you do the dishes?” was “Yes, I COULD.”
I learned quite quickly that despite the grammar inconsistency, the pragmatic intention included some non-literal interpretation. And, while we already saw the development of different registers in preschool, speaking styles of school-age children become even more complex. Their talk with peers is remarkably different from that with adults and specific family members.
Advancing Language Usage
At this age, children also become responsible for more conversational repair and topic maintenance, and, as we’ll discuss in the semantics section, they become more skilled at using deictic terms like that vs. these, here vs. there as well as verbs which inherently include directionality like “bring” vs. “take.”
Finally, the functions of spoken language become more information-regulating, in part because of their new semantic skill. Children in school learn to use words to explain ideas, express their thoughts, describe their creations, make a hypothesis about a science project and predict what might happen in a story, as well as reason, persuade, and predict.
Adjuncts, conjuncts, and disjuncts are classes of adverbial phrases which modify other parts of sentences. These include words and phrases like in the moment, fortunately, as well as, or provided that to connect ideas, highlight differences between or simply add information by referring to another part of the sentence. Think about the assignments you had in high school, “compare and contrast” was a writing prompt you likely encountered. Your use of vocabulary and sentence structure allowed you to communicate comparisons, contrasts, and judgments efficiently. These skills helped you summarize complex ideas
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Speaking Styles
Specific words are also uniquely chosen to demonstrate awareness of professional, intimate, or social functions. Think you for situations in which you speak differently or choose different words depending on who you are speaking to.
Shibboleths
Shibboleths, or words which associate a person with a particular group of people, become useful for highlighting social associations.
In addition, narratives develop stronger themes and details into adulthood and stay relatively stable until they reach their 70s and 80s, when a senior’s ability to process and produce surface information declines. This is mostly due to working memory changes.
