Cognitive Development Flashcards
Thema regarding development
Nature vs nurture The role of the child Continuity and discontinuity Mechanisms of change The sociocultural context Individual differences
Theories of cognitive development
Piaget
Information processing
Core knowledge
Sociocultural
Piaget
- Children are mentally active from birth
- Mental and physical activity both contribute to their development
- constructive approach ->children construct knowledge for themselves in response to their experiences
Piaget processes
- generating hypotheses
- performing experiments
- draining conclusions from their observations
SCIENTIST
Piaget Nature Nurture
Interact together to produce cognitive development
Piaget continuity
Main sources of continuity are:
Assimilation
Accommodation
Equilibration
assimilation:
the process by which a child incorporates incoming information into concepts they already know.
Accommodation:
people improve their current understanding based on new experiences
Equilibration
The process by which children balance assimilation and accommodation to create stable understanding
Stages of discontinues cognitive development PIAGET
Sensorimotor stage (0-2)
Preoperational stage (2-7)
Concrete operational stage (7-12)
Formal operational stage (12>)
Sensorimotor stage
Sensor and motor abilities are used to explore the world
- learn about objects and people, space, time and causaliteit
- experience is largely in het hier en nu
Preoperational stage
Symbolic representation
Contraction
Egocentrism
Conservation concept
Concrete operational stage
Logical reasoning improves
Limited to concreter things in here and now
Formal operational stage
Kinderen gaan abstract denken en hypothetical
- niet iedereen ka deze fase bereiken
Weakness Piaget theory
- theory is vague about the mechanism that give rise to childrens thinking and produce cognitive growth
Infants and young children zijn competenter dan Piaget dacht - in deze theory is er geen aandacht voor het sociale domein op de cognitieve ontwikkeling
Information proces theory
Cognitieve development occurs continuously
Small increments happen at different ages on different tasks.
Cognitive development arises from gradually surmounting processing limitations through
1: expanding the amount of information they can process at a time
2: increasing processing speed
3: acquiring new strategies and knowledge
The child is the problem solver Information processing theory
Problem solving: the process of attaining a goal by using a strategy to overcome an obstacle
Development of memory (information processing theory)
Working memory
Long term memory
Executive functioning
Working memory
Activity attending to, gathering, maintaining, storing, and processing information.
This is limited in both capacity and length of time information can be retrained.
Long term memory
Knowledge that people accumulate over their lifetime
Executive functioning
The controls of cognition
Development of memory how does it develop?
- processing speed increases -> synaptogenesis & myelination
- encoding -> more efficient
Basic processes development of memory
Associating, recognizing, recalling, generalizing
Strategies development memory
Rehearsal, selective attention
Development of problem solving
- discover new strategies
- more effective execution of strategies
- more flexibel/adaptive choice of strategies
- > improved planing abilities and problem solving
Core knowledge theories
Children enter the world equipped with specialized learning mechanisms
- certain areas allow them to quickly and effortlessly acquire information of evolutionary importance
Core knowledge theories domain specific
- understanding and manipulating other peoples thinking
- differentiating between living and nonliving things
- identifying human faces
- understanding cause-effects; language
Nativism
The theory that infants have substantial innate knowledge of evolutionary important domains
- inanimate objects and their mechanical interactions, numbers, spatial layouts, minds of people and animals capable of goal directed actions.
Example of nativism
Language acquisition (Noam Chomsky) Rules of grammar are universally effortlessly learned (this is inborn)
Constructivist
De theorie dat baby’s steeds geavanceerdere theorieën bouwen door rudimentaire aangeboren kennis te combineren met latere ervaringen.
Evidence for child theories
- children identify fundamental units for dividing relevant objects and events into a few basic categories
- children explain many phenomena in terms of a few fundamental principles
- children explain events in terms of unobservable causes.
Example of constructivisme
Understanding of biology (verschil tussen mensen en dieren)
Preschoolers snappen broad biological principles zoals the need for food and water
Sociocultural
Childrens developmetn is heavily dependent on the culture and the people surrounding them
Lev Vygotksy Sociocultural
Children are social learners connected with others who help them gain skills and understanding
- Others help the child to understand and problem solve by instructions
- The child uses private speech to instruct himself
- Private speech goes underground and becomes internalized
Sociocultural processes development
1: intersubjectivity
2: Joint attention
3: Social scaffolding
Intersubjectiviteit
The mutual understanding that people share during communication
Joint attention
Social partners focus on the same external object
Social scaffolding
More competent person provides temporary framework to support thinking at a higher level-zone of proximal development
Sociocultural theory
View of children
- Kinderen willen de omgeving verkennen
- Kinderen leren dmv problem solving
- Anderen zijn belangrijk in de ontwikkeling van kinderen
- De acties van kinderen vormen hun omgeving
Self organization
Involves integrating attention, memory, emotions and actions to adapt to changing environment
Symbolic representation:
the use of one object to stand for another
Contraction:
only able to focus on a single, perceptually striking feature object
Egocentrism:
perceiving the world solely from ones own point of view
Conservation concept:
changing the appearance of objects does not necessarily change the proporties
Equilibrium
People are satisfied with their understanding of a particular phenomenon.
Disequilibrium
People recognize shortcomings in their understanding of the phenomenon, but they cannot generate a alternative.
Qualitative change
Change in how children think in qualitatively different ways
Broad applicability
The type of thinking characteristic of each stage influences Childress thinking across diverse topics and contexts.
Brief transition
Before entering a new stage, children pass through a brief transitional period in which they fluctuate between the type of thinking characteristics of the new stage and old stage.
Invariant sequence
Everyone progresses through the stages in the same order without skipping any of them.
Object permanence
The now ledge that objects continue to exist even when they are out of view
A not B error
Tendency to reach for a hidden object where it was last found rather then in the new location where it was last hidden.
Deferred imitation
The repetition of other peoples behavior a substantial time after it originally occurred.
Overlapping waves theory
An information processing approach that emphasizes the variability of children thinking.
Core knowledge
What is the child?
Well adapted product of evolution
Autobiographical memories
Memories of ones own experiences, including thought and emotions.
Dynamic systems theories
A class of theories that focus on how change occurs over time in complex systems
