cognitive development: Infant competencies

Question 1

cognitive development

Answer 1

includes development of diverse capabilities such as attention, recognition, memory, reasoning, problem-solving
- interlinked w all other aspects of development

Question 2

infant

Answer 2

from birth to around 1 year, a period of rapid development

Question 3

infant reflexes

Answer 3

innate, fixed and automatic patterns of action that occurs in response to a particular stimulation, biological based

Question 4

examples of common reflexes

Answer 4

• grasping: finger grasp when object placed in hand
  rooting: head turn with mouth open when touched on cheek
• sucking and swallowing: reflexes when mouth comes in contact with nipple
• moro: outstreched arms and arched back when startled from loss of support
  crawling: rhythmic moving of arms and legs when on tummy and pressure applied to soles of feet
  stepping: toes and foot coordinating movements when supported.

Question 5

sight

Answer 5

rapid development of visual abilities in the prenatal period.
- poor activity in the first few months, prominant features pop out
- can see objects at distance of about 14 cm
- colour perception by 1 month, at adult levels by 2 months
visual preferences:
- look longer at regular face-like pattern than scramb;;ed
- look at faces over other stimuli
- can differentiate from unfamiliar faces.

Question 6

preferential looking at face like stimuli

Answer 6

• the third trimester human fetus preferentially looks toward three dots configured like a face rather than three dots in an inverted configuration
• this suggests a preference for face-like stimuli even before birth: babies are innately disposed to attend to social stimuli,.

Question 7

sound- infants

Answer 7

at birth the auditory system is well developed rel to visual system
- research shows newborns discriminate mums voices from female stranger, and discriminate familiar from novel story read by mum

Question 8

taste

Answer 8

differences in mouth chemistry make sensory experience different from infants comp to adults.
- salty fluid that would be rejected by older adults but injested by infants
- taste chemistry changes throughout childhood reaching adult form by early adolescence.

Question 9

smell

Answer 9

• breastfed newborns discriminate and prefer mums scent than lactating stranger. breast feeding seems to trigger odour learning and the development of preferences.

Question 10

touch

Answer 10

• newborns are sensitive to temp change.
• evidence of sensitivty to pain- psychological indicators.
• pos evidence for massages to help w weight gain and movements in later.

Question 11

conclu about sensory abilities

Answer 11

• instead of considering the newborns abil as immature we can consider them as ‘just right’ for particular stage in development.
• sensory cap provide a basis for early social behaviour like looking, smiling, babbling.

Question 12

milestones in infant development

Answer 12

2 months: lifts head up
2 1/2 months: rolls over
3 months: sits propped up
6 months: sits without support
6 1/2: stands holding on
9 months: walks holding on
10 months: stands momentarily
11 months: stands alone
12 months: walks alone
14 months: walks backwards
17 months: walks up steps
20 months: kicks ball forward

Question 13

cultural and indv variation in motor milestones

Answer 13

• infants in Africa tend to sit earlier than infants in the US. eg. 4 month= Uganda and 6 month= USA
  indv= Jamaican infants whose mother exercised their limbs and placed them in sitting positions sat earlier than Jamaican infants whose mothers didn’t engage w

Question 14

the active child

Answer 14

infants and children actively engage with the world- they look around, pay attention. they are not passive recipients of external stimulation

Question 15

sensorimotor

Answer 15

substage 1 (birth - 1 month) : modify reflexes to adapt to the environment, centred on own body
substage 2 (1-4 months): organize reflexes- eg grasp object, bring it to mouth and suck
- intergrate actions
substage 3: 4-8 months: actions on objects
- repetition of actions in pleasurable or interesting results

Question 16

sensorimotor: substage 4 and 5 and 6

Answer 16

• substage 4 (8-12 months); begin searching for hidden objects
• object permenance (make sense of the world through mental representations)
• substage 5 (12-18 months): active exploration of potential use of objects
  substage 6 (18-24 months): begin to form enduring mental representations.

Question 17

object permenance

Answer 17

important because u need to mental represent an object in order to search for it. mental representation indicates thought
0-5 months: an attractive toy is shown to the baby and then placed under towel, infants follow toy with their eyes as it disappears but no active serarch. they have no mental rep at this time, out of sight out of mind

by 6-9 months: understanding that objects continue to exist even when they cannot be heard or touched. active search indivating object permanence, mastered between 6-9

Question 18

Piaget’s legacy

Answer 18

• positives: good overview of broad changes in children’s thinking at different points in development
• covers a broad spectrum of development from infancy to adolescence and covers development in broad range of domains.
  Negatives:
• stage model depicts childrens thinking as more consistent than it is within each stage.
• Piaget’s theory is vague about cog processes that give rise to children’s thinking and the mechanism that produce cog growth,

Question 19

core knowledge theories:

Answer 19

• infants are born w some innate knowlege, in domains of special evolutionary importance
• alongside learning abilities, infants have domain-specific specialized learning abilities for rapidly and easily acquiring new information.
• the CK system are the smae in all infants regardless of cultural form the foundation of subsequent learning.

Question 20

core knowledge theory component

Answer 20

• Domain specific: limited to a particular area. these are areas of evolutionary importance, such as objects, space.
  active child: infants are biologically equipped from birth to actively acquire knowledge and understanding from their environment, using domain specific knowledge systems
  nativism and constructivism core knowledge researchers focus on inner core knowledge, while others emphasise that increasingly sophisticated understanding
• continuous development: core knowledge theoriees view cognitive development as continuous rather than stage like. ckt shape and constrain later understanding.

Question 21

CKT examples

Answer 21

infants and young children use early forms of psycholigical reasoning to make sense of social agents intentional actions.
core knowledge= actions of agents are goal directed and goals are achieved by efficient means.
- this potentually leads to the phenomenon of ‘overly imitating’ where infants and children imitate even needless actions

Question 22

core knowledge systems

Answer 22

domain specifc: each system represents only a small subset of the things and events that infants percieve
task specific: each system functions to solve a lim set of problems
encapsulated: each system operates with a fair degree of independence from other cog systems

Question 23

core knowledge: violation of expectation

Answer 23

demonstrates that infants actively construct new understanding from their interaction of their core knowledge with new exp.