Early Cognitive Development Flashcards
what are piaget’s basic principles of cognitive development?
- children are active scientists
- children make sense of the world through schemes
- children adapt by refining schemes and adding new owhanes
what is assimilation?
fitting new experiences into existing schemes. required to benefit from experience. seeing new breed of dog and knowing it’s a dog
what is accomodation?
modifying schemes because of new experiences. allows for dealing with completely new data or experiences. seeing a penguin and finding out that all birds don’t fly.
age and characteristics of sensorimotor stage?
- 0-2 yrs
- infants knowledge of world is based on senses and motor skills. by the end of the period, uses mental representation
age and characteristics of preoportional thought?
- 2-7 yrs
- child learns how to use symbols such as words and numbers to represent aspects of the world but related to the world only though his or her perspective
age and characteristics of concrete operational thought?
- 7 to early adolescence (11)major gains o
- child understands and applies logical operations to experiences provided they are focused on the here and now
age and characteristics of formal operational thought?
- adolescence and beyond(11+)
- adolescent or adult thinks abstractly, deals with hypothetical situations, and speculates about what may be possible
major gains of sensorimotor period?
- learns object permanence - object exists even if it’s out of view
- use of symbols
major gains of pre operational period?
-imagination flourishes. use of symbolic thinking (language)
major gains of concrete operational period?
-children learn to understand basic concepts such as number, classification, and conservation
major gains of formal operational period?
ethics, politics, social and moral issues become more involving as the adolescent becomes able to take a broader and more theoretical approach to experience.
Evaluating Piaget’s Theory: Alternate Explanations of Performance?
- mistakes children make in preoperational thought may be due to language development instead of cognitive development
- poor memory may be a better explanation for object performance errors
- some errors may be due to motor skills rather than cognitive development
Evaluating Piaget’s Theory: Consistency in Performance?
- children do not perform consistently in tasks that use same ability
- piaget’s theory suggests that these abilities should affect all aspects of performance
- children can develop some skills at right time, earlier, or later
- cultural differences also present
mental hardware?
-neural and mental structures enabling the mind to operate
mental software?
-mental programs allowing for performance of specific tasks
carey’s conceptual change theory?
- more emphasis on role of experience in cognitive development
- domain specific compared to domain general knowledge
- incremental cognitive development
when is full cognitive potential attained according to carey’s theory?
9-8/7 years
what is the children’s framework for understanding bodily processes before age 6 or 7?
intuitive psychology
according to conceptual change theory, what is causality based on?
intentions, desires, and beliefs rather than internal biological processses
according to piagetian research, what is preoperational understanding of death?
- reversible
- characterised by being still
- eyes close
- departing
according to piagetian research, what is concrete operational understanding of death?
- universality
- irreversibility
- causes by elements outside the body (guns, germs, accidents)
according to piagetian research, what is formal operational understanding of death?
- inevitable
- universal
- causality
- cessation of bodily function
socio-cultural and emotional factors affecting subcomponents of death?
- exposure to death (universality)
- Protracted Illness/hospitalisation (irreversibility, biological causation)
- Religiosity (? Less understanding of irreversibility)
- Anxiety (less able to face universality)
attention?
when sensory information receives additional cognitive processing
orienting response?
emotional and physical reactions to unfamiliar stimulus (alerts infant to new or dangerous stimuli)
habituation?
lessened reactions to a stimulus after repeated presentations (helps infant ignore biologically insignificant events)
memory?
fundamental cognitive broadly involved in academic, emotional, and social developmental skills
aspects of memory?
- encoding
- storage
- retrieval
- accessin memories
what is encoding (memory)?
tasking information into memory system
what is storage (memory)?
holding of information over time
what is retrieval (memory)?
accessing information from storage
what does accessing memories involve?
recognition and recall
what is recognition?
realisation that some physically present object or event has been encountered or experiences before
what is recall?
retrieval of some past object or event when it is not present
what are phonemes?
the smallest sounds
how early can infants distinguish between sounds?
as early as 1 month
language development in 0-1 yrs?
babies hear phonemes, begin to coo and babble
language development about 1st birthday?
babies begin to talk and to gesture, showing they have begun to use symbols
language development in 1-2 yrs?
- vocab expands rapidly (bc of fast mapping)
- reflective and expressive language learning styles appear
- 2 word sentences emerge in telegraphic speech
- turn taking is evident in communication
language development in 3-5 yrs?
- vocab continues to expand
- grammatical morphemes are added
- children begin to adjust speech to listener but, as listeners often ignore problems in message they receive
vocab word count at 2 yrs?
few hundred words
vocab word count at 6?
10,000 words
fast mapping?
- connecting new words to referents so rapidly that all possible meaning for the new word could not have been considered
- e.g. pointing to cat and saying “cat”from the child’s perspective could be referring to its colour, fur or the action of pointing
when do 2 and 3 word sentences begin and what are they called?
around 18 months, telegraphic speech e.g. dad come here
how do parents assist in learning language?
- speaking to children frequently
- naming objects of children’s attention
- using speech that is more grammatically sophisticated
- reading to them
- encouraging watching educational television programs (after 2 years of age) with an emphasis on learning new words, such as sesame street or play school
what is vygotskys sociocultural theory?
-the development of language is critical to the development of complex cognitive processes
what is social scaffolding in vygotskys sociocultural theory?
children’s cognitive development is guided typically by parents, teachers and older siblings
