Infant Cognitive Development Flashcards
Brain development:
Newborns brain at birth compared to adults brain - and compared to body size
Same again at age 2
Infants brains are tuned to…..
Newborns brain is 25% of the adult brain and their bodies are at 5% of adult weight.
Age 2: brain is almost 75% of adult brain and body weight is 20% of adult weight.
Infants brains are tuned to experiences that are repeated, striving to make sense of them.
Sensation and perception
- what functions at birth
- what babies attend to and how they learn until age one
All senses function at birth
Very young babies attend to everything - until about age 1 : taste is the primary way humans learn about objects.
Development of sensory and perceptual skills
- babies focus distance
- display preferences
- hearing: low and high frequency affects
- 3 days infants can distinguish…
- 6 days infants can distinguish…
At birth babies focus on objects 5/6cm from face
At four days, displays preference for complex patterns (face)
Hearing: high frequencies increase alertness, low frequencies have soothing affect.
At 3 days infants can distinguish mothers voice
At 6 days infants can distinguish mothers smell
Newborn sleep
- time spent sleeping
- type of sleep and why
Newborns sleep approx 16/17 hours per day (short naps of 2/3 hours day + night)
Newborns have high proportion of REM sleep compared to adults
REM sleep activates nerve pathways and brain centres that will be used at later ages to process information
Cognitive theory of infant cognitive development (2 things)
Early experiences are important: beliefs, perceptions and memories
Infants use early relationships to develop a schema - a set of assumptions that the individual used to organise perceptions and experiences (changes over time)
Cognition and learning during infancy
- what motivates babies
- optimal schema discrepancy
- changes in baby’s schemas
Babies learning is motivated by curiosity - interplay between boredom and curiosity governs infants attention
“Optimal schema discrepancy” - repeated action to stimuli leads to development of mental image
Slight changes from schema - longest attention
Major changes from schema may be ignored
Paige’s stages of cognitive development:
Age and descriptions
- sensorimotor stage
- pre operational stage
- concrete stage
- formal operations stage
Sensorimotor stage - birth to 18/24 months - knowing by sensing and acting
Pre operational stage - 2 to 7 years - concept formations, symbolic reasoning
Concrete operations stage - 7 to 11 years - logical operations on concrete objects and events
Formal operations stage - 12 years + - abstracts, analogies, metaphors, hypothetical reasoning
Sensorimotor stage characteristics (3)
- egocentric
- decentration
- progress of progressively
During this period the child is highly egocentric = knowledge of the world derives from actions child performs on environment
During infancy, gradual decent-ration takes place
Process of progressively: distinguishing self from world - understanding relationships between self and world
6 substages of sensorimotor stage
- simple reflexes
- first habits and primary circular reactions
- secondary circular reactions
- coordination of secondary circular reactions
- tertiary circular reactions
- beginning of thought
- Simple reflexes - first month: sucking/grasping reflex - provides info on the world = cognitive development
- First habits and primary circular reactions - 1/4 months - coordination of actions, cognitive schemas through repetition of motor event (circular reaction), primary circular reactions = infant repeating interesting/enjoyable actions like sucking thumb.
- Secondary circular reactions - 4/8 months - repeated actions to bring desirable consequence, vocalisation increases, imitation begins.
- Coordination of secondary circular reactions - 8/12 months - goal directed behaviour, schemas combined to solve problem, development of object permanence (objects still exist when not seen), becomes more persistent
- Tertiary circular reactions - 12/18 months - deliberate variation of actions to bring wanted consequences, mini experiments to observe consequences, interest in understanding unexpected.
- Beginning of thought - 18/24 months. - capacity for mental representation, gains ability to pretend and use deferred imagination (a person who isn’t present and imitated by memory)
Information processing theory:
Memory development in infants - can develop depending on 3 things
Memory - even very young infants can remember under following circumstances:
- experimental conditions are similar to real life
- motivation is high
- special measures taken to aid memory retrieval
Memory development over time (part of info processing theory)
- from 6 months…
- from 2 years ….
- by end of the stage (substage 6: beginning of thought) = 3 things
- from 6 months infants can retain info for longer periods of time (with less training and reminding)
- by middle of 2nd year toddlers can remember and reenact more complex sequences
- by end of the stage (substage 6: beginning of thought)
child begins to think about problems
Use mental representations to aid problem solving
Can imitate complex action even if model isn’t present
Infant cognitive development - LANGUAGE
- universal sequence
- when infants begin learning language
- type of sound infants prefer
- “infancy” meaning
- foundations of language laid during ….
- a universal sequence: around the world children follow the same sequence of early language development
- listening and responding: infants begin learning language before birth
- infants prefer speech over other sound
- infancy derived from Latin term meaning “without speech”
- foundations of language laid during infancy
Development of spoken language in first 2 years
Means of communication at following ages:
- newborn
- 2 months
- 3/6 months
- 6/10 months
- 10/12 months
- 12 months
- 13/18 months
- 18 months
- 21 months
- 24 months
Newborn - reflexive communication: cries, movement, facial expressions.
2 months - range of meaningful cries: cooing, fussing, laughing.
3/6 months - new sounds: squeals, growls, trills, vowel sounds.
6/10 months - babbling: consonant and vowel sounds repeated in syllables.
10/12 months - comprehension of simple words, speech like inotations, specific vocalisations (which make sense to those close with infant), use of specific gestures (finger pointing) + deaf babies express first signs
12 months - first spoken words recognisably part of native language.
13/18 months - slow growth of vocabulary: up to 50 words
18 months - vocabulary spurt: 3+ words learned per day. Much variation (some toddlers don’t speak yet)
21 months - first 2 word sentence
24 months - multi word sentences. Half of toddlers utterances are 2 or more words long.
Language development involved understanding SEMANTICS and SYNTAX.
(Definition of those 2 words)
Semantics = the meaning attributed to words (same sounding word different meaning)
Syntax = the rules that govern sentence construction (eg. John hit the ball vs. the ball hit John)
LANGUAGE: ability to represent actions symbolically
- allows children to ….
- closely tied to how infants …
- throughout infancy speech comprehension proceeds speech production … What rates?
Allows children to think beyond present and future and consider several possibilities at same time
Language is closely tied to how infants think and understand the world.
Comprehension proceeds speech:
• word comprehension = increase @ 22 words per month
• word production = increase @ 9 words per month
(Approx!)
LANGUAGE
- commences with …
- infants will call out and when attended to…
- foundations of language as a …..
Language learning commences with discomfort sounds (crying) - helps infant to learn pattern breathing in ways required for speech
Infants will call out and when attended to will orientate towards the other and smile
Foundations of language as a social skill is evident. This is also used to shape behaviour. (Eg. Giving or withholding a smile)
PRELINGUISTIC COMMUNICATION
Infants show PRELINGUISTIC communication by: (2 things)
Sets foundation for…
By 6 months, can distinguish….
Show PRELINGUISTIC communication through sounds, facial expressions, gestures, imitations.
^^ also by exchange of “meaningless” sounds (eg. Infant says “ah”, parent responds in “ah” then repetition)
Sets foundation for turn taking - give and take in conversation
By 6 months, can distinguish between simple speech sounds (pa and ba)
PRELINGUISTIC communication= Babbling
- meaning
- universal phenomenon (2)
- time occupied
- usually involves vast range (3)
Infants making speech like but meaningless sounds from 3/9 months to about 1 year.
Universal phenomenon:
- is innate …. deaf babies start babbling at same time but soon stop
- babbling begins with easy sounds (b/p) and proceeds to more complex sounds (d/t)
Occupies about 20% of waking hours
Initially involves vast range of sounds - not all of which are in parent language
^ competent sounds of parent language appear
^ selectively reinforced (imitating parents)
Infant first words
- when they’re first spoken
- holophrases
- first words indicate that infants…
- first words are difficult to…
- pre words
- overgeneralisation of first words
- more identifiable words follow but tend to have…
Generally spoken between 10/14 months
First words are typically holophrases = one word utterances that depend on particular context they’re used to determine meaning
Indicates that infants begin to remember and recognise familiar objects and situations and associate them with specific sounds.
First words are difficult to define
Pre words - not words as such, but over time infant produces sounds close to adult words
First words often overgeneralise - so non verbal cues are important (eg. Mama = pick me up, but mama + point = they want that)
More identifiable words follow but tend to have wide ranging meaning compared to adult counterparts
Infants commonly use:
- underextension
- overextension
- telegraphic speech
Underextension = using words too restrictively
Overextension = using word too broadly
Telegraphic speech = linking words in sentences where uncritical words are left of of message (eg. all gone milk)
Speaking to children:
- infant directed speech characteristics
- typically used in
- infants reception
- use of this speech type is related to
+ ^^ these things across cultures (3)
Infant directed speech: a type of speech directed towards infants - characterised by short, simple sentences.
+ pitch of voice becomes higher
+ innotation may be singsong
Previously called motherese
Typically only used in first year
Infants are more receptive to this kind of speech
Use of this speech type is related to early appearance of words
Across cultures:
- although words across languages are different the way words are spoken are similar
- similarities = pitch rises, vowel sounds exaggerated
- deaf mothers use a form of infant directed speech too = slower tempo and repeat signs more often
Vocabulary as infant grows
- by 15 months …
- between 16 / 24 months …
^ vocabulary increases at rate of - the 16 / 24 month period is usually linked to
By 15 months the average child have vocabulary of 15 words
Between 16/24 months a child’s vocabulary increases to 100 to 400 words
^ vocabulary increases at rate of 50-100 words per month. With 21 month olds saying twice as much as 18 month olds
The 16/24 month period is usually linked to a spurt in language capabilities, but influenced by family/gender
Gender differences in language development (3)
Language develops quicker in females
The left hemisphere of brain develops faster in females
Mothers tend to imitate daughters vocalisations more
Basic theories of language learning (2)
2 year olds worldwide learn language well
Bilingual children keep 2 languages separate and speak the language the listener understands
The 3 theories of how infant learns language
- behaviourism theory (by skinner)
^ infants need to be taught
^ classical conditioning can account for… - Chomsky theory
^ infants teach themselves
^ language acquisition device (LAD) - social pragmatic theory
^ social impulses foster infant language
^ communicate for survival and joy
(3 points in each theory)
- Infants need to be taught (behaviourism theory) - by Skinner (1957)
• spontaneous babbling is usually reinforced by grinning mothers, repetition, praising, giving attention
• well taught infants become well spoken children
• classical conditioning can account for comprehension of words (but not production) - Infants teach themselves - Chomsky (1968)
• language learning is innate - adults don’t need to teach it
• language is too complex to be masters by step by step conditioning
• LANGUAGE ACQUISITION DEVICE (LAD) = hypothesised mental structure that enables humans to learn language including basic aspects of grammar, vocabulary and innotation. - Social impulses foster infant language - Social pragmatic theory
• crucial starting point is neither vocabulary reinforcement (behaviourism) or innate connection (epigenetic) but the social reason for language = to communicate
• infants communicate in every way they can because humans are social beings and depend on one another for survival and joy
