Intellectual Development Flashcards
What are 5 important aspects of intellectual development?
Language development , essential for organising thoughts and expressing ideas, important for clarification
Problem solving , work things out and make predictions of future events
Memory, storing, recalling, retrieving information
Moral development, reasoning and choice making, informs individual of how to act towards self and others
Abstract thoughts and creative thinking are essential for thinking and discussing situations and events for unobservable events
How does intellectual development develop across the life stages?
Stage Development
Infancy and early childhood
Stages of rapid intellectual development
Adolescence to early adulthood Development of logical thought, problem solving, and memory recall skills
Middle adulthood
Think through problems and make experience based judgements
Later adulthood Short-term memory decline, slower thought processes and reaction times due to changes in the brain
How does intellectual and language skills change in infancy and early childhood?
Brain grows rapidly in first few years of life, children learn all sorts of new skills and abilities. In early infancy and childhood, there’s a rapid growth in language and intellectual skills. Young children have an ability to both understand and use language, a 12-month-old baby saying her first words, a two-year-old naming parts of his body, and a five-year old constructing complex sentences are all examples.
Over an individual’s lifespan, their brain grows rapidly
At birth, baby’s brain is 30% size of adult brain, and by age 2, brain size is 80% of adult brain.
Speech and language development are essential for communicating with others.
Language development begins before birth and develops rapidly. From the age of two months, most babies will be cooing, and by the age of six months, babies will babble. The fastest learning occurs between age 2-5. By the age of 7, a child will know basics of vocabulary, grammar and sentence formation.
How does intellectual development change throughout the stages?
Months
Age Language Development
Around 3 months
Babbling noises as they begin to learn to control muscles associated with speech
Around 12 months
Infants imitate sounds made by carers such as da da, this develops into single words
Around 2 years
Two-word sentences, begins to build knowledge of world
Around 3 years
Simple sentences, develops ability to ask questions, vocabulary knowledge grows very rapidly
Around 4 years
Use clear sentences, can be understood by strangers, some grammatical mistakes
5 years
Children can use language effectively, however it will continue to develop throughout life
How does intellectual development be encouraged throughout the stages?
Infants
o Blow bubbles
o Puppet play
o Watch and listen to other children
o Join in with action rhymes and songs
o Look at picture books
Young Children
o Take part in circle time
o Take part in group activities
o Imaginary play in home corner
o Share stories and rhymes
o Play word games and riddles
Adolescence
o Read wide range of books and journals
o Take part in group projects
o Discuss ideas
o Plan and deliver presentations
What is Piaget’s stage theory?
Piaget’s Model
Stages of cognitive development, he concluded that a four-year-old cannot use abstract logical thinking due to lack of maturity. Piaget concluded infants use egocentric thinking, where they can only understand the world from their own perspective. Piaget believes logical thinking doesn’t occur until age 7 where concrete operational stage begins
Stage What occurs
Sensorimotor
Birth- 2 years
Learns about the world using sensory information, uses the senses to solve problem
Pre-operational stage: 2-7 years
Use symbols to represent their early sensorimotor discoveries , development of language and imaginary play takes place. Children at this stage cannot understand mass, number, volume. A child may not be able to count to 100 but may understand what a set of 10 means. Child cannot conserve amount (If an object changes shape, the child should know the number doesn’t change)
Concrete operational:7-11 years Children’s reasoning becomes logical , children may be able to understand simple logical principles. The child cannot visualise well, they base information of visual principles
Formal Operational: 11+ years This is when abstract thinking allows adolescence to reason through symbols which aren’t in real world as in required in advanced dramatics. Can conduct flexible judgements.
How do schemas develop?
Children go through stages/schemas of intellectual development. A schema is a category of knowledge as well as the process of acquiring knowledge. A child develops concepts about the world around them (State of equilibrium). As they experience situations where new information is presented, the schemas are upset, and they reach a state of disequilibrium. As the new information is accommodated, the original schemas are modified or changed so they reach a stage of equilibrium. For example, Jack has developed a schema of a cow, he knows it is large, and has four legs and a tail, when Jack sees a horse, he believes it is a cow, when he is told the horse is a different animal, he may create a new schema for a horse, and modify his existing schema for the cow.
When Jack sees a miniature horse, he may identify it as a dog until told that the animal is a miniature horse.
What is egocentrism?
Egocentrism
An inability to see the world from another person’s point of view, they assume that other people see, feel and hear in the way that they do. In parallel play, preoperational children play alongside other children, they externalise their thinking using speech.
What are some criticisms of Piaget?
Criticisms of Piaget
His theory is based on small observations of children.
Piaget may have under/overestimated children’s cognitive ability, watching children aged 5 play together, shows that they are far less egocentric as previously suggested
Bruner didn’t agree with fixed stages and readiness to learn, he believes that with adult support, children can be helped to progress to higher level skills. He believes that formal logical thought is based on the encouragement that they’re given. Other research suggests that children take longer than 11 years to become skilled at logical, abstract thinking.
Cognitive development may not be a part of maturation, could depend on quality of life and informal/ formal education.
What is Chomsky’s Model of language acquisition?
Chomsky’s Model of language acquisition
Noam Chomsky (1959) believed that the ability to develop a signed or spoken language is genetically programmed into individuals, this means that all individuals can understand and use language by age 5-6.
What is Language acquisition device?
LAD (Language acquisition Device)
Chomsky states that individuals are born with a language acquisition device, that enables children to recognise and develop the languages they experience , it develops naturally in the same way to stand and walk. The language development happens due to maturation, it’s the unfolding of biological potential. Chomsky believes that a child could not possibly learn language through imitation alone because the grammar and syntax is highly irregular. An adult’s speech normally consists of slang and/ or jargon, and ungrammatical sentences. Chomsky believes that babies need to experience how other’s use language but don’t need to be trained on how to speak. Adults may correct a child, but the child may continue to use incorrect plural terms such as “geeses”
What are some criticisms of Chomsky?
Critics of Chomsky state the lack of scientific evidence of his idea
Social constructivists such a s Bruner argue that social interaction, particularly in early stages of language development is critical and has far more influence than Chomsky suggested. Others argue that Chomsky put too much emphasis on the grammar in sentence rather than the meaning construction from sentences. Chomsky didn’t acknowledge delayed language development for a variety of reasons, for example, children with learning disability and speech impairments
What happens in intellectual development in early, middle,adulthood?
Early to Middle Adulthood
In early adulthood, individuals apply the knowledge, skills, and experience they have gained during their life. This helps them to think logically and find realistic answers. At this life stage, they are likely to be in job roles, which require them to think through problems and make decisions, sometimes relating to complex situations. New brain cells will continue to develop even though , in middle adulthood, may be gradual decline in speed of information processing.
What happens to intellectual development in later adulthood?
Memory loss in later adulthood
It is assumed that memory loss is associated with the ageing process, however the brain has an amazing capacity to produce new brain cells at any age. Age-related memory lapses can be frustrating but are not necessarily the sign of dementia. Physiological changes that cause a temporary brain malfunction are part of ageing. It might take an older person to learn and recall information and this is often mistaken for memory loss. There is a difference between memory lapses and the type of memory loss associated with Alzheimer’s disease and and other forms of dementia.
