Lecture 12

Question 1

Discuss the behaviourist child

Answer 1

This was developed by Skinner. He believed children continuously develop via environmental reinforcement. Children are passive information storers that begin as a blank state.

Question 2

Discuss the epistemic child

Answer 2

This was developed by Piaget. Children actively seek and learn information. They develop thanks to logical operations and the final stage involves abstract operations and hypothesis testing. The social world isn’t considered with this viewpoint. The mechanisms of learning are biologically inspired and knowledge becomes progressively internalised. It becomes internalised via assimilation, accommodation and equilibration. Assimilation is the process of encompassing new information into existing cognitive structures. Accommodation is the process of adapting to new information that isn’t consistent with previous knowledge. Equilibration is the process of balancing the external world and internal cognitive structures. The stages of development: sensorimotor (0-2 yrs), pre-operational (2-7 yrs), concrete operational (7-12 yrs) and formal operation (12+ yrs). These stages broaden knowledge over a diverse amount of topics. The transition across stages is domain general (simultaneous transition across all domains). However, this also ignores social influences (like audience effects, social reinforcement etc.), it ignores emotions and suggests you don’t need to be taught as you seek information yourself.

Question 3

Discuss the cultural historic child

Answer 3

This was developed by Vygotsky. The theory believes that development is driven by social interactions and culture. Language is especially important as it organises and enhances our cognitive behaviour. Unlike Piaget, it’s believed that education is extremely important.

Question 4

Discuss the child as a theorist

Answer 4

This perspective believes the child has many aspects to learning. The linguist- the process of working out the rules of grammar. The biologist- learning biological concepts that clash and change over time. The physicist- the theory of physics, it doesn’t change through development. The psychologist- the theory of mind. A child consists of many more theorists. This theory believes that previous knowledge is required for practise so that you can expand of what you already know. For example, learning from reaction as to what is considered funny. However, this theory doesn’t account for biological or cultural influences and doesn’t explain changes in the architecture of the system.

Question 5

List 7 different metaphors about the development of a child

Answer 5

The behaviourist child
The epistemic child
The cultural historical child
The maturing child
The symbol forming child
The child as a theorist
The modular snapshot child

Question 6

Discuss the modular snapshot child

Answer 6

The development of a child occurs in domain specific modules - there’s a module for everything, e.g. Recognising faces. You can test the level of a specific domain to see how developed the child is - thus taking a snapshot. Different modules mature at different rates and this is independent of general intelligence. New modules can be acquired via extensive practise.

Question 7

Discuss evidence for domain specific modules

Answer 7

The swiss army knife analogy supports it, the idea that it has many different function and each implement can only perform the one function. Double dissociations show how people with brain damage can still perform one task but not another, whereas a different patient could do the opposite, showing different domains. Infants are born with core knowledge that shows different specific domains of understanding like physics. Children with Williams syndrome have impairments in specific domains. However, domains aren’t truly specific, there is some overlap.

Question 8

Discuss modularity and modularisation

Answer 8

Modularity: Domain specific modules are genetically determined. For example, chomsky found a module for language.

Modularisation: This is neuroconstructivism. There are domain relevant modules (pre-dispositions) from birth that become specific through experience. The modules are the end product of development. This doesn’t agree with looking at snapshots.