Module 3 - Infant Cognitive Development Flashcards
Piaget’s Cognitive Development Theory: The Sensorimotor Stage
- Birth - 2 years old
- Act & understand the world using sensorimotor or behavioural schemes
Piaget - Sensorimotor Substages: Birth - 1 Month old
Reflexive schemes - Newborn reflexes
Piaget - Sensorimotor Substages: 1 - 4 Months
Primary circular reactions - Simple motor habits centered around own body
Piaget - Sensorimotor Substages: 4 - 8 Months
Secondary circular reactions - Repititon of interesting effects; imitation of familiar behaviours
Piaget - Sensorimotor Substages: 8 - 12 Months
Coordination of secondary circular reactions - Intentional, goal-directed behaviour, beginning object permanence
Piaget - Sensorimotor Substages: 12 - 18 Months
Tertiary circular reactions - Exploration of object properties through novel actions
Piaget - Sensorimotor Substages: 18 Months- 2 years
Mental representation - internal depictions of objects and events; advanved object permanence (invisible displacement)
Object permanence - Developmental progression
Under 6 months - no object permanence
8-12 months - search but A-not-B errors (child will search where an object was last found, not where it was moved to)
Piaget - Critisisms of theory
- Underestimated infant abilities
- Evidence of some conceptual understanding before motor skills
Informaiton processing Perspecitve
“Central Executive”
Stimulus Input > Sensory Register > Attention > Short-term Memory Store > Storage . Long-term Memory Store > Response Output
Sensory Register
Represents sights and sounds directly and stores them briefly
Short-Term Memory Store
Holds limited amount of information that is worked on to facilitate memroy and problem solving
Long-Term Memory Store
Stores information permanently
Central Executive
- Conscious part of the mind
- Coordinate incoming information with information in the system
- Controls attentions
- Selects, applies & monitors the effectiveness of stategies
Cognitive Gains: Infancy to Toddlerhood - Attention
- Improves efficiency and ability to focus
- Less attractions to novelty, imporved systained attention
Cignitive Gains: Infancy to Toddlerhood - Memory
- Longer retentional intervals
- Development of recall by econd half of first year
Cignitive Gains: Infancy to Toddlerhood - Categorisation
- Gradual shift from perception to conceptual categorisation in toddlerhood
Sociocultural Theory - Vygotsky
Knowledge is constructed via;
- Collective dialogues
- Collabrotive learning
- Guided participation, scaffolding
- Imitation
Child is known as “little apprentice”
Emphasised social mediation of cognitive construction
Zone of Proximal Development
Performance lelve past independant performance that can be performed with help. Past this, the kevek us too advanced
Language development: Nativist Approach
Chomsky - 1957
Language Acquisition Device (LAD)
- Universal grammar is hard-wired
- Maturational unfoldling
- Fine-tuned by experience
Evidence: Universal aspects of early language, uniquely human, specialised area left hemisphere, 6-12 years sensitive period
Critique of Nativist Approch
- Hard to identify universal grammer
- Slower and more error-prone lenguage acquisition than innate ability would predict
- Learning is important in language
- Brain plasticity shows other areas of brain capable of supporting language
Social Interactionist View
- Children cue caregivers to provide necessary language experiences
- Language acquired via socia interaction (debate whether there are also specialised or innate language abilities)
- Social comptence & language experience affect language progress
Infant Directed Speech (IDS)
Speech altered to be directed at infants. Is usually;
Higher pitched, simple words, sound substitution, short sentences, fluctuating inotation, exahherated gestures.
Gains attention, maintains communication & greater language development
Early Vocalisations
Newborn - Reflec cries
2 months - Cooing
6 months - Babbling
Infant Communication Development
4 months - Turn-taking games, looking at adults
6 months - Babbling initially universal sounds
6 - 9 months - Developing understaning of single words
10 - 11 months - Joint attention
9 - 12 months - Understanding of simple instructions
12 months - pre-verbal gesturing
10-15 months - first words
Telegraphic Speech
Using a single word to convey a whole idea or whole sentence.
Often is a word (+ context, intonation, gesture)
First words & two-word utterances
18 - 24 months using;
Over-extension, under-extension, telegraphic speech, correct word order, associated with improved compliance.
Also related - Child Temperament
Eg: emotional reactivity diverts children from processing language; quantity & richness & caregiver conversations, referential vs. expressive style
Personality Emergence : Erikson’s Psychosocial theory - Trust vs. Mistrust (0 - 1 year)
Sucessfully resolved by experiencing sympathy and loving care.
Trust > Prime adaptive ego quality: hope, minimal fear, confidence to explore wider world, implocations for social and cognitive development
Mistrust > Core pathology: withdrawal
Autonomy Vs Shame & Doubt (1 - 3 years)
- Importance or parental handling of emerging desire for autonomy
- Over-controlling & under-controlling by parents both problematic
- Criticism & punishment for failed attempts at autonomy > shame & doubt
Emotional Development: Happiness (6 - 10 weeks)
Social smile develops at 6 - 10 weeks.
- Evocative gene-environment correlations
- Relation to language & cognitive development
- Relation to parent - child relationship
Emotional Development: Anger (birth)
- Distress shown at birth
- Main caregivers can usually recognise different cries for pain, anger or discomfort and respond
(relevant to resolving Trust crisis & estabishing secure attachment) - As intentional behaviour increases, so does frustration and anger
Emotional Development: Fear (9 months)
- Intense stranger anxiety around 9 months
- Seperation anxiety from 8 - 9 months, peaks around 15 months
Emotional Development: Self-conscious emotion (18 - 24 months)
-Developing higher-order feelings that include shame, guilt, embarrassment, envy & pride
Emotional Development: Self-Development (20 months)
- Visual self-recignisation emerges around 20 months (rogue test)
- Recignise self in photos around 2 years
- Early foundation in cause-and-effect experiences
- Cultural differences
Emotional Development: Self-Development Outcomes
- Emerges self-consious emotions
- Improvements in effortful control, compliance & delay of gratification
- Combined with advancing cognitive, language and social skills supports developming empathy
Emotional Development: Emergence of Self-Regulation
Emotional self-regulation: stategies to self-adjust emotional state to a comfortable level in order to be able to meet goals
This is imporant for autonomy, cognitive development and social skills
Emotional Development: Effortful Control
The capacity to voluntarily suppress a dominant resposne in order to plan and execute a more adaptive response.
It utilised executive funtions such as inhibitory control, focusing & shifting attention. Is an iomportant aspect of temperament.
Emotional self-regulation relies on this.
Self-Regulation & Effortful Control are fostered by -
Parenting
- Appropriate stimulation
- Sensitivity & responsiveness
- Shapong socially approved ways of expressing emotions
- Cultural differences
- Effective management of tantrums
Self-Regulation & Effortful Control are fostered by -
Cognitive Development (and underlying pre-frontal cortical brain development)
- Executive functioning especially control of attention
- Lenguage development
Self-Regulation & Effortful Control are fostered by -
Motor Development
Emotional Development: Temperament
An individuals behavioural style and characteristic way of emotionally responding. Is foundations for later personality
The Nine Tempremental Aspects Identifiable at Birth
- Activity level
- Intensity of reaction
- Rhythmicity
- Attention span/ persistence
- Distractibility
- Thershold responsiveness
- Quality of mood
- Adaptability
- Approach/ withdrawal
Temperament Types
Easy (40%) - Adjust to new situations quickly, establish routines, generally cheerful and easy to calm
Slow-to-warm up (15%) - Inactive, initially unwilling to approach, adapt or be distracted but adusts with time
Difficult (10%) - Irregular, reactive, unhappy, hard to distract, slow to adapt
Average/mixed (35%)
Temperament Stability
Relatively stable over time, very few children change radically, but temperament can be changed due to experiences and parenting styles
If a child is more difficult, may have harder problems adjusting through early childhood. Its a predictor of later functioning.
Attachment - The First Relationship
Psychoanalytic theory - Emphasis on feeding
Behaviourism - Emphasis on classical conditioning - also focused on feeding
Harlow & Harlows work with rhesus monkeys discounted role of feeding
Attachment Theory - John Bowlby (Influcenced by psychoanalytic Lorenz imprinting)
Ethological Theory - Human attachment is an evolved repsonse that promotes survival.
Attachment - active, reciprocal tie that endures acress time and space, leads to desire for contact, distress at seperation
Development of internal working model regarding availibility of attachment figures later relationships
Attachment: Still Face Experiment
Parents under stress or emotionally absent are not mutually responsive to baby
Development of Attachment
0 - 6 weeks - Pre-attachment, general sociability, indescriminant
6 weeks - 6/8 months - Attachment-in-the-making - 4 months: differential sociability
6/8 -18 months - Clear-cut attachment to primary caregiver
Stranger anxiety
Seperation anxiety
Emergence of secondary attachments
Attachment classification: Ainsworth’s Strange Situation
- All children have developed an attachment by 12 months, and the quailty will differ
- Measured by the Strange Situation Test (critical episode is the reaction to the reunion with caregiver, but also look for use of mother as a secure base
Attachment Types - Type A - Avoidant (15%)
- Minimal interest in caregiver
- Minimal distress at seperation
- Minimal stranger anxiety
- Does not seek out caregiver on reunion
Attachment Types - Type B - Secure (60%)
- Seeks out caregive if distressed
- Seperation anxiety
- Joy upon reunion
- Caregiver provides secure base for exploration
Attachment Types - Type C - Anxious or Insecure-Resistant (10%)
- Minimal Exploration
- Preoccupied with caregiver
- Resists seperation but resistant upon reunion
Attachment Types - Type D - Disorganised/Disoriented (15%)
- Fright without solution
- Associated with maltreatment, residential care, maternal mental illess
- Bizarre behaviours - Contradictory, incomplete, stereotypies, stilling, disoriented or apprehensive in presence of parent
Attachment - Imporant Factors
Opportunity - Risks from early institutional care
Up to 6 years, adoptees can secure attachment and some difficulties shown for late adoptees
Caregiving Quaility
Sensitivity - Accurate identification of infant communication and needs
- Positive emotions
- Interest and pleasure in infant
Interactional Synchrony - Awareness of appropriate level of stimulation
Attachment: Parenting
Secure - Responsive, positive emotions, tender hadnling, sensitivitiy & synchrony
Avoidant - Over-stimulating, intrusive
Resistant - Minimal interaction, inconsistent care
Disorganised - Dysfunctional caregiving
Infant Characterstics
Temperament - difficult infants are more likely to develop insecure attachments
Heritability virtually 0 - Expereinces of parent-cjild interactions are important
Family factors - stress
