Module 4: Other Cognitive Development Theories Flashcards
Information Processing Theory
Children as little computers
Even simple activities involves chain of mini cognitive asks that build on each other
Focus on underlying cognitive skills that allow kids to manage and manipulate information and how do these skills develop over time
Precise specification of the surprisingly complex processes involved in children’s thinking
Task analysis
Task Analysis
Identification of goals needed to perform the task, obstacles preventing immediate realization of the goals, prior knowledge relevant to achieving goals, potential strategies for reaching the desired outcome
Helps info processing researchers understand and predict children’s behaviour
Computer simulation: type of mathematical model that expresses ideas about mental processes in precise ways
Information Processing View of Children’s Nature
Cognitive development occurs continuously in small increments, different ages on different tasks
The child as a limited capacity processing system
Cognitive development arises from children gradually surmounting processing limitations (working memory, processing speed, knowledge of strategies and content)
Children are active problem solvers (goal - obstacle - strategy sequence)
Memory
ability to acquire, store, maintain, and later retrieve information when you need it
Attention
focusing your awareness onto a particular range of stimuli or events you experience
Types of Memory
Working (short term)
Long term
Executive function
Working Memory
Actively attending to, maintaining, and processing information
Limited in capacity and length of time
Capacity and speed of working memory increase greatly during infancy, childhood, adolescence
Due to increased knowledge of content and brain maturation
Long Term Memory
Knowledge that people accumulate over their lifetime
Factual, conceptual, procedural, attitudes, opinions, etc.
Totality of knowledge
Unlimited amount of information and period of time
Executive Functioning
Control behaviour and thought processes
Intentional regulation of one’s behaviour
Consciously taking charge of your attention and actions in pursuit of goals
Prefrontal cortex plays important role (reason for differences in EF across ages)
Increases greatly during preschool and elementary years
Quality of executive functioning during early childhood predicts outcomes
Key Executive Functions
Inhibition
Enhancement of working memory
Cognitive Flexibility
Inhibition
Ability to override reactive or tempting behaviours in order to facilitate more deliberate actions
E.g. say night when see moon and say day when see sun
E.g. shown three arrows, focus on middle one and tap according hand
Enhancement of Working Memory
Use of strategies to improve
Cognitive Flexibility
Ability to adjust your thinking, consider multiple perspectives, reinterpret events or stimuli
Dimensional change card sort (DCCS)
Match by colour or by shape
Two objects of different colours in front
Shown third object and have to match either colour or shape and tap hand for which one
E.g. kids might not have cognitive flexibility for conservation of matter tasks (e.g. only focus on height of water, can’t switch evaluation tools)
Basic Processes
Simplest and most frequently used mental activities
Associating events with each other, recognizing objects as familiar, recalling facts and procedures, generalizing from one scenario to another
Encoding
Improved speed of processing plays key role in development of memory, problem solving, learning (increases most rapidly at young ages)
Myelination and increased connectivity responsible for faster processing
Encoding
Representation in memory of specific features of objects and events
Information that isn’t encoded isn’t remembered
Requires some level of attention (selective attention)
Once encoding occurs, can engage in basic processes like association, recognition, recall, etc.
Strategies
Between 5-8 children begin using memory strategies
Rehearsal
Selective attention
Rehearsal
Rpeating information multiple times in order to remember it
Selective Attention
Intentionally focusing on the information that is most relevant to the current goal
Ignoring irrelevant information (Children are bad at this)
Show triangles, circles, and smileys, ask how many triangles
4-5: struggle greatly
7-8: perform much better
Content Knowledge
Children’s knowledge about everything increases with age and experience
Makes easier to integrate new material with existing understanding, improving recall
Children learn more about new info about a topic when they know more than adults about it (and learn more new info than adults)
Prior content knowledge improves memory for new information (Improves encoding and Provides useful associations)
Overlapping Waves Theory
Development of problem solving
Individual children usually use a variety of approaches to solve problems
Most children use at least 3 different strategies on conservation of number problems
When certain strategies prove to be more effective they use them more often
Choose strategies appropriate to the situation
Accurately characterizes problem solving in contexts including arithmetic, time telling, reading, spelling, scientific experimentation, biological understanding, tool use, recall from memory
See graph in notes with overlapping lines (children use many strategies at different ages)
Child’s Arithmetic Improvements
Children discover new strategies
Faster and more accurate execution of strategies
Choose among strategies increasingly adaptively
Children who play board games become more familiar with numbers
Planning in Children
Children fail to plan in situations where it would help problem solving
Planning is difficult because involves inhibiting desire to solve problem immediately
Children tend to be overly optimistic about abilities and believe they can solve problems without planning
With time and maturation of prefrontal cortex, overoptimism is reduced and frequency and quality of planning increases
Core Knowledge Theories
Children as products of evolution
Innate knowledge in certain domains of special evolutionary importance (E.g. physical laws, social processes, biological categories)
Domain-specific learning mechanisms for rapidly and effortlessly acquiring information in those domains (Experience-expectant processes)
Core Knowledge View of Children
Similar to Piaget and info processing theories (Children as active learners)
Differ from Piaget and info processing theories
-Differing views of children’s innate capabilities
-Children enter the world equipped with general learning abilities and specialized learning mechanisms (mental structures) that allow quick and effortless acquisition of information
-domain specific
Domain Specific
Information and learning that is specific to a particular domain of cognition (mind, like the brain, is highly compartmentalized)
Learn especially quickly in areas of evolutionary importance
Nativism
Belief that infants born with substantial knowledge of evolutionarily important domains, and ability to quickly/easily acquire knowledge in these domains
Elizabeth Spelke proposed core knowledge theory (four core knowledge systems)
Language acquisition device
Constructivism
Infants possess specialized learning abilities that allow them to quickly understand domains of evolutionary importance (rudimentary/basic knowledge)
Blends elements of nativism, Piagetian theory, info processing theories
Innate mechanisms begin to construct more complex knowledge structures about the world
Children organize their understanding of domains into informal/naive theories
Age 2: understand that people can have preferences
Age 7: understand that people can have false beliefs
Four Core Knowledge Systems
Inanimate objects
Minds/intentions of people/animals
Numbers of objects/events/etc
Spatial layouts and geometric relations
Language Acquisition Device
Helps children to rapidly master complicated systems of grammatical rules in language
Sociocultural Theories
Children as social learners
Much of learning and cognitive development occurs in an interpersonal context
Guided participation
Social scaffolding
Cultural tools
Guided Participation
More knowledgeable people organize activities in a way that allows less knowledgeable people to perform the activity at a higher level than they could manage on their own
Social Scaffolding
Adults and others with greater expertise organize the physical and social environment to help children learn
More competent people provide temporary framework that supports children at a higher level than children could manage on their own
Choose task beyond a children’s current level, but might be able to do with help
As competency grows, scale back support
Within zone of proximal development
Cultural Tools
Symbol systems, manufactured objects, skills, values, and other ways culture influences our thinking
Sociocultural View of Children’s Nature
Children as social learners, intertwined with people who help them gain skills and understanding
Children’s cognitive development is guided by communication and interaction with others
Children intent on participating in activities prevalent to the specific time and place in which they live
Gradual and continuous changes in children’s thinking
Importance of guided participation
Sociocultural Phases of Regulating Behaviour
At first behaviour is controlled by other people’s statements
Then behaviour controlled by their own private speech
Behaviour controlled by internalized private speech (thought), silently telling themselves what to do
Used for challenging tasks
Private Speech
Tell themselves aloud what to do, like parents have done earlier (most evident from 4-6)
Children as Teachers & Learners
Humans have inclination to teach others and inclination to attend to and learn from such teaching
Children are Products of Culture
Processes that produce development (e.g. guided participation) same in all societies
Content that children learn (e.g. symbols, artifacts, skills, values) vary from culture to culture and shape thinking accordingly
Zone of Proximal Development
Push skillset, but still within their grasp
Allows growth, but prevents getting stuck/frustrated
Social Referencing
Use emotional reactions of caregivers to regulate their own behaviour and learn about novel objects
Child looks at you to share enjoyment or see if you’re watching them
Important for social development
Shows interest in people and their reactions (autism children are delayed at this)
Intersubjectivity
Mutual understanding that people share during communication
Foundation of human cognitive development
Effective communication requires participants to focus on the same topic, and each other’s reactions
Joint attention
Joint Attention
Infants and social partners intentionally focus on a common referent in the environment
Increasing ability to learn from others and evaluate competence of other people (decide who to imitate)
E.g. at first bday infants look more at objects that are the focus of social partner’s gaze
E.g. at first bday infants actively direct partner’s attention to objects they find interesting
