Theories of Children's Cognitive Development

Question 1

What does cognitive development entail?

Answer 1

Attention, perception, memory, problem solving, reasoning, intelligence, language.

Question 2

What philosophical standing is Piagets theory described as?

Answer 2

Constructivist. The child as the scientist.

Question 3

According to Piaget, what does development involve?

Answer 3

Processes of continuities and discontinuities.

Question 4

What is the processes of continuity?

Answer 4

In continuity, change is gradual. Children become more skilful in thinking, talking or acting much the same way as they get older.

Question 5

What is the processes discontinuity?

Answer 5

Change is more abrupt.It is a set of changes that produce different behaviours in different age specific life periods.

Question 6

What are the 3 sources of continuity?

Answer 6

Assimilation, accommodation and equilibration.

Question 7

In the sources of continuity, what is assimilation?

Answer 7

Incorporate new information into concepts already understood. E.g., confusing a sheep with a cow

Question 8

In the sources of continuity, what is accommodation?

Answer 8

Improve current understanding in response to new experiences e.g., Realising you’ve mistaken a sheep for a cow and recognising features that means it’s not a cow.

Question 9

In the sources of continuity, what is equilibration?

Answer 9

Process of balancing accommodation and assimilation to create a stable understanding. Equilibrium -> disequilibrium -> equilibrium.

Question 10

Discontinuity: what are Piagets stages of development and what ages do they occur?

Answer 10

1. Sensorimotor stage (Birth - 2yrs)
2. Preoperational stage (2-7yrs)
3. Concrete operational stage (7-11yrs)
4. Formal operational stage (12+)

Question 11

What are the key characteristics of the sensorimotor stage?

Answer 11

Intelligence expressed through sensory and motor abilities.

Question 12

What are the key characteristics of the preoperational thought stage?

Answer 12

Ability to represent experiences in language, mental imagery and symbolic thought.

Question 13

What are the key characteristics of the concrete operational thought stage?

Answer 13

ability to reason logically about concrete objects and events.

Question 14

What are the key characteristics of the formal operations stage?

Answer 14

Become able to think about abstractions and hypothetical situations.

Question 15

What 2 concepts do you develop in the sensorimotor stage?

Answer 15

1. Object permanence (younger than 8 months)

2. A not B error (between 8-12 months).

Question 16

What 3 concepts do you develop in the Preoperational stage?

Answer 16

1. Symbolic representation
2. Egocentrism
3. Centration

Question 17

What is object permanence and when does it develop?

Answer 17

Develops at about 8 months old. Object permanence is the knowledge that things continue to exist even if out of view. From 8 months the hidden object is a mental representation and it is fragile.

Question 18

What is A not B error?

Answer 18

Showing an infant where something is, the moving it and covering it up. The infant will reach for the first place it was found and not the place it was moved to.

Question 19

What is symbolic representation?

Answer 19

Using some objects as a different object e.g., using a banana as a phone.

Question 20

What is egocentrism?

Answer 20

Perceiving the world from solely your point of view.

Question 21

What is centration?

Answer 21

Focusing on a single, perceptually striking feature of an object or event to the exclusion of other features.

Question 22

What concept have children mastered in the concrete operational stage?

Answer 22

Systematic thinking/hypothetical understanding. Children have mastered logical reasoning about concrete problems.

Question 23

What concept develops in the formal operational stage?

Answer 23

Abstract thought - deductive reasoning and systematic problem solving. Not all adolescents reach this stage.

Question 24

Give 4 critiques of Piaget’s Theory.

Answer 24

1. Stages are not as age-related as previously thought.
2. Underestimates children’s abilities.
3. The contribution of the social environment is ignored.
4. No details on the process by which cognitive change comes about or what might trigger them.

Question 25

What was Lev Vygotsky’s view on children’s development?

Answer 25

Importance of culture and social organisation. Children are not perceived as little scientists but little learners. Children want to be the same as other people. Human behaviour render human nature unique.

Question 26

Give a brief overview of Vygotsky: Private speech.

Answer 26

Thinking and language are interlinked.
Thought is internalised speech.
3 phases of internalisation of speech and the emergence of ‘private speech’
Private speech is prevalent during the ages of 4 to 6-7yrs old.

Question 27

Vygotsky: What are the 3 phases of internalisation of speech and the emergence of private speech.

Answer 27

1. adult orally produces statements on what to do
2. child audibly tells themselves what to do or what they need to carry on with a task.
3. eventually - non-audible instruction that the child tell themselves.

Question 28

Vygotskys sociocultural theory: what are the 2 key principles on how development/change happens?

Answer 28

Zone of proximal development and More knowledgable other.

Question 29

What is the zone of proximal development?

Answer 29

The distance between actual level of development and potential development.

Independent capabilities compared to capabilities under guidance.

Question 30

What does the zone of proximal development describe?

Answer 30

Current level of development and form of instruction required to achieve maximum performance.

Question 31

What do socio-cultural theories believe about child development?

Answer 31

Verbal interaction and assistance can help children to develop skills.

Cognitive development take place through the interaction between the child and other people e.g. parents or siblings which is a more knowledgable other.

Question 32

What is social scaffolding?

Answer 32

Support that the more knowledgable other provides to the child or learner.

Question 33

What is the information processing theory?

Answer 33

Focuses on the cognitive processes needed for thinking. Computer simulations to identify the steps needed during the thinking to achieve a goal.

Question 34

Information processing theory: what did the computer simulations identify is needed to achieve a goal?

Answer 34

1. Goals needed to perform a task.
2. Contextual knowledge around the task.
3. Possible obstacles that might impair the task.
   4.Strategies to reach the desired outcome.
   E.g., getting to the train station to pick up a friend.

Question 35

What do information processing theories say about how cognitive development occurs?

Answer 35

It is continuous and occurs in small increments at different ages and different tasks.
Children undergo continuous change. The change is small. Contrast to stages proposed by Piaget.

Question 36

What are the small changes that occur in a child in the cognitive processing systems?

Answer 36

Working memory capacity
Processing speed
Knowledge of useful strategies
Contextual knowledge.

Question 37

What are the 3 core elements in the development of memory?

Answer 37

1. Basic processes
2. Strategies
3. Content knowledge.

Question 38

What are the 3 basic processes of developing memory?

Answer 38

Associating events with one another.
Recognising objects.
Recalling facts.

Question 39

The development of memory: What are the strategies?

Answer 39

Rehearsal and selective attention.

Question 40

The development of memory: What is content knowledge?

Answer 40

An expanding knowledge base makes it easier to integrate new info with existing understanding.

Question 41

Give a brief overview of the information processing theory.

How are the children seen?

How might these strategies be applied?

Answer 41

Children are seen as active problem solvers. They constantly gain knowledge, strategies and speed of processing. When confronted with a problem, children might try different ways of solving it.

These strategies might be applied sequential as they grow but they might also overlap (overlapping waves model).

Question 42

What problems does the information processing theory seem to explain different strategies children take to solve?

Answer 42

Time-telling, reading, use of tools and knowledge of biology.

Question 43

What did the overlapping waves theory find in repeated trials of conservation of number regarding the childrens problem solving?

Answer 43

Most children will use different strategies, same child will come up with different answers and different reasonings (Siegler, 1996).

Question 44

According to the information processing theory, why do children in the preoperational stage fail the conservation tasks?

Answer 44

Limited capacity (e.g., to consider the dimensions of the 2 beakers or the distances between the 2 coins). Inexperience: lack of strategy & attention - flexibly switching attention.

Question 45

What is the dynamic systems theory?

Answer 45

Development is the product of emergent coherence i.e., higher order forms come up through the repetitive interaction among simpler components e.g. walking. Children’s specific actions shape their development (consider motor skills).

The child can be depicted as a well integrated system, where many subsystems e.g., perception work together to determine behaviour.

Question 46

What does the dynamic systems theories say about change?

Answer 46

Change is the only constant: how change occurs will vary from one child to the next and depends on their experiences.

Question 47

What does the dynamic systems theory say might affect a babies performance in the A not B error?

Answer 47

Factors other than conceptual understanding may contribute to babies performance.

Question 48

What are the 3 factors that explain the A not B error according to the dynamic system theory?

Answer 48

1. Habit - the more often the baby found the object in A, the more likely they would reach there again if hidden in B.
2. Memory - the longer the interval between hiding in B and allowing reach, the more likely baby is to look in A.
3. Attention - manipulating attention by tapping one location, results in a reach to that location, regardless of location of object.