Theories of Cognitive Development (Alternatives to Piaget)

Question 1

Why not just one theory?

Answer 1

• Child development is a complex and varied process, no single theory accounts for all of it
• Theories of cognitive and social development focus on different capabilities
• Combined, they allow a broader appreciation of cognitive development than any one alone

Question 2

Cognitive development?

Answer 2

• Perception
• Attention
• Language
• Problem-solving and reasoning
• Memory
• Conceptual understanding

Question 3

Social development?

Answer 3

• Emotions
• Personality
• Family & peer relationships
• Self-understanding
• Aggression
• Moral & prosocial understanding

Question 4

Theories of Development 4?

Answer 4

1. Piagetian Theory
2. Evolutionary Theories
3. Socio-cultural Theories
4. Information Processing Theories

Question 5

Ethnological (The study of animal behaviour) and evolutionary models?

Answer 5

• We know that evolution influenced human traits such as bipedalism, opposable thumbs, and brain size
• > so it is plausible that evolution also influenced our behaviour.
• Evolution is geared toward reproduction and survival.
• Certain genes predispose individuals to behave in ways that are more successful toward these goals.

Question 6

4 different theories of Development?

Answer 6

1. Piagetian Theory
2. Evolutionary Theories
3. Socio-cultural Theories
4. Information Processing Theories

Question 7

Key aspects of Social Learning Theories?

Answer 7

• Experience is the most important factor in a child’s social and personality development
• Learning theories are continuous: the same mechanisms control learning and behaviour throughout life
• Children learn though conditions and reinforcement (behaviorist learning)
• Children learn through observation and imitations of others (social learning)

Question 7

Key aspects of Social Learning Theories?

Answer 7

• Experience is the most important factor in a child’s social and personality development
• Learning theories are continuous: the same mechanisms control learning and behaviour throughout life
• Children learn though conditions and reinforcement (behaviorist learning)
• Children learn through observation and imitations of others (social learning)

Question 8

What are the mechanisms of change in social learning theories? + example of research

Answer 8

Observation and imitation of others
Albert Bandure

Question 9

Core-Knowledge Theories: Child as Theorist
Principles?

Answer 9

• Children have innate cognitive capabilities
• Focus on areas (such as understanding people and objects) that have been important thought put our evolutionary history -> often endorse a modularity approach

Question 10

Core Knowledge Proposal,
Core Knowledge Domains?

Answer 10

• Physics (object cognition)
• Number (numerical cognition)
• People/agency
• Biology
• Language

Question 11

Object Cognition? What does infants know?

Answer 11

• Infants know A LOT about the physical world before they are capable of operating on it
  1. Continuity
  2. Coherence
  3. Contact
  -> Evidence within the first few months of life goes beyond the sense data (contra Piaget)

Question 12

Adaptive benefits of going Beyond the Sense Data?

Answer 12

1. There are more apples on the tree
2. Danager out of sight, does not mean its gone
3. Who kicked the ball?

Question 13

Sociocultural Theories of Cognitive Development? (Piaget vs. Vygotsky)

Answer 13

• Whereas Piaget depicted children as trying to understand the world on their own
• Vygotsky portrayed them as social beings intertwined with other people who were eager to help them learn and gain skills

Question 14

Describe how cognitive development occurs in interpersonal contact?

Answer 14

• Interactions with parents, siblings, teachers, and playmates)
• Emphasised importance of play
• > Children are products of their cultures

Question 15

How Cognitive Change Occurs according to Sociocultural Theories?

Answer 15

• Zone of proximal development:
  Range between what children can do unsupported and what they can do with optimal social support
• Social scaffolding:
  More competent people provide temporary frameworks that lead children to higher-order thinking (used interchangeably with ‘guided participation’)
• Joint attention:
  Intentional focus on a common referent
• Intersubjectivity:
  Mutual understand established during communication - a ‘meeting of the minds’
• Social referencing:
  Children look to social partners for guidance about how to reskins to unfamiliar events

Question 16

Sociocultural Theories Summary

Answer 16

• Children are active learners
• Adults and peers play instrumental role in facilitating learning
• Emphasis is more on content than on cognitive process/mechansim

Question 17

Sociocultural Constraints?
Psychical
Social
Economic
Cultural
Historical

Answer 17

Psychical = home, school, urban vs. rural neighborhood etc.
Social = parents, siblings, teachers, friends, peers, etc.
Economic = national wealth, societal wealth, family wealth
Cultural = language, values, traditions, attitudes/beliefs, laws, political structure, technology, etc.
Historical = influences all these other factors, e.g. traditional practices, policies, economy, technology etc.

Question 18

Brofenbrenner’s ecological model? + 5 systems

Answer 18

a child’s environment is composed of multiple layers, extending from the child at the center, outward to the entire society.

Five different systems: the microsystem, the mesosystem, the exosystem, the macrosystem, and the chronosystemm.

Question 19

View of children’s nature according to information-processing theories?

Answer 19

• Information-processing theorists view children as undergoing continuous cognitive change
• Important changes are viewed as constantly occurring, rather than being restricted to special transition periods between stages

Question 20

The Child as Problem Solver? Which theory?

Answer 20

• Information-Processing Theorist view children as active problem solvers
• With development, children’s cognitive flexibility helps them pursue their goals

Question 21

The Child as a Limited-Capacity Processing System? (3)

Answer 21

Cognitive development arises from children gradually surmounting their processing limitations though

– Increasing efficient execution of basic processes
– Expanding memory capacity
– Acquisition of new strategies and knowledge

Question 22

Information-Processing Theory: Basic Processes?

Answer 22

Basic processes are the simplest and most frequently used mental activities:
- Associating events with one another (two events that do not occur in temporal closeness)
- Recognising objects or principals as familiar
- Recalling facts and procedures
- Generalising from one instance to another
- Encoding: the process of representing in memory information specific features of objects and events - Being able to remember stuff!

Question 23

Processing Speed? Which 2 biological processes

Answer 23

• The speed with which children execute basic processes increases greatly over the course of childhood
• Biological maturation and experience contribute to increased processing speed
• Two biological processes that contribute to faster processing are myelination and increased connectivity (Rich associations with other things) among brain regions.

Question 24

Cognitive development arises from children gradually surmounting their processing limitations though?

Answer 24

• Increased efficient execution of basic processes
• Expanding memory capacity
• Acquisition of new strategies and knowledge

Question 25

Memory System Components?

Answer 25

• Differ with regard to how much information they can store, the length of time for which they can retain information, the neural mechanisms through which they operate, and their course of development.
• Sensory, Working, Long-Term

Question 26

Sensory memory?

Answer 26

• Refers to sights, sounds, and other sensations that are just entering the cognitive system and are briefly held in raw form until they are identified.
• Can hold a moderate amount of information for a fraction of a second. Its capacity is relatively constant over much of development.

Question 27

Working memory?

Answer 27

• A workspace in which information from the environment and relevant knowledge are brought together, attend to, and actively processed.
• Quite limited in both capacity and duration.Its capacity and speed of operation increases greatly over childhood and into adolescence

Question 28

Long-term memory?

Answer 28

• Refers to information retained on an during basis
• Can retain an unlimited amount of information indefinitely, and the contents of long-term memory increase enormously over development

Question 29

Information-Processing Theory?

Answer 29

Cognitive development arises from children gradually surmounting their processing limitations though:
- Increasing efficient execution of basic processes
- Expanding memory capacity
- Acquisition of new strategies and knowledge

Question 30

Mental Strategies, rehearsal and selective attention?

Answer 30

A number of strategies emerge between ages 5-8.

• Rehearsal:
  The process of repeating information over and over to aid memory (connection to formal schooling, a treaty that is modelled)
• Selective attention:
  The process of intentionally focusing on information that is most relevant to the current goal

Question 31

Sources of Learning and Memory Development?

Answer 31

Processing Speed -> Mental Strategies -> Content Knowledge (“perquisites: that help to attain new information)