Alternative Explanations for Piaget’s Theory Evaluation

• Infants from 6 to 12 months old categorize their physical world and emotional/social world.
• Earliest categories are perceptual, such as legs for animals and wheels for vehicles.
• Around the 6th month, infants start to categorize based on common functions or behaviors.
• By 14 months, infants understand that some actions are appropriate for certain categories of items and not others.
• The distinction between inanimate and animate objects expands by the end of the 2nd year.
• Infants' expanding vocabulary fosters categorization.
• There are two separate systems involved in long-term memory: explicit (conscious and intentionally recalled) and implicit (memories of which we are not consciously aware but affect performance and behavior).
• Explicit memory does not emerge until the second half of the first year.
• Vygotsky's Sociocultural Theory suggests that children's cognitive capacities are influenced by social and cultural contexts.
• Children's complex mental activities arise from social interactions with more mature and wise members of society.
• The Zone of Proximal Development refers to tasks that children cannot handle alone but can do with the help of more skilled partners.
• Arnold Gesell's developmental scale, called Gesell's test, was the first to distinguish between normally and atypically developing children based on behavior at different ages.
• The Bayley Scales of Infant Development assess infant behavior and predict later development.
• Most infant tests predict later intelligence poorly.
• The speed of habituation and recovery to visual stimuli can be used as an alternative to infant tests and is effective in predicting intelligence from early childhood to adulthood.
• Intelligence is influenced by both heredity and environment.
• Studies have examined the relationship between environmental factors and toddler mental scores.
• The home environment is particularly effective in influencing mental ability.
• The HOME (Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment) checklist gathers information about the quality of children's home lives.
• Language development is related to improvements in perception and cognition.
• Around 6 months, infants start to comprehend meanings of some words.
• Babies utter their first word around 12 months.
• By 1.5-2 years, infants are able to combine two words.
• Around 6 years, infants have a vocabulary of 10,000 words.
• Three theories of language development include the Behaviorist Perspective (language is learned through operant conditioning), the Nativist Perspective (language is innate), and the Interactionist Perspective (language is a result of both innate and environmental factors).
• The Behaviorist Perspective focuses on reinforcement and imitation in language learning.

o Imitation is an important aspect of early language development, enabling children to quickly learn complex utterances through reinforcement from parents. o The Nativist Perspective proposes that language is too complex for direct teaching or discovery, with the Language Acquisition Device (LAD) being an innate system that enables children to understand universal grammar. o Children have a sensitive period for language acquisition during childhood, with deaf adults who learned American Sign Language (ASL) never becoming as proficient as those who learned in childhood. o Language Development faces challenges, such as the lack of a single grammar system and children not acquiring language as quickly as assumed. o The Interactionist Perspective suggests that language development depends on specific brain structures and interactions between inner capacities and environmental influences. o Language development begins with cooing around 2 months and babbling around 6 months, with deaf infants also babbling, but requiring sign language exposure to continue. o Babies establish joint attention around 12 months, allowing them to use social skills to acquire language and actively participate in games. o Infants begin understanding word meanings around 6 months and start uttering their first words around 1 year, with errors including underextension and overextension. o The Two-Word Utterance Phrase marks a rapid increase in word production between 18 and 24 months, with telegraphic speech focusing on high content words. o Individual and cultural differences, such as gender, temperament, and socioeconomic status, can influence language development. o Girls tend to start talking earlier than boys, while shy or negative children may be later in language development, and low socioeconomic status can impact referential and expressive styles.

Explore alternative perspectives on cognitive development theory, such as the core knowledge perspective, which suggests that infants possess innate knowledge systems. Delve into the debate over the extent of infants' initial understanding and their potential innate numerical knowledge.