Cognitive Development in Children and Attachment Styles

Cognitive Development in Children

• Piaget describes four stages of cognitive development, progressing in a specific order
• Sensorimotor stage (birth to age 2): Children use innate skills like looking, grasping, and sucking
• Preoperational stage (ages 2-7): Children use symbols to represent objects, images, and ideas, and engage in pretend play
• Concrete operational stage (ages 7-11): Children develop logical thinking that is concrete and tangible
  • Logical thinking
  • Reversibility
  • Conservation
  • Decentration
  • Classification
  • Seriation: arranging objects by size or other properties
  • Transitivity: understanding relationships between objects
  • Less egocentrism
• Formal operational stage (age 11+): Children can formulate hypotheses and think abstractly, understanding mathematical structures.

Attachment Styles in Infants

• Secure Attachment: Infants show mild distress on mother's departure but are easily comforted upon reunion.
• Avoidant Attachment: Infants show little distress on mother's departure and avoid contact on reunion.
• Ambivalent/Resistant Attachment: Infants show severe distress on mother's departure and clinginess/resistance on reunion.
• Disorganized/Disoriented Attachment: Infants exhibit confused and contradictory behaviours.

Neglect and Abuse of Children

• Physical neglect: Failure to provide basic needs like food, shelter, clothing, or medical care.
• Emotional neglect: Failure to meet a child's emotional needs, like lack of affection, attention, or emotional support.
• Educational neglect: Failure to provide appropriate education.
• Physical abuse: Deliberate infliction of physical harm.
• Sexual abuse: Exploitation of a child for sexual purposes.
• Emotional abuse: Verbal aggression, ridicule, threats or coercion intended to control a child.

Educational Neglect

• Chronically Truant children: 11-13 years old who are persistently absent from school without a valid reason.

Child Development

• Social Deprivation: Limited social interaction and stimulation can lead to delays in social-emotional and intellectual development.
• Autism: Characterized by difficulties with social communication, interaction, and repetitive behaviours. It usually becomes evident by age 3 but sometimes before.

Information Processing Theory

• Sensory Memory: Brief storage of sensory information (milliseconds)
• Short-Term Memory: Limited temporary storage of information (seconds)
• Long-Term Memory: Relatively permanent storage of information.

Parenting Styles

• Authoritative: High warmth and high control; encourages independence while setting clear boundaries. Results in child self-reliance, self-esteem, and competence.
• Authoritarian: Low warmth and high control; focuses on obedience and rules with little explanation. Results in children who are less competent socially and academically.
• Permissive: High warmth and low control; permissive and indulgent. Children are more likely to display deviant behaviour in school.
• Neglecting/Rejecting: Low warmth and low control. Results in children who are least competent, responsible, mature, and most prone to problem behaviours.

Erikson's Psychosocial Stages

• Trust vs. Mistrust (infancy): Developing trust in caregivers, leading to security and hope.
• Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt (toddlerhood): Achieving independence and self-control, resulting in self-confidence.
• Initiative vs. Guilt (Preschool): Taking initiative, exploring, and developing a sense of purpose, leading to initiative, purpose and assertiveness.
• Industry vs. Inferiority (School Age): Acquiring competence, leading to competence and mastery, contributing to feelings of industry.
• Identity vs. Role Confusion (Adolescence): Exploring roles, values, and beliefs to form an identity, resulting to strong identity formation.
• Intimacy vs. Isolation (Young Adulthood): Forming close relationships with others, resulting in intimacy and love.
• Generativity vs. Stagnation (Middle Adulthood): Contributing to society and future generations, resulting in a sense of purpose.
• Integrity vs. Despair (Old Age): Evaluating one's life and accepting it. Resulting in a sense of integrity and satisfaction.

Psychoanalytic Theory

• Emphasis on unconscious processes shaping behaviour, thoughts, and emotions
• Id (instinctual drives, seeks pleasure)
• Ego (mediates between id and external world, operates on reality principle)
• Superego (moral standards and conscience)
• Defence mechanisms (e.g., repression, denial) protecting ego from anxiety.
• Psychosexual stages (oral, anal, phallic, latent, genital) stages of psychosexual development.

Moral Development (Kohlberg)

• Preconventional Morality: Morality based on avoiding punishment and self-interest
• Conventional Morality: Morality based on social norms and maintaining order
• Postconventional Morality: Morality based on abstract principles like human dignity and justice.

Cognitive Schemas

• Mental frameworks for organizing and interpreting information
• Developed through experience and adjusted through assimilation (fitting new info into existing schemas) and accommodation (adjusting schemas to fit new info)
• Crucial for making predictions and guiding behaviour
• Can influence how a person processes, interprets, and acts on the world around them

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)

• Neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity that interferes with daily functioning.
• Stimulant medications (e.g., Ritalin) are a common treatment.

Conduct Disorder

• A childhood disorder characterized by persistently breaking rules and violating others' rights.
• Genetic and environmental factors, such as family adversity and peer influence, can contribute to the development of conduct disorder.

Dyslexia

• A learning disorder characterized by difficulties with reading and other written language skills.

Attachment

• A deep and enduring emotional bond between a child and their primary caregiver.
• Crucial for a child's overall development and well-being.
• Mary Ainsworth identified several attachment patterns.

Object Permanence

• Understanding that objects continue to exist even when they are out of sight.
• Essential for a child's cognitive development and understanding of the world.

Other Intelligences (Gardner)

• Linguistic, logical-mathematical, musical, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, naturalistic, and existential.