Cognitive Development: Piaget's Theories

Cognitive Development: Piaget's Theories

• Cognition involves mental processes to gain knowledge through thought, experience, and senses
• Cognitive development refers to a child’s growth and change in their ability to think and understand
• Piaget believed that children actively participate in cognitive development
• Children construct knowledge through interaction with their environments
• The sensorimotor stage occurs from 0-2 years, where object permanence is developed and sensory input and motor actions are coordinated
• The preoperational stage occurs from 2-7 years, and symbolic thinking, language, and pretend play develop
• The concrete operational stage occurs from 7-11 years, and is defined by a mastery of conservation tasks and logical thinking about concrete objects
• The formal operational stage occurs from 12+ years, and is defined by abstract and hypothetical thinking
• During the preoperational stage, symbolic abilities like pretend play, language, and representational drawing emerge
• Piaget's theory is influential, but is critiqued for underestimating children's cognitive abilities

Information Processing and Sociocultural Theories

• Information processing focuses on memory, problem-solving, and cognitive abilities in children
• Working memory describes the short-term storage and manipulation of information
• Long-term memory describes the storage of information for an extended period
• Executive function are cognitive processes for goal-directed behavior, like planning
• Inhibition is the ability to suppress impulses and irrelevant information
• Sociocultural theories focus on the role of social interactions in cognitive development
• Guided participation describes learning through interaction with knowledgeable others
• The zone of proximal development is the range of tasks a child can perform with assistance
• Scaffolding is temporary support that is gradually removed as a child gains capability
• Joint attention describes focusing on the same object/event with another person to facilitate learning

Executive Function and Research

• Executive function involves the mental skills to plan, monitor, and control behavior
• The Head-to-Toes-Knees-Shoulders task measures inhibition and executive control
• Delay of gratification tests self-control and future-oriented thinking
• Tools of the Mind is a curriculum to support executive function development in childhood

Infant Learning Mechanisms

• Classical conditioning describes learning through association
• Operant conditioning describes learning through consequences, like reinforcement and punishment
• Observational learning describes learning by watching others
• Statistical learning describes learning patterns and regularities in the environment

Conceptual Development: Physical Objects and Number

• Naïve theory of physics involves a child’s early understanding of objects, including concepts like support and gravity
• Baillargeon’s Rotating Screen Experiment is evidence of object permanence in infants
• Spelke's theory describes the core knowledge of physical objects and events in infants
• The approximate number system describes the ability to estimate quantities without counting in infants
• Subitization describes the ability to instantly recognize small quantities, usually 1-4
• Infant number studies showed an understanding of basic arithmetic

Conceptual Development: Animate and Theory of Mind (ToM)

• There is early evidence for the ability of infants to distinguish between living and non-living things
• Biological motion is the ability of infants to recognize and prefer biological motion
• Theory of Mind (ToM) is the understanding that others have different desires, beliefs, and emotions
• The False Belief task tests understanding that others can hold beliefs that are incorrect
• The Goldfish-Broccoli Task shows that children understand desires, even when they conflict with their preferences.

Language Development

• Language acquisition is species-specific and requires a sensitive period
• Chomsky argued language is innate and governed by a universal grammar
• Skinner emphasized that learning occurs through reinforcement
• Generativity describes when children can create new, grammatically correct sentences
• Overregularization describes when children apply grammatical rules to irregular words
• First words occur around 12 months
• Holophrases describe one word representing a larger meaning
• The two-word stage describes simple combinations of words
• The mapping problem explores how children link words to their meanings
• Baldwin’s experiment showed that joint attention is critical in learning word-object associations

Intelligence, IQ, and Behavior Genetics

• IQ tests measure cognitive ability, such as the WISC (Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children)
• Fluid intelligence describes problem-solving ability and reasoning
• Crystallized intelligence describes accumulated knowledge and experience
• IQ can predict academic success and job performance
• Heritability is the proportion of observed variation in a trait due to genetic differences
• IQ can be influenced by environmental factors, known as the Flynn Effect
• Using IQ scores can justify biased policies or predict social outcomes