Unit 3 - Theories of Cognitive Development

Cognitive vs. Social Development

• Cognitive development refers to mental processes like thinking, reasoning, problem-solving, memory, and language. It focuses on how individuals learn, process information, and develop intellectual abilities.
• Social development refers to how individuals form relationships, interact with others, and develop social skills and behaviors. It includes understanding emotions, building friendships, and navigating social norms.

Enduring Themes Addressed by Theories of Cognitive Development

• Piagetian: Nature and nurture, continuity/discontinuity, the active child.
• Information-processing: Nature and nurture, how change occurs.
• Core-knowledge: Nature and nurture, continuity/discontinuity.
• Sociocultural: Nature and nurture, the influence of the social context, how change occurs.
• Dynamic-systems: Nature and nurture, the active child, how change occurs.

Jean Piaget's Constructivist Theory

• Children are mentally active from birth.
• Children are not born knowing things; they develop knowledge through experience.
• Children's physical and mental activity contributes to their development.
• Children construct knowledge for themselves in response to their experiences.

Piaget's Theory of Cognitive Development

• Children's constructive processes: Generating hypotheses, performing experiments, and drawing conclusions from observations.
• Main Sources of Continuity: Assimilation (processing incoming information into existing schemas) and Accommodation (modifying schemas to fit new information).
• Equilibrium: A state of cognitive balance or stability.
• Disequilibrium: When new information doesn't fit existing schemas and the person feels confused; motivating the individual to adjust their thinking to restore equilibrium.
• Properties of stages: Qualitative changes, broad applicability, brief transitions, and invariant sequences. The stages are universal (though not everyone reaches the later stages) and follow in order.
• Stage 1 - Sensorimotor: Learning through sensory experiences and motor actions (birth to 2 years), object permanence, and understanding that things continue to exist even when they are out of sight.
• Stage 2 - Preoperational: Development of symbolic thought and imagination, egocentrism (difficulty understanding other viewpoints).
• Stage 3 - Concrete Operational: Logical thinking, with understanding of concepts and relationships.
• Stage 4 - Formal Operational: Abstract thinking, hypothetical scenarios, and problem solving.

Information-Processing Theories

• Theories focus on cognitive systems and how mental processes are structured in order to solve problems.
• The mind is like a computer; information is processed in bits and pieces, and knowledge is stored.
• Task Analysis: identifying the goals of a situation, including the steps to achieve those goals.
• Computer Simulation: is a way of mimicking human thinking using computer programs.

View of Children's Nature

• Child as a limited-capacity processing system.
• Cognitive development arises from surmounting processing limitations.
• Children as problem solvers use strategies to overcome obstacles
• Central developmental Issues: How nature and nurture interact, how change occurs and the development of memory and problem solving.
• Key Executive Functions: Inhibiting actions, enhancing working memory, being cognitively flexible.

Development of Memory

• Working memory: Limited capacity for actively processing, storing, and manipulating information.
• Long-term memory: Stores information accumulated over a lifetime.
• Executive functioning: Processes that control attention, working memory, and problem solving

The Overlapping Waves Model

• Children use multiple strategies to solve problems;
• Strategies are not always used effectively.
• Planning and organization as a strategy (children may need more experience and knowledge in order to plan effectively).

Core-Knowledge Theories

• Children are born with innate knowledge in certain domains (e.g., important evolutionary domains).
• These domains may include inanimate objects & their interactions and understanding minds of other people/animals, and numbers/spatial layouts/languages.

Sociocultural Theories

• Emphasize other people and surrounding culture's contribution to children's development.
• Guided participation: Activities are organized for the child to participate and learn more effectively (e.g., making bread).
• Social scaffolding: A more knowledgeable individual provides support and guidance, and slowly withdraws as the child progresses.
• Cultural tools: Tools, methods and concepts that help to structure thought and development (e.g., measuring spoons, baking recipes).
• Vygotsky's Theory: Children are social learners, and internalization of speech and thinking is key to development.
• Zone of Proximal Development: The range of tasks that a child cannot do alone but can accomplish with support from more knowledgeable others.
• Intersubjectivity: Process in which two people start a task with different understandings and end with shared understandings.
• Joint attention: When two people intentionally focus on the same thing, demonstrating a common point of reference.

Children as Products of Their Culture

• Many processes are similar across cultures; content of learning and thinking varies.