Theories of Cognitive Development

Theories of Cognitive Development

• Cognitive development includes thought processes, intellectual abilities, and language
• Cognition is the processes and mechanisms for acquiring and manipulating knowledge
• Theories of cognitive development provide a framework for understanding phenomena, raising questions about human nature, and better understanding children
• Basic cognition includes pain avoidance, danger recognition, and survival instincts
• Higher-order cognition involves developing and executing plans, like those needed for school

Piaget's Main Themes

• Children are active seekers of knowledge, acting as constructivists (scientists)
• Constructivists may create tantrums to observe reactions
• Nature (genes) interacts with nurture (physical environment) in cognitive development
• Cognition develops in distinct stages

Core Concepts: Assimilation, Accommodation, and Equilibrium

• Assimilation involves incorporating new information into existing schemas by modifying or distorting it
• Accommodation involves changing current schemas to incorporate new info, an interaction with the environment
• Equilibrium is when people balance assimilation and accommodation to create stable understanding and restructure schemes
• Schema is a mental concept, like "banging"
• Assimilation example: banging a block
• Accommodation example: banging an egg and breaking it

Sensorimotor Stage

• Occurs from birth to 2 years
• Knowledge is built through sensory and motor exploration of the physical environment
• Infants live largely in the present, focusing on immediate perceptions and actions
• Newborn reflexes are inborn, automatic responses to particular stimulation, including motor skills like grasping and stepping
• Survival values include moro, rooting, sucking/swallowing reflexes, and Babinski (toe curls)
• Object permanence develops around 8-9 months, realizing objects exist even when not seen

Preoperational Stage

• Occurs from 2-7 years
• Characterized by the ability to internally represent the world, including symbolic representation where one word stands for another
• Involves Egocentrism: perceiving the world from one's own point of view
• Conservation: understanding that changing an object's appearance doesn't alter its key properties

Concrete Operational Stage

• Occurs from 7-11 years
• Symbolic and logical intelligence emerges
• Thought becomes less egocentric

Formal Operational Stage

• Occurs from 11-16 years
• Ability to make and test hypotheses develops
• Thinking becomes abstract and introspective

Piaget's Weaknesses

• Theory does not account for sociocultural influences
• Infants are more competent by 3 months old demonstrating object performance
• Is vague about the mechanisms that facilitate children's thinking
• Depicts thinking as more consistent than it actually is

Other Theories

• Information processing theories exist
• Cognitive development might be domain-specific and limited to one area
• Children enter the world with general learning abilities and mechanisms to process information

Nativism

• Infants are born with knowledge of evolutionary domains and quickly acquire knowledge

Social Cultural Theories

• Contributions of other people/surrounding culture
• People with higher expertise support children thinking about a higher level than children could manage on their own, this is known as social scaffolding

Vygotsky's Main Assumptions

• Children are active seekers of knowledge
• Interaction of nature and nurture
• Kids are social beings who learn from social culture
• Continuous development that quantizes changes

Vygotsky's Central Concepts

• Knowledge is a process of co-construction
• Inter-psychological plane is the social plane
• Intra-psychological plane is the psychological plane
• Zone of Proximal Development is the range of performance a child can achieve unsupported plus what they can achieve with support
• Cultural tools include language, symbols, and technology, influencing how social interactions are learned

Motor Development

• Fine motor skills involve small movements
• Newborns have a grasping reflex
• At 3 months, infants develop an ulnar grasp (fingers close against palm)
• By 7-13 months, infants coordinate the use of their thumb and fingers
• Scissor grasp: index + thumb side of fingers
• Pincer grasp: index + thumb
• Gross motor skills involve large movements
• Self-locomotion involves moving in environment independently
• At 8-9 months, crawling begins, including bear crawl, commando (army crawl), and bottom scooter
• At 11-12 months, walking develops
• Around 8 months, toddlers start walking with two hands
• Around 10 months, toddlers start cruising, using furniture to move
• Around 11 months, toddlers start walking with the help of one hand
• By 12 months, toddlers walk alone

Language Development

• Phonemes are speech units of sound
• Morphemes are the smallest units of meaning
• Syntax is the order of words in a sentence
• Pragmatics are the rules of language and culture
• Semantics are the language timeline
• Vocabulary development begins around birth (crying)
• Around 6-8 weeks, cooing (vowels) emerges
• At 7 months, babbling (vowels + consonants) emerges
• From 10-25 months, toddlers say their first words
• By 2 years, toddlers develop sentences
• The "word spurt" occurs, and overextensions can manifest

First Words and Telegraphic Speech

• Children have names, objects, and a noun bias
• Word spurt happens around 18 months as verbs come in and form sentences
• Overextensions are errors in extending terms beyond the adult concept
• "All fuzzy creatures are kittens"
• Holophrastic stage expresses 'whole speech' with one word
• Telegraphic speech uses two-word utterances, leaving out nonessential items such as "hurt knee" and "he sleep"

Morphemes and Overregulation Errors

• Morphemes overregulation errors occur making irregular regular
• Children exhibit a U-shaped curve in language development
• Example: changing "fell" to "falled" before reverting to "fell"
• They learn language rules and add "-ed" to the end of words

Word Learning Principles

• Mutual Exclusivity Assumption: every object only has one name
• Whole Object Appearance: new words label objects as a whole not by parts
• Fast Mapping: only need to expose child to a new word once in contrast to known words

Joint Attention and Syntactic Bootstrapping

• Joint attention occurs around 9 months as child and parent attend to a third party through gestures and eye gaze
• Syntactic bootstrapping determines meaning based on syntax, "this is some sib" vs "this is sibbing"

Contrasting: Piaget vs. Vygotsky

• Both Piaget and Vygotsky agree that children are active seekers of knowledge and that nature and nurture interact
• Piaget views development as constructivist where the child is a scientist, with physical environment driving nurture, and thinks cognition is by different stages
• Vygotsky views development as co-constructivist learning with others, with social beings learning from a social culture context and continuous development