Ch 5 Cognitive Development in Infancy PDF

154 PART 2 Infancy: Forming the Foundations of Life Chapter Overview Piaget’s Approach to Cognitive Development Key Elements of Piaget’s Theory The Sensorimotor Period: The Earliest Stage of Cognitive Growth Appraising Piaget: Support and Challenges Information Processing Approaches to Cognitive Dev...

154 PART 2 Infancy: Forming the Foundations of Life Chapter Overview Piaget’s Approach to Cognitive Development Key Elements of Piaget’s Theory The Sensorimotor Period: The Earliest Stage of Cognitive Growth Appraising Piaget: Support and Challenges Information Processing Approaches to Cognitive Development Individual Differences in Intelligence: Is One Infant Smarter than Another? The Roots of Language The Fundamentals of Language: From Sounds to Symbols The Origins of Language Development Speaking to Children: The Language of Infant-Directed and Gender-Related Speech The Foundations of Information Processing Memory During Infancy: They Must Remember This... Prologue: Making Things Happen Alejandro Castillo laughs as he describes his 18-month old daughter Maria. “Every day is an adventure with her. I never know what she’s going to think or say next.” Maria seems to be learning so many new words every day and she uses those words to label the world around her. Recently, at the playground, Maria encountered someone walking a dog. Although she was scared at first, Alejandro comforted her, saying “It’s okay, it’s a doggy. Doggy.” The next day, when the family went to the zoo, Alejandro was surprised that Maria remembered the word “doggy” but also realized that she still has a lot to learn. “That day at the zoo, everything was a ‘doggy.’ Monkeys, a cheetah, even a bear—they were all ‘doggies’ to Maria,” Alejandro says with a grin. pixelheadphoto digitalskillet/Shutterstock Looking Ahead How do young children learn to understand the world around them? How do they learn to communicate with others? And how do social interactions influence cognitive development? We address these and related questions in this chapter as we consider cognitive development during the first years of life. Our examination focuses on the work of developmental researchers who seek to understand how infants develop their knowledge and understanding of the world. We first discuss the work of Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget, whose theory of developmental stages served as a highly influential impetus for a considerable amount of work on cognitive development. We look at both the limitations and the contributions of this important developmental specialist. We then cover more contemporary views of cognitive development, examining information processing approaches that seek to explain how cognitive growth occurs. After considering how learning takes place, we examine memory in infants and the ways in which infants process, store, and retrieve information. We discuss the controversial issue of the recollection of events that occurred during infancy. We also address individual differences in intelligence. Finally, we consider language, the cognitive skill that permits infants to communicate with others. We look at the roots of language in prelinguistic speech and trace the milestones indicating the development of language skills in the progression from baby’s first words to phrases and sentences. We also look at the characteristics of adults’ communication addressed to infants, characteristics that By interacting with their children, parents influence cognitive developare surprisingly similar across different cultures. ment during infancy. for more ebook/ testbank/ solution manuals requests: email [email protected] Chapter 5 Cognitive Development in Infancy 155 Olivia’s dad is wiping up the mess around the base of her high chair—for the third time today! It seems to him that 14-month-old Olivia takes great delight in dropping food from the high chair. She also drops toys, spoons—anything it seems—just to watch how it hits the floor. She almost appears to be experimenting to see what kind of noise or what size of splatter is created by each item. Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget (1896–1980) probably would have said that Olivia’s dad is right in theorizing that Olivia is conducting her own series of experiments to learn more about the workings of her world. Piaget’s views of the ways infants learn could be summed in a simple equation: Action = Knowledge. Piaget argued that infants do not acquire knowledge from facts communicated by others, nor through sensation and perception. Instead, Piaget suggested that knowledge Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget. is the product of direct motor behavior. Although many of his basic explanations and propositions have been challenged by subsequent research, as we’ll discuss later, the view that in significant ways infants learn by doing remains unquestioned (Piaget, 1952, 1962, 1983; Bullinger, 1997; Zuccarini et al., 2016). Key Elements of Piaget’s Theory LO 5.1 Summarize the fundamental features of Piaget’s theory of cognitive development. As first noted in Chapter 1, Piaget’s theory is based on a stage approach to development. He assumed that all children pass through a series of four universal stages in a fixed order from birth through adolescence: sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational. He also suggested that movement from one stage to the next occurs when a child reaches an appropriate level of physical maturation and is exposed to relevant experiences. Without such experiences, children are assumed to be incapable of reaching their cognitive potential. Some approaches to cognition focus on changes in the content of children’s knowledge about the world, but Piaget argued that it was critical to also consider the changes in the quality of children’s knowledge and understanding as they move from one stage to another. For instance, as they develop cognitively, infants experience changes in their understanding about what can and cannot occur in the world. Consider babies who participate in an experiment during which they are exposed to three identical versions of their mother all at the same time, thanks to some carefully placed mirrors. Three-month-old infants will interact happily with each of these images of their mother. However, by 5 months, infants become quite agitated at the sight of multiple mothers. Apparently, by this time infants have figured out that they have only one mother, and viewing three at a time is thoroughly alarming (Bower, 1977). To Piaget, such reactions suggest that babies are beginning to master principles regarding the way the world operates, indicating that they have begun to construct a mental sense of the world that they didn’t have 2 months earlier. Piaget believed that the basic building blocks of the way we understand the world are mental structures called schema—organized patterns of functioning that adapt and change with mental development. At first, schema are related to physical, or sensorimotor, activity, such as picking up or reaching for toys. As children develop, their schema move to a mental level, reflecting thought. Schema are similar to computer software: They direct and determine how data from the world, such as new events or objects, are considered and dealt with (Rakison & Krogh, 2012; Di Paolo et al., 2017; Coyle & Lieben, 2020). schema organized patterns of functioning that adapt and change with mental development Bill Anderson/Science Source Piaget’s Approach to Cognitive Development szefei/123RF 156 PART 2 Infancy: Forming the Foundations of Life According to Piaget, a baby will use a sensorimotor schema, such as mouthing or banging, to understand a new object. assimilation the process by which people understand an experience in terms of their current stage of cognitive development and way of thinking accommodation changes in existing ways of thinking that occur in response to encounters with new stimuli or events If you give a baby a new cloth book, for example, they will touch it, mouth it, and perhaps try to tear it or bang it on the floor. To Piaget, each of these actions may represent a scheme, and they are the infant’s way of gaining knowledge and understanding of this new object. Adults, however, would use a different scheme on encountering the book. Rather than picking it up and putting it in their mouths or banging it on the floor, they would probably be drawn to the letters on the page, seeking to understand the book through the meaning of the printed words—a very different approach. Piaget suggested that two principles underlie the growth in children’s schema: assimilation and accommodation. Assimilation is the process by which people understand an experience in terms of their current stage of cognitive development and way of thinking. Assimilation occurs, then, when a stimulus or an event is acted upon, perceived, and understood in accordance with existing patterns of thought. For example, an infant who tries to suck on any toy in the same way is assimilating the objects to their existing sucking scheme. Similarly, a child who encounters a flying squirrel at a zoo and calls it a “bird” is assimilating the squirrel to their existing scheme of bird. In contrast, when we change our existing ways of thinking, understanding, or behaving in response to encounters with new stimuli or events, accommodation takes place. For instance, when a child sees a flying squirrel and calls it “a bird with a tail,” they are beginning to accommodate new knowledge, modifying their scheme of bird. Piaget believed that the earliest schema are primarily limited to the reflexes with which we are all born, such as sucking and rooting. Infants start to modify these simple early schema almost immediately, through the processes of assimilation and accommodation, in response to their exploration of the environment. Schema quickly become more sophisticated as infants become more advanced in their motor capabilities—to Piaget, a signal of the potential for more advanced cognitive development. Because Piaget’s sensorimotor stage of development begins at birth and continues until the child is about 2 years old, we consider that stage here in detail. (In future chapters, we’ll discuss development during the later stages.) The Sensorimotor Period: The Earliest Stage of Cognitive Growth LO 5.2 sensorimotor stage (of cognitive development) Piaget’s initial major stage of cognitive development, which can be broken down into six substages Describe Piaget’s sensorimotor stage of cognitive development. Piaget suggests that the sensorimotor stage, the initial major stage of cognitive development, can be divided into six substages. These are summarized in Table 5-1. It is important to keep in mind that although the specific substages of the sensorimotor period may at first appear to unfold with great regularity, as though infants reach a particular age and smoothly proceed into the next substage, the reality of cognitive development is somewhat different. First, the ages at which infants actually reach a particular stage vary a good deal among children. The exact timing of a stage reflects an interaction between the infant’s level of physical maturation and the nature of the social environment in which they are being raised. Consequently, although Piaget contended that the order of the substages does not change from one child to the next, he admitted that the timing can and does vary to some degree. Piaget viewed development as a more gradual process than the notion of different stages might seem to imply. Infants do not go to sleep one night in one substage and wake up the next morning in the next one. Instead, there is a rather gradual and steady shifting of behavior as a child moves toward the next stage of cognitive development. Infants also pass through periods of transition, in which some aspects of their behavior reflect the next higher stage, while other aspects indicate their current stage (see Figure 5-1). The first substage of the sensorimotor period is Substage 1: Simple reflexes, encompassing the first month of life. During this time, the various inborn reflexes, described in Chapter 3 and Chapter 4, are at the center of a baby’s SUBSTAGE 1: SIMPLE REFLEXES. for more ebook/ testbank/ solution manuals requests: email [email protected] Chapter 5 Cognitive Development in Infancy 157 Table 5-1 Piaget’s Six Substages of the Sensorimotor Stage Substage Age Description Example Substage 1: Simple reflexes First month of life During this period, the various reflexes that determine the infant’s interactions with the world are at the center of their cognitive life. The sucking reflex causes the infant to suck at anything placed against their lips. Substage 2: First habits and primary circular reactions From 1 to 4 months At this age, infants begin to coordinate what were separate actions into single integrated activities. An infant might combine grasping an object with sucking on it or staring at something with touching it. Substage 3: Secondary circular reactions From 4 to 8 months During this period, infants take major strides in shifting their cognitive horizons beyond themselves and begin to act on the outside world. A child who repeatedly picks up a rattle and shakes it in different ways to see how the sound changes is demonstrating their ability to modify their cognitive scheme about shaking rattles. Substage 4: Coordination of secondary circular reactions From 8 to 12 months In this stage, infants begin to use more calculated approaches to producing events, coordinating several schemas to generate a single act. They achieve object performance during this stage. An infant will push one toy out of the way to reach another toy that is lying, partially exposed, under it. Substage 5: Tertiary circular reactions From 12 to 18 months At this age, infants develop what Piaget regards as the deliberate variation of actions that bring desirable consequences. Rather than just repeating enjoyable activities, infants appear to carry out miniature experiments to observe the consequences. A child will drop a toy repeatedly, varying the position from which they drop it, carefully observing each time to see where it falls. Substage 6: Beginnings of thought From 18 months to 2 years The major achievement of Substage 6 is the capacity for mental representation, or symbolic thought. Piaget argued that only at this stage can infants imagine where objects that they cannot see might be. Children can plot in their heads unseen trajectories of objects, so that if a ball rolls under a piece of furniture, they can figure out where it is likely to emerge on the other side. physical and cognitive life, determining the nature of their interactions with the world. For example, the sucking reflex causes the infant to suck at anything placed against their lips. This sucking behavior, according to Piaget, provides the newborn with information about objects—information that paves the way to the next substage of the sensorimotor period. At the same time, some of the reflexes begin to accommodate the infant’s experience with the nature of the world. For instance, an infant who is being breastfed but who also receives supplemental bottles may start to change the way they suck, depending on whether a nipple is on a breast or a bottle. Figure 5-1 Cognitive Transitions Different Stages of Cognitive Development Infants do not suddenly shift from one stage of cognitive development to the next. Instead, Piaget argued that there is a period of transition in which some behavior reflects one stage, whereas other behavior reflects the more advanced stage. Does this gradualism argue against Piaget’s interpretation of stages? Stage 1 Stage 2 Stage 3 Stage 4 Age Transition period between stages Fully in stage 158 PART 2 Infancy: Forming the Foundations of Life Substage 2: First habits and primary circular reactions, the second substage of the sensorimotor period, occurs from 1 to 4 months of age. In this period, infants begin to coordinate what were separate actions into single integrated activities. For instance, an infant might combine grasping an object with sucking on it or staring at something with touching it. If an activity engages a baby’s interests, they may repeat it over and over, simply for the sake of continuing to experience it. This repetition of a chance motor event helps the baby start building cognitive schema through a process known as a circular reaction. Primary circular reactions are schema reflecting an infant’s repetition of interesting or enjoyable actions that focus on the infant’s own body, just for the enjoyment of doing them. Thus, when an infant first puts their thumb in their mouth and begins to suck, it is a mere chance event. However, when they repeatedly suck their thumb in the future, it represents a primary circular reaction, which they are repeating because the sensation of sucking is pleasurable. SUBSTAGE 2: FIRST HABITS AND PRIMARY CIRCULAR REACTIONS. Oksana Kuzmina/Shutterstock SUBSTAGE 3: SECONDARY CIRCULAR REACTIONS. In Substage 3: Secondary circular reactions, the infant’s actions are more purposeful. According to Piaget, this third stage of cognitive development in infancy occurs from 4 to 8 months of age. During this period, a child begins to act on the outside world. For instance, infants now seek to repeat enjoyable events in their environments if they happen to produce them through chance activities. A child who repeatedly picks up a rattle in their crib and shakes it in different ways to see how the sound changes is demonstrating their ability to modify their cognitive scheme about shaking rattles. They are engaging in what Piaget calls secondary circular reactions. Secondary circular reactions are schema regarding repeated actions that bring about a desirable consequence. The major difference between primary circular reactions and secondary circular reactions is whether the infant’s activity is focused on the infant and their own body (primary circular reactions) or involves actions relating to the world outside (secondary circular reactions). During the third substage, babies’ vocalization increases substantially as infants come to notice that if they make noises, other people around them will respond with noises of their own. Similarly, infants begin to imitate the sounds made by others. Vocalization becomes a secondary circular reaction that ultimately helps lead to the development of language and the formation of social relationships. SUBSTAGE 4: COORDINATION OF SECONDARY CIRCULAR REACTIONS. One of the major leaps forward is Substage 4: Coordination of secondary circular reactions, which lasts from around 8 months to 12 months. Before this stage, behavior involved direct action on objects. When something happened by chance that caught an infant’s interest, they attempted to repeat the event using a single scheme. However, in Substage 4, infants begin to employ goaldirected behavior, in which several schema are combined and coordinated to generate a single act to solve a problem. For instance, they will push one toy out of the way to reach another toy that is lying, partially exposed, under it. They also begin to anticipate upcoming events. For instance, Piaget tells of his son Laurent, who at 8 months “recognizes by a certain noise caused by air that he is nearing the end of his feeding and, instead of insisting on drinking to the last drop, he rejects his bottle” (Piaget, 1952, pp. 248–249). Infants’ newfound purposefulness, their ability to use means to attain particular ends, and their skill in anticipating future circumstances owe their appearance in part to the Infants in Substage 4 can coordinate their secondary circular reactions, disdevelopmental achievement of object permanence that playing an ability to plan or calculate how to produce a desired outcome. for more ebook/ testbank/ solution manuals requests: email [email protected] Chapter 5 Cognitive Development in Infancy emerges in Substage 4. Object permanence is the realization that people and objects exist even when they cannot be seen. It is a simple principle, but its mastery has profound consequences. Consider, for instance, 7-month-old Chu, who has yet to learn the idea of object permanence. Chu’s mother shakes a rattle in front of him, then takes the rattle, and places it under a blanket. To Chu, who has not mastered the concept of object permanence, the rattle no longer exists. He will make no effort to look for it. Several months later, when he reaches Substage 4, the story is quite different (see Figure 5-2). This time, as soon as his mother places the rattle under the blanket, Chu tries to toss the cover aside, eagerly searching for the rattle. Chu clearly has learned that the object continues to exist even when it cannot be seen. For the infant who achieves an understanding of object permanence, then, out of sight is decidedly not out of mind. The attainment of object permanence extends not only to inanimate objects but also to people. It gives Chu the security that his father and mother still exist even when they have left the room. This awareness is likely a key element in the development of social attachments, which we consider in Chapter 6. The recognition of object permanence also feeds infants’ growing assertiveness: As they realize that an object taken away from them doesn’t just cease to exist but is merely somewhere else, their only-too-human reaction may be to want it back—and quickly. Although the understanding of object permanence emerges in Substage 4, it is only a rudimentary understanding. It takes several months for the concept to be fully comprehended, and infants continue for several months to make certain kinds of errors relating to object permanence. For instance, they often are fooled when a toy is hidden first under one blanket and then under a second blanket. In seeking out the toy, Substage 4 infants most often turn to the first hiding place, ignoring the second blanket under which the toy is currently located—even if the hiding was done in plain view. SUBSTAGE 5: TERTIARY CIRCULAR REACTIONS. Substage 5: Tertiary circular reactions is reached at around the age of 12 months and extends to 18 months. As the name of the stage indicates, during this period, infants develop tertiary circular reactions, which are schema regarding the deliberate variation of actions that bring desirable consequences. Figure 5-2 Object Permanence Before an infant has understood the idea of object permanence, they will not search for an object that has been hidden right before their eyes. But several months later, they will search for it, illustrating that they have attained object permanence. Why is the concept of object permanence important? Before Object Permanence After Object Permanence object permanence the realization that people and objects exist even when they cannot be seen 159 szefei/Shutterstock 160 PART 2 Infancy: Forming the Foundations of Life Rather than just repeating enjoyable activities, as they do with secondary circular reactions, infants appear to carry out miniature experiments to observe the consequences. For example, Piaget observed his son Laurent dropping a toy swan repeatedly, varying the position from which he dropped it, carefully observing each time to see where it fell. Instead of just repeating the action each time (as in a secondary circular reaction), Laurent made modifications in the situation to learn about their consequences. As you may recall from our discussion of research methods in Chapter 1, this behavior represents the essence of the scientific method: An experimenter varies a situation in a laboratory to learn the effects of the variaWith the attainment of the cognitive skill of deferred imition. To infants in Substage 5, the world is their laboratory, and they tation, children are able to imitate people and scenes they spend their days leisurely carrying out one miniature experiment after have witnessed in the past. another. Olivia, the baby described previously who enjoyed dropping different things from her high chair, is a little scientist in action. What is most striking about infants’ behavior during Substage 5 is their interest in the unexpected. Unanticipated events are treated not only as interesting but also as something to be explained and understood. Infants’ discoveries can lead to newfound skills, some of which may cause a certain amount of chaos, as Olivia’s dad realized while cleaning up around her high chair. The final stage of the sensorimotor period is Substage 6: Beginnings of thought, which lasts from around 18 months to 2 years. The major achievement of Substage 6 is the capacity for mental representation, or symbolic thought. A mental representation is an internal image of a past event or object. Piaget argued that by this stage infants can imagine where objects might be that they cannot see. They can even plot in their heads unseen trajectories of objects, so if a ball rolls under a piece of furniture, they can figure out where it is likely to emerge on the other side. Because of children’s new abilities to create internal representations of objects, their understanding of causality also becomes more sophisticated. For instance, consider Piaget’s description of his son Laurent’s efforts to open a garden gate: SUBSTAGE 6: BEGINNINGS OF THOUGHT. mental representation an internal image of a past event or object Laurent tries to open a garden gate but cannot push it forward because it is held back by a piece of furniture. He cannot account either visually or by any sound for the cause that prevents the gate from opening, but after having tried to force it he suddenly seems to understand; he goes around the wall, arrives at the other side of the gate, moves the armchair which holds it firm, and opens it with a triumphant expression. (Piaget, 1954, p. 296) deferred imitation an act in which a person who is no longer present is imitated by children who have witnessed a similar act The attainment of mental representation also permits another important development: the ability to pretend. Using the skill of what Piaget refers to as deferred imitation, in which a person who is no longer present is imitated later, children are able to pretend that they are driving a car, feeding a doll, or cooking dinner long after they have witnessed such scenes played out in reality. To Piaget, deferred imitation provided clear evidence that children form internal mental representations. Appraising Piaget: Support and Challenges LO 5.3 Summarize the arguments both in support of and critical of Piaget’s theory of cognitive development. Most developmental researchers would probably agree that in many significant ways, Piaget’s descriptions of how cognitive development proceeds during infancy are generally accurate. Yet there is substantial disagreement over the validity of the theory and many of its specific predictions. (Marcovitch et al., 2003; Müller et al., 2015; Barrouillet, 2015). Let’s start with what is clearly accurate about the Piagetian approach. Piaget was a masterful reporter of children’s behavior, and his descriptions of growth during for more ebook/ testbank/ solution manuals requests: email [email protected] Chapter 5 Cognitive Development in Infancy infancy remain a monument to his powers of observation. Furthermore, literally thousands of studies have supported Piaget’s view that children learn much about the world by acting on objects in their environment. Finally, the broad outlines sketched out by Piaget of the sequence of cognitive development and the increasing cognitive accomplishments that occur during infancy are generally accurate (Bibace, 2013; Müller et al., 2015; Fowler, 2017). By contrast, specific aspects of the theory have come under increasing scrutiny— and criticism—in the decades since Piaget carried out his pioneering work. For example, some researchers question the stage conception that forms the basis of Piaget’s theory. Although, as noted previously, even Piaget acknowledged that children’s transitions between stages are gradual, critics contend that development proceeds in a much more continuous fashion. Rather than showing major leaps of competence at the end of one stage and the beginning of the next, improvement comes in more gradual increments, growing step by step and skill by skill. For instance, developmental researcher Robert Siegler suggests that cognitive development proceeds not in stages but in “waves.” According to Siegler, children don’t one day drop a mode of thinking and the next take up a new form. Instead, there is an ebb and flow of cognitive approaches that children use to understand the world. One day children may use one form of cognitive strategy, and another day they may choose a less advanced strategy—moving back and forth over a period of time. Although one strategy may be used most frequently at a given age, children still may have access to alternative ways of thinking. Siegler thus sees cognitive development as in constant flux (Siegler, 2012; Siegler & Lortie-Forgues, 2014; Siegler, 2016). Other critics dispute Piaget’s notion that cognitive development is grounded in motor activities. They charge that Piaget overlooked the importance of the sensory and perceptual systems that are present from a very early age in infancy—systems about which Piaget knew little because so much of the research illustrating how sophisticated they are even in infancy was done relatively recently. Studies of children born without arms and legs (due to their mothers’ unwitting use of teratogenic drugs during pregnancy, as described in Chapter 2) show that such children display normal cognitive development, despite their lack of practice with motor activities. This constitutes further evidence that the connection Piaget made between motor development and cognitive development was exaggerated (Houwen et al., 2016; Wuang et al., 2020). To bolster their perspectives, Piaget’s critics also point to more recent studies that cast doubt on Piaget’s view that infants are incapable of mastering the concept of object permanence until they are close to a year old. For instance, some work suggests that younger infants did not appear to understand object permanence because the techniques used to test their abilities were not sensitive enough to their true capabilities (Bremner et al., 2015; Baillargeon, 2008; Baillargeon & DeJong, 2017; Lin et al., 2021). According to researcher Renée Baillargeon, infants as young as 3½ months have at least some understanding of object permanence. She argues that it may be that younger infants don’t search for a rattle hidden under a blanket because they don’t have the motor skills necessary to do the searching—not because they don’t understand that the rattle still exists. Similarly, the apparent inability of young infants to comprehend object permanence may reflect more about infants’ memory deficits than their lack of understanding of the concept: The memories of young infants may be so poor that they simply do not recall the earlier concealment of the toy (Hespos & Baillargeon, 2008). Baillargeon has conducted ingenious experiments that demonstrate the earlier capabilities of infants in understanding object permanence. For example, in her violationof-expectation studies, she repeatedly exposes infants to a physical event and then observes how they react to a variation of that event that is physically impossible. It turns out that infants as young as 3½ months show strong physiological reactions to impossible events, 161 162 PART 2 Infancy: Forming the Foundations of Life Koos Van Der Lende/Anka Agency International/Alamy Stock Photo suggesting that they have some sense of object permanence far earlier than Piaget was able to discern (Baillargeon et al., 2015; Sim & Zu, 2017; Rubio-Fernández, 2019). Other types of behavior also seem to emerge earlier than Piaget suggested. For instance, recall the ability of neonates to imitate the basic facial expressions of adults just hours after birth, as discussed in Chapter 3. The presence of this skill at such an early age contradicts Piaget’s view that initially infants are able to imitate only behavior that they see in others, using parts of their own body that they can plainly view— such as their hands and feet. In fact, facial imitation suggests that humans are born with a basic, innate capability for imitating others’ actions, a capability that depends on certain kinds of environmental experiences but one that Piaget believed develops later in infancy (Parsons et al., 2017; Nagy et al., 2020; Davis et al., 2021). Piaget’s work also seems to describe children from developed Western countries better than those in non-Western cultures. For instance, some evidence suggests that cognitive skills emerge on a different timetable for children in non-Western cultures than for children living in Europe and the United States. Infants raised in the Ivory Coast of Africa, for example, reach the various substages of the sensorimotor period at an earlier age than infants reared in France (Mistry & Saraswathi, 2003; Tamis-LeMonda et al., 2012; Menendez et al., 2020). Research on babies in non-Western cultures suggests that Piaget’s stages are not universal but are to some degree culturally derived. From a Caregiver’s Perspective In general, what are some implications for child-rearing practices because of Piaget’s observations about the ways children gain an understanding of the world? Would you use the same approaches in child-rearing for a child growing up in a non-Western culture? Why or why not? Despite these problems regarding Piaget’s view of the sensorimotor period, even his most passionate critics concede that he has provided us with a masterful description of the broad outlines of cognitive development during infancy. His failings seem to be in underestimating the capabilities of younger infants and in his claims that sensorimotor skills develop in a consistent, fixed pattern. Still, his influence has been enormous, and although the focus of many contemporary developmental researchers has shifted to newer information processing approaches that we discuss next, Piaget remains a pioneering figure in the field of development (Kail, 2004; Maynard, 2008; Fowler, 2017). Module 5.1 Review LO 5.1 Summarize the fundamental features of Piaget’s theory of cognitive development. Jean Piaget’s theory of human cognitive development involves a succession of stages through which children progress from birth to adolescence. As humans move from one stage to another, the way they understand the world changes. LO 5.2 Describe Piaget’s sensorimotor stage of cognitive development. The sensorimotor stage, from birth to about 2 years, involves a gradual progression through simple reflexes, single coordinated activities, interest in the outside world, purposeful combinations of activities, manipulation of actions to produce desired outcomes, and symbolic thought. The sensorimotor stage has six substages. LO 5.3 Summarize the arguments both in support of and critical of Piaget’s theory of cognitive development. Piaget is respected as a careful observer of children’s behavior and a generally accurate interpreter of the way human cognitive development proceeds, though subsequent research on his theory does suggest several limitations. Journal Prompt Applying Lifespan Development: Think of a common young child’s toy with which you are familiar. How might its use be affected by the principles of assimilation and accommodation? for more ebook/ testbank/ solution manuals requests: email [email protected] Chapter 5 Cognitive Development in Infancy 163 Information Processing Approaches to Cognitive Development Amber Nordstrom, 3 months old, breaks into a smile as her brother Marcus stands over her crib, picks up a doll, and makes a whistling noise through his teeth. Amber never seems to tire of Marcus’s efforts at making her smile, and soon whenever Marcus appears and simply picks up the doll, her lips begin to curl into a smile. Clearly, Amber remembers Marcus and his humorous ways. But how does she remember him? And how much else can Amber remember? To answer questions such as these, we need to diverge from the road that Piaget laid out for us. Rather than seeking to identify the universal, broad milestones in cognitive development through which all infants pass, as Piaget tried to do, we must consider the specific processes by which individual babies acquire and use the information to which they are exposed. We need, then, to focus less on the qualitative changes in infants’ mental lives and consider more closely their quantitative capabilities, as we do in this section. The Foundations of Information Processing LO 5.4 Describe how infants process information according to information processing approaches to cognitive development. Information processing approaches to cognitive development seek to identify the way that individuals take in, use, and store information. According to this approach, the quantitative changes in infants’ abilities to organize and manipulate information represent the hallmarks of cognitive development. Taking this perspective, cognitive growth is characterized by increasing sophistication, speed, and capacity in processing information. Earlier, we compared Piaget’s idea of schema to computer software, which directs the computer in how to deal with data from the world. We might compare the information processing perspective on cognitive growth to the improvements that come from use of more efficient programs that lead to increased speed and sophistication in the processing of information. Information processing approaches, then, focus on the types of “mental programs” that people use when they seek to solve problems (Cohen & Cashon, 2003; Fagan & Ployhart, 2015). ENCODING, STORAGE, AND RETRIEVAL. Information processing has three basic aspects: encoding, storage, and retrieval. Encoding is the process by which information is initially recorded in a form usable to memory. Infants and children—indeed, all people— are exposed to a massive amount of information; if they tried to process it all, they would be overwhelmed. Consequently, they encode selectively, picking and choosing the information to which they will pay attention. Even if someone has been exposed to the information initially and has encoded it in an appropriate way, there is still no guarantee that they will be able to use it in the future. Information must also have been stored in memory adequately. Storage refers to the placement of material into memory. Finally, success in using the material in the future depends on retrieval processes. Retrieval is the process by which material in memory storage is located, brought into awareness, and used. We can use our comparison to computers again here. Information processing approaches suggest that the processes of encoding, storage, and retrieval are analogous to different parts of a computer. Encoding can be thought of as a computer’s keyboard, through which one inputs information; storage is the computer’s hard drive, where information is stored; and retrieval is analogous to software that accesses the information for display on the screen (see Figure 5-3). Only when all three processes—encoding, storage, and retrieval—are operating can information be processed. information processing approaches the model that seeks to identify the way that individuals take in, use, and store information 164 PART 2 Infancy: Forming the Foundations of Life Figure 5-3 Information Processing The process by which information is encoded, stored, and retrieved. Encoding (initial recording of information) szefei/Shutterstock Retrieval (recovery of stored information) In some cases, encoding, storage, and retrieval are relatively automatic, and in other cases they are deliberate. Automatization is the degree to which an activity requires attention. Processes that require relatively little attention are automatic; processes that require relatively large amounts of attention are controlled. For example, some activities such as walking, eating with a fork, or reading may be automatic for you, but at first they required your full attention. Automatic mental processes help children in their initial encounters with the world by enabling them to easily and “automatically” process information in particular ways. For instance, by age 5, children automatically encode information in terms of frequency. Without a lot of attention to counting or tallying, they become aware, for example, of how often they have encountered various people, permitting them to differentiate familiar from unfamiliar people (Homae et al., 2012; Seyfarth & Cheney, 2013). Furthermore, without intending to and without being aware of it, infants and children develop a sense of how often different stimuli are found together simultaneously. This permits them to develop an understanding of concepts, categorizations of objects, events, or people that share common properties. For example, by encoding the information that four legs, a wagging tail, and barking are often found together, we learn very early in life to understand the concept of “dog.” Children—as well as adults—are rarely aware of how they learn such concepts, and they are often unable to articulate the features that distinguish one concept (such as a dog) from another (such as cat). Instead, learning tends to occur automatically. Some of the things we learn automatically are unexpectedly complex. For example, infants have the ability to learn subtle statistical patterns and relationships; these results are consistent with a growing body of research showing that the mathematical skills of infants are surprisingly good. Infants as young as 5 months old are able to calculate the outcome of simple addition and subtraction problems. In a classic study by developmental scientist Karen Wynn, infants first were shown an object—a 4-inch-high Mickey Mouse statuette. A screen was then raised, hiding the statuette. Next, the experimenter showed the infants a second, identical Mickey Mouse and then placed it behind the same screen (Wynn, 2000). Finally, depending on the experimental condition, one of two outcomes occurred. In the “correct addition” condition, the screen dropped, revealing the two statuettes (analogous to 1 + 1 = 2). But in the “incorrect addition” condition, the screen dropped to reveal just one statuette (analogous to the incorrect 1 + 1 = 1). Because infants look longer at unexpected occurrences than at expected ones, the researchers examined the pattern of infants’ gazes in the different conditions. In support of the notion that infants can distinguish between correct and incorrect addition, the infants in the experiment gazed longer at the incorrect result than at the correct one, indicating they expected a different number of statuettes. In a similar procedure, infants also looked longer at incorrect subtraction problems than at correct ones. The conclusion: Infants have rudimentary mathematical skills that enable them to understand whether a quantity is accurate. AUTOMATIZATION. Many of the tasks that are now automatic for you, such as holding a cup or using a fork, at one time required your full attention. Storage (information saved for future use) for more ebook/ testbank/ solution manuals requests: email [email protected] Chapter 5 Cognitive Development in Infancy 165 The existence of basic mathematical skills in infants has been supported by findings that nonhumans are born with some basic numeric proficiency. Even newly hatched chicks show some counting abilities. And it is not too long into infancy that children demonstrate an understanding of such basic physics as movement trajectories and gravity (Edwards et al., 2016; Christodoulou et al., 2017; Hung, 2021). The results of this growing body of research suggest that infants have an innate grasp of certain basic mathematical functions and statistical patterns. This inborn proficiency is likely to form the basis for learning more complex mathematics and statistical relationships later in life. Furthermore, infants’ understanding of numbers develops far earlier than they can count and say numbers out loud (Posid & Cordes, 2015; Smyth & Ansari, 2020; Wang et al., 2021). We turn now to several aspects of information processing, focusing on memory and individual differences in intelligence. Memory During Infancy: They Must Remember This... LO 5.5 Describe the memory capabilities of infants during their first 2 years of life. Arif Terzic was born during the war in Afghanistan. He spent his first 2 years hiding in a basement with his mother. The only light he saw came from a kerosene lamp. The only sounds he heard were his mother’s hushed lullabies and the explosion of shells. Someone he never saw left food for them. There was a water faucet, but sometimes the water was too filthy to drink. At one point, his mother suffered a kind of breakdown. She fed him when she remembered. But she didn’t speak. Or sing. Arif was lucky. His family emigrated to the United States when he was 2. His father found work. They rented a little house. Arif went to preschool and then kindergarten. Today, he has friends, toys, and a dog, and he loves soccer. “He doesn’t remember Afghanistan,” his mother says. “It’s like it never happened.” Certainly, infants have memory capabilities, defined as the process by which information is initially recorded, stored, and retrieved. As we’ve seen, infants can distinguish new stimuli from old, and this implies that some memory of the old must be present. Unless the infants had some memory of an original stimulus, it would be impossible for them to recognize that a new stimulus differed from the previous one. Infants’ capability to recognize new stimuli from old tells us little, however, about how age brings about changes in the capacities of memory and in its fundamental nature. Do infants’ memory capabilities increase as they get older? The answer is clearly affirmative. In one study, infants were taught that they could move a mobile hanging over the crib by kicking their legs. It took only a few days for 2-month-old infants to forget their training, but 6-month-old infants still remembered for as long as 3 weeks (Rovee-Collier & Cuevas, 2009; Oakes & Kovack-Lesh, 2013; Koch et al., 2020). Furthermore, infants who were later prompted to recall the association between kicking and moving the mobile showed evidence that the memory continued to exist even longer. Infants who had received just two training sessions lasting 9 minutes each still recalled the association about a week later, as illustrated by the fact that they began to kick when they were placed in the crib with the mobile. Two weeks later, however, they made no effort to kick, suggesting that they had forgotten entirely. But they hadn’t forgotten: When the babies saw a reminder—a moving mobile—their memories were apparently reactivated. The infants could remember the association, following prompting, for as long as an additional month. Other evidence confirms these results, suggesting that hints can reactivate memories that at first seem lost and that the MEMORY CAPABILITIES IN INFANCY. memory the process by which information is initially recorded, stored, and retrieved StockLite/Shutterstock How likely is it that Arif truly remembers nothing of his infancy? And if he ever does recall his first 2 years of life, how accurate will his memories be? To answer these questions, we need to consider the qualities of memory that exist during infancy. Infants who have learned the association between a moving mobile and kicking showed surprising recall ability when they were exposed to a reminder. 166 PART 2 Infancy: Forming the Foundations of Life Corbis/VCG/Getty Images older the infant, the more effective such prompting is (DeFrancisco & Rovee-Collier, 2008; Brito & Barr, 2014; Fisher-Thompson, 2017). Is infant memory qualitatively different from that in older children and adults? Researchers generally believe that information is processed similarly throughout the life span, even though the kind of information being processed changes and different parts of the brain may be used. According to memory expert Carolyn Rovee-Collier, people, regardless of their age, gradually lose memories, although, just like babies, they may regain them if reminders are provided. Moreover, the more times a memory is retrieved, the more enduring the memory becomes (Turati, 2008; Bell, 2012; Josselyn & Tonegawa, 2020). Though researchers disagree as to the age from which memories can be retrieved, people generally cannot remember events or experiences that occurred before age 3. infantile amnesia the lack of memory for experiences that occurred prior to 3 years of age THE DURATION OF MEMORIES. Although the processes that underlie memory retention and recall seem similar throughout the life span, the quantity of information stored and recalled does differ markedly as infants develop. Older infants can retrieve information more rapidly, and they can remember it longer. But just how long? Can memories from infancy be recalled, for example, after babies grow up? Researchers disagree on the age from which memories can be retrieved. Although early research supported the notion of infantile amnesia—the lack of memory for experiences occurring before 3 years of age—more recent research shows that infants do retain memories of these years. For example, in one study, 6-month-old infants were shown a series of unusual events, such as intermittent periods of light and dark and strange sounds. When the children were later tested at the age of 1½ years or 2½ years, they demonstrated that they recalled the experience. Other research indicates that infants show memory for behavior and situations that they have seen only once (Bucci & Stanton, 2017; Riggins et al., 2020; Peterson, 2021). Such findings are consistent with evidence that the physical trace of a memory in the brain appears to be relatively permanent; this suggests that memories, even from infancy, may be enduring. However, memories may not be easily, or accurately, retrieved. For example, memories are susceptible to interference from other, newer information, which may displace or block out the older information, thereby preventing its recall. One reason infants appear to remember less may be because language plays a key role in determining the way in which memories from early in life can be recalled: Older children and adults may only be able to report memories using the vocabulary that they had available at the time of the initial event, when the memories were stored. Because their vocabulary at the time of initial storage may have been quite limited, infants are unable to describe the event later in life, even though it is actually in their memories. It is also possible that the physical trace of the memories is unstable during early infancy, impairing their retrieval (Stylianopoulou & Stamatakis, 2017). The question of how well memories formed during infancy are retained in adulthood remains only partially answered. Although infants’ memories may be highly detailed and can be enduring if the infants experience repeated reminders, it is still not clear how accurate those memories remain over the course of the life span. Early memories are susceptible to misrecollection if people are exposed to related, and contradictory, information following the initial formation of the memory. Not only does such new information potentially impair recall of the original material, but the new material may be inadvertently incorporated into the original memory, thereby corrupting its accuracy (Cordón et al., 2004; Li, Callaghan, et al., 2014). In sum, the data suggest that although it is at least theoretically possible for memories to remain intact from a very young age—if subsequent experiences do not interfere with their recollection—in most cases memories of personal experiences in infancy do not last into adulthood. Current findings suggest that memories of personal experience seem not to become accurate before age 18 to 24 months (Howe et al., 2004; Bauer, 2007; Taylor et al., 2016). THE COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE OF MEMORY. Some of the most exciting research on the development of memory is coming from studies of the neurological basis of for more ebook/ testbank/ solution manuals requests: email [email protected] Chapter 5 Cognitive Development in Infancy 167 memory. Advances in brain scan technology, as well as studies of adults with brain damage, suggest that there are two separate systems involved with long-term memory. These two systems—explicit memory and implicit memory—retain different sorts of information. Explicit memory is memory that is conscious and can be recalled intentionally. When we try to recall a name or phone number, we’re using explicit memory. In comparison, implicit memory consists of memories of which we are not consciously aware but that affect performance and behavior. Implicit memory consists of motor skills, habits, and activities that can be remembered without conscious cognitive effort, such as how to ride a bike or climb a stairway. Explicit and implicit memories emerge at different rates and involve different parts of the brain. The earliest memories seem to be implicit, and they involve the cerebellum and brain stem. The forerunner of explicit memory involves the hippocampus, but true explicit memory doesn’t emerge until the second half of the first year. When explicit memory does emerge, it involves an increasing number of areas of the cortex of the brain (Bauer, 2007; Low & Perner, 2012; Donato et al., 2021). Research conducted on nonhumans reinforces the importance of the hippocampus in supporting memory development. For example, infant monkeys who have previously shown a preference for novel, previously unencountered stimuli lose their preference for novel stimuli when their hippocampus is removed. (Preference for novel stimuli is an indication of memory because one can’t prefer novel stimuli unless one recognizes that they haven’t seen the stimulus before.) Similarly, brain scans show that glucose activity in the brain is related to memory in infant monkeys and is also related to their preference for novel stimuli. In short, the neuroscience behind memory is increasingly being understood (Bachevalier et al., 2015; Gulli et al., 2020). Individual Differences in Intelligence: Is One Infant Smarter than Another? LO 5.6 Describe how infant intelligence is measured using information processing approaches. As anyone who has spent any time at all observing more than one baby can tell you, not all infants are alike. Some are full of energy and life, apparently displaying a natural-born curiosity, whereas others seem, by comparison, somewhat less interested in the world around them. Does this mean that such infants differ in intelligence? Answering questions about how and to what degree infants vary in their underlying intelligence is not easy. Although it is clear that different infants show significant variations in their behavior, the issue of just what types of behavior may be related to cognitive ability is complicated. Interestingly, the examination of individual differences between infants was the initial approach taken by Bernhard Classen/Alamy Stock Photo Maddy Rodriguez is a bundle of curiosity and energy. At 6 months old, she cries heartily if she can’t reach a toy, and when she sees a reflection of herself in a mirror, she gurgles and seems, in general, to find the situation quite amusing. Jared Lynch, at 6 months, is a good deal more inhibited than Maddy. He doesn’t seem to care much when a ball rolls out of his reach, losing interest in it rapidly. And unlike Maddy, when he sees himself in a mirror, he pretty much ignores the reflection. Infant intelligence is difficult to define and measure. Is this infant displaying intelligent behavior? 168 PART 2 Infancy: Forming the Foundations of Life developmental specialists to understand cognitive development, and such issues still represent an important focus within the field. Before we can address whether and how infants may differ in intelligence, we need to consider what is meant by the term intelligence. Educators, psychologists, and other experts on development have yet to agree on a general definition of intelligent behavior, even among adults. Is it the ability to do well in scholastic endeavors? Proficiency in business negotiations? Competence in navigating across treacherous seas, such as that shown by peoples of the South Pacific who have no knowledge of Western navigational techniques? It is even more difficult to define and measure intelligence in infants than it is in adults. Do we base it on the speed with which a new task is learned through classical or operant conditioning? How fast a baby becomes habituated to a new stimulus? The age at which an infant learns to crawl or walk? Even if we are able to identify particular behaviors that seem to differentiate one infant from another in terms of intelligence during infancy, we need to address a further, and probably more important, issue: How well do measures of infant intelligence relate to eventual adult intelligence? Such questions are not simple, and no simple answers have been found. However, developmental specialists have devised several approaches (summarized in Table 5-2) to illuminate the nature of individual differences in intelligence during infancy. WHAT IS INFANT INTELLIGENCE? Developmental psychologist Arnold Gesell formulated the earliest measure of infant development, which was designed to distinguish between normally developing and atypically developing babies (Gesell, 1946). Gesell based his scale on examinations of hundreds of babies. He compared their performance at different ages to learn what behaviors were most common at a particular age. If an infant varied significantly from the norms of a given age, they were considered to be developmentally delayed or advanced. Following the lead of researchers who sought to quantify intelligence through a specific score (known as an intelligence quotient, or IQ, score), Gesell (1946) developed a developmental quotient, or DQ. The developmental quotient is an overall developmental score that relates to performance in four domains: motor skills (for example, balance and sitting), language use, adaptive behavior (such as alertness and exploration), and personal–social behavior (for example, adequately feeding and dressing oneself). Later researchers have created other developmental scales. For instance, Nancy Bayley developed one of the most widely used measures for infants. The Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development evaluate an infant’s development from 16 days to 42 months. The Bayley Scales focus on two areas: mental abilities and motor abilities. The mental scale focuses on the senses, perception, memory, learning, problem solving, and language, and the motor scale evaluates fine and gross motor skills (see Table 5-3). Like Gesell’s approach, the Bayley approach yields a developmental quotient as well. DEVELOPMENTAL SCALES. developmental quotient an overall developmental score that relates to performance in four domains: motor skills, language use, adaptive behavior, and personal–social behavior Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development a measure that evaluates an infant’s development from 2 to 42 months in two areas: mental abilities and motor abilities Table 5-2 Approaches Used to Detect Differences in Intelligence During Infancy Developmental quotient Formulated by Arnold Gesell, the developmental quotient is an overall development score that relates to performance in four domains: motor skills (balance and sitting), language use, adaptive behavior (alertness and exploration), and personal–social behavior. Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development Developed by Nancy Bayley, the Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development evaluate an infant’s development from 2 to 42 months. The Bayley Scales focus on two areas: mental abilities (senses, perception, memory, learning, problem solving, and language) and motor abilities (fine and gross motor skills). Visual-recognition memory measurement Measures of visual-recognition memory, the memory and recognition of a stimulus that has been previously seen, also relate to intelligence. The more quickly an infant can retrieve a representation of a stimulus from memory, the more efficient, presumably, is that infant’s information processing. for more ebook/ testbank/ solution manuals requests: email [email protected] Chapter 5 Cognitive Development in Infancy 169 Table 5-3 Sample Items from the Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development Age 2 months 6 months 12 months 17–19 months 23–25 months 38–42 months Mental scale Turns head to locate origin of sound; visibly responds to disappearance of face Picks up cup by handle; notices illustrations in a book Constructs tower of two cubes; can turn pages in a book Mimics crayon stroke; labels objects in photo Pairs up pictures; repeats a twoword sentence Can identify four colors; past tense evident in speech; distinguishes males from females Motor scale Can hold head steady and erect for 15 seconds; sits with assistance Sits up without aid for 30 seconds; grasps foot with hands Walks when holding onto someone’s hand or furniture; holds pencil in fist Stands on right foot without help; remains upright climbing stairs with assistance Strings three beads; jumps length of 4 inches Can reproduce drawing of a circle; hops two times on one foot; descends stairs, alternating feet (Source: Based on Bayley, N. & & Aylward, G. P. (2019). Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development [BSID-III], 4th ed. Hoboken, NJ: Pearson.) A child who scores at an average level—meaning average performance for other children at the same age—receives a score of 100 (Bayley & Aylward, 2019; Del Rosario et al., 2021). The virtue of approaches such as those taken by Gesell and Bayley is that they provide a good snapshot of an infant’s current developmental level. Using these scales, we can tell in an objective manner whether a particular infant falls behind or is ahead of their same-age peers. The scales are particularly useful in identifying cases in which infants need immediate special attention. Tests might be administered if a parent or physician believes that an infant is suffering from developmental delays and to assess the significance of such delays. Based on the child’s scores, early intervention programs can be put in place (Bode et al., 2014; Abdoola et al., 2019). What such scales are not useful for is predicting a child’s future course of development. A child whose development is identified by these measures as relatively slow at the age of 1 year will not necessarily display slow development at age 5, or 12, or 25. The association between most measures of behavior during infancy and adult intelligence, then, is minimal (Burakevych et al., 2017). From a Health Care Provider’s Perspective In what ways is the use of such developmental scales as Gesell’s or Bayley’s helpful? In what ways is it dangerous? How would you maximize the helpfulness and minimize the danger if you were advising a parent? INFORMATION PROCESSING APPROACHES TO INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES IN INTELLIGENCE. When we speak of intelligence in everyday parlance, we often dif- ferentiate between “quick” and “slow” individuals. According to research on the speed of information processing, such terms hold some truth. Contemporary approaches to infant intelligence suggest that the speed with which infants process information may correlate most strongly with later intelligence, as measured by IQ tests administered during adulthood (Rose et al., 2012; Becker et al., 2021). How can we tell whether a baby is processing information quickly? To answer this question, most researchers use habituation tests. Infants who process information efficiently ought to be able to learn about stimuli more quickly. Consequently, we would expect them to turn their attention away from a given stimulus more rapidly than those who are less efficient at information processing, leading to the phenomenon of habituation. Similarly, measures of visual-recognition memory, the memory and recognition of a stimulus that has been previously seen, as well as attention and representational competence, also relate to IQ. The more quickly an infant can retrieve a representation of a stimulus from memory, the more efficient, presumably, is that infant’s information processing (Otsuka et al., 2014; Monroy et al., 2020). 170 PART 2 Infancy: Forming the Foundations of Life Research using an information processing framework clearly suggests a relationship between information processing efficiency and cognitive abilities: Measures of how quickly infants lose interest in stimuli that they have previously seen, as well as their responsiveness to new stimuli, correlate moderately well with later measures of intelligence. Infants who are more efficient information processors during the 6 months following birth tend to have higher intelligence scores between 2 and 12 years of age, as well as higher scores on other measures of cognitive competence (Rose et al., 2009; Otsuka et al., 2014). Other research suggests that abilities related to the multimodal approach to perception may offer clues about later intelligence. For instance, the ability to identify a stimulus that previously has been experienced through only one sense by using another sense (called cross-modal transference) is associated with intelligence. A baby who is able to recognize by sight a screwdriver that they have previously only touched, but not seen, is displaying cross-modal transference. Research has found that the degree of cross-modal transference displayed by an infant at age 1—which requires a high level of abstract thinking—is associated with intelligence scores several years later (Rose et al., 2015). Although information processing efficiency and cross-modal transference abilities during infancy relate moderately well to later IQ scores, we need to keep in mind two qualifications. First, even though there is an association between early information processing capabilities and later measures of IQ, the correlation is only moderately strong. Other factors, such as the degree of environmental stimulation, also play a crucial role in helping to determine adult intelligence. Consequently, we should not assume that intelligence is somehow permanently fixed in infancy. Second, and perhaps even more important, intelligence measured by traditional IQ tests relates to a particular type of intelligence, one that emphasizes abilities that lead to academic, and certainly not artistic or professional, success. Consequently, predicting that a child may do well on IQ tests later in life is not the same as predicting that the child will be successful later in life. Despite these qualifications, the relatively recent finding that an association exists between efficiency of information processing and later IQ scores does suggest some consistency of cognitive development across the life span. Whereas the earlier reliance on scales such as the Bayley Scales led to the misconception that little continuity existed, the more recent information processing approaches suggest that cognitive development unfolds in a more orderly, continuous manner from infancy to the later stages of life. (Also see Development in Your Life regarding ways of promoting infants’ cognitive development.) The information processing perspective on cognitive development during infancy is quite different from Piaget’s perspective. Rather than focusing on broad explanations of the qualitative changes that occur in infants’ capabilities, as Piaget does, information processing looks at quantitative change. Piaget sees cognitive growth occurring in fairly sudden spurts; information processing sees more gradual, step-by-step growth. (Think of the difference between a track-and-field runner leaping hurdles and a slow-but-steady marathon racer.) Because information processing researchers consider cognitive development in terms of a collection of individual skills, they are often able to use more precise measures of cognitive ability, such as processing speed and memory recall, than proponents of Piaget’s approach. Still, the precision of these individual measures makes it harder to get an overall sense of the nature of cognitive development, something at which Piaget was a master. ASSESSING INFORMATION PROCESSING APPROACHES. for more ebook/ testbank/ solution manuals requests: email [email protected] Chapter 5 Cognitive Development in Infancy 171 Development in Your Life What Can You Do to Promote Infants’ Cognitive Development? All parents want their children to reach their full cognitive potential, but sometimes efforts to reach this goal take a bizarre path. For instance, some parents spend hundreds of dollars enrolling in workshops with titles such as “How to Multiply Your Baby’s Intelligence” and buying books with titles such as How to Teach Your Baby to Read. Do such efforts ever succeed? Although some parents swear they do, there is no scientific support for the effectiveness of such programs. For example, despite the many cognitive skills of infants, no infant can actually read. Furthermore, “multiplying” a baby’s intelligence is impossible, and such organizations as the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Academy of Neurology have denounced programs that claim to do so. However, certain things can be done to promote cognitive development in infants. The following suggestions, based on the Provide infants the opportunity to explore the world. As Piaget suggests, children learn by doing, and they need the opportunity to explore and probe their environment. Be responsive to infants on both a verbal and a nonverbal level. Try to speak with babies, instead of at them. Ask questions, listen to their responses, and provide further communication. Talk to infants. Even before they understand the meaning of what you are saying, babies respond to your tone of voice and are learning about communication in significant ways that will help them develop their language skills. Read to infants. Although they may not understand the meaning of your words, they will respond to your tone of voice and the intimacy provided by the activity. Reading together also is associated with later literacy skills and begins to create a lifelong reading habit. Pearson Education, Inc. findings of developmental researchers, offer a starting point: Even if they don’t understand the meaning of the words, infants still benefit from being read to. Keep in mind that you don’t have to be with an infant 24 hours a day. Just as infants need time to explore their world on their own, parents and other caregivers need time off from childcare activities. Don’t push infants, and don’t expect too much too soon. Your goal should not be to create a genius; it should be to provide a warm, nurturing environment that will allow an infant to reach their potential. It’s as if information processing approaches focus more on the individual pieces of the puzzle of cognitive development, whereas Piagetian approaches focus more on the whole puzzle (Kagan, 2008; Quinn, 2008). Ultimately, both Piagetian and information processing approaches are critical in providing an account of cognitive development in infancy. Coupled with advances in the biochemistry of the brain and theories that consider the effects of social factors on learning and cognition, the two approaches help us paint a full picture of cognitive development. 172 PART 2 Infancy: Forming the Foundations of Life Module 5.2 Review LO 5.4 Describe how infants process information according to information processing approaches to cognitive development. Information processing approaches consider quantitative changes in children’s abilities to organize and use information. Cognitive growth is regarded as the increasing sophistication of encoding, storage, and retrieval. LO 5.5 Describe the memory capabilities of infants during their first 2 years of life. Infants clearly have memory capabilities from a very early age, although the duration and accuracy of such memories are unresolved questions. LO 5.6 Describe how infant intelligence is measured using information processing approaches. advances but are not strongly related to measures of adult intelligence. Information processing approaches to assessing intelligence rely on variations in the speed and quality with which infants process information. Journal Prompt Applying Lifespan Development: What information from this chapter could you use to refute the claims of books or educational programs that promise to help parents increase their babies’ intelligence or instill advanced intellectual skills in infants? Based on valid research, what approaches would you use for intellectual development of infants? Traditional measures of infant intelligence focus on behavioral attainments, which can help identify developmental delays or The Roots of Language Vicki and Dominic were engaged in a friendly competition over whose name would be the first word their baby, Maura, said. “Say ‘mama,’” Vicki would coo, before handing Maura over to Dominic for a diaper change. Grinning, he would take her and coax, “No, say ‘daddy.’” Both parents ended up losing—and winning—when Maura’s first word sounded more like “baba,” and seemed to refer to her bottle. Mama. No. Cookie. Dad. Jo. Most parents can remember their baby’s first word, and no wonder. It’s an exciting moment, this emergence of a skill that is, arguably, unique to human beings. But those initial words are just the first and most obvious manifestations of language. Many months earlier, infants began to understand the language used by others to make sense of the world around them. How does this linguistic ability develop? What is the pattern and sequence of language development? And how does the use of language transform the cognitive world of infants and their parents? We consider these questions, and others, as we address the development of language during the first years of life. The Fundamentals of Language: From Sounds to Symbols LO 5.7 language the systematic, meaningful arrangement of symbols that provides the basis for communication Outline the processes by which children learn to use language. Language, the systematic, meaningful arrangement of symbols, provides the basis for communication. But it does more than this: It is closely tied to the way we think and how we understand the world. It enables us to reflect on people and objects and to convey our thoughts to others. Language has several formal characteristics that must be mastered as linguistic competence is developed. They include: Phonology. Phonology refers to the basic sounds of language, called phonemes, that can be combined to produce words and sentences. For instance, the “a” in “mat” and the “a” in “mate” represent two different phonemes in English. Although English employs just 44 phonemes to create every word in the language, other languages have as many as 80 phonemes—and some as few as 15 (Swingley, 2017). for more ebook/ testbank/ solution manuals requests: email [email protected] Chapter 5 Cognitive Development in Infancy Morphemes. A morpheme is the smallest language unit that has meaning. Some morphemes are complete words, and others add information necessary for interpreting a word, such as the endings “-s” for plural and “-ed” for past tense. Semantics. Semantics are the rules that govern the meaning of words and sentences. As their knowledge of semantics develops, children are able to understand the subtle distinction between “Ellie was hit by a ball” (an answer to the question of why Ellie doesn’t want to play catch) and “A ball hit Ellie” (used to announce the current situation). In considering the development of language, we need to distinguish between linguistic comprehension, the understanding of speech, and linguistic production, the use of language to communicate. One principle underlies the relationship between the two: Comprehension precedes production. An 18-month-old may be able to understand a complex series of directions (“Pick up your coat from the floor and put it on the chair by the fireplace.”) but may not yet have strung more than two words together when speaking for themselves. Throughout infancy, comprehension also outpaces production. For instance, during infancy, comprehension of words expands at a rate of 22 new words a month, whereas production of words increases at a rate of about 9 new words a month, once talking begins (Phung et al., 2014; Swingley, 2017; Foursha-Stevenson et al., 2021; see Figure 5-4). Spend 24 hours with even a very young infant, and you will hear a variety of sounds: cooing, crying, gurgling, murmuring, and assorted other noises. These sounds, though not meaningful in themselves, play an important role in linguistic development, paving the way for true language (O’Grady & Aitchison, 2005; Martin et al., 2012). EARLY SOUNDS AND COMMUNICATION. Figure 5-4 Comprehension Precedes Production Throughout infancy, the comprehension of speech precedes the production of speech. Choose one vocalization/ speech skill and compare it to a corresponding language comprehension skill. Which skills emerge first and what is the length of time between the emergence of both skills? How might one skill rely on the other? Vocalization and Speech (Source: Based on Bornstein & Lamb, 1992.) 1 4 7 10 13 16 19 22 25 28 Uses first pronoun, phrase, sentence Uses two words in combination Says five words or more Says first word Two syllables with repetition of first: “ma-ma,” “da-da” Clear vocalization of several syllables Babbling Cooing One syllable Language Comprehension Average Age (months) 1 4 7 10 13 16 19 Average Age (months) 22 25 28 Understands two prepositions: “in,” “under” Repeats things said Names a picture in a book: “dog” Understands a simple question Understands a prohibition Responds to simple commands Understands gestures and responds to “bye-bye” Discriminates between friendly and angry talking Vocalizes to social stimulation Responds and attends to speaking voice 173 174 PART 2 Infancy: Forming the Foundations of Life babbling making speech-like but meaningless sounds Prelinguistic communication is communication through sounds, facial expressions, gestures, imitation, and other nonlinguistic means. When a father responds to his daughter’s “ah” with an “ah” of his own, and then the daughter repeats the sound, and the father responds once again, they are engaged in prelinguistic communication. Clearly, the “ah” sound has no particular meaning. However, its repetition, which mimics the give-and-take of conversation, teaches the infant something about turn-taking and the back-and-forth of communication (Salley et al., 2020). The most obvious manifestation of prelinguistic communication is babbling. Babbling, making speech-like but meaningless sounds, starts at the age of 2 or 3 months and continues until around the age of 1 year. When they babble, infants repeat the same vowel sound over and over, changing the pitch from high to low (as in “ee-ee-ee,” repeated at different pitches). After the age of 5 months, the sounds of babbling begin to expand, reflecting the addition of consonants (such as “bee-bee-bee-bee”). Babbling is a universal phenomenon, accomplished in the same way throughout all cultures. While they are babbling, infants spontaneously produce all of the sounds found in every language and not just the language they hear people around them speaking. Even deaf children display their own form of babbling: Infants who cannot hear and who are exposed to sign language babble with their hands instead of their voices. Their gestural babbling thus is analogous to the verbal babbling of children who can hear. Furthermore, as shown in Figure 5-5, the areas of the brain activated during the production of hand gestures are similar to the areas activated during speech production, suggesting that spoken language may have evolved from gestural language (Gentilucci & Corballis, 2006; Caselli, et al., 2012; Roemer et al., 2019). Babbling, which follows a prelinguistic stage of cooing, typically follows a progression from simple to more complex sounds. Although exposure to the sounds of a particular language does not seem to influence babbling initially, eventually experience does make a difference. By the age of 6 months, babbling reflects the sounds of the language to which infants are exposed (Plummer & Beckman, 2015; McGillion et al., 2017). The difference between cultures is so noticeable that even untrained listeners can distinguish between babbling infants who have been raised in cultures in which French, Arabic, or Cantonese languages are spoken. Furthermore, the speed at which infants begin homing in on their own language is related to the speed of later language development (Masapollo et al., 2016; Lang et al., 2020; Cychosz et al., 2021). There are other indications of prelinguistic speech. For instance, consider 5-month-old Marta, who spies her red ball just beyond her reach. After reaching for it and finding that she is unable to get to it, she makes a cry of anger that alerts her Figure 5-5 Broca’s Area Wellcome Department of Cognitive Neurology/Science Source Areas of the brain that are activated during speech, left, are similar to areas activated during the production of hand gestures, right. email [email protected] Chapter 5 Cognitive Development in Infancy 175 parents that something is amiss, and her mother hands it to her. Communication has occurred. Four months later, when Marta faces the same situation, she no longer bothers to reach for the ball and doesn’t respond in anger. Instead, she holds out her arm in the direction of the ball and, with great purpose, seeks to catch her mother’s eye. When her mother sees the behavior, she knows just what Marta wants. Clearly, Marta’s communicative skills—though still prelinguistic—have taken a leap forward. Even these prelinguistic skills are supplanted in just a few months, when the gesture gives way to a new communicative skill: producing an actual word. Marta’s parents clearly hear her say “ball.” FIRST WORDS. When a mother and father first hear their child say “Mama” or “Dada,” or even “baba,” as in the case of Maura, the baby described previously in this section, it is Deaf infants who are exposed to sign language do their own type of hard to be anything but delighted. But their initial enthusi- babbling, related to the use of signs. asm may be dampened a bit when they find that the same sound is used to ask for a cookie, a doll, and a ratty old blanket. First words generally are spoken somewhere around the age of 10 to 14 months but may occur as early as 9 months. Linguists differ on just how to recognize that a first word has actually been uttered. Some say it is when an infant clearly understands words and can produce a sound that is close to a word spoken by adults, such as a child who uses “mama” for any request she may have. Other linguists use a stricter criterion for the first word; they restrict “first word” to cases in which children give a clear, consistent name to a person, event, or object. In this view, “mama” counts as a first word only if it is consistently applied to the same person, seen in a variety of situations and doing a variety of things, and is not used to label other people (Hollich et al., 2000; Masataka, 2003; Koenig & Cole, 2013). Although there is disagreement over when we can say a first word has been uttered, no one disputes that once an infant starts to produce words, vocabulary increases at a rapid rate. By the age of 15 months, the average child has a vocabulary of 10 words and methodically expands until the one-word stage of language develop- holophrases ment ends at around 18 months. Once that happens, a sudden spurt in vocabulary one-word utterances that stand for occurs. In just a short period—a few weeks somewhere between 16 and 24 months a whole phrase, whose meaning of age—there is an explosion of language, in which a child’s vocabulary typically depends on the particular context increases from 50 to 400 words (Nazzi & Bertoncini, 2003; McMurray et al., 2009; in which they are used Dehaene-Lambertz, 2017). As you can see from the list in Figure 5-6, the first Figure 5-6 The Top 50: The First Words Children Understand and Speak words in children’s early vocabularies typically (Source: Based on Benedict, 1979.) regard objects and things, both animate and inanimate. Most often they refer to people or objects who Nominals constantly appear and disappear (“Mama”), to ani(e.g. “Dad” or “dog”) mals (“kitty”), or to temporary states (“wet”). These Action words first words are often holophrases, one-word utter(e.g. “peek-a-boo” or “eat”) ances that stand for a whole phrase, whose meaning depends on the particular context in which they are Modifiers (e.g. “big” or “mine”) used. For instance, a youngster may use the phrase “ma” to mean, depending on the context, “I want to Personal-social be picked up by Mom” or “I want something to eat, (e.g. “no” or “hi”) Mom” or “Where’s Mom?” (O’Grady & Aitchison, 70 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 2005; am-Zehnhoff-Dinnesen et al., 2020; also see Comprehension Production Developmental Diversity and Your Life). Christina Kennedy/Alamy Stock Photo for more ebook/ testbank/ solution manuals requests: 176 PART 2 Infancy: Forming the Foundations of Life Developmental Diversity and Your Life First Words Across the World Does the culture and language to which infants are exposed affect their first words? The answer is clearly yes. For example, one study looked at the first 10 words Moreover, culture has an effect on the type of first words spoken. For example, unlike North American English-speaking infants, who are more apt to use nouns initially, Chinese Mandarin- produced by infants in three cultures—North America, Hong speaking infants use more verbs than nouns. Interestingly, by the Kong, and Beijing—who spoke English, Putonghua, and age of 20 months, there are remarkable cross-cultural similarities Cantonese, respectively. The researchers found that although in the types of words spoken. For example, a comparison of there were commonalities (“Daddy” and “Mommy” were among 20-month-olds in Argentina, Belgium, France, Israel, Italy, and the first words used in all three cultures), there were also the Republic of Korea found that children’s vocabularies in every differences. For instance, among the English-speaking infants, culture contained greater proportions of nouns than other classes there were three people-related and four animal-related terms, of words (Bornstein et al., 2004; Andruski et al., 2014). but there were eight and nine people-related terms and no In short, there are both similarities and differences in the animal terms for the Cantonese and Putonghua speakers (Tardif earliest words spoken by infants due to the culture in which et al., 2008; Tardif et al., 2012). they are raised and the language spoken in their environments. When Aaron was 19 months old, he heard his mother coming up the back steps, as she did every day just before dinner. Aaron turned to his father and distinctly said, “Ma come.” In stringing those two words together, Aaron took a giant step in his language development. The explosive increase in vocabulary that comes at around 18 months is accompanied by another accomplishment: the linking together of individual words into sentences that convey a single thought. Although there is a good deal of variability in the time at which children first create two-word phrases, it is generally around 8 to 12 months after they say their first word. The linguistic advance represented by two-word combinations is important because the linkage not only provides labels for things in the world but also indicates the relations between them. For instance, the combination may declare something about possession (“Mama key”) or recurrent events (“Dog bark”). Interestingly, most early sentences don’t represent demands or even necessarily require a response. Instead, they are often merely comments and observations about events occurring in the child’s world (Rossi et al., 2012; Draghi & Zampini, 2019). Two-year-olds using two-word combinations tend to employ particular sequences that are similar to the ways in which adult sentences are constructed. For instance, sentences in English typically follow a pattern in which the subject of the sentence comes first, followed by the verb, and then the object (“Josh threw the ball”). Children’s speech most often uses a similar order, although not all the words are initially included. Consequently, a child might say “Josh threw” or “Josh ball” to indicate the same thought. What is significant is that the order is typically not “threw Josh” or “ball Josh,” but rather the usual order of English, which makes the utterance much easier for an English speaker to comprehend (Hirsh-Pasek & Michnick-Golinkoff, 1995; Masataka, 2003). Although the creation of two-word sentences represents an advance, the language used by children still is by no means adult-like. As we’ve just seen, 2-year-olds tend to leave out words that aren’t critical to the message, similar to the way we might write a telegram for which we were paying by the word. For that reason, their talk is often called telegraphic speech. Rather than saying, “I put on my shoes,” a child using telegraphic speech might say, “My shoes on.” “I want to ride the pony” might become “I want pony” (see Table 5-4). Early language has other characteristics that differentiate it from the language used by adults. For instance, consider Sarah, who refers to the blanket she sleeps with as “blankie.” When her Aunt Ethel gives her a new blanket, Sarah refuses to call the new one a “blankie,” restricting the word to her original blanket. FIRST SENTENCES. telegraphic speech speech in which words not critical to the message are left out for more ebook/ testbank/ solution manuals requests: email [email protected] Chapter 5 Cognitive Development in Infancy 177 Table 5-4 Children’s Imitation of Sentences Showing Decline of Telegraphic Speech Sample Sentences Speaker 26 months 29 months 32 months 35 months I put on my shoes Kim Darden Shoes Shoes on My shoes My shoes on I put on shoes Put on shoes Accurate Put on my shoes I will not go to bed Kim Darden No bed Not go bed Not go bed I not go bed I not go bed I not go to bed I not go to bed I will not go bed I want to ride the pony Kim Darden Pony, pony Want pony Want ride pony I want pony I want ride pony I want the pony I want to ride pony Accurate (Source: Based on Brown & Fraser, 1963.) Sarah’s inability to generalize the label of “blankie” to blankets in general is an example of underextension, using words too restrictively, which is common among children just mastering spoken language. Underextension occurs when language novices think that a word refers to a specific instance of a concept, instead of to all examples of the concept (Blank et al., 2020). As infants like Sarah grow more adept with language, the opposite phenomenon sometimes occurs. In overextension, words are used too broadly, overgeneralizing their meaning. For example, when Sarah refers to buses, trucks, and tractors as “cars,” she is guilty of overextension, making the assumption that any object with wheels must be a car. Although overextension reflects speech errors, it also shows that advances are occurring in the child’s thought processes: The child is beginning to develop general mental categories and concepts (Wałaszewska, 2011; Pinto & Xu, 2021). Infants also show individual differences in the style of language they use. For example, some use a referential style, in which language is used primarily to label objects. Others tend to use an expressive style, in which language is used mainly to express feelings and needs about oneself and others (Bornstein, 2000). Language styles reflect, in part, cultural factors. For example, mothers in the United States label objects more frequently than do Japanese mothers, encouraging a more referential style of speech. In contrast, mothers in Japan are more apt to speak about social interactions, encouraging a more expressive style of speech (Florit et al., 2021). The Origins of Language Development LO 5.8 Outline the major theories of language development. underextension the overly restrictive use of words, common among children just mastering spoken language overextension the overly broad use of words, overgeneralizing their meaning referential style a style of language use in which language is used primarily to label objects expressive style a style of language use in which language is used primarily to express feelings and needs about oneself and others learning theory approach to language the theory that language acquisition follows the basic laws of reinforcement and conditioning The immense strides in language development during the preschool years raise a fundamental question: How does proficiency in language come about? Linguists are deeply divided on how to answer this question. emphasizes the basic principles of learning. According to the learning theory approach, language acquisition follows the basic laws of reinforcement and conditioning discussed in Chapter 1 (Skinner, 1957). For instance, a child who articulates the word “da” may be hugged and praised by her father, who jumps to the conclusion that she is referring to him. This reaction reinforces the child, who is more likely to repeat the word. In sum, the learning theory perspective on language acquisition suggests that children learn to speak by being rewarded for making Lev Dolgachov/Alamy Stock Photo LEARNING THEORY APPROACHES: LANGUAGE AS A LEARNED SKILL. One view of language development In what ways do parents shape their children’s speaking abilities? 178 PART 2 Infancy: Forming the Foundations of Life sounds that approximate speech. Through the process of shaping, language becomes more and more similar to adult speech. There’s a problem, though, with the learning theory approach: It doesn’t seem to adequately explain how children acquire the rules of language as readily as they do. For instance, young children are reinforced when they make errors. Parents are apt to be just as responsive if their child says, “Why the dog won’t eat?” as they are if the child phrases the question more correctly (“Why won’t the dog eat?”). Both forms of the question are understood correctly, and both elicit the same response; reinforcement is provided for both correct and incorrect language usage. Under such circumstances, learning theory is hard-pressed to explain how children learn to speak properly. Children are also able to move beyond specific utterances they have heard and produce novel phrases, sentences, and constructions, an ability that also cannot be explained by learning theory. Furthermore, children can apply linguistic rules to nonsense words. In one study, 4-year-old children heard the nonsense verb “to pilk” in the sentence “the bear is pilking the horse.” Later, when asked what was happening to the horse, they responded by placing the nonsense verb in the correct tense and voice: “He’s getting pilked by the bear.” Such conceptual difficulties with the learning theory approach have led to the development of an alternative theory, championed by linguist Noam Chomsky and known as the nativist approach 2005). The nativist approach argues that there is a genetically determined, innate mechanism that directs the development of language. According to Chomsky, people are born with an innate capacity to use language, which emerges, more or less automatically, due to maturation. Chomsky’s analysis of different languages suggests that all the world’s languages share a similar underlying structure, which he calls universal grammar. In this view, the human brain is wired with a neural system called the language-acquisition device (LAD) that both permits the understanding of language structure and provides a set of strategies and techniques for learning the particular characteristics of the language to which a child is exposed. In this view, language is uniquely human, made possible by a genetic predisposition to both comprehend and produce words and sentences Bolhuis et al., 2014; Yang et al., 2017; Umarlebbe & Said, 2021). Support for Chomsky’s nativist approach comes from findings identifying a specific gene related to speech production. Further support comes from research showing that language processing in infants involves brain structures similar to those in adult speech processing, suggesting an evolutionary basis for language (Dehaene-Lambertz et al., 2006). The view that language is an innate ability unique to humans also has its critics. For instance, some researchers argue that certain primates are able to learn at least the basics of language, an ability that calls into question the uniqueness of the human linguistic capacity. Furthermore, some critics believe that infants’ use of general cognitive abilities underlies their language learning. Still others point out that although humans may be genetically primed to use language, its use still requires significant social experience for it to be used effectively (Goldberg, 2004; Ibbotson & Tomasello, 2016). NATIVIST APPROACHES: LANGUAGE AS AN INNATE SKILL. nativist approach to language the theory that a genetically determined, innate mechanism directs language development universal grammar Noam Chomsky’s theory that all the world’s languages share a similar underlying structure language-acquisition device (LAD) a neural system of the brain hypothesized to permit understanding of language Neither the learning theory nor the nativist perspective fully explains language acquisition. As a result, some theorists have turned to a theory that combines both schools of thought. The interactionist approach to language suggests that language development is produced through a combination of genetically determined predispositions and environmental circumstances that help teach language. The interactionist perspective accepts that innate factors shape the broad outlines of language development. However, interactionists also argue that the specific course of language development is determined by the language to which children are exposed and the reinforcement they receive for using language in particular ways. Social factors are considered to be key to development because the motivation provided by one’s membership in a society and culture and one’s interactions with others leads to the use of language and the growth of language skills (Dixon, 2004; Yang, 2006; Graf Estes, 2014). THE INTERACTIONIST APPROACHES. interactionist approach to language the perspective that suggests that language development is produced through a combination of genetically determined predispositions a