Ch 5; Cognitive Development in Infancy

According to Piaget, what processes do children use as they construct knowledge of the world?

schemes, assimilation, accommodation, organization, equilibrium, and equilibration

schemes (piaget)

to understand the world, the developing brain creates schemes, these are actions or mental representations that organize knowledge. Behavioral schemes (physical activities) characterize infancy, and mental schemes (cognitive activities) develop in childho

assimilation (piaget)

this occurs when children using existing schemes to deal with new information or experiences

accommodation (piaget)

occurs when children adjust their schemes to take new information and experiences into account

organization (piaget)

the grouping of isolated behaviors and thoughts into a higher order, more smoothly functioning cognitive system

equilibration (piaget)

a mechanism that Piaget proposed to explain how children shift from one stage of thought to the next

disequillibrium (piaget)

cognitive conflict

Piaget (stage one of four)

Sensorimotor: birth to 2 years; infants construct an understanding of the world by coordinating sensory experiences with motoric action

Piaget Sensorimotor substages (6)

1. simple reflexes
2. first habits & primary circular reactions
3. secondary circular reactions
4. coordination of secondary circular reactions
5. tertiary circular reactions, novelty & curiosity
6. internalization of schemes

Piaget Stage one, substage 1
Simple Reflexes

birth to 1 month
coordination of sensation & action through reflexive behaviors
rooting, sucking, grasping

Piaget stage one, substage 2
First habits & primary circular reactions

1 to 4 months
coordination of sensation & 2 types of schemes; habits (reflex) & primary circular reactions (reproduction of an event that initially occurred by chance) main focus is still on the infants body. a circular reaction is a repetitive action
suc

Piaget stage one, substage 3
secondary circular reactions

4-8 months
infants become more object oriented, moving beyond self preoccupation; repeat actions that bring interesting or pleasurable results
coos to keep someone near, when they leave, the infant coos again

Piaget stage one, substage 4
coordination of secondary circular reactions

8-12 months
coordination of vision and touch-- hand-eye coordination; coordination of schemes & intentionality
infant manipulates a stick in order to bring an attractive toy within reach

Piaget stage one, substage 5
tertiary circular reactions, novelty, and curiosity

12-18 months
infants become intrigued by the many properties of objects and by the many things they can make happen to objects; they experiment w/new behavior
a block can be made to fall, spin, hit another object, and slide across the ground

Piaget stage one, substage 6
internalization of schemes

18-24 months
infants develop the ability to use primitive symbols and form enduring mental representations
an infant who has never thrown a temper tantrum before sees a playmate do it, the infant retains the memory then does it himself the next day

object permanence

the understanding that objects continue to exist even when they cannot be seen, heard or touched. according to Piaget, this is one the more important accomplishments of an infant, occurs between 4-8 months

core knowledge approach

Spelke endorses this, which states that infants are born with domain specific innate knowledge systems, basically saying that Piaget underestimated the cognitive abilities that infants already have at birth innately

gaze following

infants engage in this at 10-11 months
they follow someone else attention to something

attention

the focusing of mental resources on select information

joint attention

1. must be able to track or gaze another's behavior
2. requires one person't directing another
3. reciprocal interaction
@ 12 months, usually able to participate in joint attn, but can occur as early as 7-8 months, incr infants ability to learn
engaging o

Memory

involves the retention of information over time
implicit memory: w/o conscious recollection, skills performed automatically, crawling, walking etc
explicit memory: conscious remembering of facts & experiences

Bayley Scale

Used to assess motor, language, & cognitive initially and Bayley III now also includes socioemotional and adaptive. First 3 are administered to the infant, last 2 are questionares the caregiver answers.
Test for infants & toddlers, poor scores can warn of

What 2 regions in the brain are involved in language?

Broca's Area: an area in the L frontal lobe produces words. Damage here and person has difficulty producing words correctly
Wernicke's area: region in L hemisphere (temporal) involved in language comprehension. Damage here and person has poor comprehensio

What is child directed speech?

language spoken in a higher pitch than normal with simple words and sentences

Recasting

rephrasing something the child has said, perhaps turning it into a questions or restating in full grammatical sentence
child: dog barking
adult: When was the dog barking?

Expanding

restating something more sophisticated
child: doggie eat
adult: Yes the doggie is eating

labeling

identifying the names of objects "original name game

Spelke found that 4 mo old infants expected objects to be ____________ and ______________

continuous
solid

Sustained attention is also known as

focused attention

________________ is the increase in responsiveness after a change in stimulus

dishabituation

What is the process by which information gets into memory?

encoding

Researchers examined infants' understanding of causality using what method?

impossible events

What sounds do babies make in sequence?

crying (birth)
cooing (2-4 mos)
understands 1st word (5 mos)
babbling (ba, ba, ba 6 mos)
changes from universal linguist to language specific listener (7-11 mos)
gestures, comprehension of words starts (8-12 mos)
first spoken word (~13 mos)
vocabulary spu

morpheme

the minimal unit of meaning in a word

phonology

the sound system of the language, including the sounds that are used and how they may be combined

phoneme

basic unit of sound in a language, smallest unit of sound that affects meaning

morphology

refers to the units of meaning involved in word formation, it cannot be broken into smaller pieces, for example "help

syntax

involves the way words are combined to form acceptable phrases and sentences

semantics

refers to the meaning of words and sentences

pragmatics

the appropriate use of language in different contexts (ex; why is it so noisy in here? What is this Grand Central Station?_ means you understand the context

What is the difference between receptive and spoken vocabulary?

receptive is what you understand, spoken is what you use. An infants receptive vocab far exceeds its spoken vocab

Who was the most important early contributor to the testing of infants?

Arnold Gesell

What four categories of behavior did Gesell test?

motor
language
adaptive
personal-social
the development quotient (DQ) combines subscores in these categories to provide an overall score

Who proposed that humans are biologically prewired to learn language at a certain time and in a certain way? What was his theory called?

Linguist Noam Chomsky said children are born with a LAD (language acquisition device) a biological endowment that enables the child to detect certain features and rules of language including phonology, syntax and semantics

Which theorist believed that children learn language in specific contexts and through interaction?

Michael Tomasello

What is the core knowledge approach?

Spelke (who favors nature theory) endorses this theory which states infants are born with domain specific innate knowledge systems that involve space, number sense, object permanence, and language.

Labeling

identifying names of objects

What is perceptual categorization

categorizations are based on similar perceptual features such as size, color and movement as well as parts of objects such as legs for animals.

Gestures

infants start at 7-15 months, and these include showing, pointing, waving bye bye, nodding, showing cup to ask for more milk, pointing to dog

what is restating in a linguistically sophisticated form known as?

expanding
child: doggie eat
parent: yes, the doggie is eating

What is recasting?

rephrasing something the child has said, perhaps turning it into a question or restating the immature utterance into a grammatically correct sentence

What 2 regions of the brain are involved in language?

Broca's area (L frontal lobe)
Wernicke's area (L hemisphere, temporal lobe)

There was found to be a gender difference is interests between boys & girls, what are they?

boys: vehicles, trains, machines, dinosaurs, & balls
girls: dress up, books, reading

Why do infants make A not B errors?

failure in memory
they tend to repeat previous motor behaviors

overextension

the tendency to apply a word to objects that are inappropriate for the words meaning, ex saying dada for not just dad, but other men as well

What are some common characteristics of all human language?

infinite generativity
organizational rules

What is the view that emphasizes that language acquisition occurs because of both biological and environmental influences?

the interactionist view

What does the behaviorist perspective suggest?

that language is nothing more than chains of responses acquired through reinforcement

What does the Fagan Test evaluate?

the infant's ability to process information in such ways as encoding the attributes of objects, detecting similarities and differences between objects, forming mental representations, and retrieving these representations. to assess intelligence

According to Piaget, ___________ schemes develop in infancy, whereas _________ schemes develop in childhood.

behavioral (physical activities)
mental (cognitive activities)

When does an infant recognize its name?

by as early as 5 months