INFANCY

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Chapter 5

• INFANCY
• Cognitive and Language Development

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Cognitive Development
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Learning A Definition

• Change in behavior
• Change must be relatively stable.
• Change must result from experience.

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How Soon Do Infants Start Learning?

• Learning in the Womb
• De Casper
• Cat in the Hat
• Newborn Learning
• Sameroffs experiments

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Piaget The Sensorimotor Period

• Refers to the coordination of motor activities
  with sensory inputs.
• Capacity to look at what theyre listening to
• Object permanence Capacity to view the external
  world as permanent
• Inability to represent world internally

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Neo-and Post-Piagetian Research

• Playing is Learning
• Playing gives babies clues as to what they
  should do and when they should do it.
• Consequences of Maternal Depression
• Youngster lags behind in emotional, language and
  social development

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Bruner on Modes of Cognitive Representation

• We know something in three ways
• Enactive doing it
• Ikonic picture or image of it
• Symbolic language

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Continuity in Cognitive Development from Infancy

• Decrement and Recovery in Attentiveness
• Two components of attention indicative of
  intelligence in youngsters
• Decrement of attention
• Recovery of attention

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Language and Thought
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Language

• Language a structured system of sound patterns
  that have socially standardized meanings.

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The Functional Importance of Language

• Two contributions
• Communication The process by which people
  transmit information, ideas, attitudes and
  emotions
• Facilitation of thought and other processes.

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Language as Container of Thought

• Thought takes place independently of language
• Words are only necessary to convey thought to
  others.

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Language as a Determinant of Thought

• Language develops parallel with, or prior to,
  thought.
• Conceptualization Grouping perceptions into
  classes or categories based on similarities.

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Theories of Language Acquisition
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Nativist Theories

• Noam Chomsky et.al.
• Human beings begin life with the underpinnings of
  later speech perception and comprehension.
• Pre-wired by their brain circuitry for language
  use

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Chomskys Theory of Language Development

• Language Acquisition Device
• All languages possess
• Surface Structure
• Deep Structure
• Transformational grammar biologically built in.

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Other Nativist Studies

• The Twins Early Development Study (TEDS)
• The Cambridge Language and Speech Project
• Genetics of Developmental Dyslexia
• International Molecular Genetics Study of Autism

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Arguments for Nativist Theories

• Children Acquire Language with Little Difficulty
• Adult Speech is Inconsistent, Garbled and Sloppy
• Childrens Speech is not a Mechanical Playback of
  Adult Speech.

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Learning and Interactionist Theories

• Caretaker Speech
• Interactional Nature of Caretaker Speech
• Motherese

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Language Development
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Communication Processes

• Nonverbal Communication or Body Language
• Physical movements
• Gaze
• Pointing
• Paralanguage

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The Sequence of Language Development

• From Vocalization to Babbling
• Babbling
• Receptive Vocabulary
• Holophrases
• Overextension
• Two-Word Sentences
• Telegraphic Speech

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Bilingualism

• Critical period of language acquisition prior
  to onset of puberty
• Best time to learn a new language is early in
  life.