Chapter Six

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Chapter Six

• The First Two Years
• Cognitive Development

PowerPoints prepared by Cathie Robertson,
Grossmont College
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Sensorimotor Intelligence

• Sensoritmotor intelligenceactive intelligence
  causing babies to think while using senses and
  motor skills

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Stages 1 and 2 Primary Circular Reactions

• The feedback loop involving the infants own body
  infant senses motion and tries to make sense of
  it
• Stage 1 Reflexes
• Stage 2 First Acquired Adaptations
• adaptations of reflexes, i.e., suckingnew
  information taken in by senses and responded to

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Stages 1 and 2 Primary Circular Reactions, cont.

• Assimilation and Accommodation
• assimilationtaking in new information by
  incorporating it into previous knowledge
• accommodation intake of new data to re-adjust,
  refine, expand prior schema or actions
• babies eagerly adapt their reflexes and senses
  to whatever experiences they have

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Stages 1 and 2 Primary Circular Reactions, cont.

• Sucking as a Stage-Two Adaptation
• begin adapting at about one month
• reflexive assimilation

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Stages 3 and 4 Secondary Circular Reactions

• feedback loop involving people and objects
• Stage 3 Making Interesting Events Last
• repetition
• awareness
• Stage 4 New Adaptation and Anticipation
• goal-directed behavior
• object permanence

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Stages 5 and 6 Tertiary Circular Reactions

• Feedback loop that involves active
  experimentation and exploration
• involves creativity, action, and ideas
• Stage 5 New Means Through Active
  Experimentation
• little scientist

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Stages 5 and 6 Tertiary Circular Reactions, cont.

• Stage 6 New Means Through Mental Combinations
• mental combinationssequence of mental actions
  tried out before actual performance
• deferred imitationperception of something
  someone else does (modeling), then performing
  action at a later time

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Piaget and Modern Research

• Habituationprocess of getting used to an object
  or event through repeated exposure to it
• fMRIfunctional magnetic resonance imaging
  measuring technique for brain activity and
  neurological responses
• First three years are prime time for cognitive
  development

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Information Processing

• Information-processing theory perspective that
  compares human thinking processes to computer
  analysis of data, including sensory input, stored
  memories, and output

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Affordances

• Affordancesopportunities for perception and
  interaction offered by environment
• How something is perceived and acted upon depends
  on
• past experiences
• current developmental level
• sensory awareness of opportunities
• immediate needs and motivation

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Sudden Drops

• Visual cliff measures depth perception, which is
  based not on maturity level but affordance
• depends on prior experience
• Object Constancy
• things remain what they are, despite changes in
  perception or appearance
• boundaries of three-dimensional objects

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Movement and People

• Dynamic perception1 of the 2 principles
  explaining infant perception namely, that from
  birth perception is primed to focus on movement
  and change
• 2nd principle explaining infant perception is
  that babies are fascinated by people
• Infants most interested in emotional affordances
  of their caregivers

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Memory

• Certain amount of experience and maturation in
  order to process and remember experiences
• In first year infants have great difficulty
  storing new memories
• Older children often unable to describe events
  that occurred when they were younger

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Memory, cont.

• Very early memories possible if
• situation similar to real life
• motivation high
• special measures aid retrieval by acting as
  reminders

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Reminders and Repetition

• Reminder sessionany perceptual experience that
  helps a person recall an idea or experience

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A Little Older, A Little More Memory

• After 6 months infants capable of retaining
  information for longer periods of time with less
  reminding
• Deferred imitation apparent after end of first
  year
• By middle of the 2nd year, children capable of
  remembering and reenacting complex sequences

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A Little Older, A Little More Memory, cont.

• Memory is not just single entity distinct brain
  regions for particular aspects of memory humans
  have a memory for
• words
• images
• actions
• smells
• experiences
• memorized facts

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Language What Develops in Two Years?

• Most impressive intellectual achievement of young
  child and also of all humans

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The Universal Sequence of Language Development

• Children around the world have the same sequence
  of early language development but
• timing and depth of linguistic ability vary

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First Noises and Gestures

• Baby talkhigh-pitched, simplified, and
  repetitive ways adults talk to babies
• Vocalization
• crying
• cooing
• Babbling
• deaf babies do it later and less frequently, but
  are more advanced in use of gestures

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First Words

• First word and sentences at age of 1 year

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The Language Explosion and Early Grammar

• Naming explosionsudden increase in infant
  vocabulary, especially nouns, beginning at 18
  months
• Holophrasesingle word that expresses a complete,
  meaningful thought
• Grammarall the methods that languages use to
  communicate meaning

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Theories of Language Learning

• Even the very young use language well
• Three schools of thought
• infants are taught language
• infants teach themselves
• social impulses foster infant language

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Theory 1 Infants are Taught

• Skinners reinforcement theory quantity and
  quality of talking to child affects rate of
  language development (learned)
• parents are good instructors
• baby talk characterized by
• high pitch
• simpler vocabulary
• shorter sentence length
• more questions and commands
• repetition

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Theory 2 Infants Teach Themselves

• Chomsky and LAD (Language Acquisition
  Device)hypothesized neurological (inborn)
  structure that prewires all children for
  language, including basic aspects of intonation,
  grammar, and vocabulary
• infants innately ready to use their minds to
  understand and speak whatever language offered to
  them
• they are experience expectant

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Theory Three Social Impulses Foster Language

• Social-pragmaticsocial reason for language to
  communicate
• Infants seek to respond, which shows their being
  social in nature and thus mutually dependentby
• vocalizing
• babbling
• gesturing
• listening
• pointing

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A Hybrid Theory

• Emergentist coalitioncombination of valid
  aspects of several theories
• cortex contains many language centers
• nature provides several paths to learning
  language