Child Development 3e by Robert Feldman Chapter 6

• What are the fundamental features of Piaget’s theories of cognitive development? • How do infants process information? • How is infant intelligence measured? • By what processes do children learn to use language? • How do children influence adults’ language? Feldman Child Development, 3/e © 2004 Prentice Hall

Jean Piaget (1896 -1980) Action = Knowledge • Knowledge is the product of direct motor behavior • Stage approach to development – four distinct stages - sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, formal operational. These stages occur from birth to adolescence and a combination of physical development and relevant experience are necessary to move from one stage to another Feldman Child Development, 3/e © 2004 Prentice Hall

Sensorimotor Stage Substage 1: Simple Reflexes birth to 1 month Reflexes at the center of cognitive life Substage 2: First habits and Primary circular reactions 1 -4 months Coordinate separate actions into single, integrated actions Substage 3: Secondary circular reactions 4 -8 months Begin to act on outside world Substage 4: Coordination of secondary circular reactions 8 -12 months Calculated approaches. Object permanence begins Substage 5: Tertiary circular reactions 12 -18 months Carry out miniature experiments to observe consequences Substage 6: Beginnings of thought 18 -24 months Capacity for mental representation or symbolic thought. Imagine where objects might be that they cannot see. Feldman Child Development, 3/e © 2004 Prentice Hall

Transitions Feldman Child Development, 3/e © 2004 Prentice Hall

Piaget Concepts • Circular Reaction – an activity that permits the construction of positive schemes through the repetition of a chance motor event – Primary – schemes reflecting an infant’s repetition of interesting or enjoyable activities just for the enjoyment of doing them – Secondary – schemes regarding repeated actions that bring about a desirable consequence – Tertiary – schemes regarding the deliberate variation of actions that bring desirable consequences • • Goal-directed behavior – several schemes are combined and coordinated to generate a single act to solve a problem Mental representation – internal image of a past object or event Deferred imitation – when a person who is no longer present is imitated, eg pretend to drive when mom not there driving Object permanence – realization that people and objects exist even when they cannot be seen Feldman Child Development, 3/e © 2004 Prentice Hall

Piaget Concepts Feldman Child Development, 3/e © 2004 Prentice Hall

Criticism of Piaget’s Theory • Waves, not stages – Robert Siegler (1995) suggested development in waves, or ebb and flow, vs. stages • Motor development may not be the only basis – Piaget was not familiar with sensory and perceptual systems • Object permanence may occur earlier – motor skills or memory deficits may not allow that concept to develop earlier • Fixed pattern – infants may be able to imitate facial expressions earlier than Piaget proposed Feldman Child Development, 3/e © 2004 Prentice Hall

Information Processing Approaches Information is encoded, stored and retrieved much like a computer Feldman

Memory in Infants • Memory, the process by which information is initially recorded, stored and retrieved, is certainly in the realm of infants. Infant memory capabilities increase with age. • Infantile amnesia is a lack of memory for experience that occurred before 3 years old • Early memories appear to be implicit. Explicit memory emerges by the second half of the first year. Feldman Child Development, 3/e © 2004 Prentice Hall

Intelligence in Infants • Determining what is meant by intelligence in infants represents a major challenge for developmentalists. • Developmental quotient (DQ) is an overall developmental score that relates to performance in 4 domains: – – Motor skills- balance and sitting Language use Adaptive behavior – alertness and exploration Personal and social skills – feeding and dressing • Bayley Scales of Infant Development – used on 2 to 42 month old children and focuses on mental abilities: senses, perception, memory, learning, problem solving, language and motor skills: fine and gross motor skills Feldman Child Development, 3/e © 2004 Prentice Hall

Information Processing and Infants • Visual recognition memory – the memory and recognition of a stimulus that has been previously seen • Cross-modal transference – the ability to identify, using another sense, a stimulus that has previously only been experienced through one sense. For example, a baby recognizes a tool by sight that she only touched before • When this occurs in an infant at one year old, these skills are associated with intelligence scores years later • Piaget focused on qualitative changes and growth in spurts, whereas information processing looks at quantitative changes, a much more gradual approach Feldman Child Development, 3/e © 2004 Prentice Hall

Language and Infants Language is a systematic, meaningful arrangement of symbols that provides a basis for communication • Phonology refers to basic sounds of language • Morpheme is the smallest language unit that has meaning • Semantics are rules that govern meaning of words and sentences Feldman Child Development, 3/e © 2004 Prentice Hall

Language and Infants • • Prelinguistic communication refers to communication through sounds, facial expressions, gestures, imitation, and other nonlinguistic means Babbling refers to making speechlike but meaningful sounds Holophrases are one-word utterances that stand for a whole phrase, whose meaning depends on the context used Telegraphic speech is speech in which words not critical to meaning are left out Underextension – overly restrictive use of words, common among children just mastering spoken language Overextension – overly broad use of words, overgeneralizing their meaning Referential style – speaking style in which language is used primarily to label objects Expressive style- speaking style in which language is primarily used to express feelings and needs about oneself and others Feldman Child Development, 3/e © 2004 Prentice Hall

Learning Theory Approach vs. Nativist Approach • Learning theory says that language acquisition follows the basic laws of reinforcement and conditioning • Nativist approach states a genetically determined, innate mechanism directs language development Feldman Child Development, 3/e © 2004 Prentice Hall