A topical approach to life span development, 6e chapter 5

Infancy Chapter Cognitive Development • Piaget's Theory • How biology and experience sculpts cognitive development • Children construct their own cognitive worlds and have systematic changes in their thinking Piaget's Cognitive Processes • Schemes- the brain creates actions (infants) or mental representations (child) that organize knowledge • Baby schemes are simple actions that can be performed like sucking, looking, and grasping (sucking a bottle) • Older Child schemes are strategies and plans for solving problems (opening a door to get a toy) • Adult schemes (driving a car) Piaget's Cognitive Processes • Assimilation-the child uses existing schemes to deal with new information or experiences • • Child sucks bottle and fingers to eat Accommodation -the child adjust their schemes to take new information and experiences into account • • Child sucks bottle to eat but learns to grab finger to play Organization- the child groups isolated behaviors and thoughts into a higher order, smoothly functional system • Refining behaviors and organizing knowledge Piaget's Cognitive Processes • Equilibration- children shift from one stage of thought to the next • As they constantly assimilate and accommodate to seek equilibrium from disequilibrium Piaget • Piaget's Theory- (first stage) Sensorimotor Stage • • substages Object Permanence • By the end of the sensorimotor stage • Objects and events continue to exist even when they cannot directly be seen heard,or touched by the child • Piaget calls a 'landmark cognitive accomplishment How infants learn, remember and conceptualize • Operant Conditioning- consequences of a behavior reduce changes in the probability of the behavior's occurrence • Habituation- decreased responsiveness to a stimulus after repeated presentations of the stimulus • • Dishabituation- the increase in responsiveness after a change in stimulation Infants attention is strongly governed by novelty and habituation How infants learn, remember and conceptualize • Attention- the focusing of mental resources on select information and improves cognitive processing • Important role in memory as part of the a process called encoding • The process by which information is transferred to memory How infants learn, remember and conceptualize • Memory-the retention of information over time • Implicit memory- memory refers to memory without conscious recollection • • Memories of skills and routine procedures that are performed automatically Explicit memory-referees to conscious remembering of facts and experiences How infants learn, remember and conceptualize • Imitation (Meltzoff) • Infants don't blindly imitate everything they see • Beginning at birth there is an interplay between learning by observing and learning by doing How infants learn, remember and conceptualize • Concepts -key aspects of infants' cognitive development • Cognitive groupings of similar objects, people, or ideals • Mandler - 7-9 months of age-infants form conceptual categories Measures of Development • Gesell's scale-distinguishes normal and abnormal infants • • Provides a developmental quotient Developmental quotient (DQ) -an overall score that combines sub scores in motor, language, adaptive, and personal-social domains in the Gesellschaft assessment of infants Measures of Development • Bayley Scale - assess infant behavior and predict later development • • Mental Scale, Motor Scale, Behavior Profile Baylee-III - Scales • Cognitive, Language, Motor (infant related) • Socioemotional and Adaptive (Caregiver) Language Development • Rule Systems (figure 5.9) • Phonology - a Phoneme is the smallest sound unit in a language • Morphology - a morphemes, meaningful units involved in word formation • Syntax - the way words are combined and/or ordered to form acceptable phrases and sentences • Semantics- meaningful words and sentences • Pragmatic so- the system of using appropriate conversation and knowledge of how to effectively use language in content Language Development • Language Milestones (figure 5.12) • Crying (birth) • Cooing begins (1-2 months) • Understanding first word (5 months) • Babbling begins (6 months) • Language specific-listener (7-11 months) • Uses gesters, such as pointing, comprehension of words (8-12 months) • First word spoken(13 MONTHS) • Vocabulary spurt starts (18 MONTHS) • Two word utterances (18-24 months) Language Influences • Biological view- Children are born with ability to detect basic features and rules of language • Behaviorist view- children acquire language as a result of reinforcements (still not proven) • Environmental view-children development of langurs is a consequence of being exposed to different language environments in the home • • Parents should talk extensively with an infant, especially about what the baby is attending to Interactionist View- Social and linguistics capacities make language acquisition inevitable • All agree that both biological capacity and relevant experience are necessary Parental Influences (page 161) • Be an active conversational partner • Talk in a slowed-down pace and don't worry about how you sound to other adults when you talk to your baby • Use parent-look and parent-gesters, and name what you are looking at • When • Play games • Remember to listen • Expand and elaborate language abilities and horizons with infants and toddlers • Adjust to your child's idiosyncrasies instead of working against them you talk with infants and toddlers, be simple, concrete, and repetitive  ... sound to other adults when you talk to your baby • Use parent-look and parent-gesters, and name what you are looking at • When • Play games • Remember to listen • Expand and elaborate language abilities... All agree that both biological capacity and relevant experience are necessary Parental Influences (page 161) • Be an active conversational partner • Talk in a slowed-down pace and don''t worry about... Parents should talk extensively with an infant, especially about what the baby is attending to Interactionist View- Social and linguistics capacities make language acquisition inevitable • All