Chapter 6:

Cognitive Development in Infancy 

Piaget’s Theory of Infant Development 

•         Piaget proposed that 

–        Physical bodies can adapt to the world 

–        Humans build mental structures to aid adaptation 

–        Humans interactive with their environment 

–        Children think differently at various points in their  development–         

•         Schemes are patterns of actions and thoughts that organize knowledge. 

–        Actions are behavioral schemes. Their development characterizes infancy, such as that of simple actions and reflexes. 

–        Thoughts are cognitive activities or mental schemes, which develop in childhood, such as classifying objects by size, color, or shape.–         

•         Assimilation incorporates new information into existing knowledge. 

•         Accommodation adjusts existing knowledge to fit new information. 

•         Organization is Piaget’s concept of grouping isolated behaviors into a higher-order system

–        The child becomes skilled at using tools over time, one at a time until experiences become skills–         

•         Equilibration:

–        Piaget’s mechanism to explain how children shift from one stage of thought to another 

–        It is lost when children have cognitive conflicts 

–        Achieved when assimilation and accommodation are used together to resolve a conflict 

•         Piaget’s 6 substages of the sensorimotor stage of infant development last from birth to 2 years of age 

Piaget’s 6 Substages of Sensorimotor Development 

Substage	Age	Description
Simple reflexes	birth–1 month	Coordinates sensations, reflexes
First habits, primary circular reactions	1–4 months	Coordination of sensations, habits, and primary circular reactions; body is still main focus of infant
Secondary circular reactions	4–8 months	Infant becomes more object-oriented, repeats interesting/pleasurable acts
Coordination of secondary circular reactions	8–12 months	Coordination of vision and touch, eye–hand coordination, intentional acts, coordination of schemes
Tertiary circular reactions, novelty, & curiosity	12–18 months	Infants intrigued by properties of, and things done with, objects; experiments with new behaviors
Internalization of schemes	18–24 months	Infant develops ability to use primitive symbols, forms lasting mental images

  

•         At the end of sensorimotor stage:

–        Object permanence is understood

–        Infant understands a differentiation between self and world  

•         At around 5.5 and 6.5 months of age, an infant can understand simple causal factors  

•         Piaget’s work is criticized as

–        Being too vague

–        Underestimating infant ability

–        Being based mostly on his children’s infancy

 

Learning and Remembering 

•         Conditioning:

–        Consequences following a behavior affects whether behavior is repeated

–        Rovee-Collier showed infants have memory of conditioned experiences 

•         Attention:

–        Infants can scan and fixate on objects

–        4-month-olds show selective attention

–        Infant attention governed by novelty and habituation, respond to changed stimuli 

•         Meltzoff: imitation abilities are biological because infants can imitate facial expressions within a few days after birth  

•         Piaget: deferred imitation occurs at about 18 months but Meltzoff showed that it occurred at 9 months 

•         Memory: retention of information over time

–        Implicit memory is performed automatically without conscious recollection

–        Explicit memory is conscious memory of facts and experiences; occurs in infants after 6 months 

•         Infantile or childhood amnesia:

–        Inability to recall memories of events that occurred before 3 years of age

–        May be caused by immaturity of prefrontal
lobes of the brain  

 

Individual

Differences in

Intelligence 

•         Individual differences in infant cognitive development are important:

–        Development testing emphasizes “norms”

–        Infants assessed mostly based on assessment scales and intelligence tests

–        Identifying an infant’s development as slow, normal, or advanced has advantages:

•         If slow – provide more enrichment

•         If advanced – provide more stimulating toys 

•         Types of infant cognitive assessment: 

–        Gesell’s developmental quotient (DQ) has 4 categories of behavior: motor, language, adaptive, and personal–social 

–        Bayley Scales of Infant Development
have three components to predict later development: mental scale, motor scale,
and infant behavior profile

–        Fagan Test of Infant Intelligence focuses on infant’s ability to process information

•         Estimates a baby’s intelligence by comparing amount of time spent looking at an object with amount of time spent looking at familiar object 

•         Infant intelligence tests are valuable in assessing effects of maternal deprivation and environmental stimulation; but not highly correlated with later childhood IQ scores 

 

Language

Development 

•         Wild or feral children are raised in isolation and unable to recapture normal language development despite intensive intervention later

–        For example:

•         Victor, Wild Boy of Aveyron

•         Genie: 13-year-old found in 1970 in Los Angeles

–        Both cases raise questions about biological and environmental determinants of language 

•         Language is a system of words, symbols, and gestures that create shared communication that transcends time (future, present, and past)    

•         Language’s five systems of rules:

–        Phonology: sound system of language, with phoneme being smallest unit of sound with meaning 

–        Morphology: units of meaning in word formation,  with morpheme being the smallest unit of meaning  

–        Syntax: how words are combined  

–        Semantics: the meanings of sentences and words 

–        Pragmatics: use of appropriate language in different contexts 

•         Language develops in infants throughout the world along a similar path and sequence

–        Infant’s ability to recognize native
language, for English speakers this
includes distinguishing “r” from “t” 

•         On average, a child

–        Understands about 50 words at age 13 months

–        Speaks first word at 10–15 months of age

–        Can speak about 50 words at 18 months of age 

–        Average 2-year-old can speak about 200 words 

–        Vocabulary spurt begins at approximately
18 months of age

•         Two-word utterances occur at about
18–24 months

•         Overextension and underextension of words are common

•         Telegraphic speech is use of short and precise words

•         There is evidence that

–        Language has a biological basis

–        Everyone “knows” its rules and has ability to create infinite numbers of words and sentences 

•         Specific regions of the brain are predisposed to be used for language

–        Broca’s Area

–        Wernicke’s Area 

•         Chomsky: humans are prewired for language

–        Chomsky’s language acquisition device (LAD) is a theoretical construct only  

•         Behaviorists claim language is a complex learned skill acquired through responses and reinforcements

•         Studies found link between size of child’s vocabulary and mother’s talkativeness

•         Young children’s vocabularies are linked to family socioeconomic status 

•         Three strategies to enhance child’s acquisition of language other than child-directed speech

–        Recasting: rephrasing something the child has said

–        Expanding state: repeating what the child has said but in correct structure

–        Labeling: identifying the names of objects