Bee & Boyd, Lifespan Development, Chapter 5
- 1. Cognitive Development in Infancy Chapter 5:
- 3. Cognitive Changes Piaget’s Views A quick review Assimilation Accommodation Sensorimotor intelligence
- 4. Cognitive Changes Piaget’s Sensorimotor Stage Sensorimotor stage Basic reflexes Primary circular reaction Secondary circular reaction Coordination of secondary schemas (means-end behavior) Tertiary circular reaction Transition to symbolic thought
- 5. Piaget’s Sensorimotor Stage by Age
- 6. Object permanence: Realization that objects still exist when hidden from sight • 2 months: surprise when an object disappears • 6–8 months: looking for missing object • 8–12 months: reaching for or searching for completely hidden toy Cognitive Changes Piaget: Object Permanence
- 7. Piaget’s Sensorimotor Stage Piaget: Imitation Imitation: Performance of act whose stimulus is observation of act performed by another person
- 8. Cognitive Changes Challenges to Piaget’s Views Underestimation of infant cognitive capacity Inaccurate equation of infant’s lack of physical ability with lack of cognitive understanding Underestimation of object permanence appearance beginning
- 9. Cognitive Changes Modern Studies of Object Permanence Recent theories Developing object permanence a process of elaboration rather than discovery Baillargeon Babies as young as 4 months show signs of object permanence but may be tied to experimental situations Around 1 year can use sufficiently across situations
- 10. Cognitive Changes Summary of Differences Piaget’s early research Baby comes with repertoire of sensorimotor scheme by construction—world understanding via experiences. Recent research Newborns have considerable awareness of objects as separate entities that follow certain rules.
- 11. Figure 5.1 Facial Gesture Imitation in Newborns
- 12. Cognitive Changes Spelke’s Alternative Approach Assumption: Babies have inborn assumptions about objects and their movement. Method: Violation of expectations method Researchers move an object the opposite way from that which the infant comes to expect. Let’s look at the next slide for an example.
- 13. Figure 5.2 Spelke’s Classic Study of Object Perception Figure 5.2
- 14. Cognitive Changes Baillargeon’s Alternative Approach Assumption: Knowledge about objects is not built in, but strategies for learning are innate. Method: Study of object stability perception Researchers stack smiling-face blocks in stable and unstable positions. Let’s look at the next slide for an example.
- 15. Figure 5.3 Baillergeon’s Study of Object Stability Perception
- 16. Stop and Think! After reviewing the information we have just covered, how would you explain an infant’s habit of throwing things out of her crib to a parent who viewed it as a misbehavior that needed to be corrected?
- 17. Learning, Categorizing, and Remembering Conditioning and Modeling Learning: Permanent changes in behavior that result from experience
- 18. Learning, Categorizing, and Remembering Schematic Learning Schematic learning: Organization of experiences into expectancies or “known” combinations (schemas) 7 months: Infants actively use categories, but not levels, to process information. 2 years: Hierarchical or superordinate categories appear.
- 19. What do data from sequential learning studies suggest? Infancy: respond to superordinate before basic level categories 12 months: understand basic and superordinate categories 2 years: partially understand smaller categories nested in larger categories 5 years: fully understand categories
- 20. Learning, Categorizing, and Remembering Memory Carolyn Rovee-Collier’s research Babies as young as 3 months old can remember specific objects and their own actions for as long as a week. Young infants are more cognitively sophisticated than was previously assumed.
- 21. Figure 5.5 Rovee-Collier’s Study of Infant Memory
- 22. Learning, Categorizing, and Remembering What else have we learned about memory?
- 23. The Beginnings of Language Theoretical Perspectives Let’s consider each!
- 24. The Beginnings of Language The Behaviorist View: B. F. Skinner Parent-reinforced babbling and grammar use Correct grammar reinforced, becomes more frequent Non-grammatical words not reinforced Is this what you observe when parents interact with very young children?
- 25. The Beginnings of Language The Nativist View Noam Chomsky Grammar rules acquired before exception mastery Rule-governed errors made (overregulation) Comprehension and production guided by Language Acquisition Device (LAD)
- 26. The Beginnings of Language More about the LAD Language Acquisition Device Basic grammatical structure for all human language Tells babies there are 2 types of sounds (consonants and vowels) Enables infants to divide, analyze, and learn sounds of the specific language they are learning
- 27. The Beginnings of Language Slobin Importance of “soundness” Infants are preprogrammed to attend to beginnings and endings of sounds and to stressed sounds. Programming is not attached to verbs or nouns, but to attention to sounds.
- 28. The Beginnings of Language The Interactionist View Four key ideas 1. Language follows rules as part of cognition. 2. Language includes internal and external factors. 3. Infants are born with biological preparedness to pay more attention to language than other information. 4. The infant brain has generalized tools used across all cognitive domains—NOT language- specific neurological model.
- 29. The Beginnings of Language Bowerman and Bloom Language does not initially introduce new meaning, but expresses meaning already formulated, independent of language. Children attempt to communicate and learn new words when these aid in the communication of thoughts and ideas.
- 30. The Beginnings of Language Influences on Language Development Infant-directed speech Higher pitch Repetitions with variations Infant preferred
- 31. Which language theory appears to be right to you? Why? What are 3 effective strategies parents may use to help stimulate language development in their children? Questions To PonderQuestions To PonderQuestions To PonderQuestions To Ponder
- 32. The Beginnings of Language Early Milestones of Language Development
- 33. Word Recognition Receptive Language Receptive language: Ability to understand words 8 months: begin to store words in memory 9–10 months: understands 20–30 words 13 months: 100 words
- 34. The Beginnings of Language Expressive Language Expressive language: Ability to produce words 12-13 months: Babies begin to say first words. Words learned slowly in context with specific situations and cues
- 35. The Beginnings of Language First Words Now let’s take a look at vocabulary growth during the toddler years.
- 36. Figure 5.6 Vocabulary Growth in the Second Year
- 37. The Beginnings of Language First Sentences Short, simple sentences appear at 18–24 months. Threshold vocabulary reaches around 100– 200 words. Sentences: Following rules created
- 38. The Beginning of Language Individual Differences in Language Development: Rate Differences in rate of language development A wide range of normal variations exists in sentence structures. Most children catch up. Those who don’t catch up have poor receptive language.
- 39. The Beginning of Language Individual Differences in Language Development: Style Differences in style Expressive style Early vocabulary linked to social relationships rather than objects Referential style Early vocabulary made up of names of things or people
- 40. Figure 5.7 Variations in the Rate of Language Acquisition
- 41. The Beginning of Language Language Development across Cultures Cooing, babbling, holophrases, and telegraphic speech typically found in all languages Use of specific word order in early sentences is not the same. Particular inflections are learned in highly varying and specific orders.
- 42. Measuring Intelligence in Infancy What Is Intelligence? Intelligence: Ability to take in information and use it to adapt to environment Although each infant develops at a different pace, both genetic and environmental factors influence infant intelligence. So how can infant intelligence be measured?
- 43. Measuring Intelligence in Infancy Bailey Scales of Infant Development Fagan Test of Infant Intelligence
- 44. True or False? Measures of habituation are related to later measures of intelligence.
Editor's Notes
- #4: Assimilation Process of fusing incoming information to existing schemes to make sense of experiences Accommodation Changing a scheme to incorporate new information Sensorimotor intelligence Refinement of innate schemes by experiences of the senses and motor actions
- #5: Primary circular reaction: simple repetitive actions organized around the infant’s own body Secondary circular reaction: baby repeatedly exhibits behavior to produce a desired outcome. Means-end behavior: purposeful behavior to achieve a goal Tertiary circular reaction: experiment with different behaviors to ascertain the outcomes.
- #6: Basic Reflexes The first schemes are inborn reflexes. EXAMPLES: Rooting, sucking, grasping reflexes 2. Primary Circular Reactions Infants discover actions involving their own bodies by accident, then learn by trial and error to repeat them until they become habits (schemes). EXAMPLES: At first, thumb comes to mouth by accident. Through trial and error, infants learn to reproduce the event until a thumb-sucking scheme becomes established. 3. Secondary Circular Reactions Infants discover actions involving objects in the environment by accident, then learn by trial and error to repeat them until they become habits (schemes). EXAMPLES: Holding a rattle, an infant may accidentally shake the rattle and enjoy the noise. Through trial and error, the infant learns to reproduce the event until a shaking scheme becomes established. 4. Coordination of Secondary Schemes Infants intentionally put two schemes together to solve a problem or reach a goal. Intentionality is a new feature—these new behaviors are no longer discovered by accident. EXAMPLES: An infant sees a toy behind a box, pushes the box aside, then reaches for the toy. The infant intentionally combined pushing and reaching schemes to reach the goal (the toy). 5. Tertiary Circular Reactions Babies are curious about objects in the world and explore them in a trial-and-error fashion, trying to produce novel reactions. EXAMPLES: A baby drops a ball from shoulder height and watches what happens. The baby then explores the “dropping scheme” by dropping the ball from hip height, then from head height, then from knee height, observing each new result. 6. Transition to Symbolic Thought Toddlers begin to form symbolic representations of events, showing the beginnings of mental thought. Representations still tend to be physical (rather than purely mental), as when toddlers use their own body movements to represent movements of objects in the world. EXAMPLES: An eighteen-month-old girl would like to open the lid of a box, and to think about this she opens and closes her hand repeatedly. Rather than work directly on the box, she first uses her hand motion as a way to “think” about how to open it. She is thinking about the box using a symbolic representation (her hand).
- #7: two months: rudimentary expectations shown by surprise when an object disappears six to eight months: looking for missing object for a brief period of time Eight to twelve months reaching for or searching for toy that is completely hidden
- #10: Biallargeon and others used possible/impossible events and habituation methods to study object permanence.
- #11: Biallargeon and others used possible/impossible events and habituation methods to study object permanence.
- #12: Seminal research agrees that an infant will imitate gesture of tongue protrusion but disagree as to how much an infant will imitate.
- #14: Ask: What do the data convey? Three conditions on top Actual results below Babies habituated and stopped looking at expected result but showed surprise when results were inconsistent.
- #16: Two- to three-month-olds think smiling blocks will not fall under either condition. Five-month-olds recognize stable condition.
- #18: Classical conditioning research Gunther and breastfeeding: babies who felt smothered by the left breast learned to refuse the left breast. Operant conditioning—reinforcements—sounds of mother’s voice or heartbeat, sweet liquids: the mother’s voice is an effective reinforcer for virtually all babies. Classical conditioning Learning of emotional responses as early as the first week of life Stimulus-response connection Operant conditioning Both sucking responses and head-turning have been increased using reinforcement. Learning from models too
- #19: Schematic learning—often called schemas—is built up over many exposures to a particular experience; help baby to distinguish between familiar and unfamiliar. Categories By seven months, infants actively use categories to process information. Cannot process levels of categories Babies respond differently to animals versus furniture but not to dogs versus birds. Hierarchical or superordinate categories appear by age two. Superordinates: a higher-level category that includes lower-level categories; animal is a superordinate that contains dogs.
- #20: Full understanding linked to language development and using words as category labels
- #21: Newborns appear to be able to remember auditory stimuli to which they are exposed while sleeping. Rovee-Collier hangs an attractive mobile over a baby’s crib, attaches a ribbon to the baby’s leg, records leg kicks. Her research supports the idea that the young infant is more developmentally sophisticated than developmentalists and Piaget had supposed. Infant memory is tied strongly to the context in which learning takes place. Change the mobile or the bunting even slightly and the memory will not be recalled.
- #23: Babies as young as three months old can remember specific objects and their own actions for as long as a week. Young infants are more cognitively sophisticated than previously assumed. “Lost” memories can be reactivated. With age, infant memories become less and less tied to specific cues or context.
- #24: Babies as young as three months old can remember specific objects and their own actions for as long as a week. Young infants more are cognitively sophisticated than previously assumed. “Lost” memories can be reactivated. With age, infant memories become less and less tied to specific cues or context.
- #25: Begins with babbling, which parents reinforce Respond to grammatical use of words with reinforcement Withhold reinforcement for nongrammatical words Correct grammar reinforced, becomes more frequent BUT apparently NOT what happens—parents respond to all vocalizations. Theory makes sense on surface and can explain some variations but does not completely tell the story of language acquisition.
- #26: LAD = An innate language processor which contains the basic grammatical structure of all human language Rule-governed grammatical errors: almost all three-year olds overregularize the past tense of verbs. “Yesterday we goed to the store,” or, “I breaked my cookie.” LAD separates sounds into vowels and consonants. All human languages have the same form, according to Chomsky.
- #30: Lois Bloom & Melissa Bowerman: “When language starts to come in, it does not introduce new meanings to the child. Rather, it is used to express only those meanings the child has already formulated.” Lois Bloom: from the beginning, the child’s attempt is to communicate, and he learns new words when they help him to communicate his thoughts and ideas.
- #31: Speech in a higher pitch Adults repeat often, introduce minor variations, and use slightly more elongated sentences. Babies prefer infant-directed speech to adult speech. A baby more easily imitates a correct grammatical form “recast” from his own sentences by an adult. Children whose parents talk to them a lot develop richer vocabularies and more complex sentences.
- #33: Initially, babbling contains all kinds of sounds; by nine or ten months, babies typically begin to babble closer and closer to the language they hear. Babbling is also linked to gestures for demanding or asking for something. Parents encourage gestures at this age as well.
- #34: Receptive language: the ability to understand words
- #35: Expressive language: the ability to produce words Repetition provides the mechanism for word production.
- #36: Young children learn and express more frequently used words first and then concentrate on others. Holophrases Combining a single word with gestures to make a complete thought Used between 12 and 18 months Naming Explosion Used between 16 and 24 months 16 months old: 50 words in vocabulary 24 months old: 320 words Vocabulary grows in spurts. Naming explosion includes names for things or people. Action words tend to appear later.
- #37: Goldfield and Reznick’s longitudinal study Vocabulary growth of six children Common language pattern: slow initial growth followed by growth spurt
- #39: Poor receptive language may lead to poor cognitive development in general.
- #40: Expressive style: These children often learn pronouns (you, me) early and use many more personal social words such as no, yes, want, or please; they use multi-word strings such as love you and do it or go away. Expressive language may sound advanced but often has a smaller vocabulary. According to Bates, referential style children are more cognitively oriented. They are drawn to objects, spend more time in solitary play, and interact with people more than objects. These children are often advanced in understanding adult language.
- #42: Some languages: noun/verb common Others: verb/noun Inflections: In Japanese, Yo is used at the end of a sentence when the speaker is experiencing some resistance from the listener; the word me is used when the speaker expects approval or agreement. In Turkish, there is no two-word sentence stage; essentially, all inflections are learned by age two.
- #43: Instead of testing school-like skills (skills an infant does not yet have), the items measure primarily sensory and motor skills, such as reaching for a dangling ring (an item for a typical baby at three months), putting cubes in a cup on request (nine months), or building a tower of three cubes (seventeen months). Some more clearly cognitive items are also included, such as uncovering a toy hidden by a cloth, an item used with eight-month-old infants to measure an aspect of object permanence.
- #44: Bailey Scales of Infant Development Measure sensory and motor skills Help identify children with serious developmental delays Not as useful predicting later intelligence Fagan Test of Infant Intelligence Standardized test of habituation (novelty preference, visual recognition) Useful when Bailey test cannot be used Instead of testing school-like skills (skills an infant does not yet have), the items measure primarily sensory and motor skills, such as reaching for a dangling ring (an item for a typical baby at three months), putting cubes in a cup on request (nine months), or building a tower of three cubes (seventeen months). Some more clearly cognitive items are also included, such as uncovering a toy hidden by a cloth, an item used with eight-month-old infants to measure an aspect of object permanence.
- #45: Maybe