n The First Two Years: Cognitive Development
n Slides prepared by Kate Byerwalter, Ph.D., Grand Rapids Community College
n What is “cognition”?
n Cognition refers to thinking, including language, learning, memory, and intelligence.
n Jean Piaget (born 1896) was a pioneer in studying cognitive development in humans.
n More recent research has both validated and extended Piaget’s ideas about infant’s cognitive abilities.
n Sensorimotor Intelligence
n Piaget’s first stage of cognitive development, characterized by learning through senses and motor actions.
n Adaptation to New Ideas Includes:
n Assimilation: taking new information in by incorporating it into previous “schemas” (categories)
¨ Example: A red ball bounces like a blue ball.
n Accommodation: requires an adjustment of previous schemas upon new information
¨ Example: A red tomato does NOT bounce like a red ball!
n Stages One and Two of Sensorimotor Intelligence
n Stage One: the stage of reflexes
n Stage Two: first acquired adaptations
¨ Example: An infant sucks a bottle differently than the mother’s nipple.
n Primary circular reactions: repetitive actions with the infant’s own body
¨ Stages Three and Four of Sensorimotor Intelligence
n Stage Three: interaction with objects/others
¨ Example: infant smiles when they shake a rattle (secondary circular reaction).
n Stage Four: new adaptations and anticipation
¨ The infant shows goal-directed behavior
¨ Object permanence begins
n Quiz: Which stage is this?
n Stage Five of Sensorimotor Intelligence
n Stage Five: new means through active experimentation
¨ Piaget called infants in this stage “little scientists” because of their need for experimentation.
¨ Example: An infant drops her spoon to see what will happen.
n Stage Six of Sensorimotor Intelligence
n Stage Six: new means through mental combinations
¨ Infants can think before taking action, for example, wondering “should I really pull that cat’s tail.”
¨ Deferred imitation: infants can copy the behavior of others, even days later
n Quiz: This is an example of what?
n Piaget and Research Methods
n Advanced research tools (i.e., habituationand fMRI), have shown that aspects of Piaget’s sensorimotor intelligence actually occur earlier for most infants than Piaget predicted.
n These findings do not negate Piaget’s work, only update it.
n What is habituation?
n Habituation is the process of getting used to (i.e., bored with) a stimulus after repeated exposure.
n An infant shows it by looking away.
n If a new object appears and the infant reacts (change in heart rate, sucking), it is assumed he recognizes the object as something different.
n Information Processing Theory
n Information processing theory focuses on the step-by-step description of the mechanisms of human thought at any age.
n Research on memory and “affordances” stem from this theory.
n Visual Cliff
n The visual cliff is an apparatus to measure depth perception.
n Infants are interested in “crossing” the cliff until about 8 months, after they have had experience falling.
n The cliff “affords” danger for older infants.
n Visual Cliff
n Movement and People
n Infants have dynamic perception, focused on movement and change.
n They have a people preference from the first days of life!
¨ Examples: listen to voices, stare at faces, are soothed by touch
n Make it Real: Memory
n What’s your prediction: Can infants remember anything? For how long? What about a 1 or 2 year old?
n What is your earliest memory?
n Memory
n Even very young infants (3 months) can remember IF:
¨ Experimental conditions are “real life”
¨ Motivation is high
¨ Special measures aid memory retrieval (repetition and reminders)
n Example: Rovee-Collier’s mobile experiment
n Mobiles and Memories
n Memory (cont.)
n Deferred imitation begins by 9 months, becoming more elaborate with age.
¨ Example: A young infant imitates hitting the dog, a behavior modeled by an older sibling.
n Implicit memory (for routines) develops sooner than explicit memory (for facts).
n First noises
n Infants are noisy!
¨ They coo, squeal, cry, yell, grunt, gurgle
n Infants prefer child-directed speech
¨ High-pitched, simplified, repetitive speech of adults
n Babbling
n Babbling is repeating certain syllables (e.g., da-da-da).
n All babies babble, even deaf babies (although later and less frequently).
n Babbling is a way to communicate.
n First Words
n First words usually appear around 1 year.
n They are often familiar nouns.
¨ (Have you ever heard of an infant’s first word being “stapler”?)
n The Language Explosion
n The naming explosion refers to a language spurt once an infant begins talking.
n Culture shapes which words appear first.
n Sentences
n A holophrase is a single word that expresses an entire thought (e.g., “juice”).
n Two-word sentences appear around 21 months, and remarkably, follow proper grammar.
¨ Example: “more juice”, not “juice more”
n Make it Real: Language
n What fun sentences or words (good ones or mistakes) have you heard a young child make?
n Example: “I catched the ball.”
n Theories of Language Learning
n There are 3 theories of how infants learn language:
¨ They are taught (view of B. F. Skinner)
¨ They teach themselves (view of Noam Chomsky)
¨ Social impulses foster learning
n Theory One: Infants Are Taught
n B. F. Skinner argued that infants learn language by:
¨ Associating objects with words heard often
¨ Reinforcement and praise for correct words
¨ Correction of incorrect words
n Support for Theory One
n Careful research by Hart and Risley (1995) has demonstrated that infants of parents who spoke more words had superior language development.
n Theory Two: Infants Teach Themselves
n Noam Chomsky argued that language is far too complex to be learned through step-by-step conditioning.
¨ Infants make up words they have never heard before (e.g., “runned”).
n He believed a language acquisition device (LAD) exists only in humans.
n Theory Three: Social Impulses Foster Infant Language
n This theory argues that the social desire to communicate drives infants to learn language.
¨ Example: Upon hearing a new word, an infant looks to where the adult is looking before assuming an association between the word and object.
n A Hybrid Theory
n An emergentist coalition combines aspects of several theories.
n Different theories may apply at different ages.
n Culture plays a role in language learning.
n How about a bedtime story?
n A Note for Caregivers
n Engaging a young infant in the wonder of language, through reading, talking, singing, etc., is giving that infant an amazing gift. He or she will have a head start on learning language and developing a strong vocabulary!