Child Psychology
Cognitive Development
(McBride-Chang, 2007)
Outline
1.
2.
3.
Piaget's theory of cognitive development and
practical implications
Information processing theory
Overlapping Waves Model
(Robert Siegler)
Thought question:
 The
HK Law Reform Commission recommends that
the age of criminal responsibility be 10 years old.
Currently, the age of criminal responsibility is 7
years of age. Is this change justified, given what
you learn about cognitive development today? In
other words, is 10 years of age too old, too young,
or just right?
1) Piaget's theory of cognitive
development

constructivism
Stages
1) Sensorimotor period (0-2 years)
a)reflexes (0-1 month)
b)primary circular reactions (1-4 months)
c)secondary circular reactions (4-12 months)
--coordination of 2ndary schemes
d)tertiary circular reactions (12-18 months)
e)representational thought (18-24 months)
Stages
2) Preoperational period (2-7 years)
Focus on conservation
Preoperational thought is illogical in the following
ways:
a) Centering
b) Egocentrism
c) Irreversibility
d) Appearance as reality
Suggestions for teaching the
preoperational child (Woolfolk,
1995)
1.
Be concrete
2.
Make instructions short and use actions to
demonstrate
Be sensitive to egocentrism
3.
4.
5.
Clarify language
Do hands-on learning
Young children's play styles
1.
Sensorimotor (12 months)
2.
Constructive (after 12 months on)
3.
First pretend (2nd year)
4.
Substitute pretend (2-3 years on)
5.
Sociodramatic (2-4 years on)
Stages
3) Concrete operational period (7-12 years)

Mastery of reversibility

Inductive logic mastered

Deductive logic poor
4) Formal operational thinking (adolescents
and adults)
--Abstract thinking mastered
--If X is correct, y, z, and a
should be observed
(hypothetico-deductive
reasoning)
Age of criminal responsibility
 What
age is appropriate?
Facts
 China/Taiwan=14
 Macau=16
 HK:
schooling until 15
 HK: In sexual abuse cases, child=16 or younger
 Rehabilitation vs. criminalization
 Nevertheless, recommended age of criminal
responsibility=10; actual legal age of criminal
responsibility=7
Critique of Piaget's theory
1)
2)
Over-focus on language explanations
Some skills appear earlier than posited
--theory of mind (3-5 years old)
--gender constancy (4-5 years old)
3) Variabilities in performance
4) Culture (individualism)
--Vygotsky's zone of proximal development
--Scaffolding
Conclusion
First 3 “stages” of cognitive development
occurs much more gradually (less stagelike) and earlier than Piaget assumed;
adolescents perform less consistently
hypothetico-deductively than originally
postulated.
List as many ways as you can to solve this
problem.
5x10=?
2) Information processing
theory
A) Mental hardware--built-in mental and
neural structures
- speed
- attention
- memory
B) Mental software-- specific knowledge
- executive processes
Theory of mind
 False
belief
 A) Maturation
 B) Language
 C) Family experience
3) Overlapping Waves Model (Siegler)
Assumption of variability, e.g.,
1) Addition
2) Spelling
3) Infant locomotion
4) Conservation

Strategic development depends upon
 Acquisition
of new strategies
 Changes in frequency of existing strategies
 Changes in speed of execution of strategies
 Changes in accuracy of execution of strategies
 Changes in range of problems to which each
strategy can be applied
Strategy choice depends on
 Variability
 Adaptiveness
 Change
 Generalization
to new situations
Lessons learned
Change is gradual.
2) Discoveries follow success as well as failure.
3) Early variability is related to later learning.
4) Discoveries are constrained by conceptual
understanding.
1)
 The
End!
Very early, children
--Can distinguish print from pictures
and nonprint
--Use visual cues to recognize first
characters
Better readers are
--Faster
--Better in language manipulation
--Skilled at morphological awareness
Developmental Concepts of Reading:
 Phonemic
awareness, phonics, letter names, letter
sounds (Bee, 2000; Berk, 2003; Feldman, 2004)
To date, developmental textbooks assume that
READING=READING ENGLISH
Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Approach
Applied to Learning to Read
Method of
Child’s
cognitive
abilities
language
Phonological Awareness

Awareness of and access to the sounds in language.
In English, “fisp” without the /s/ is “fip.” In
Chinese,
 Syllable
2000)
awareness (e.g., McBride-Chang & Ho,
 Onset-rime (Huang & Hanley, 1995; 1997; Siok &
Fletcher, 2001)
Examples of levels of PA


Syllable awareness:
大門口 (da4 men2 kou3)
大口 (da4 kou3)
Onset-rime/phonemic awareness:
tai-/t/ =ai
Morphological Awareness
 Morpheme=smallest
unit of meaning
Morphological awareness--Awareness of and access
to the meaning structure of language
Simple compounding examples
 人 (Ren)
 車 (Che)
 大人 (Adult)
 火車 (Train)
 女人 (Woman)
 汽車 (Private Car)
 外國人 (Foreigner)
Cross-cultural measurement
 Chomsky:
generativity,creativity, productivity
occur across languages
--Plantman for gardener--Clark, 1995
--”Genius comes from genie”
 Berko
(1958):
 Wug/wugs;
 What
do you call one who zibs?
 Why do you think a ___is called a ___?
Our task, across cultures, requires that
Children produce novel words by combining familiar
morphemes in new ways, e.g., sunset/moonset;
treetop/treebottom.
Examples:




有一種家庭電器可以用來洗衣服，我們叫它洗衣機。
There is home appliance that uses to wash clothes, it is
called a ‘washing machine’.
有一種新的家庭電器可以用來洗鞋，我們會怎麼叫
它呢？[洗鞋機]。
If that home appliance uses to wash shoes, what would
you call that? (washing shoes machine)

有一種動物條頸好長既，叫做長頸鹿。

There is one animal that has a very long neck, we
call that a giraffe.

咁如果呢種動物條頸好短，咁我地會叫佢做咩呢？
[短頸鹿]。

If this animal’s neck has been shortened, what
would you call that? (Giraffe with short neck)
Cross-Cultural Issues
 Evolutionary
primary abilities (Geary, 1995)
--phonological awareness, morphological
awareness, vocabulary: Language constructs may
be “universals.”
 Evolutionary secondary abilities (reading) : For
reading, it’s all relative.
Cultures included in this study
 Beijing--Pinyin
and Putonghua
 Hong Kong--No phonological coding system and
Cantonese
 S. Korea--Clear phonological structure and much
compounding
 U.S.--Clear need for phonemic awareness and less
transparent morphological structure
Conclusions
Despite similar associations among language-related
constructs, these constructs predict reading differently in
different scripts--Morphological is important in Chinese
and Korean; phonological awareness is important in
English and Korean.
 These differences are specifically attributable to
differences in scripts (and probably ultimately attributable
to language differences as well.

Why should you care?
 Theoretically,
this theory of early reading growth
accounts for observations of reading development
across cultures better than do current
conceptualizations as found in developmental
textbooks.
 Theoretically, this theory fits well with notions of
evolutionarily primary and secondary skills.
Why else should you care?
 This
conceptualization suggests that different
remediation strategies for those low in reading
skills may be in order depending upon
culture/script to be learned.
 Practical implications: Morphological awareness
may be particularly useful to develop and
explicitly teach in Chinese and Korean for young
children.
Future Directions
 Longitudinal
studies, particularly with children
who initially cannot read
 Language & literacy study--early language and
emergent literacy in Beijing and HK
 Intervention studies, based on previous
intervention models in other areas: Early
intervention is best.