Chapter 6
Cognitive and Learning
Characteristics
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COGNITIVE CHARACTERISTICS
• Intellectual functioning must be viewed within the context of
(a) adaptive behavior, (b) participation, interactions, and
social roles, (c) health, and (d) context (environment and
culture).
• Constructivist theories of development emphasize that an
individual constructs, through increasingly complex cognitive
functions, his/her understanding of the environment, events,
interactions with others, as well as his/her own thoughts and
actions.
• Piaget identified four major stages of development including
the sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and
formal operational stages.
© Taylor & Francis 2015
COGNITIVE CHARACTERISTICS
• The zone of proximal development is from Vygotsky’s theory of
development and is the range of tasks that are too difficult for a person to
master alone but can be learned with guidance and assistance.
• Scaffolding is the process of altering the level of guidance or assistance
given as a child becomes increasingly effective and efficient at various
skills and mental functions.
• Developmental delay occurs when a person learns much of the same
knowledge/skills in the same developmental sequence as those without
disabilities, but at a slower rate.
• Developmental difference occurs when a person displays behaviors that
are atypical of children or adolescents.
• Both cognitive delays and differences are evident in the population of
people with CIDs.
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LEARNING CHARACTERISTICS
• Transfer and generalization of knowledge and skill refers to the
ability to use knowledge and skills in the same or different ways in a
new setting or situation.
• Transfer and generalization is a common area of difficulty often
resulting in a greater need for support and guidance in various
environments.
• Learning strategies are the methods we use to help us acquire,
retain, retrieve, and eventually use knowledge.
• Some research suggests that people with CIDs can and do use
learning strategies although their strategies may be less
sophisticated, fewer in number, and may not be
transferred/generalized as well as those used by people without
disabilities.
• Attributions are to what we attribute our successes and failure
and are related to strategy use.
© Taylor & Francis 2015
METACOGNITION
• Metacognition has to do with an individual’s ability to
understand about his/her own knowing or to learn about
his/her own learning.
• In general, individuals with milder levels of CIDs are able to
learn strategies and use their metacognition, although the
more abstract the material to be learned and the
performance tasks become, the greater the challenge in their
learning and use.
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ATTENTION CHARACTERISTICS
• Visual orienting. This is an early indicator of how well children
can focus their visual attention.
• Relevant versus irrelevant stimuli. Many individuals with CIDs
experience difficulty in attending to stimuli that are relevant
to learning and ignoring or filtering out those stimuli that are
not relevant (often referred to as distractibility).
• Maintaining attention. Some people with CIDs have difficulty
maintaining attention over sustained periods of time (often
referred to as a short attention span).
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MEMORY CHARACTERISTICS
• Working and short-term memory are processing resources that can be of
limited capacity that involve preserving information while simultaneously
processing the same or other information. Short-term memory involves
the ability to store small amounts of information for a short period of
time. Working memory involves the ability to take information in the
short-term memory and relate it to other information. Working memory
and short-term memory are closely related.
• Problems in storage and retrieval of information may result from lack of
attention to what is relevant, short attention span, lack of learning
strategies, and both short-term and long-term memory deficits. Retrieval
difficulties emerge when an individual has trouble remembering or
applying stored information when needed.
• Individuals with more severe levels of CIDs may have multiple disabilities
and experience these problems in cognition, learning, attention, and
memory to even greater degrees than those with milder levels.
© Taylor & Francis 2015
SPEECH AND LANGUAGE
CHARACTERISTICS
• The ability to use language is very important in developing
cognition, learning, attention, and memory.
• Language is a form of communication, whether spoken, written, or
signed, that is based on a system of symbols and that can be used
to produce an infinite number of messages from a finite set of
symbols and rules.
• For people with milder levels of CIDs, delays in speech and language
may be more evident than differences.
• Speech disorders are more commonly found among people with
CIDs than in the general population.
• Language use and intelligence are linked in the perception of many
people. People with limited language abilities may be perceived to
be less intelligent.
© Taylor & Francis 2015
SPEECH AND LANGUAGE
CHARACTERISTICS
• For individuals with more severe levels of CIDs, differences in
speech and language development are more evident than for
those with milder levels.
• Augmentative and alternative communication systems may be
useful in assisting individuals with speech and language
deficits.
• Echolalia, or repeating what is said to one, is an example of a
difference.
© Taylor & Francis 2015