Cognitive Development
Basic Principles of Piaget’s Theory of
Cognitive Development
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Schemes (Schemas, Schemata)
Assimilation
Accomodation
Equilibrium /Disequilibrium
Organization
Symbolic Capacity
Operations
Sensorimotor Period ( birth to 18/24
months)
• Gain knowledge of the world through developing
sensory and motor activity.
• Object permanence.
Preoperational Period (ages 2-7)
• Begins to use mental representations of their world, although not always
logical or well organized. Includes development of:
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Egocentrism
Centration
Magical Thinking
Animism
Appearance is Reality
Irreversibility
Concrete Operational Stage (age 7-11)
• Thought is more logical, flexible, and organized
when dealing with concrete, tangible information.
Concrete Operational Stage (age 7-11)
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Reversibility
Decentration
Mental Rotations
Seriation
Concrete Operational Stage (age 7-11)
• Class Inclusion
• Transitive Inference (Transitivity)
• Conservation
– Horizontal Decalage
• Number, length, liquid quantity, mass, weight, volume
• Spatial Skills increase
Role of Play in Cognitive Development
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Functional Play
Constructive Play
Pretend Play
Formal Games w/ Rules
Formal Operations
• Abstract / Hypothetical Thinking
How is your thinking different
today from what it was like as
a high school student?
Elkind’s Immature Characteristics of
Adolescent Thought
• Immaturity of thinking manifests itself through:
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Idealism and Criticalness
Apparent Hypocrisy
Argumentativeness
Indecisiveness
Elkind’s Immature Characteristics of
Adolescent Thought
– Adolescent Egocentrism
• Self-consciousness
– Imaginary audience
• Specialness and Invulnerability
– Personal fable
» (Illusion of invulnerability)
Post Formal Thought
• A willingness to shift gears or take a different approach
depending on a specific problem
– Can easily shift between abstract and concrete thought
• Ability to draw on personal knowledge and experience to
find the best possible solution from multiple possibilities
(pragmatism)
Post Formal Thought
• An awareness of the contradictions of life
• Willingness to try to include conflicting or contradictory
thoughts, emotions, or information
– A flexible integration of cognition and emotion
• An enthusiasm for seeking new questions, problems, and
framework for understanding experience
Vygotsky’s Theory of Cognitive Development
• Saw cognitive development as an apprenticeship in which children
advance by interaction with others more mature.
• Zone of Proximal Development
Child’s Own
knowledge
• Private Speech
Scaffolding
What child
can do after
Information Processing
• Human thinking is understood along a computer model.
– Mental Hardware
– Mental Software
Information Processing
• Memory
– Our ability to encode, store, and retrieve information
• Children as young as 2 1/2 months old seem to have memory,
forget, then remember with cues.
• Develop autobiographical memory for significant events.
– Childhood (Infantile) Amnesia
Information Processing
• Attention
– Begins early
• Habituation occurs to familiar stimuli.
• Dishabituation occurs after a change in stimulus.
Information Processing
• Attention increases and changes during
childhood:
– Length of attention
– Increase in selective attention.
• Cognitive inhibition
Information Processing
– Planning improves
• Able to adapt their attention to the temporary requirements of
different situations.
• Decisions about how to proceed with projects from start to
finish.
• Cognitive regulation still lacks.
– Ability to multitask increases
Information Processing:Middle
Childhood
• Systematic attention
– Ability to plan and carry out systematic perceptual searches
(attention to detail)
Information Processing
• Four hypotheses as to why changes occur:
1. Changes in basic capacities
2. Increased knowledge base about the world
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Crystallized Intelligence
Information Processing
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Changes in memory strategies:
– Rehearsal
– Elaboration
» Imagery
» Mnemonics
» Chunking
» Deep Processing
Information Processing
4. Increased knowledge about memory
• Metacognition (knowledge of human mind and the range of
cognitive processes)
– Metamemory (understanding of our own memory)
(A reversal of these contribute to decline of information processing in
old age)
Information Processing During
Adolescence
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Increase in Content Knowledge
Metacognition continues to expand
Metamemory increases with more effective use of memory strategies
Cognitive Self Regulation improves
Information processing ability increases (although it may not be used)
Cognitive Development in
Adulthood
• Development is multidirectional
• Patterns of change vary between people.
• Abilities show plasticity in that they may be modified during
any point in adulthood, under the right conditions.
Cognitive Development in
Adulthood
• Schaie suggests that in early adulthood, individuals:
– switch from acquiring knowledge (what I need to know),
– to applying knowledge (how to use what I know),
– to a search for meaning and purpose, (why I should know)
especially as they enter their careers.
Cognitive Development in
Adulthood
• Slower processing speed makes it harder for middle-aged
individuals to multi-task.
• Cognitive inhibition becomes more difficult, at times
promoting greater distractibility.
Cognitive Development in
Adulthood
• Less information is retained in working memory.
– Largely due to a decline in use of memory strategies.
• Onset of cognitive debilitating diseases such as Dementia
and Alzheimer’s Disease
Cognitive Development in
Adulthood
• Speed of cognitive processing slows with age. Two views:
– The neural network view says that as neurons in the brain die, breaks
in the neural network occur.
• The brain adapts by forming bypasses which go around the
breaks but are less efficient.
Cognitive Development in
Adulthood
– The information loss view suggests that older adults experience
greater loss of information.
Theory of Mind
• A child’s awareness of his/her mental processes and
the processes of others
– By age 2 to 3
• Realizes people see what is in front of them not what is in front
of the child (perceptions)
• Knows that if someone wants something they will try to get it
(desires)
• Can distinguish between positive and negative emotions
Theory of Mind
• 4 to 5 years of age
– Realization that people can have false beliefs
• Understand that the mind can represent objects and
events accurately or inaccurately
Intelligence
• The ability to solve problems and to adapt
and learn from experience
• IQ tests
• Dynamic Testing
Gardner’s Theory of Multiple
Intelligences
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Verbal skills
Mathematical Skills
Spatial Skills
Bodily-kinesthetic Skills
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Musical Skills
Interpersonal Skills
Intrapersonal Skills
Naturalistic Skills
Sternberg’s Triarchic Theory of
Intelligence
• Componential Intelligence
– information processing (analytical)
• Experiential Intelligence
– Problem solving and creativity
• Divergent thinking
• Convergent thinking
• Contextual Intelligence
– “street smarts”
– ability to adapt
Emotional Intelligence
• The ability to
– Perceive and express emotion accurately and adaptively
• (taking the perspectives of others)
– Understand emotion and emotional knowledge
• (role emotions play in friendship and knowledge)
– Feelings to facilitate thought
• (role of mood and decision making or creativity)
– Mange emotions in oneself and others
• (being able to control one’s anger)
Does Intelligence Increase or Decrease?
• Fluid Intelligence
– The ability to actively think and reason (abstractly)
• Crystallized Intelligence
– Knowledge base
Extremes of Intelligence
• Giftedness
– IQ of 130 or above
– Usually show special abilities in areas valued in society such as math,
performing or visual arts, or leadership
– Often identifiable by age 18 months due to advanced language skills
Extremes of Intelligence
• Mental Retardation
– Significantly below average intellectual functioning with limitations
in areas of adaptive behavior such as self-care and social skills
– Must occur before age 18 to be diagnosed
– 4 levels
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Mild (50 – 70) 85%
Moderate ( 35 – 49) 10%
Severe (20 – 34) 4%
Profound ( 19 and below) 1%
Language Development
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Crying
Cooing (vowel like sounds) begins at 1 to 2 months.
Babbling (strings of consonant sounds) begins around 6 months
Intonation (changes in pitch) and gestures start between 8 and 12
months. (Evident in both hearing and deaf)
Language Development
• Around 1 year, children use their first words, usually consonant-vowel
pairs such as dada or wawa.
• 13 months: understand about 50 words but cannot say
• 18 months:
– vocabulary spurt
– Begin using holophrases: single words which convey a sentence
worth of meaning
Language Development
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2 years:
– vocabulary of around a few hundred words
– telegraphic speech : two word combinations
Between ages 2 and 3:
– transition from simple sentences expressing a single proposition to complex
sentences.
By age 6:
– know around 10 to 15 thousand words
Theories of Language Development
• Learning Perspective
– Language development is the result of:
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Observational Learning
Modeling
Imitation
Reinforcement
Theories of Language Development
• Nativist (Biological) Perspective
– Emphasizes the biological side of language development
• Chomsky believes that children are born with a Language
Acquisition Device (LAD)
Theories of Language Development
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Supported by:
– Language areas of the brain
• Broca’s area (word formation)
• Wernicke’s area (word comprehension)
• Arcuate Fasciculus
– How rapidly children acquire an incredibly complex communication system
Theories of Language Development
• Interactionist Perspective
– Both biologically based competencies and their language
environment interact to achieve language development
Learning
• Most infants intrinsically seem motivated to learn about and master
their environment (mastery motivation)
• Achievement motivation differs for each child.
– Mastery orientation
– Learned helplessness
– These attitudes often continue into adolescence and beyond
Learning
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Factors contributing to declining educational achievement :
– Family environment and characteristics
– Cognitive growth and self perception
– Feedback
– Peer pressure
– Moving into middle school while going through puberty
– Absence of goodness-of –fit in many middle school situations