Kathleen Stassen Berger

Prepared by Madeleine Lacefield

Tattoon, M.A.

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Part II

The First Two Years: Cognitive Development

Chapter Six

Sensorimotor Intelligence

Information Processing

Language: What Develops in the

First Two Years?

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The First Two Years: Cognitive Development

• Infant cognition

– cognition = “thinking”

• “thinking” in a very broad sense includes…

– language

– learning

– memory

– intelligence

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The First Two Years: Cognitive Development

• Infants organize by the end of the first year…– sensations and perceptions

– sequence and direction

– the familiar and the strange

– objects and people

– events and experiences

– permanence and transiency

– cause and effect

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Sensorimotor Intelligence

• Remember…

–Piaget’s first stage (chapter 2)

• infants learn through senses and

motor actions

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Piaget and Research Methods

• Piaget’s sensorimotor intelligence actually occurs earlier for most infants than Piaget predicted.– Habituation, the process of getting used to (i.e., bored with)

a stimulus after repeated exposure. An infant can show this by looking away.

– If a new object appears and the infant reacts (change in heart rate, sucking), it is assumed they recognize the object as something different.

• Summing up…– In six stages of sensorimotor, Piaget discovered, described,

and then celebrated active infant learning.

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Information Processing Theory

• “a perspective that compares human

thinking processes, by analogy, to

computer analysis of data, including

sensory input, connections, stored

memories, and output”

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Information Processing Theory

• With the aid of technology this theory has found some impressive intellectual capacities in the infant

• Intellectual capacities, concepts, and categories seem to develop in the infant brain by 6 months

• Perspective helps tie together various aspects of infant cognition: affordance and memory.

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Information Processing Theory

• affordance

– “…an opportunity for perception and interaction that is offered by a person, place, or object in the environment”

• afford = offer

• perception is the mental processing of information that arrives at the brain from the sensory organs

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Information Processing Theory

• affordance– One puzzle of development is that two

people can have discrepant perceptions of the same situation, not only interpreting it differently but actually observing it differently• depending on:

– past experiences

– current developmental level

– sensory awareness of opportunities

– immediate needs and motivation

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Information Processing Theory

• Research on Early Affordance

– Information processing improves over the

first year as infants become quicker to

remember

– Experiences affect which affordances are

perceived…

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Information Processing Theory

• Sudden Drops

– …the visual cliff, an apparatus to

measure depth perception

– infants become interested in “crossing”

the cliff about 8 months (having had

experience falling)

– the cliff “affords” danger for older infants

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Information Processing Theory

• Movement and People

– infants have:

• dynamic perception

– primed to focus on movement and change

• a people preference

– a universal principle of infant perception,

consisting of an innate attraction to other

humans, which is evident in visual, auditory,

tactile, and other preferences

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Information Processing Theory

• Memory

– Developmentalists now agree that even very young infants can remember under the following circumstances:

• experimental conditions are similar to “real life”

• motivation is high

• special measures are taken to aid memory retrieval

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Information Processing Theory

• Reminders and Repetition

– reminder sessions

• a perceptual experience that is

intended to help a person recollect an

idea, a thing, or an experience, without

testing whether the person remembers

it at the moment

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Information Processing Theory

• A Little Older, a Little More Memory

– after about 6 months infants can retain

information for longer periods of time…

with less training or reminding

– by the middle of the 2nd year toddlers

can remember and reenact more

complex sequences

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Information Processing Theory

• Aspects of Memory

– Memory is not one “thing”

• brain-imaging techniques reveal many

distinct brain regions devoted to

particular aspects of memory

– implicit memory is memory for routines

and memories that remain hidden until

particular stimulus bring them to mind

– explicit memory is memory that can be

recalled on demand

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Language: What Develops

in the First Two Years?

• “The acquisition of language,… its

idiomatic phases, grammar rules,

and exceptions, is the most

impressive intellectual achievement

of the young child.”

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Language: What Develops

in the First Two Years?

• The Universal Sequence

– Around the world children follow the

same sequence of early language

development

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Language: What Develops

in the First Two Years?

• Listening and Responding

• infants begin learning language before

birth…

• infants prefer speech over other sounds

– child-directed speech

• the high-pitched, simplified, and

repetitive way adults speak to infants

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• Babbling

– repeating certain syllables (e.g., da-da-

da).

• all babies babble, even deaf babies

(although later and less frequently).

• babbling is a way to communicate.

Language: What Develops

in the First Two Years?

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• First Words

– usually around 1 year the average baby speaks, or signs a few words

• they are often familiar nouns

– by 13 months spoken language increases very gradually

– 6 to 15 month-olds learn meaning rapidly and comprehend about 10 times as many words as they speak

Language: What Develops

in the First Two Years?

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• The Naming Explosion

– a sudden increase in an infant’s vocabulary, especially in the number of nouns begins at about 18 months

– vocabulary reaches about 50 expressed words at a rate of 50 to 100 per month, 21 month-olds saying twice as many as 18 month-olds

Language: What Develops

in the First Two Years?

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• Cultural Differences

– the ratio of nouns to verbs and adjectives show cultural influences.

– one explanation is the language itself (i.e. English, Chinese differ)

– another explanation is social context (toys and objects)

– every language has some concepts encoded in adult speech

Language: What Develops

in the First Two Years?

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• Sentences

– “The first words soon take on nuances

of tone, loudness, and cadence that are

precursors of the first grammar,

because a single word can convey

many messages by the way it is

spoken.”

Language: What Develops

in the First Two Years?

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• Sentences“Dada!” “Dada?” and “Dada.”

– each is a holophrase, a single word that expresses a complete, meaningful thought.

– intonations varying in tone and pitch is extensive in babbling and again in holophrases at about 18 months

– grammar--all the methods that languages use to communicate meaning. Word order, prefixes, intonation, verb forms,… are all aspects of grammar.

Language: What Develops

in the First Two Years?

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• Theories of Language Learning

• 2 year olds worldwide use language well

• bilingual children keep two languages

separate and speak whatever language a

listen understands

– each theory of language acquisition has

implications for parents and educators…all

want children to speak fluently…without

instruction

Language: What Develops

in the First Two Years?

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• Theories of Language Learning

–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

Language: What Develops

in the First Two Years?

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• Theory One: Infants Need to Be Taught

– 50 years ago the dominant learning theory in North America was behaviorism

– B. F. Skinner (1957) noticed that spontaneous babbling is usually reinforced… a grinning mother appears, repeating, praising, giving attention to the infant

– Parents are expert teachers, other caregivers help

– Frequent repetitions instructive when linked to daily life

– Well-taught infants become well-spoken children

Language: What Develops

in the First Two Years?

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• Theory Two: Infants Teach Themselves

– a contrary theory is that language learning is

innate--adults need not teach it

– Norm Chomsky (1968,1980) felt that

language is too complex to be mastered

merely through step-by-step conditioning

Language: What Develops

in the First Two Years?

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• Theory Two: Infants Teach Themselves

– universal grammar--all young children

master basic language at about the same

age

– Language acquisition device (LAD)

• a term used for a hypothesized mental structure

that enables humans to learn language, including

the basic aspects of grammar, vocabulary and

intonation

Language: What Develops

in the First Two Years?

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• Theory Three: Social Impulses Foster Infant

Language

– a third theory called social-pragmatic perceives the

crucial starting point to be neither vocabulary

reinforcement (behaviorism) nor innate connection

(epigenetic), but rather the social reason for

language; communication

– Infants communicate in every way they can because

humans are social beings and depend on one

another for survival and joy

Language: What Develops

in the First Two Years?

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Language: What Develops

in the First Two Years?

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• A Hybrid Theory

– the integration of all three perspectives…

notably in a monograph based on 12

experiments designed by 8 researchers

– their model an emergentist coalition…

combing valid aspects of several theories

about the emergence of language during

infancy

Language: What Develops

in the First Two Years?