Chapter 6: The First Two Years Cognitive Development

Dr. M. Davis-Brantley

Sensorimotor Intelligence• Sensorimotor intelligence involves the first

period of cognitive development, when babies learn and think by using their senses and motor skills

• Adaptation is the cognitive process by which new information is taken in and responded to– Assimilation is a form of adaptation which involves

taking new information into the mind and by incorporating it into previously developed mental categories or schemas

– Accommodation means taking new information into the mind in such a way as to readjust, refine, or expand previous schemas

Primary Circular Reactions: Stages 1 & 2

• Circular Reactions suggests that there is an interaction between the brain and the senses/motor skills

• Stage 1 (birth to 1 month): Reflexes—sucking, grasping, staring, listening– These “reflexes” help the infant to learn about there

world

– Sensation becomes perception which becomes cognition

• Stage 2 (1 to 4 months): Assimilation and coordination of the reflexes—sucking a pacifier is different from sucking a nipple– First acquired adaptations and switch is from reflexes to

deliberate actions

– Ex: Sucking a pacifier does not provide food and does not involve the use of the tongue

Secondary Circular Reactions: Stages 3 & 4

• Secondary Reactions involves the infants responsiveness to people or objects that they manipulate

• Stage 3 (4 to 8 months): An awareness of people/objects– The child learns or realizes that they can interact with

people/objects– They realize the rattle makes noise, their parent smiles at

them

• Stage 4 (8 to 12 months): New adaptation and anticipation– The child becomes more deliberate and purposeful in

responding to people/objects– Child learns to think about a goal and begins to understand

how to reach it– Book Ex: The 10-month-old child wants to take a bath so she

takes the bar of soap to signal to mom that she wants to bathe and then takes off her clothes and is elated when mom turns on the bath water

– This Goal-directed behavior is a result of the child learning cause and effect interactions and improved memory

Object Permanence

• Object Permanence begins to emerge during stage 4 (8 to 12 months)

• See Video—Fail

• See Video--Pass• Object Permanence is the realization

that objects (including people) still exist even when they can not be seen, touched, or heard– This is evidenced by the child’s

attempt to reach for a toy that has fallen out of sight

Tertiary Circular Reactions: Stages 5 & 6

• Tertiary Reactions involve active exploration and experimentation and the child is no longer responding to their bodies (primary reactions) or people/objects (secondary reactions)

• Stage 5 (12 to 18 months): Active experimentation– The child builds on goal-directed behavior using trial and

error experimentation– The little scientist is born in which the child actively

experiments without anticipating the results

• Stage 6 (18 to 24 months): Mental combinations– The child learns to think before doing which provides the

child with new ways of achieving a goal without using trial and error experimentation

– Child uses mental combinations in which they mentally process consequences of their actions

– Deferred Imitation involves an infant coping a behavior they noticed hours or even days later

Language Development• Baby Talk—Is not the way babies talk but the way

adults talk to babies using high-pitched, simplified, and repetitive way adults speak to infants

• Naming Explosion—A sudden increase in an infant’s vocabulary, especially in the number of nouns, that begins at 18 months of age

• By age 2, 90% of 2-year-olds have at least 100 words• Grammar—includes the methods and rules (I.e., word

order, verb forms, prefixes, suffixes, intonation, pronouns, etc…) that languages use to communicate meaning apart from the words themselves– “It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it”

– Infants begin using grammar

Theories of Language• Theory One: Infants are Taught

– Taught language by the parents and are reinforced when they speak adequately/appropriately

– Parents are the first teachers, frequent repetition is instructive

– Well-taught infants become well-spoken children– Infants of highly responsive mothers are said to develop

language faster and are said to reach language milestones faster than children of low-responsive mothers

• Theory Two: Infants Teach themselves– This theory is highly attribute to Noam Chomsky’s belief

that language is learned at the same time for all children regardless of language

– Language Acquisition Device (LAD)—Chomsky’s term for a hypothesized brain structure that enables humans to learn language, including the basic aspects of grammar, vocabulary, and intonation