Chapter 6

Cognitive Development in Infancy and Toddlerhood

Key Questions

How do Piaget, Vygotsky, and information-processing theorists explain how infants and toddlers learn?

What research techniques are used to assess cognitive development in infants and toddlers?

How does language develop in infants and toddlers?

What are the benefits of infant–toddler education?

Theories of Cognitive Development

Jean Piaget: Children construct their own knowledge in response to their environment, and they learn to do this on their own. Sensorimotor Stage: Piaget’s first stage of development,

which lasts from birth to about the end of the second year; infants in this stage use the senses and motor abilities to understand the world.

Schemas: organized patterns of thought that are continually being modified through assimilation and accommodation

Assimilation: a part of adaptation in which children interpret their experiences in terms of existing cognitive structures

Accommodation: a part of adaptation in which children change existing cognitive structures or create new ones to account for new experiences

Disequilibrium: occurs when infants interact with the environment, encounter something new, and experience a discrepancy between their existing way of thinking and their ability to understand this novel experience or situation

Substages of Sensorimotor Development

Coordination of Secondary Circular Reactions (8-12

months)

Readily combine previously learned schemes in a coordinated way

intentionality Look at an object and grasp it

simultaneously They now use movements to reach

goals and accomplish simple feats.

Internalization of Schemes (18-24 months)

Transition to Pre- OperationalThinking becomes Symbolic Infants can begin to use primitive

symbolsDevelopment of Representational

ThoughtDeferred Imitation

Lev Vygotsky Sociocultural Perspective: Cognitive development

results from collaboration with others. Zone of proximal development (ZPD): Vygotsky’s

term for the distance between a person’s actual developmental level, as determined by independent problem solving, and the higher level of development that could be achieved under the guidance of an adult or more capable peer

Scaffolding: Vygotsky’s term for the support that enables a child or novice to solve a problem, carry out a task, or achieve a goal that would be beyond his or her unassisted efforts

Standardized Tests of Infant Development

Psychometric approach: the use of standardized tests to measure infants’ cognitive abilities Bayley Scales of Infant Development (BSID-III): a

widely used standardized test conducted to measure infant cognitive abilities, such as intelligence. Useful as an indication of a child’s current level of functioning

Disparities in Cognitive Development

Studies show children from low-income families, on average, perform worse on academic achievement than more advantaged children.

High-quality services for infants and toddlers can have a long-lasting and positive impact on children’s development, learning, and their ability to regulate emotions. These services are rare in the United States.

High-Quality Programs for Infants and Toddlers

Nurse–Family Partnership model: home-based approach that provides first-time teen mothers with home visits by a nurse to educate them on prenatal care, child development, and family planning.

Positive outcomes indicated by wider spacing between births, less child abuse, better child health, and better academic and social outcomes for both parent and child.

Infant Health and Development Program (IHDP): Combines home-based and center-based visits and service referral for premature, low-birth-weight infants, enrollment at a child development center, and developmental assessments. IHDP had a positive impact on the cognitive and motor skill of child participants.

Early Head Start Program: Federally funded, community-based program for low-income families with infants and toddlers. Center-based services, home-based visits, or a combination of the two improved outcomes for children who participated for early literacy.

Language Development

Critical Period for Language

In the first 6 months children are “citizens of the world”. They hear all the sounds that the human voice can make.

After 6 months babies begin to lose the ability to hear “all” sounds

After 6 months they begin to concentrate on on only the sounds that they hear in their environment

The Beginning of Language

Language: a system of symbols, whether oral or written, used to communicate The first three years of life is the most sensitive period of

language development for humans. Phonology: speech sounds or hand shapes Morphology: word formation Syntax: sentence formation Semantics: word and sentence meaning Prosody: intonation and rhythm of speech Pragmatics: effective use of language

First Words

• First words happen about 12 months

• Vocabulary explosion at about 18 months

• Children understand much more than they can speak

The Language Areas of the Brain

Broca’s area: an area in the front of the left hemisphere of the brain thought to be partially responsible for speech production

Wernicke’s area: an area in the brain thought to be partially responsible for language processing and comprehension

Theories of Language Development

The Behaviorist Approach: Children acquire language through the principles of reinforcement; successful utterings are reinforced and strengthened, incorrect ones that do not gain approval are forgotten.

The Nativist Approach: Noam Chomsky proposed that humans are biologically predisposed to learn a language. Language acquisition device (LAD): a

hypothetical brain mechanism proposed to explain human acquisition of the syntactic structure of language

The Interactionist Approach: Sometimes called cognitive functional linguistics, this approach argues that language development is both biological and social. Children are motivated to learn language by their desire to communicate with others.

Acquiring Language

Newborn infants are able to discriminate and categorize a variety of characteristics of the human voice and patterns of speech. Cooing: At about 2 months, they produce one-syllable

vowel sounds. Babbling: By 6 months, consonants are added and

repetitive syllables mimicking human speech are produced.

The Role of Experience in Language

At birth, infants exhibit a universal capacity to detect phonetic differences in the world’s languages; experience alters this capacity, so that by 1 year of age, the infant is no longer universally prepared for all languages.

Social Interactions and Language

Social interaction is essential for learning language; therefore, the people in an infant’s life are critical in helping facilitate the infant’s language development. Infant-directed speech: a special way of speaking that

caretakers use to address infants; characterized by careful pronunciation, slow pacing, exaggerated intonation, and short sentences featuring much repetition.

Raising a Bilingual Child

Bilingual children tend to have a smaller vocabulary in each language than those who speak only one, but they tend to perform better on a range of intelligence tests and school achievement.

Evidence indicates that exposing infants and toddlers to more than one language may be a positive practice.