Cognitive Development in Infancy and Toddlerhood

Exploring Lifespan Development , 3/e Laura E. Berk ©2014 / ISBN: 9780205968961 Chapter begins on next page > PLEASE NOTE: This sample chapter was prepared in advance of book publication. Additional changes may appear in the published book. To request an examination copy or for additional information, please visit us at www.pearsonhighered.com or contact your Pearson representative at www.pearsonhighered.com/replocator. chapter Cognitive Development 5 in Infancy and Toddlerhood © KRISTIN DUVALL/GETTY IMAGES © KRISTIN DUVALL/GETTY A father encourages his child’s curiosity and delight in discovery. With the sensitive support of caring adults, infants’ and toddlers’ cognition and language develop rapidly. chapter outline Piaget’s Cognitive‐Developmental Information Processing Individual Differences in Early Theory A General Model of Information Processing • Mental Development Piaget’s Ideas About Cognitive Change • Attention • Memory • Categorization • Infant and Toddler Intelligence Tests • Early The Sensorimotor Stage • Follow‐Up Evaluation of Information‐Processing Findings Environment and Mental Development • Early Research on Infant Cognitive Development Intervention for At‐Risk Infants and Toddlers • ■ BIOLOGY AND ENVIRONMENT Infantile Evaluation of the Sensorimotor Stage Amnesia Language Development ■ SOCIAL ISSUES: EDUCATION Baby The Social Context of Early Cognitive Theories of Language Development • Getting Learning from TV and Video: The Video Development Ready to Talk • First Words • The Two‐Word Deficit Effect Utterance Phase • Individual and Cultural ■ CUltURAL INFLUENCES Social Origins Differences • Supporting Early Language of Make‐Believe Play Development 117 118 PART III Infancy and Toddlerhood: The First Two Years When Caitlin, Grace, and Timmy, each nearly lems and starts to master the most amazing human ability: lan 18 months old, gathered at Ginette’s child‐care guage. Parents wonder, How does all this happen so quickly? This home, the playroom was alive with activity. question has also captivated researchers, yielding a wealth of find Grace dropped shapes through holes in a plastic ings along with vigorous debate box that Ginette held and adjusted so the harder over how to explain the astonish ones would fall smoothly into place. Once a few shapes ing pace of infant and toddler were inside, Grace grabbed the box and shook it, squealing with cognition. delight as the lid fell open and the shapes scattered around her. In this chapter, we take up The clatter attracted Timmy, who picked up a shape, carried it to the three perspectives on early cogni railing at the top of the basement steps, and dropped it overboard, tive development: Piaget’s cognitive‐ © ELLEN B. SENISI PHOTOGRAPHY © ELLEN B. then followed with a teddy bear, a ball, his shoe, and a spoon. developmental theory, information As the toddlers experimented, I could see the beginnings of processing, and Vygotsky’s sociocul- spoken language—a whole new way of influencing the world. tural theory. We also consider the “All gone baw!” Caitlin exclaimed as Timmy tossed the bright red usefulness of tests that measure ball down the basement steps. Later that day, Grace revealed the infants’ and toddlers’ intellectual beginnings of make‐believe. “Night‐night,” she said, putting her progress. Finally, we look at the head down and closing her eyes. beginnings of language. We will see how toddlers’ first words build Over the first two years, the small, reflexive newborn baby on early cognitive achievements and how, very soon, new words and becomes a self‐assertive, purposeful being who solves simple prob expressions greatly increase the speed and flexibility of thinking. ● Piaget’s Cognitive‐ Adaptation. TAKE A MOMENT… The next time you have a chance, notice how infants and toddlers tirelessly repeat Developmental Theory actions that lead to interesting effects. Adaptation involves building schemes through direct interaction with the environ Swiss theorist Jean Piaget inspired a vision of children as ment. It consists of two complementary activities, assimilation busy, motivated explorers whose thinking develops as they act and accommodation. During assimilation, we use our current directly on the environment. According to Piaget, all aspects of schemes to interpret the external world. For example, when cognition develop in an integrated fashion, changing in a simi Timmy dropped objects, he was assimilating them to his senso lar way at about the same time as children move through four stages between infancy and adolescence. Piaget’s first stage, the sensorimotor stage, spans the first two years of life. Piaget believed that infants and toddlers “think” with their eyes, ears, hands, and other sensorimotor equipment. They cannot yet carry out many activities inside their heads. But by the end of toddlerhood, children can solve practical, everyday problems and represent their experiences in speech, gesture, and play. © LAURA DWIGHT PHOTOGRAPHY Piaget’s Ideas About Cognitive Change According to Piaget, specific psychological structures—organized ways of making sense of experience called schemes—change with age. At first, schemes are sensorimotor action patterns. For example, at 6 months, Timmy dropped objects in a fairly rigid way, simply letting go of a rattle and watching with interest. By 18 months, his “dropping scheme” had become deliberate and creative. In tossing objects down the basement stairs, he threw some in the air, bounced others off walls, released some gently and others forcefully. Soon, instead of just acting on objects, he will show evidence of thinking before he acts. For Piaget, this change marks the transition from sensorimotor to preopera tional thought. In Piaget’s theory, first schemes are sensorimotor action patterns. In Piaget’s theory, two processes, adaptation and organiza- As this 11-month-old repeatedly experiments with her dropping tion, account for changes in schemes. scheme, her dropping behavior becomes more deliberate and varied. CHAPTER 5 Cognitive Development in Infancy and Toddlerhood 119 rimotor “dropping scheme.” In accommodation, we create new The Sensorimotor Stage schemes or adjust old ones after noticing that our current ways of thinking do not capture the environment completely. When The difference between the newborn baby and the 2‐year‐ Timmy dropped objects in different ways, he modified his drop old child is so vast that Piaget divided the sensorimotor stage ping scheme to take account of the varied properties of objects. into six substages, summarized in Table 5.1. Piaget based this According to Piaget, the balance between assimilation and sequence on a very small sample: observations of his son and accommodation varies over time. When children are not changing two daughters as he presented them with everyday problems much, they assimilate more than they accommodate—a steady, (such as hidden objects) that helped reveal their understanding comfortable state that Piaget called cognitive equilibrium. Dur of the world. ing rapid cognitive change, however, children are in a state According to Piaget, at birth infants know so little that they of disequilibrium, or cognitive discomfort. Realizing that new cannot explore purposefully. The circular reaction provides a information does not match their current schemes, they shift special means of adapting their first schemes. It involves stum from assimilation toward accommodation. After modifying bling onto a new experience caused by the baby’s own motor their schemes, they move back toward assimilation, exercising activity. The reaction is “circular” because, as the infant tries to their newly changed structures until they are ready to be modi repeat the event again and again, a sensorimotor response that fied again. first occurred by chance strengthens into a new scheme. Consider Each time this back‐and‐forth movement between equi Caitlin, who at age 2 months accidentally made a smacking noise librium and disequilibrium occurs, more effective schemes are after a feeding. Intrigued, she tried to repeat it until she became produced. Because the times of greatest accommodation are the expert at smacking her lips. Infants’ difficulty inhibiting new earliest ones, the sensorimotor stage is Piaget’s most complex and interesting behaviors may underlie the circular reaction. period of development. This immaturity in inhibition seems to be adaptive, helping to ensure that new skills will not be interrupted before they Organization. Schemes also change through organization, strengthen (Carey & Markman, 1999). Piaget considered revi a process that takes place internally, apart from direct contact sions in the circular reaction so important that, as Table 5.1 with the environment. Once children form new schemes, they shows, he named the sensorimotor substages after them. rearrange them, linking them with other schemes to create a strongly interconnected cognitive system. For example, even Repeating Chance Behaviors. In Substage 1, babies tually Timmy will relate “dropping” to “throwing” and to his suck, grasp, and look in much the same way, no matter what developing understanding of “nearness” and “farness.” According experiences they encounter. Around 1 month, as they enter Sub to Piaget, schemes truly reach equilibrium when they become stage 2, infants start to gain voluntary control over their actions part of a broad network of structures that can be jointly applied through the primary circular reaction, by repeating chance to the surrounding world (Piaget,

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