Paper Requirement

Chapter 5:

Cognitive Development in Infancy

Learning Goals

Learning Goal 1: Summarize and evaluate Piaget’s theory of infant development.

A. Discuss cognitive processes in infancy.

B. Explain sensorimotor stage.

C. Evaluate Piaget’s sensorimotor stage.

Learning Goal 2: Describe how infants learn, remember, and conceptualize.

A. Discuss the role of conditioning in learning and remembering.

B. Define infant attention.

C. Describe memory in infancy.

D. Explain how imitation assists in infant learning.

E. Discuss concept formation and categorization.

Learning Goal 3: Discuss infant assessment measures and the prediction of intelligence.

A. Describe and discuss measures of infant development.

B. Discuss the concept of predicting intelligence.

Learning Goal 4: Describe the nature of language and how it develops in infancy.

A. Define language.

B. Define and discuss language’s rule system.

C. Describe how language develops.

Piaget’s Theory of Infant Development Video Clip

 Introduction to Piaget  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEam9lpa6TQ

Cognitive Processes

 Piaget proposed that we build mental structures that help us adapt to the world

 Piaget stressed that children actively construct their own cognitive worlds through interaction with the environment. Think about your interaction with the world when you were this age. You were sucking, biting, grasping, looking, hearing… all the while, learning about the world around you.

 Systematic changes in children’s thinking occur at different points in their development

 Schemes: actions or mental representations that organize knowledge. A baby’s schemes are structured by simple actions that can be performed on objects such as sucking, looking, and grasping. Other children have schemes that include strategies and plans for solving problems. By the time we reach adulthood, we develop a number of diverse schemes ranging from how to drive a car to balance a budget.

Cognitive Processes

 Assimilation: occurs when children use their existing schemes to deal with new information or experiences

 Accommodation: occurs when children adjust their schemes to take new information and experiences into account

Think about a toddler who has learned the word car to identify the family’s car. The

toddler might call all moving vehicles cars, including motorcycles and trucks. The child has

assimilated these objects to his or her existing scheme. But the child soon learns that

motorcycles and trucks are not cars and fine tunes the category to exclude motorcycles

and trucks, accommodating the scheme.

 According to Piaget, individuals go through four stages of development  Cognition is qualitatively different from one stage to another

 Sensorimotor Stage: infant cognitive development lasting from birth to 2 years

 Infants understand the world through their sensory experiences

What is this baby learning through his sensory

experiences?

Cognitive Processes

 Object Permanence: the understanding that objects continue to exist even when they cannot be seen, heard, or touched

 Developed by the end of the sensorimotor period  Studied by watching infant’s reaction when an interesting object disappears

OBJECT PERMANENCE. Piaget argued that object permanence is one of infancy's landmark

cognitive accomplishments. For this 5-month-old boy, “out-of-sight” is literally out of mind. The

infant looks at the toy monkey (top), but, when his view of the toy is blocked (bottom), he does

not search for it. Several months later, he will search for the hidden toy monkey, an action

reflecting the presence of object permanence.

Evaluating Piaget’s Sensorimotor Stage:

 Piaget was not specific enough about how infants learn about their world

Conditioning and Attention

Conditioning:

 Rovee-Collier (1997) demonstrated that infants can retain conditioning experiences.

This baby learned that if it kicked her foot, she could move the mobile. One month later, when placed in the same crib, she will start spontaneously kicking, as if she remembers doing the behavior in the past.

 Attention: the focusing of mental resources on select information  Newborns can detect and fix their attention on contours of faces, etc…  4-month-olds can scan more thoroughly and show selective attention

Conditioning and Attention

 Infants’ attention is strongly governed by novelty and habituation  Habituation: decreased responsiveness to a stimulus after repeated presentations  Dishabituation: increased responsiveness after a change in stimulation

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiB2ZX1phmc

 Habituation is studied to determine the extent to which infants can see, hear, smell, taste, and experience touch

Take a moment:

 What was your first memory? How old were you?

Memory

 Memory: retention of information over time  Encoding: the process by which information gets into memory  Implicit memory: memory without conscious recollection

 Skills and routine procedures that are performed automatically

 Explicit memory: conscious memory of facts and experiences  Occurs in infants after 6 months  Maturation of hippocampus and surrounding cerebral cortex

Memory

 Infantile or childhood amnesia: inability to recall memories of events that occurred before 3 years of age

 May be caused by immaturity of prefrontal lobes of the brain. Chances are, you cannot remember anything prior to age 3.

 What are some of the problems with asking people to recall their earliest memories? o Difficult to accurately date memories o Reporting of false memories o Confusion between memories of events and what people have told them about the

event o Imagining the event o Cannot validate the memories

Memory

 Imitation:  Meltzoff: infants’ imitative abilities are biologically based and are characterized by

flexibility and adaptability

 Deferred Imitation: imitation that occurs after a time delay of hours or days  Piaget: deferred imitation does not occur until about 18 months  Meltzoff: research suggests it can occur as early as 9 months

Deferred Imitation: Meltzoff demonstrated that 9 mo old infants could imitate actions

such as pushing a recessed button in a box, which produced a beeping sound, that they

had seen performed 24 hours earlier.

Measures of Infant Development

 Individual differences in infant cognitive development are important  Development testing emphasizes “norms”  Infant assessments mostly based on assessment scales and intelligence tests

 Gesell Test has four categories of behavior: motor, language, adaptive, and personal–social

 Bayley Scales of Infant Development has three components: mental scale,

motor scale, and infant behavior profile

 Fagan Test of Infant Intelligence focuses on infant’s ability to process information

Predicting Intelligence

 Scores on infant tests are not highly correlated with IQ scores in childhood  Components of tests are very different  Exception: Fagan test

 Measures of habituation and dishabituation are linked to intelligence in childhood and adolescence

Unlike the Gesell and Bayley scales, the Fagan test is correlated with measures of

intelligence in older children. In fact, evidence is accumulating that measures of

habituation and dishabituation are linked to intelligence in childhood, adolescence, and

even adulthood (Fagan, Holland, & Wheeler, 2007; Kavsek, 2004). One study revealed that

habituation assessed at 3 or 6 months of age was linked to verbal skills and intelligence

assessed at 32 months of age (Domsch, Lohaus, & Thomas, 2009). It is important,

however, not to go too far and think that connections between cognitive development in

early infancy and later cognitive development are so strong that no discontinuity takes

place. Some important changes in cognitive development occur after infancy, changes

that we will describe in later chapters.

Your Baby Can Read Infomercial http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qoqs-GeBj0 Is it important to teach your baby to read? Why or why not?

Question to consider:

 What are the potential advantages and disadvantages of knowing an infant’s intellectual abilities?

Language Development

 Wild or feral children are raised in isolation and are unable to recapture normal language development despite intensive intervention later

 Victor, Wild Boy of Aveyron

 Genie: 13-year-old found in 1970 in Los Angeles who couldn’t speak: http://www.english.iup.edu/mmwimson/Syllabi/721/Genie.htm

 Both cases raise questions about biological and environmental determinants of language

 Language: a form of communication – whether spoken, written, or signed – that is based on a system of symbols

 Infinite Generativity: the ability to produce an endless number of meaningful sentences using a finite set of words and rules

Language Development

 Language develops in infants throughout the world along a similar path and sequence  Recognizing language sounds  With age, infants get better at perceiving the sounds in their own language and

worse at distinguishing sounds in other languages

 Detecting boundaries between words  Occurs by about 8 months

 Babbling and other vocalizations  Crying  Cooing  Babbling

 Gestures are used by about 8 to 12 months  Pointing, waving “bye-bye”

 First words (what was yours?):  Children understand first words earlier than they speak them  On average, a child understands about 50 words at age 13 months but can’t speak 50

words until 18 months

 Children typically speak their first word at 10–15 months

Language Development

 Vocabulary spurt begins at approximately 18 months of age

 Overextension and underextension of words are common  Overextension: tendency to apply a word to objects that are inappropriate for

the word’s meaning. “Dada” for father but also other men.

 Underextension: tendency to apply a word too narrowly. Child might use the word boy to describe a 5 year old neighbor, but not apply the word to a male infant or to a 9 year old male.

 Two-word utterances occur at about 18–24 months  Telegraphic speech: use of short and precise words without grammatical

markers

Language Development

 Environmental Influences:  Behaviorists claim language is a complex learned skill acquired through responses

and reinforcements

 Children’s vocabulary is linked to family socioeconomic status (poorer kids have smaller vocabularies than wealthier kids) and the type of talk parents direct toward their children

Researchers have also found that the child's vocabulary development is linked to the

family's socioeconomic status and the type of talk that parents direct to their children.

Betty Hart and Todd Risley (1995) observed the language environments of children whose

parents were professionals and children whose parents were on welfare (public

assistance). Compared with the professional parents, the parents on welfare talked much

less to their young children, talked less about past events, and provided less elaboration.





 Child-Directed Speech: language spoken in a higher pitch than normal with simple words and sentences

 Captures infant’s attention and maintains communication

 Three strategies to enhance child’s acquisition of language:  Recasting: rephrasing something the child has said. If the child says, “The dog was

barking”, the adult can respond by asking, ‘When was the dog barking”. Effective recasting lets the child indicate an interest and then elaborates on that interest.

 Expanding state: repeating what the child has said but in correct structure Child: “Doggie eat”; Parent- “Yes, the doggie is eating”.

 Labeling: identifying the names of objects. Much of the child’s early vocabulary is

motivated by this adult pressure to identify the words associated with objects.

 Children vary in their ability to acquire language

Linguist Naomi Baron (1992) in Growing Up with Language, and more recently Ellen Galinsky (2010) in Mind in the Making, provided ideas to help parents facilitate their infants' and toddlers' language development. A summary of their ideas follow:  Be an active conversational partner. Talk to your baby from the time it is born. Initiate

conversation with the baby. If the baby is in a day-long child-care program, ensure that the baby receives adequate language stimulation from adults.

 Talk in a slowed-down pace and don't worry about how you sound to other adults when you talk to your baby. Talking in a slowed-down pace will help your baby detect words in the sea of sounds they experience. Babies enjoy and attend to the high-pitched sound of child-directed speech.

 Use parent-look and parent-gesture, and name what you are looking at. When you want your child to pay attention to something, look at it and point to it. Then name it—for example, you might say, “Look, Alex, there's an airplane.”

 When you talk with infants and toddlers, be simple, concrete, and repetitive. Don't try to talk to them in abstract, high-level ways and think you have to say something new or different all of the time. Using familiar words often will help them remember the words.

 Play games. Use word games like peek-a-boo and pat-a-cake to help infants learn words.

 Remember to listen. Since toddlers' speech is often slow and laborious, parents are often tempted to supply words and thoughts for them. Be patient and let toddlers express themselves, no matter how painstaking the process is or how great a hurry you are in.

 Expand and elaborate language abilities and horizons with infants and toddlers. Ask questions that encourage answers other than “yes'' or “no.'' Actively repeat, expand, and recast the utterances. Your toddler might say, “Dada.” You could follow with, “Where's Dada?” and then you might continue, “Let's go find him.”

 Adjust to your child's idiosyncrasies instead of working against them. Many toddlers have difficulty pronouncing words and making themselves understood. Whenever possible, make toddlers feel that they are being understood.

 Resist making normative comparisons. Be aware of the ages at which your child reaches specific milestones (such as the first word, first 50 words), but do not measure this development rigidly against that of other children. Such comparisons can bring about unnecessary anxiety.

It is a good idea for parents to begin talking to their babies at the start. The best language

teaching occurs when the talking begins before the infant becomes capable of intelligible

speech. What are some other guidelines for parents to follow in helping their infants and

toddlers develop their language skills?

To Sign or Not to Sign?

Child development experts agree that it is a good idea for parents to begin talking to their

babies from the moment of birth. From that moment on, babies are learning language.

Why wait until babies can speak to teach them to communicate with the caregivers? Why not

teach them sign language and communicate with them in sign language when they are 4 or 6

months old?

Controversial at the time it was first suggested a few years ago, teaching babies to sign has

plenty of supporters and many companies are willing to train you and your baby to sign. In fact,

the only resistance comes from those who fear that parents may feel under pressure to learn

sign language in order to make sure their babies get the claimed “jump start” on language

development.

The idea of teaching hearing babies to sign first came to researcher Joseph Garcia when he saw

a 10 month-old infant in conversation with its mother. He thought, why can’t every child learn

this? His idea took off, and is supported by child education experts. A benefit of sign language

would be to enable babies to express themselves during those first six months or more when

they are yet to learn their first word. Experts say babies and caregivers are less frustrated,

because they can express their needs and wishes. It is also believed that signing babies become

more adept at spoken language earlier. Some suggest that IQ scores are higher among babies

who signed before speaking by as many as 10-12 points.

In an article in the British Psychological Society’s The Psychologist Gwyneth Doherty-Sneddon

has considered in detail the theoretical bases behind the growth of this phenomenon and some

of the claims made by its supporters. She points out that “baby signing” is not entirely new.

Variants have been used by speech and language therapists for decades with children who have

impairments to their speech, their cognitive abilities, or both.

While baby signing promoters claim various benefits verified in experimental research, there is

in fact a dearth of research. An American team led by Acredolo and Goodwyn has been

responsible for driving research into the effects of baby signing on child development. They

claim babies readily acquire symbolic gestures when exposed to enhanced gesture training.

They also propose that those taught to sign reap such rewards as:

 Larger expressive and receptive oral-language vocabularies

 More advanced mental development

 A reduction in problematic behavior like tantrums resulting from frustration

 Improved parent–child relationships

The mechanisms underlying these benefits are proposed to include:

 An increased number of episodes of joint visual attention during interactions between parents and toddlers, known to be associated with improved language skills

 Empowering the infant to focus the topic and context of conversation

 The discussion and clarification of concepts

 Added practice with the symbolic function.

 Doherty-Sneddon claims a key issue is ensuring that sufficient and appropriately designed

research is available to back the claims made in relation to baby signing. Certainly, research into

the effects of baby signing needs better control groups, such as children who are involved in

equally interesting and fun activities based around adult and child language interaction, but not

baby signing.

Volterra et al. (2006) conclude enhanced gesture input for hearing children is a catalyst for

gesture acquisition, and especially the use of representational form and hence symbolic

communicative function. They add that this enhancement is short-lived (to between 12 and 15

months of age). Doherty-Sneddon argues, however, that this timescale represents only a

general norm. The enhancement and advantage is far more extended in the many toddlers who

do not speak until well after their second birthdays.

Doherty-Sneddon concludes by arguing there are three different levels of support for the

benefits of baby signing:

 Indicative, if not evidentially strong, evidence from baby signing research

 Related evidence from deaf sign and hearing gesture/language research

 Compelling anecdotal support from families who have embraced the approach

 Have you ever heard of it? Would you want to learn sign language in order to teach their babies

to sign?

Visit:

Baby Signing and Language Development

http://www.literacytrust.org.uk/talktoyourbaby/signing.html#talk

Baby Sign: A Report from the Canadian Broadcasting Company

http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/babysign/

How well do toys facilitate infant learning?

Check out the following link that lists 10 questions developed by toy manufacturer

Fisher-Price to test the IQ of six- to 12-month-old babies:

http://webcenters.netscape.compuserve.com/homerealestate/package.jsp?name=fte/predi

ctbabysiq/predictbabysiq

Does the test really offer parents valid information about their child's intelligence and level

of developmental milestones or is it designed to sell more stuff to already paranoid moms and

dads?

This could be an interesting activity to do next time you buy a child a toy:

Visit toy stores that sell toys to infants and take notes on the toys available and the

manufacturers’ claims about those toys (including the appropriate ages for which the toys are

designed).

Examine toys and packaging for some of the following characteristics:

1. For what ages toy is recommended? 2. Is the toy pitched to one particular gender?

3. What does the toy cost? 4. What might parents do with the toy when interacting with their child? 5. What are the general developmental benefits of this toy according to the manufacturer? 6. Does this toy seem designed to stimulate specific cognitive abilities such as perceptual

abilities or tactile senses, etc.? 7. How durable does the toy appear to be? Is it washable? 8. Are there any other notable characteristics of this toy in terms of infant development?

Good links for you to visit:

What Do Babies Think?

TED

This video shows Dr. Allison Gopnick discussing infant cognition. It is part of the TED series on

developmental psychology. It can be found at:

http://www.psychotube.net/developmental-psychology/what-do-babies-think/

The Linguistic Genius of Babies

TED

Dr. Patricia Kuhl discusses her research on babies and critical periods of language acquisition. It

can be found at:

http://www.ted.com/talks/patricia_kuhl_the_linguistic_genius_of_babies.html or

http://www.psychotube.net/developmental-psychology/the-linguistic-genius-of-babies/

Infant Speech Sound Discrimination

The Mind

Part of the series “The Mind”, this clip looks at infant speech development and language

predisposition. (http://www.learner.org/resources/series150.html) or through the McGraw Hill

Higher Education General Resources for Students and Faculty Annenberg / CPB projects link

(http://www.mhhe.com/socscience/psychology/psychonline/general.html)

Language Predisposition

The Mind

Part of the series “The Mind”, this clip looks at infant language development and research

methodology. (http://www.learner.org/resources/series150.html) or through the McGraw Hill

Higher Education General Resources for Students and Faculty Annenberg / CPB projects link

(http://www.mhhe.com/socscience/psychology/psychonline/general.html)

Infant Cognitive Development

The Mind

Part of the series “The Mind”, this clip looks at how you study infant behavior as well as brain

and vision. (http://www.learner.org/resources/series150.html) or through the McGraw Hill

Higher Education General Resources for Students and Faculty Annenberg / CPB projects link

(http://www.mhhe.com/socscience/psychology/psychonline/general.html)

Infancy and Early Childhood

Seasons of Life

Part of the series “Seasons of Life”, this clip covers early influences on the biological and social

clocks from birth to 5. (http://www.learner.org/resources/series54.html) or through the

McGraw Hill Higher Education General Resources for Students and Faculty Annenberg / CPB

projects link (http://www.mhhe.com/socscience/psychology/psychonline/general.html)

Bayley Scales of Infant Development

http://www.enotes.com/bayley-scales-infant-development-reference/bayley-scales-infant-dev

elopment

Brain Connection: Infantile Amnesia

http://brainconnection.positscience.com/topics/?main=fa/infantile-amnesia

Child Development Institute: Language Development in Children

http://childdevelopmentinfo.com/development/language_development.shtml

Core Knowledge and Cognitive Development (Lectures by Elizabeth Spelke)

http://www.ircs.upenn.edu/pinkel/lectures/spelke/index.shtml

Jean Piaget—Intellectual Development

http://www.english.sk.com.br/sk-piage.html

Nature, Nurture, and Cognitive Development from 1 to 16 years

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/