Looking Ahead
What are the fundamental features of Piaget’s theories of cognitive development?
How do infants process information?
How is infant intelligence measured?
By what processes do children learn to use language? How do children influence adults’ language?
PIAGET’S APPROACH TO
COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT
Key Elements of Piaget’s
Theory
Action = Knowledge
Four universal stages in fixed order
Development = physical maturation and exposure to relevant experiences
Schemes adapt and change
What principles underlie this cognitive growth? Assimilation
Accommodation
Will you do better on the next test if you assimilate or accommodate the material?
Earliest Stage of Cognitive Growth
Sensorimotor Period
Invariant order of stages
Individual differences in rate
Transitions include characteristics of both stages
A Closer Look
Substage 1: Simple Reflexes
First month of life
Various inborn reflexes
At center of a baby’s physical and cognitive life
Determine nature of infant’s interactions with world
At the same time, some of reflexes begin to accommodate the infant’s experiences
A Closer Look
Substage 2: First Habits and Primary
Circular Reactions
1 to 4 months of age
Beginning of coordination of what were separate actions into single, integrated activities.
Activities that engage baby’s interests are repeated simply for sake of continuing to experience it
Circular reaction
Primary circular reaction
A Closer Look
Substage 3: Secondary Circular
Reactions
4 to 8 months of age
Child begins to act upon outside world
● Infants now seek to repeat enjoyable events in their environments that are produced through chance activities ● Infant activity involves actions relating to the world outside A Closer Look
Substage 4: Coordination of Secondary
Circular Reactions
8 months to 12 months
Beginning of goal-directed behavior
Several schemes are combined and coordinated to generate single act to solve problem
Means to attain particular ends and skill in anticipating future circumstances due in part to object permanence
Come out, come out, wherever you are!
Object Permanence
A Closer Look
Substage 5: Tertiary Circular Reactions
12 to 18 months
Development of schemes regarding deliberate variation of actions that bring desirable consequences
Carrying out miniature experiments to observe consequences A Closer Look
Substage 6: Beginnings of Thought
18 months to 2 years
Capacity for mental representation or symbolic thought
Mental representation
Understanding causality
Ability to pretend
Deferred imitation
Assessing Piagetian Theory
PROS
CONS
Descriptions of child cognitive development accurate in many ways
Substantial disagreement over validity of theory and many of its specific predictions Piaget was pioneering figure in field of development
Children learn by acting on environment Broad outlines of sequence of cognitive development and increasing cognitive accomplishments are generally accurate Stage conception questioned
Connection between motor development and cognitive development exaggerated
Object permanence can occur earlier under certain conditions
Onset of age of imitation questioned Cultural variations not considered
Another View of Infant Cognition
Robert Siegler
Siegler suggests cognitive development proceeds not in stages but in “waves”
Although one strategy may be used most frequently at a given age, children still may have access to alternative ways of thinking
Cognitive development seen is in constant flux
INFORMATION-PROCESSING
APPROACHES TO COGNITIVE
DEVELOPMENT
What is information-processing?
Identifies the way that individuals take in, store, and use information
Involves quantitative changes in ability to organize and manipulate information
Increases sophistication, speed, and capacity in information processing characterizes cognitive growth Focuses on types of “mental programs” used when seeking to solve problems
