Cognitive Development

Cognitive Development Chapter 5

Chapter Outline • What is cognitive development? • Behaviourist theories of cognitive development • Piaget’s theories of cognitive development • Vygotsky’s theories of cognitive development • Promotion of cognitive development • Revision questions

What is cognitive development? • Imagination • Creativity • Memory skills • Concentration skills • Problem solving skills • Concept formation

Imagination • Imagination is the ability to form mental images of objects or concepts that are not present or that do not even yet exist • Closely linked to the concept of imagination are two others – problem solving and original thought and should be encouraged • Symbolic play helps children realise that one thing can represent another- important later on for skills such as reading and writing • Role play which involves the child becoming somebody or something else also helps develop many other important skills

Creativity • Creativity is the expression of imaginative ideas in a unique and personal way • Often children come home from playschool with identical art and craft work, this is not being creative • Children should be given the resources to help them develop their creativity and allowed go about it themselves • Sometimes adults do provide a framework e.g. a theme within which children work creatively, but the activity should not be too adult led

Memory skills • Memory is a vital part of learning and therefore cognitive development and involves three tasks: • (1) encoding - putting information into storage • (2) storage - retaining information over time • (3) retrieval - taking information out of storage

Memory skills depend on: • How much there is to be learned • Whether the new memory is linked to existing information • Whether leaner understands what is being learned? • Repetition

Memory development • Infantile or childhood amnesia - brain’s prefrontal lobes are immature • Memory span improves throughout childhood, important to know this so that too much information is not presented at once to very young children • Repetition of key information important • See example of how this memory theory translates into practice (page 87)

Concentration skills • Concentration is the skill of focusing your attention on a task • Children will be encouraged to concentrate if: • activities are at the correct level for them • activities are interesting and attractively presented • adults encourage and praise the child’s efforts • as a rule of thumb usual attention span is between 3-5 minutes per year of a child’s age (passive activities e.g. TV do not count)

Encouraging concentration skills • Encourage children to sit and listen to full stories • Encourage children to complete activities e.g. a jigsaw before moving on to the next one • Play games e.g. board games that require children to persevere to the end • Limit time spent at activities that do not promote concentration skills e.g. passively watching videos etc. • ADHD and ADD both affect children’s ability to concentrate – see textbook page 88

Problem solving skills • The ability to figure out and solve problems is another very important aspect of cognitive development • When children begin to try to solve problems they take a trial and error approach (up to about age 2) • Later children will begin to identify the problem facing them and work out a possible solution before they try anything out this is called the hypothesis approach • Well thought out challenges should be set for children to encourage problem solving skills

Concept formation • Concepts are the mental pictures we hold in our heads about the world • There are basically two types of concept – • (1) concrete concepts e.g. dogs, chairs, cars and flowers • (2) abstract concepts e.g. justice, fractions and time • Concept formation is a vital part of cognitive development in that it helps us organise and make sense of the world around us • Piaget believed that children had difficulty with abstract concepts until they reached the formal operations stage of cognitive development (at approximately aged 12)

Behaviourist theories of cognitive development (see page 90) • We learn as a result of conditioning, of which there are 2 types: • Classical (Pavlov) • Operant (Skinner) • Critics of the behaviourist approach believe that human learning is much more complex than this – that there are lots of things learned despite never being punished or rewarded

Piaget’s theory of cognitive development • Jean Piaget (1896-1980) believed that children actively construct their own cognitive worlds and are not just passive receivers of information – vessels into which information is poured • Piaget believed that as a result of exposure to the environment around them, children adjust and build their mental structures to suit what they are experiencing - this he called adaptation

Key concepts related to Piaget’s theory • Schema: a mental structure that represents some aspect of the world e.g. zebra, how to walk down steps • Assimilation and Accommodation: children adapt and change their schemas over time. Assimilation is when children incorporate new information into their existing schemas and accommodation is when children adjust their schemas in light of this new information • Organization is another term used by Piaget and refers to the capacity of the human mind to organise and link or combine different schemas together. What schema are required to walk down stairs holding a beaker of juice? • Equilibrium and disequilibrium: all human beings are motivated to seek equilibrium (to understand)

Piaget’s Stage Theory of Cognitive Development • According to Piaget individuals go through four stages of cognitive development • He believed at each stage a child’s reasoning or way of processing information is qualitatively different from the stage that went before of after, and that it was not just that a younger child possess less information than an older one • Piaget’s four stages are as follows: • Sensori-motor stage (0-2 years) • Pre-operational stage (2-7 years) • Concrete operational (7-11 years) • Formal Operational stage (11+ years)

Sensori-motor stage (0-2) • During the sensori-motor stage the infant progresses from newborn stage; focusing almost exclusively on immediate sensory and motor experiences; to the toddler who possesses a capacity for thinking • Six sub-stages • See textbook page 93

Sensori-motor continued • The development of object permanence is one of the major feats of the sensori-motor stage • Object permanence is the understanding that objects or people continue to exist even when they cannot be seen, heard or touched • At approximately 7 months an understanding of object permanence begins to emerge

Pre-Operational Stage (2-7) • During the pre-operational stage the child does not yet perform operations. Operations are internalised actions that allow children to mentally carry out tasks • A child who is capable of operations is also able to mentally reverse actions • Two sub-stages • symbolic function • intuitive thought

Symbolic function sub-stage • This stage occurs between 2 and 4 years. During this stage children become able to represent people and objects when they are not present • They use scribble designs to represent people, houses, cars, animals etc. • Two limiting features of this stage are • (1) egocentrism (profoundly to age 4) • (2) animism

Piaget’s Mountains Experiment (He found children under four years to be egocentric)

Intuitive thought sub-stage • At this stage children begin to use primitive reasoning and want to know the answers to all sorts of questions – When? Where? Why? • Children are not yet able to understand the principle of cause and effect – a child is not able to mentally represent what would happen if a car hit them • Another characteristic of this stage is centration. Children tend to focus or centre on just one characteristic of an object or idea showing an inability to decentre

Conservation Experiments(showing children’s inability to mentally represent actions and decentre)

Concrete Operational Stage (7-11) • This stage lasts approximately from age 7 to 11or 12 • Can conserve – number 1st, volume last • Can problem solve at this stage as long as the problems are concrete in nature, e.g. Anna is taller than Nina, Anna is smaller than Lily - who is the smallest? OK if props present

Formal Operational Stage (11+) • Piaget argued that it was not until this stage that children can reason hypothetically and understand abstract concepts e.g. ask a 9 or 10 year old what justice is and they are likely to give an example rather than an abstract explanation • Child at formal operations stage are more likely to give general definition • They also take a more organised approach to problems e.g. give a child 11+ a bunch of keys to open a lock a child at the formal operations stage will approach task in a more organised way than younger child

Criticisms of Piaget’s Theories • Criticisms of Piaget’s theories centre around three issues: • experiments were carried out in unnatural laboratory settings • many experiments didn’t make human sense • no account taken of the effects of education, training and culture

Margaret Donaldson(policeman experiments found that children under 4 were not as egocentric as Piaget contended)

Vygotsky’s theory of cognitive development • The zone of proximal development • Scaffolding • Very important concepts for those working with children • See page 100-101 for detailed explanation

Promoting cognitive development • Talk and interact with a baby from birth • Try to provide the baby with good routines • Provide a stimulating environment when the baby is awake • Use child directed speech (motherese) • Provide plenty of interesting activities for the child • Allow children safely explore the wider environment with visits the park, beach, zoo etc. • Provide plenty of reading and writing materials for children • Have children help out with household tasks in a meaningful way – cooking, cleaning, gardening, gathering and sorting laundry etc. • Read with and for children and ask them their opinions on what they have read

Revision questions • What six elements make up cognitive development? • What is symbolic play and why should it be encouraged in children? • What is role play and why should it be encouraged in children? • Define the term creativity. Suggests ways in which children can be encouraged to express their creativity • What three tasks are involved in memory? • What is childhood amnesia? • Suggest ways in which childcare workers can help children develop their memory skills • Why is the development of concentration skills important? • Suggest ways in which childcare workers can help children develop their concentration skills • Describe attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder. What problems can the disorder pose for the child?

Revision questions • Describe how children’s approach to problem solving changes as they get older • How do behaviourists believe children learn? • In Piagetian theory what do the following terms mean: (a) schema, (b) assimilation, (c) accommodation, (d) organisation and (e) equilibrium and disequilibrium. • Describe Piaget’s (a) sensori-motor and (b) pre-operational stages of development • Piaget believed that children under four years are egocentric. What did he mean by this? • What is animism? • Piaget believed that children under seven years cannot conserve. What did he mean by this? • Describe two main criticisms of Piaget’s theories • What did Vygotsky mean by the Zone of Proximal Development? • What is scaffolding in relation to children’s cognitive development? • List six ways in which childcare workers can promote cognitive development in children

Cognitive Development