Chapters 6 7 8 9 Study Guide Chapter 6 Cognitive Development in Infancy and Toddlerhood Piaget s Cognitive Developmental Theory Believed that the child s mind forms and modifies psychological structures so they achieve a better fit with external reality 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 o By the end of toddlerhood children can solve everyday practical problems and represent their experiences in speech gesture and play Piaget s Ideas About Cognitive Change Schemes specific psychological structures organized ways of making sense of experience changes with age o At first they are sensorimotor action patterns o At 6 months Timmy dropped objects in a fairly rigid way by letting go of a rattle By 18 months his dropping scheme had become creative In tossing objects down stairs he threw some in the air bounced off walls then released some gently and others forcefully etc Soon instead of acting on objects he will think before he acts marking transition from sensorimotor to preoperational Changes in schemes o Adaption involved building schemes through direct interaction with the environment external world Assimilation we use our current schemes to interpret the Accommodation we create new schemes or adjust old ones after noticing that our current ways of thinking do not capture the environment completely o Equilibrium when children are not changing much they assimilate more than they accommodate a steady comfortable state o Disequilibrium the times of rapid cognitive change cognitive discomfort Because the times of greatest accommodation are the earliest ones the sensorimotor stage is the most complex period of development Schemes also change through o Organization a process that occurs internally apart from direct contact with the environment Once children form new schemes they rearrange them linking them with other schemes to create a strongly interconnected cognitive system Eventually Timmy will relate dropping to throwing and to his developing understanding of nearness and farness The Sensorimotor Stage Infants know so little that they cannot explore purposefully o Circular reaction provides a special means of adapting their first schemes It involves stumbling onto a new experience caused by the baby s own motor activity The reaction is circular because as the infant tries to repeat the event again and again a sensorimotor response that originally occurred by chance strengthens into a new scheme Caitlin at age 2 months accidentally makes a smacking noise after feeding she find sit interesting and tries to repeat it until she becomes expert at smacking lips Piaget saw newborn reflexes as the building blocks of sensorimotor intelligence o Substage 1 babies suck grasp and look in much the same way no matter what experiences they encounter after a month they go to substage 2 o Substage 2 start to gain voluntary control over their actions through the primary circular reaction by repeating chance behaviors largely motivated by basic needs Leads to sucking their fist or thumbs Open their mouths differently for a nipple then for a spoon Anticipates events at 3 months Timmy awoke from his nap he cried our with hunger but when sister came into room he stopped feeding time was near o Substage 3 4 8 months infants sit up and reach for and manipulate objects strengthen the secondary circular reaction through which babies try to repeat interesting events in the surrounding environment that are caused by their own actions 4 month old accidently knocked a toy in front of her producing a swinging motion she kept trying to repeat this effect making it a hitting scheme 4 8 months cannot adapt flexibly and quickly enough to imitate o Substage 4 8 12 months combine schemes into new more complex novel behaviors action sequences Intentional or goal directed behavior coordinating schemes deliberately to solve simple problems Can now find object hiding tasks by pushing aside obstacle The means end action sequences as the foundation for all and grasping the toy problem solving Object permanence the understanding that objects continue to exist when they are out of sight awareness is not yet complete A not B search error they reach several times for an object at a first hiding place A then see it moved to a second B they still search for it in the first hiding place A o Substage 5 12 18 months tertiary circular reaction toddlers repeat behaviors with variations emerges Grace figured out how to fit a shape through a hole in a contained by turning and twisting it till it fell through o Substage 6 brings ability to create Mental representations Internal depictions of information that the mind can manipulate Images mental pictures of objects people and spaces Concepts categories in which similar objects or events are grouped together Deffered imitation the ability to remember and copy the behavior of models who are not present Make believe play in which children act out everyday and imaginary activities Follow Up Research on Infant Cognitive Development To discover what infants know about hidden objects and other aspects of physical reality researches use o Violation of expectation method they may habituate babies to a physical event expose them to the event until their looking declines to familiarize them with a situation in which their knowledge will be tested Or they may simply show babies an expected event one that is consistent with reality and an unexpected event a variation of the first even that violates reality Heightened attention to the unexpected even suggests that the infant is surprised by a deviation from physical reality and therefore is aware of that aspect of the physical world It is controversial Symbolic understanding o Displaced reference the realization that words can be used to cue mental images of things not physically present a symbolic capacity Greatly expands the toddlers capacity to learn about the world through communicating with others Hearing the name of a parent or sibling who just left the room the 13 month old will turn toward the door the more experience toddlers have with an object and its verbal label the more they are likely to call up a mental representation when they hear the objects name As memory and vocabulary improve skill at displaced reference will expand Evaluation of Sensorimotor
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