Cognitive Language development in early childhood 04 21 2015 Preoperational development refers to the period from three to six years old operational refers to the logical systems of thought which emerge in middle childhood therefore the pre is implying they don t have these abilities yet The Symbolic Function o End of the second year of life is a turning point in cognitive development marked by the development of the symbolic function the ability to use symbols to represent or stand for perceived objects and events o Takes distinct forms as they move into being three years old deferred imitation symbolic or pretend play mental images and language o Deferred imitation children observe the behavior of a model and imitate that behavior after a delay and in some cases when the model is no longer present The modeled behavior is remembered in a symbolic form and is only imitated when its beneficial to do so This ability requires the child to store and later retrieve information different from infants who could only imitate after a brief delay As the structure and function of the brain matures the child s ability to engage in this process improves Advances in perception allow a more detail study Advances in memory allow the behavior to be of the behavior remembered longer Developmental improvements in physical and motor capacities allow a more precise imitation of complex behaviors By age four imitation becomes highly meticulous a child s ability to imitate is improved when the behavior the model is performing helps the model reach a specific goal o Symbolic or pretend play children pretend that an object is something other than what it really is Transforms any situation into a world of make believe with pervasive effects on their social and emotional development Distinct cognitive skills necessary for pretend play follow a unique course of development Shifting context two and three year olds require support from the play setting to initiate and sustain their pretense A toddler is likely to pretend to eat in a kitchen than in the backyard older children can shift context Older kids can pretend to eat while in the backyard not just in the kitchen Substituting objects object for another in pretend play children substitute one 14 months through 19 months toddlers act out play on realistic dolls with little use of unrealistic objects their imagination doesn t expand to using an ambiguous object like a block for a pretend phone during their third year children become increasingly able to transform virtually any object into the props they need for what ever make believe situation they have o they become progressively independent of realistic props during preschool years o by about three four they can imagine props on their own like an imaginary friend with them at dinner substituting other agents for oneself developmental progression in how children use agents in their pretense when pretense first appears early in the second year children are the agents of their own acts of pretense o a child may pretend to feed herself with an empty spoon later in the second year children begin to use dolls but only as passive agents o the child talks to the doll but doesn t imagine the doll talking back or the doll talking to other dolls By the beginning of the third year children use dolls as active agents o Pretending that the dolls sustain their own behavior the doll is talking or playing with other dolls o When the doll becomes its own agent the child begins to pull the strings as it takes on a human like role in the pretend play Sequencing and socialization of pretend episodes pretense begins with single acts but children coordinate those acts into sequences that increase in complexity and length as they go through preschool A two years hair brushing expands into the four year olds sequence of grooming washing putting on makeup brushing your hair getting dressed These patterns begin to incorporate behavior patterns for agents that reflect conventional roles o The police are expected to chase bad guys but not clean the house o Mental images internal representations of external objects or events The advent of preconcepts Frees children from the here and now and allows them to think about objects when the objects are present and to think about events before during and after they happened For the first time they can integrate experiences from the past into the present to plan for the future o These three forms of symbolic function represent idiosyncratic meanings that derive from personal experience experiences are subjective and each child takes symbolic play on in a different manner One child pretends to eat by exaggerating the movement of getting the spoon to her mouth while the other child just moves the spoon without dramatics The private nature limits an infants ability to communicate their thoughts to others o Centration preschool age children tend to focus their attention on minute and often inconsequential aspects of their experience o Centrated perception creates unsystematic samplings of isolated pieces of information from any experience Random pieces of stimuli are what they focus on there is no method to their madness its just what ends up sticking Example Carlos is three and went to the zoo for the first time He remembers a lion popcorn cages pictures being taken and peanuts being thrown o The centrated pieces of information merge into preconcepts disorganized illogical representations of the child s experience The irrelevant pieces of information combined to form a story of the event that reflects the child s own private perception of it Kids tend to pick experiences randomly study the world in a fractured way Pick up bits and pieces and the mind syncretizes them gels them together in the same messy way the child gathers them Transductive reasoning thinking with pre concepts o Pre concepts limit the quality of preschool age children s reasoning and problem solving o Primary forms of logical thought in older children and adults Induction derive general principles from particular examples An eight year old boy observes that teachers have favored girls in his class he assumes induces the general principle concept that girls are teachers pet Deduction we use general principles to predict particular outcomes The same eight year old could use that general principle to deduce that when he enters fourth grade that his new teacher will favor girls o Preoperational children are incapable of the
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