CHAPTER 5: COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT IN INFANCY HEHD 8010 Chris Raymond and Stojanna Hollis

ACTIVE CONSTRUCTION  Jean Piaget's influential theory on infant development  Constructs understanding of the world on the basis of their own actions  Compared to other developmental scientists who believe that infants learned by being 'passive'

ACTIVE CONSTRUCTION  Shapes how parents and YDL's can influence youth learning  Exposing youth to activities in which they are the 'driver'  Ex: Games in which children control the outcomes  Ex: Focusing less on standardized tests

COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT  Adaptation: “The process whereby knowledge is altered by experience.”  Assimilation: when new information is processed according to what the child already knows  Accommodation: when the child 'changes' their knowledge to better understand reality

COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT  Adults and YDL's can facilitate child learning in multiple ways  Ex: Taking the child to a petting zoo to further develop their understanding of 'animals'  Ex: Expose the child to people of different races in an effort to show expand their knowledge of 'people'  Ex: Exposing the child to many different objects so they can gain a greater understanding of their surroundings

Sensorimotor Period Birth-1 month  Minimal mental development 1-4 months  Coordinate various aspects of understanding 4-7 months  Relation of their actions and the environment months  Mental representation months  Discover unexpected relations of outside world 7-10 months  Construct relations among environmental stimuli

SENSORIMOTOR PERIOD  While these stages are not set in stone, they provide a framework for cognitive development  Parents and YDL's should be aware of these stages  Ex: When interacting with a child in a particular stage, attempt to 'play' within each stage  Do not try to force a child into the next stage they are not ready for  Play within their cognitive abilities

CHALLENGES TO PIAGET  Too much focus on active exploration  Not enough focus on sensory and organizational capacities  Object permanence and mental representation appear much earlier than Piaget stated  Infants have been seen to be able to imitate an action after a delay  As long as a week

CHALLENGES TO PIAGET  It has been shown that not all of Piaget's conclusions are true for all developing children  Ex: Expose children to more 'advanced' behavior than Piaget recommends  Parents and YDL's should use what they can from Piaget's writing, but focus on developing each child in a unique way  Ex: If you notice a child showing a sign of cognitive development, continue to foster that particular action

SOCIAL AND CULTURAL FACTORS  Distal forces influence development through proximal forces  Socioeconomic status, parent's education, parent's age, single mother, air quality, schools, etc..  Scaffolding  Joint attention, responsiveness, material environment  Ethnotheories

SOCIAL AND CULTURAL FACTORS  High quality education programs  Can improve IQ  Constant interplay between child's abilities and environment  Ex: Begin by assisting the infant in putting puzzle together, than let them take the lead  Ex: Read to the infant  Ex: Respond appropriately when the infant initiates interaction

CATEGORIZATION  Grouping separate items into a set according to some rule.

CATEGORIZATION SIMPLIFIED IN 3 WAYS:  Infant experience the world in biological states that are frequently changing. For example, when a teddy bear is in the light and when it’s in the dark(it’s the same).  Facilitates storage of information Doesn’t have to remember everything a person does to remember who they are. Example, facial expressions  Knowledge of an attribute of one member of a category provides information about other members of the same category.

CATEGORIZATION  Youth Development Leaders can become very impactful when incorporating categorization into activities or games. For example, we can group our youth in different categories based off of age, gender, race, sports they like to play, etc. This method can help leaders organize their youth better, especially when dealing with larger crowds.

PHONOLOGY, SEMANTICS, SYNTAX  Phonology Sounds must be produced and perceived  Semantics Meaning of words and sentences, or the content of speech  Syntax Ways in which words and phrases are arranged to ensure correct and meaningful communication.

PHONOLOGY, SEMANTICS, SYNTAX CONT..  Grammar, understanding sentences, and pronouncing words are all important throughout the process of communication and understanding language. YDL’s can use these tools to help develop our youth vocabulary. Engage in activities that allow our youth to explain the meaning of words and understanding of sentences.

LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT IN INFANTS  To study the language development in infants one must simply observe, record, and analyze what children seem to understand or say as they grow up.

LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT IN INFANTS  Being a YDL recording, observing and analyzing will inevitably help us impact our youth and keep their parents informed about their child development. Keeping notes about the youth can be beneficial that way as staff members we know if our youth are progressing or digressing.

INFANT-DIRECTED SPEECH, TURN- TAKING, AND GESTURES  Infant- Directed Speech Rhythm and tone, simplification, redundancy  Turn-Taking Teaches that it’s impolite to interrupt. Wait our turn to speak  Gestures Form of non-verbal communication  These strategies elicit the baby’s attention, change the baby’s state of arousal, communicate emotion, and facilitate language comprehension.

INFANT-DIRECTED SPEECH, TURN- TAKING, AND GESTURES  As YDL’s we must understand that our youth won’t always comprehend everything that we say. There will be times where we have to simplify things so they will understand so they can be better and more productive in life. For example, teaching our youth to raise their hand and wait to be called on. Saying excuse me before interrupting conversations. While these are things that parents should teach their children we must understand that a lot of youth lack parenting at home.

SOUND PRODUCTION  Prelinguistic Crying and babbling  One-Word Holophrase One word stands in for a phrase and has different meaning depending on context.  Multiword Stage Vocabulary increases and the child begins to learn multiple words.

SOUND PRODUCTION  Helping our youth increase their vocabulary is very important and beneficial to mentors. While society is changing it’s still important that our youth understands the importance in proper grammar and speaking grammatically correct. YDL’s can play board games such as scrabble, hang-man, etc. these are all ways that our youth can engage in learning new words and using them.