Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2008 Infants, Children, and Adolescents Laura E. Berk 6th edition Chapter 9 Cognitive Development in Early Childhood This multimedia product and its contents are protected under copyright law. The following are prohibited by law: Any public performance or display, including transmission of any image over a network; Preparation of any derivative work, including the extraction, in whole or in part of any images; Any rental, lease, or lending of the program.

Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2008 Piaget’s Preoperational Stage Ages 2 to 7 Gains in mental representation –Make-believe play –Dual representation Sensorimotor activity leads to internal images of experience, which children then label with words.

Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2008 Development of Make-Believe Play With age, make-believe gradually becomes: More detached from real-life conditions Less self-centered More complex –sociodramatic play

Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2008 Benefits of Make-Believe Play During social pretend, interactions last longer, show more involvement, and draw more children into the activity in a more cooperative manner. Many studies show that make-believe strengthens a variety of mental abilities, including sustained attention, logic, memory, reasoning, and creativity.

Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2008 Enhancing Make-Believe Play in Early Childhood Provide sufficient space and play materials. Supervise and encourage children’s play without controlling it. Offer a variety of both realistic materials and materials without clear functions. Ensure that children have many rich, real-world experiences to inspire positive fantasy play. Help children solve social conflicts constructively.

Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2008 Dual Representation Viewing a symbolic object as both an object and a symbol Mastered around age 3 Adult teaching can help –Provide lots of maps, photos, drawings, make-believe playthings, etc. –Point out similarities to real world

Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2008 Egocentrism Failure to distinguish others’ views from one’s own.

Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2008 Animistic Thinking Belief that inanimate objects have lifelike qualities such as thoughts or wishes.

Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2008 Limits on Conservation

Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2008 Piagetian Class Inclusion Problem

Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2008 Follow-Up Research on Preoperational Thought Egocentric, Animistic, and Magical Thinking Can adjust language to others and take others’ perspectives in simple situations. Animistic thinking comes from incomplete knowledge of objects. Illogical Thought Can do simplified conservation Can reason by analogy Use causal expressions Categorization Everyday knowledge is categorized. Appearance versus reality Make-believe helps children tell the difference.

Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2008 Categories of Imaginary Animals Shown to Preschoolers

Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2008 Some Cognitive Attainments of the Preschool Years

Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2008 Educational Principles Derived from Piaget’s Theory Discovery learning Sensitivity to children’s readiness to learn –Developmentally appropriate practice Acceptance of individual differences

Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2008 Children’s Private Speech Piaget called “egocentric speech” Vygotsky viewed as foundation for all higher cognitive processes Helps guide behavior –Used more when tasks are difficult, after errors, or when confused Gradually becomes more silent –Children with learning and behavior problems use for longer

Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2008 Relationship of Private Speech to Task Difficulty Among 5- and 6-Year-Olds

Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2008 Social Origins of Early Childhood Cognition IntersubjectivityScaffolding Guided participation

Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2008 Vygotsky’s Theory and Early Childhood Education A Vygotskyan classroom promotes assisted discovery, with teachers guiding children’s learning with explanations and verbal prompts. Peer collaboration is also emphasized. Vygotsky’s theory has been challenged on the grounds that verbal communication is not the only way new information is mastered and because the theory says little about how basic motor, perception, attention, memory, and problem-solving skills contribute to higher cognitive processes.

Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2008 Gains Between Ages 3 and 7 in Performance on Tasks Requiring Children to Inhibit an Impulse and Focus on a Competing Goal

Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2008 Improvements in Attention Sustained attention increases sharply between 2 and 3 1/2 years –Frontal lobe growth –Increasingly complex play goals –Adult scaffolding Planning improves

Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2008 Memory in Early Childhood Recognition better than recall Beginnings of memory strategies –Limited by working memory Familiar events remembered as scripts More elaborate with age Adults help with autobiographical memories Elaborative style best

Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2008 Problem Solving in Early Childhood Overlapping Waves Theory –Try variety of strategies –Observe how well they work –Gradually select those leading to rapid, accurate answers

Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2008 Overlapping-Waves Pattern of Strategy Use in Problem Solving

Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2008 Development of Theory of Mind Awareness of Mental Life: infancy – age 3 Mastery of False Beliefs: around age 4

Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2008 Factors Contributing to Preschoolers’ Theory of Mind Language and cognitive skills Make-believe play Social interaction

Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2008 Fostering Emergent Literacy Spoken language skills –Phonological awareness –Adult conversations Informal literacy experiences –Interactive reading –Games –Writing Training, books for low SES families

Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2008 Supporting Emergent Literacy in Early Childhood Provide literacy-rich homes and preschool environments. Engage in interactive book reading. Provide outings to libraries, museums, parks, zoos, and other community settings. Point out letter-sound correspondences, play rhyming and other language-sound games, and read rhyming poems and stories. Support children’s efforts at writing, especially narrative products. Model literacy activities.

Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2008 Early Childhood Mathematical Reasoning Ordinality Relationships between quantities Cardinality Last number when counting is the total Arithmetic Strategies –Min strategy

Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2008 Individual Differences in Early Childhood Mental Development Factors Contributing to Individual Differences: Home environment Quality of child care, preschool, or kindergarten –Child-centered versus academic –Early intervention programs Television –Educational TV

Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2008 Who’s Minding North American Children?

Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2008 Types of Preschool and Kindergarten Child-centered programs: teachers provide activities from which the children select and most of the day is devoted to play. Academic programs: teachers structure children’s learning through formal lessons, often using repetitive drills. This approach can undermine motivation and well-being, especially for children who are low-SES. Montessori education: child-centered approach with equal emphasis on academic and social development.

Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2008 Early Intervention for At-Risk Preschoolers Project Head Start Canada’s Aboriginal Head Start Long-term benefits –Better early school achievement –Less special ed –More high school graduation, college enrollment Advantages still evident at age 40

Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2008 Some Outcomes of the High/Scope Perry Preschool Project on Follow-Up at Age 27

Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2008 Child Care Center-based care has a greater association with cognitive gains than other child-care arrangements. In another investigation of 2- to 4-year-olds from very-low income families, the more time spent in high-quality child-care centers, the less likely children were to display emotional and behavioral problems, even after many family characteristics were controlled.

Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2008 Signs of Developmentally Appropriate Early Childhood Programs Physical setting Group size Caregiver – child ratio Daily activities Interactions between adults and children Teacher qualifications Relationships with parents Licensing and accreditation

Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2008 Educational Media Educational television: the more children watch Sesame Street, the higher they score on tests that measure the program’s academic goals. Learning with computers: 70% of 4 to 6-year-olds have used a computer, and more than one-fourth use one regularly. 4 to 6-year-olds have used a computer, and more than one-fourth use one regularly. Children spend more time using computers for game-playing.

Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2008 Vocabulary Development in Early Childhood Fast-mapping Mutual exclusivity bias Syntactic bootstrapping Inventing own words

Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2008 Grammar Development in Early Childhood Basic Rules –Overregulation: applying rules without appropriate exceptions Complex Structures Explaining Grammatical Development –Semantic bootstrapping –Relying on word meanings to figure out grammatical rules

Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2008 Percentage of Children in Different Studies Who Could Use a New Verb in the Subject-Verb-Object Form After Hearing It in Another Construction

Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2008 Supporting Language Learning in Early Childhood Recasts Restructuring incorrect speech into correct form Expansions Elaborating on children’s speech