COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT IN INFANCY Chapter 7

COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT (intellectual development)  Piaget’s Sensorimotor developmental stage  Birth to age 2 years  Babies find out about the world by interacting with their environment  Babies become more “reflective” over time through exploration using movement and information acquired through senses

BIRTH TO 1 MONTH Substage 1  See chart, page127  Reflexes (random, involuntary actions) become more refined and organized

ONE TO FOUR MONTHS Substage 2  Primary circular reaction: learning to control own body Baby does not understand causality

FOUR TO EIGHT MONTHS Substage 3  Secondary circular reactions using objects  No clear understanding of cause and effect

EIGHT TO TWELVE MONTHS Substage 4  Coordination of secondary circular reactions  Cause and effect starts to make sense  Object permanence

12 TO 18 MONTHS Substage 5  Causal thinking (can control consequences)  Trial and error experimentation

18 TO 24 MONTHS Substage 6  Internalized thought  Mental manipulation  Egocentric thought

MULTICULTURAL CRITIQUE  Piaget may underestimate kids’ abilities ex. object permanence  Piaget’s stages are universal  Timing of stages may differ depending on culture, genetics, other factors

MEMORY  Newborns apparently remember “whole situations”- objects, people, actions  Visual memory develops by about 6 months  By 13 months, kids can recall complex actions after significant delays: verbal cues may stimulate memory  Visual memory is associated with “IQ”

PRETEND PLAY  Important in guiding symbolic thought  Emerges about age 1  Begins with using familiar objects (ex toy phone to enact conversation)  Later, symbolic objects represent real ones ex. Block of wood reps a phone

VARIATIONS IN COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT  Differences in infant cognitions due to: culture individual differences family cultural differences debilitating conditions poverty/nutrition/parenting/ medical conditions

IMPROVING COGNITION IN CHALLENGING SITUATIONS 1.Interventions are most effective when they are1. Intensive, 2.Home based, 3.Comprehensive 4. Culturally sensitive

EDUCATIONAL CLASSROOM  For infants/toddlers  1. Large motor activities encouraged  Multi-sensory activities available  Object permanence activities  Causality activities

MAKE-BELIEVE PLAY  Number of props increases over time  Modeling and prompting by adults  Dolls and other items from child’s every day environment  Abstract props

PLAY  Play: nonliteral, intrinsically motivating, self-chose, pleasurable  Enhances intellectual abilities, cognitive development  Helps children make sense of their world  Forms of play: Motoric: see chart, page 134