1. Development During Infancy and Childhood
Module 8
Development During Infancy and Childhood

2. Cognitive Development

3. Cognitive Development
Cognition
All the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating

4. What is the driving force of cognitive development? Jean Piaget
Our constant struggle to make sense of the world and our experiences
Mind develops using schemas
a concept or framework that organizes and interprets information

5. How does cognitive development occur? J. Piaget
Concept of Assimilation
New cognitive elements are fitted in with old elements or modified to fit more easily
Concept of Accommodation
Restructuring cognitive structures so that new information can fit into them more easily
mental representations of the world
Cognitive development consists of mental adaptations to new observations and experiences.
Accommodation
adapting one’s current understandings (schemas) to incorporate new information

6. Example: Assimilation and Accommodation

7. Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development
Typical Age
Range
Description
of Stage
Developmental
Phenomena
Birth to nearly 2 years
Sensorimotor
Experiencing the world through
senses and actions (looking,
touching, mouthing)
Object permanence
Stranger anxiety
About 2 to 6 years
About 7 to 11 years
About 12 through
adulthood
Preoperational
Representing things
with words and images
Using intuitive reasoning
Pretend play
Egocentrism
Language development
Concrete operational
Thinking logically about concrete
events; grasping concrete analogies
and performing arithmetical operations
Conservation
Mathematical transformations
Formal operational
Abstract reasoning
Abstract logic
Potential for moral reasoning

8. Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development
Sensorimotor Stage (0-2 years old)
Object permanence (7-9 months).
The understanding that an object continues to exist even when you cannot see or touch it.

9. Infants may be smarter than Piaget’s conclusions indicate
Baby Mathematics – 5 months
Shown a numerically impossible outcome, infants stare longer (Wynn, 1992)
1. Objects placed
in case.
2. Screen comes
up.
3. Object is removed.
4. Impossible outcome:
Screen drops, revealing
two objects.
4. Possible outcome:
one object.

10. Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development
Preoperational Stage (2-7 years old)
Egocentrism:
Seeing the world from only your point of view; the inability to take someone else’s perspective.
Children cannot grasp the concept of conservation.
Understanding that quantities of objects can remain the same even when their shape changes.
Theory of Mind
people’s ideas about their own and others’ mental states – and that these may be distinct
The ability to predict what other peoples thoughts, emotions and beliefs may be

11. Conservation of number

12. Conservation of number

13. Conservation of Substance & Number
Two identical balls of clay
One is deformed
“Do the two pieces have the same amount of clay?”
Conservation of Number
Two identical rows of coins
One row is rearranged
“Do the two rows have the same number of coins?”

14. Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development
Concrete Operations Stage (7-11 years old)
Can understand conservation
Loss of egocentric thinking
Begin to reason logically, categorize objects, but they cannot fully handle abstract reasoning
Vygotsky: Around 7 years of age children can increasingly use words in their thinking and in solving problems
The development of inner speech

15. Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development
Formal Operations Stage (12 years to adulthood)
Abstract and hypothetical thinking (imagined realities and symbols)
Reason about situations not personally experienced
Search systematically for solutions to problems
e.g., If John is in school, then Mary is in school. John is in school. What can you say about Mary?

16. Contemporary Perspectives on Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development
Cognitive development is probably more continuous
The beginnings of each type of thinking emerge at earlier ages
It is helpful for practitioners to think about the stages of cognitive development when dealing with young children

17. Social Development

18. Social Development
The ways in which individuals’ social interactions and interpersonal behaviors change across the life span
Social development may also have common characteristics across cultures
Example: Stranger anxiety (8 months)
Schemas for familiar faces
The brain, the mind, emotions, and behavior develop together

19. Infancy and Childhood: Social Development
Attachment
an emotional tie with another person
shown in young children by their seeking closeness to the caregiver and showing distress on separation
developed around 8 months – object permanence
Attachment is adaptive
Infant attachment behaviors motivate adult attention (a sort of communication)
Infants exhibiting attachment behaviors have a higher chance of survival
Attachment is often expressed by touch
Offering comfort and reassurrance
Attachment can also be formed through familiarity
Imprinting

20. Attachment through touch
Harlow’s Surrogate Mother Experiments
Contact comfort: monkeys preferred contact with the comfortable cloth mother, even while feeding from the nourishing wire mother

21. Attachment through familiarity
Critical Period
an optimal period shortly after birth when an organism’s exposure to certain stimuli or experiences produces proper development
Imprinting
the process by which certain animals form rigid attachments during a critical period very early in life

22. Attachment Differences
Attachment can be measured
Strange Situation Test:A parent-infant “separation and reunion” procedure that is staged in a laboratory to test the security of a child’s attachment
Securely attached v.s. insecurely attached
Attachment is influenced by parenting and by child temperament
Responsive mothers tend to have securely attached children
Infants with difficult temperaments are less likely to be securely attached
Attachment styles have consequences for subsequent development and adulthood interpersonal relationships
Infants who are securely attached have basic trust – the world is predictable
Secure, anxious or avoidant attachment styles

23. Conclusions about social development in infancy
All humans need to form an attachment to a caring and responsive caregiver early in life (first 8 months of life)
Total deprivation from attachment has strong negative consequences:
Some of those consequences may be physiological
Later emotional development
Later interpersonal relationships
Later parenting behaviors

24. Variations in parents’ attempts to socialize their children
Parenting
Variations in parents’ attempts to socialize their children

25. Parenting Styles Parents’ responsiveness Parents Demandingness
Neglecting, ignoring, indifferent, uninvolved
Permissive: few demands, following child’s desires
Undemanding low in control attempts
Authoritarian
Power assertive, not inductive, not flexible
Authoritative: High in bidirectional communication, high in explanation
Demanding
Controlling
Rejecting
Unresponsive
Parent-centered
Accepting
Responsive
Child-centered
Parents Demandingness
What parents can do to bring about secure attachment in their children.
Important.
Studied by parenting practices.
A classificaiton o fparenting styles.
Basic 2 dimensions: parents’ demandingness, --- willingness to act as social agents.
parents’ responsiveness----- parents’ recognition of the child’s individuality.
Authoritaitve: make appropriate demands on the children but also reinforce autonomy.
Authoriterian: harsch discipline with no attention to autonomy.
İndulgent: very responsive but no structure about social norms/rules.
Neglecting: neither apply discipline, nor are repsonsive to the child’s individuality.

26. The Influence of Parenting Styles on Social Development
Authoritative parenting
High self esteem, high social competence
Unquestioning obedience, low levels of autonomy, low in empathy
Authoritarian parenting
These associations are correlational!