1. Copyright © 2009 Pearson Education Canada6-1 Chapter 6: Cognition in Infants and Toddlers 6.1 Piaget’s Theory 6.2 Information Processing 6.3 Language MODULES

2. Copyright © 2009 Pearson Education Canada6-2 Module 6.1 Piaget’s Theory Describe how assimilation, accomodation, and equilibrium explain the way that children’s thinking changes with age. Explain how thinking becomes more advanced as infants progress through the six substages of the sensorimotor stage. State some criticisms of Piaget’s account of cognitive processes in infants and toddlers. Explain the nature of young children’s naïve theories of physics and biology. LEARNING OBJECTIVES

3. Copyright © 2009 Pearson Education Canada6-3 Basic Principles of Piaget’s Theory Schemas: organize experience. Assimilation: incorporate new experiences into existing schemas. Accommodation: change schemas based on experience. Equilibration: reorganize schemas to return to state of equilibrium.

4. Copyright © 2009 Pearson Education Canada6-4 Piaget’s Sensorimotor Stage From birth to 2 years. Begins with reflex action and ends with use of symbols. Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary Circular Reactions are repetitive acts that help the infant learn about the world.

5. Copyright © 2009 Pearson Education Canada6-5 Evaluating Piaget’s Account of Sensorimotor Thought Other researchers have found alternative explanations for performance on Piagetian tasks. Object permanence may occur at a younger age than Piaget thought. “Impossible” Event

6. Copyright © 2009 Pearson Education Canada6-6 The Child as Theorist Young children develop theories that organize knowledge about properties of objects and living things. By 6 months, know that 1st object striking 2nd object will cause 2nd to move. Toddlers understand different properties of animate and inanimate objects.

7. Copyright © 2009 Pearson Education Canada6-7 Colliding Cylinders Familiarization: Medium cylinder collides with bug. Test with Large Cylinder: Large cylinder collides with bug. Test with Small Cylinder: Small cylinder collides with bug.

8. Copyright © 2009 Pearson Education Canada6-8 Results of Colliding Cylinder Experiment

9. Copyright © 2009 Pearson Education Canada6-9 Module 6.2 Information Processing Describe the basic characteristics of the information processing approach. Explain how infants learn and remember. Identify what infants and toddlers understand about number and about their environments. Summarize how intelligence is measured in infants and toddlers. LEARNING OBJECTIVES

10. Copyright © 2009 Pearson Education Canada6-10 Basic Features of the Information-Processing…. People and computers are both symbol processors. Hardware: sensory, working, and long- term memory. Software is task specific. Components of Mental Hardware

11. Copyright © 2009 Pearson Education Canada6-11 Learning Habituation: diminished responding to a stimulus as it becomes familiar. Classical conditioning: neutral stimulus elicits a response that was originally produced by another stimulus. Operant conditioning: focus on consequences and reoccurrence of behavior.

12. Copyright © 2009 Pearson Education Canada6-12 Memory Babies remember, forget, and can be prompted to recall forgotten material. Infantile amnesia: inability to remember events from early in life (can be explained by development of language and sense of self).

13. Copyright © 2009 Pearson Education Canada6-13 Understanding the World Infants distinguish quantities because small quantities may be perceptually obvious. Infants have an egocentric frame of reference but will develop and objective frame of reference later. Test of Quantity

14. Copyright © 2009 Pearson Education Canada6-14 Individual Differences in Ability Individual differences are measured in mental tests for infants and toddlers. -Bayley Scales of Infant Development Infant intelligence tests emphasize sensorimotor skills and do not predict adult intelligence. Habituation in infants is a better predictor of later IQ.

15. Copyright © 2009 Pearson Education Canada6-15 Module 6.3 Language List when infants can hear and produce basic speech sounds. Describe what babbling is and how children make the transition from babbling to talking. Identify the different styles of language learning that young children use. Explain how children learn new words. LEARNING OBJECTIVES

16. Copyright © 2009 Pearson Education Canada6-16 Perceiving Speech Phonemes are sounds that are the building blocks of language. Young babies can hear phonemes, even those not in their language. Infant directed speech (formerly known as “motherese”) may help children learn language. Infant Listening to Phonemes

17. Copyright © 2009 Pearson Education Canada6-17 First Steps to Speaking 2 months--cooing 5 or 6 months--babbling 7 or 8 months--babbling includes intonation Deaf children “babble” in sign language. Infants understand that words are symbols. Symbols represent actions and objects. Gestures are symbols that children start to use around the time they begin to talk. First Words

18. Copyright © 2009 Pearson Education Canada6-18 Fast Mapping Meaning to Words Children experience a naming explosion around 18 months of age, rapidly acquiring new words. Joint attention, constraints and sentence cues help children fast map meanings onto words. Underextensions and overextensions are 2 common naming errors. Boz Blocks

19. Copyright © 2009 Pearson Education Canada6-19 Styles of Learning Language Referential style: vocabularies consist mainly of words that name objects, persons, or actions. Expressive style: vocabularies include many social phrases that are used as a single word (e.g., “go-away,” “I-want- it”).

20. Copyright © 2009 Pearson Education Canada6-20 Conclusions Children construct their understanding of the world by creating schemas, mental categories of related events, objects and knowledge. Infants are capable of learning, memory and forgetting. Infants are capable of hearing phonemes and prefer infant directed speech. Onset of language is due to a child’s ability to interpret and use symbols. Some children use a referential style in learning words - a means of learning and talking about objects while other children with an expressive style use language as more of a social tool.