1. Intellectual Development During the First Year
Section 9-2

2. Learning in the First Year
Perception: the ability to learn from sensory information.
This improves with repetition

3. 4 New Intellectual Abilities in First Year
1. Remembering Experiences:
Babies can begin to remember during the first few months. New information can be interpreted based on past experiences.
Making Associations:
The baby learns to make
connections between events.

4. Understanding Cause and Effect:
Babies learn that one action results in another action or condition.
In time, babies learn that they
can make things happen.
Paying Attention:
A baby’s attention span gets longer.
They can focus on something
for longer periods of time.

5. Intellectual Milestones
Just as there are Physical, Emotional, and Social Milestones, there are Intellectual Milestones.
These are intellectual tasks that babies usually develop at a certain age.

6. 1 - 2 Months Gains Information through senses Makes eye contact
Prefers faces to objects
Can distinguish between familiar and unfamiliar voices

7. 3 - 4 Months Can distinguish between familiar and unfamiliar faces
Makes vowel-consonant combinations such as “ah-goo”
Can tell a smile from a frown

8. 5 - 6 Months Is alert for longer periods of time – up to 2 hours
Studies objects carefully
Recognizes own name
Distinguishes between
friendly and angry voices
Recognizes basic sounds of
native language

9. 7 - 8 Months Imitates actions of others
Begins to understand cause and effect
Remembers things that have happened
Sorts objects by size
Solves simple problems
Forms sounds such as
da, ga, ma, ba
Recognizes some words
Babbling imitates speech inflections

10. Twins Talking to Each Other

11. 9 - 10 Months Looks for dropped objects
Responds to some words and phrases, such as “no” and “all gone”
Takes objects out of containers
and puts them back in
May say a few words.

12. 11 - 12 months Can point to and identify objects in books
Fits blocks or boxes inside
one another
Says “mama” and “dada” for parents
Understands simple words and phrases like “Come to Mommy.”
Speaks some words regularly

13. Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive (Intellectual) Development
Jean Piaget was a famous psychologist who observed many children to learn about their intellectual development.
His theory identified four major learning stages that take place during childhood.
He believed that everyone goes through the stages in the same order. In order to move on to the next stage, you must master the previous one.

14. Stage 1: The sensorimotor Period (Birth - Age 2)
During this stage, babies learn through their senses and their own actions. At this time, neurons in the brain are establishing pathways and connections that allow learning.

15. Babies learn object permanence, the fact that objects continue to exist, even when they are out of sight.

16. Six sub-stages of the Sensorimotor Period
During each sub-stage, more new learning becomes possible.
By the end of the Sensorimotor Period, children have a consistent view of their world. Several key concepts are now possible.

17. - Ability to hold an image in their mind
They can understand concepts
such as “soon” and “later”.
- Imaginative Play
Children can “pretend”.
- Symbolic Thinking
Children understand that letters,
words and numbers stand for
ideas. This is critical for later
learning such as reading and math.

18. Stimulating Infants’ Senses
Just as stimulating the senses is crucial to physical, social, and emotional development, it is critical for proper intellectual development.
Stimulation forms and strengthens brain connections and pathways that are critical to learning.

19. Concept Development
Concepts: general categories of objects and information.
Infants & young children learn by these three principles:
Children begin by
thinking labels are for
whole objects - not parts.
“Dog”

20. Young children believe that labels apply to entire groups - not just individual objects
“Dogs”
Young children believe
that an object can have
only one label.
“Buddy” not “Dog”
As children mature, their system of labeling becomes more complex and accurate.