{"id":271,"date":"2014-09-26T20:54:32","date_gmt":"2014-09-26T20:54:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.candelalearning.com\/lifespandevelopment1x1\/?post_type=chapter&p=271"},"modified":"2016-03-16T18:34:04","modified_gmt":"2016-03-16T18:34:04","slug":"cognitive-development-2","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-hccc-ss-152-1\/chapter\/cognitive-development-2\/","title":{"raw":"Cognitive Development","rendered":"Cognitive Development"},"content":{"raw":"Early childhood is a time of pretending, blending fact and fiction, and learning to think of the world using language.\u00a0As young children move away from needing to touch, feel, and hear about the world toward learning some basic principles about how the world works, they hold some pretty interesting initial ideas.\u00a0For example, how many of you are afraid that you are going to go down the bathtub drain?\u00a0Hopefully, none of you do!\u00a0But a child of three might really worry about this as they sit at the front of the bathtub.\u00a0A child might protest if told that something will happen \u201ctomorrow\u201d but be willing to accept an explanation that an event will occur \u201ctoday after we sleep.\u201d\u00a0Or the young child may ask, \u201cHow long are we staying?\u00a0From here to here?\u201d while pointing to two points on a table.\u00a0Concepts such as tomorrow, time, size and distance are not easy to grasp at this young age.\u00a0Understanding size, time, distance, fact and fiction are all tasks that are part of cognitive development in the preschool years.\r\n

Preoperational Intelligence<\/h2>\r\nPiaget\u2019s stage that coincides with early childhood is the preoperational stage.<\/strong>\u00a0The word operational means logical, so these children were thought to be illogical.\u00a0However, they were learning to use language or to think of the world symbolically.\u00a0Let\u2019s examine some Piaget\u2019s assertions about children\u2019s cognitive abilities at this age.\r\n\r\nPretend Play:\u00a0<\/strong>Pretending is a favorite activity at this time.\u00a0A toy has qualities beyond the way it was designed to function and can now be used to stand for a character or object unlike anything originally intended.\u00a0A teddy bear, for example, can be a baby or the queen of a faraway land!\r\n\r\nPiaget believed that children\u2019s pretend play helped children solidify new schemes they were developing cognitively.\u00a0This play, then, reflected changes in their conceptions or thoughts.\u00a0However, children also learn as they pretend and experiment.\u00a0Their play does not simply represent what they have\u00a0learned\u00a0(Berk, 2007).\r\n\r\nEgocentrism:\u00a0<\/strong>Egocentrism in early childhood refers to the tendency of young children to think that everyone sees things in the same way as the child.\u00a0Piaget\u2019s classic experiment on egocentrism involved showing children a 3 dimensional model of a mountain and asking them to describe what a doll that is looking at the mountain from a different angle might see.\u00a0Children tend to choose a picture that represents their own, rather than the doll\u2019s view.\u00a0However, when children are speaking to others, they tend to use different sentence structures and vocabulary when addressing a younger child or an older adult.\u00a0This indicates some awareness of the views of others.\r\n\r\nSyncretism:<\/strong>\u00a0Syncretism refers to a tendency to think that if two events occur simultaneously, one caused the other.\u00a0I remember my daughter asking that if she put on her bathing suit whether it would turn to summer!\r\n\r\nAnimism:<\/strong>\u00a0Animism refers to attributing life-like qualities to objects.\u00a0The cup is alive, the chair that falls down and hits the child\u2019s ankle is mean, and the toys need to stay home because they\u00a0are tired.\u00a0Watch this\u00a0segment in which the actor Robin Williams sings a song to teach children the difference between what is alive and what is not alive.\u00a0(Interesting, the puppets in the background sing and dance the phrase \u201cit\u2019s not alive\u201d.\u00a0This might be a bit confusing to the viewers!).\u00a0Cartoons frequently show objects that appear alive and take on lifelike qualities. Young children do seem to think that objects that move may be alive but after age 3, they seldom refer to objects as being\u00a0alive\u00a0(Berk, 2007).\r\n\r\nhttps:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=3p47bGlZuDA&feature=youtu.be\r\n\r\nClassification Errors:\u00a0<\/strong>Preoperational children have difficulty understanding that an object can be classified in more than one way.\u00a0For example, if shown three white buttons and four black buttons and asked whether there are more black buttons or buttons, the child is likely to respond that there are more black buttons.\u00a0As the child\u2019s vocabulary improves and more schemes are developed, the ability to classify objects improves.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_635\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"300\"]\"beakers<\/a> Conservation of Liquid. Does pouring liquid in a tall, narrow container make it have more?[\/caption]\r\n\r\nConservation Errors:\u00a0<\/strong>Conservation refers to the ability to recognize that moving or rearranging matter does not change the quantity.\u00a0Imagine a 2 year old and a 4 year old eating lunch.\u00a0The 4 year old has a whole peanut butter and jelly sandwich.\u00a0He notices, however, that his younger sister\u2019s sandwich is cut in half and protests, \u201cShe has more!\u201d\u00a0Watch the following examples of conversation errors of quantity and volume:\r\n\r\nhttps:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=GLj0IZFLKvg&feature=youtu.be\r\n\r\nTheory of Mind\u00a0<\/strong>\r\n\r\nImagine showing a child of three a bandaid box and asking the child what is in the box.\u00a0Chances are, the child will reply, \u201cbandaids.\u201d\u00a0Now imagine that you open the box and pour out crayons.\u00a0If you ask the child what they thought was in the box before it was opened, they may respond, \u201ccrayons\u201d.\u00a0If you ask what a friend would have thought was in the box, the response would still be \u201ccrayons\u201d.\u00a0Why?\u00a0Before about 4 years of age, a child does not recognize that the mind can hold ideas that are not accurate.\u00a0So this 3 year old changes his or her response once shown that the box contains crayons.\u00a0The\u00a0theory of mind\u00a0is the understanding that the mind can be tricked or that the mind is not always accurate.\u00a0At around age 4, the child would reply, \u201cCrayons\u201d and understand that thoughts and realities do not always match.\r\n\r\nThis awareness of the existence of mind is part of social intelligence or the ability to recognize that others can think differently about situations.\u00a0It helps us to be self-conscious or aware that others can think of us in different ways and it helps us to be able to be understanding or empathic toward others.\u00a0This mind reading ability helps us to anticipate and predict the actions of others (even though these predictions are sometimes inaccurate).\r\n\r\nThe awareness of the mental states of others is important for communication and social skills. A child who demonstrates this skill is able to anticipate the needs of others. This video describes a research in which theory of mind is linked to popularity.\r\n

Language Development<\/strong><\/h2>\r\nVocabulary growth:<\/strong>\u00a0A child\u2019s vocabulary expands between the ages of 2 to 6 from about 200 words to over 10,000 words through a process called\u00a0fast-mapping.\u00a0Words are easily learned by making connections between new words and concepts already known.\u00a0The parts of speech that are learned depend on the language and what is emphasized.\u00a0Children speaking verb-friendly languages such as Chinese and Japanese as well as those speaking English tend to learn nouns more readily. But those learning less verb-friendly languages such as English seem to need assistance in grammar to master the use of verbs (Imai, et als, 2008). Children are also very creative in creating their own words to use as labels such as a \u201ctake-care-of\u201d when referring to John, the character on the cartoon, Garfield, who takes care of the cat.\r\n\r\nLiteral meanings:\u00a0<\/strong>Children can repeat words and phrases after having heard them only once or twice.\u00a0But they do not always understand the meaning of the words or phrases.\u00a0This is especially true of expressions or figures of speech which are taken literally.\u00a0For example, two preschool aged girls began to laugh loudly while listening to a tape-recording of Disney\u2019s \u201cSleeping Beauty\u201d when the narrator reports, \u201cPrince Phillip lost his head!\u201d\u00a0They image his head popping off and rolling down the hill as he runs and searches for it.\u00a0Or a classroom full of preschoolers hears the teacher say, \u201cWow!\u00a0That was a piece of cake!\u201d\u00a0The children began asking \u201cCake?\u00a0Where is my cake?\u00a0I want cake!\u201d\r\n\r\nOverregularization:<\/strong>\u00a0Children learn rules of grammar as they learn language but may apply these rules inappropriately at first.\u00a0For instance, a child learns to ad \u201ced\u201d to the end of a word to indicate past tense.\u00a0Then form a sentence such as \u201cI goed there.\u00a0I doed that.\u201d\u00a0This is typical at ages 2 and 3. They will soon learn new words such as went and did to be used in those situations.\r\n\r\nThe Impact of Training:<\/strong>\u00a0Remember Vygotsky and the Zone of Proximal Development?\u00a0Children can be assisted in learning language by others who listen attentively, model more accurate pronunciations and encourage elaboration.\u00a0The child exclaims, \u201cI\u2019m goed there!\u201d and the adult responds, \u201cYou went there? Say, \u2018I went there.\u2019\u00a0Where did you go?\u201d\u00a0Children may be ripe for language as Chomsky suggests, but active participation in helping them learn is important for language development as well. The process of\u00a0scaffolding\u00a0is one in which the guide provides needed assistance to the child as a new skill is learned.\r\n\r\nPrivate Speech:<\/strong>\u00a0Do you ever talk to yourself?\u00a0Why?\u00a0Chances are,\u00a0this occurs when you are struggling with a problem, trying to remember something, or feel very emotional about a situation.\u00a0Children talk to themselves too.\u00a0Piaget interpreted this as\u00a0egocentric speech\u00a0or a practice engaged in because of a child\u2019s inability to seeing things from others points of\u00a0views.\u00a0Vygotsky, however, believed that children talk to themselves in order to solve problems or clarify thoughts.\u00a0As children learn to think in words, they do so aloud before eventually closing their lips and engaging in\u00a0private speech\u00a0or inner speech.\u00a0Thinking out loud eventually becomes thought accompanied by internal speech and talking to oneself becomes a practice only engaged in when we are trying to learn something or remember something, etc. This inner speech is not as elaborate as the speech we use when communicating with others (Vygotsky, 1962).","rendered":"

Early childhood is a time of pretending, blending fact and fiction, and learning to think of the world using language.\u00a0As young children move away from needing to touch, feel, and hear about the world toward learning some basic principles about how the world works, they hold some pretty interesting initial ideas.\u00a0For example, how many of you are afraid that you are going to go down the bathtub drain?\u00a0Hopefully, none of you do!\u00a0But a child of three might really worry about this as they sit at the front of the bathtub.\u00a0A child might protest if told that something will happen \u201ctomorrow\u201d but be willing to accept an explanation that an event will occur \u201ctoday after we sleep.\u201d\u00a0Or the young child may ask, \u201cHow long are we staying?\u00a0From here to here?\u201d while pointing to two points on a table.\u00a0Concepts such as tomorrow, time, size and distance are not easy to grasp at this young age.\u00a0Understanding size, time, distance, fact and fiction are all tasks that are part of cognitive development in the preschool years.<\/p>\n

Preoperational Intelligence<\/h2>\n

Piaget\u2019s stage that coincides with early childhood is the preoperational stage.<\/strong>\u00a0The word operational means logical, so these children were thought to be illogical.\u00a0However, they were learning to use language or to think of the world symbolically.\u00a0Let\u2019s examine some Piaget\u2019s assertions about children\u2019s cognitive abilities at this age.<\/p>\n

Pretend Play:\u00a0<\/strong>Pretending is a favorite activity at this time.\u00a0A toy has qualities beyond the way it was designed to function and can now be used to stand for a character or object unlike anything originally intended.\u00a0A teddy bear, for example, can be a baby or the queen of a faraway land!<\/p>\n

Piaget believed that children\u2019s pretend play helped children solidify new schemes they were developing cognitively.\u00a0This play, then, reflected changes in their conceptions or thoughts.\u00a0However, children also learn as they pretend and experiment.\u00a0Their play does not simply represent what they have\u00a0learned\u00a0(Berk, 2007).<\/p>\n

Egocentrism:\u00a0<\/strong>Egocentrism in early childhood refers to the tendency of young children to think that everyone sees things in the same way as the child.\u00a0Piaget\u2019s classic experiment on egocentrism involved showing children a 3 dimensional model of a mountain and asking them to describe what a doll that is looking at the mountain from a different angle might see.\u00a0Children tend to choose a picture that represents their own, rather than the doll\u2019s view.\u00a0However, when children are speaking to others, they tend to use different sentence structures and vocabulary when addressing a younger child or an older adult.\u00a0This indicates some awareness of the views of others.<\/p>\n

Syncretism:<\/strong>\u00a0Syncretism refers to a tendency to think that if two events occur simultaneously, one caused the other.\u00a0I remember my daughter asking that if she put on her bathing suit whether it would turn to summer!<\/p>\n

Animism:<\/strong>\u00a0Animism refers to attributing life-like qualities to objects.\u00a0The cup is alive, the chair that falls down and hits the child\u2019s ankle is mean, and the toys need to stay home because they\u00a0are tired.\u00a0Watch this\u00a0segment in which the actor Robin Williams sings a song to teach children the difference between what is alive and what is not alive.\u00a0(Interesting, the puppets in the background sing and dance the phrase \u201cit\u2019s not alive\u201d.\u00a0This might be a bit confusing to the viewers!).\u00a0Cartoons frequently show objects that appear alive and take on lifelike qualities. Young children do seem to think that objects that move may be alive but after age 3, they seldom refer to objects as being\u00a0alive\u00a0(Berk, 2007).<\/p>\n