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Chapter 3: The
Preschool Years
Module 3.2
Cognitive Development in
the Preschool Years
Discovering the Lifespan - Robert S. Feldman
Copyright © 2009 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458. All rights reserved.
INTELLECTUAL
DEVELOPMENT
Discovering the Lifespan - Robert S. Feldman
Copyright © 2009 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458. All rights reserved.
PIAGET- A Quick Review
• Knowledge is product of direct motor
behavior
• All children pass through series of stages
– Universal
– Fixed order
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What does Piaget tell us?
• Quantity and quality of knowledge
changes
• Focus on change in children’s
understanding
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Preoperational Thinking
• Preoperational Stage
• Time of stability and change
• Use of operations at end of stage
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Relationship Between Language
and Thought
• Symbolic function:
– Ability to use symbols, words, or object to
represent something that is not physically
present
• Language allows preschoolers to:
– Represent actions symbolically
– Think beyond present to future
– Consider several possibilities at same time
158
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Copyright © 2009 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458. All rights reserved.
Centration
What you see is what you think!
Which row has more buttons?
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Incomplete Understanding of
Transformation
Preoperational
children
• Unable to envision
successive
transformations
• Ignore middle steps
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Egocentrism
• Preschoolers do not understand that
others have different perspectives from
their own
• Egocentric thought takes two forms
– Lack of awareness that others see things from
a different physical perspective
– Failure to realize that others may hold
thoughts, feelings, and points of view that
differ from theirs
159
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Copyright © 2009 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458. All rights reserved.
Emergence of Intuitive Thought
• Curiosity blossoms and answers to wide
variety of questions sought
• Often act as authorities on particular topics
• Leads preschoolers to believe that they
know answers to all kinds of questions, but
there is little or no logical basis for this
confidence
161
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Copyright © 2009 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458. All rights reserved.
Late Stages of Intuitive Thought
• Slowly certain qualities prepare children
for more sophisticated forms of reasoning
– Begin to understand the notion of functionality
– Begin to show an awareness of the concept of
identity
161
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Copyright © 2009 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458. All rights reserved.
Evaluating Piaget’s Approach
Positive
Negative
• Masterful observer
• Useful way to consider
progressive advances in
child cognition
• More recent experimental
work suggests higher
child performance on
tasks involving
conservation, reversibility,
transformation, and ability
to count
• Contentions about
continuity of development
as theorized in Piaget’s
stages
161
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Copyright © 2009 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458. All rights reserved.
Review and Apply
REVIEW
• According to Piaget, children in the
preoperational stage develop symbolic function,
a qualitative change in their thinking that is the
foundation of further cognitive advances.
• Preoperational children are hampered by a
tendency toward egocentric thought.
• Recent developmentalists, while acknowledging
Piaget’s gifts and contributions, take issue with
his underestimation of preschoolers’ capabilities.
162
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Review and Apply
APPLY
• Do you think it is possible to break a preschooler’s habit
of egocentric thought by directly teaching him to take
another person’s point of view? Would showing him a
picture of himself “hidden” behind a chair change his
thinking? Why?
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INFORMATION PROCESSING
AND VYGOTSKY’S
APPROACH TO COGNITIVE
DEVELOPMENT
Discovering the Lifespan - Robert S. Feldman
Copyright © 2009 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458. All rights reserved.
Focus of Approaches
• Changes in kinds of “mental programs”
that children use when approaching
problems
• Changes analogous to way computer
program becomes more sophisticated as a
programmer modifies it on basis of
experience
163
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Two Approaches
• Understanding numbers
• Memory development
163
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Copyright © 2009 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458. All rights reserved.
1, 2, 3, 7…11-T-hundred!
How can we tell when a
preschooler knows how to
count?
Discovering the Lifespan - Robert S. Feldman
Copyright © 2009 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458. All rights reserved.
You must remember this…maybe!
• Recollections of events are sometimes, but not
always, accurate
– Typically accurate in responses to open-ended
questions
– Partly determined by how soon memories are
assessed
– Affected by cultural factors
• Autobiographical memory
– Largely inaccurate before age 3
– Not all last into later life
163
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Copyright © 2009 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458. All rights reserved.
Why are some preschool memories
inaccurate?
• Preschoolers’ memories of familiar events
often organized in scripts
• Scripts become more elaborate with age
• Frequently repeated events meld into scripts
• Particular instances of scripted event are
recalled with less accuracy than those that are
unscripted in memory
163
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Any other causes of inaccuracies?
• Difficulty describing certain kinds of information,
such as complex causal relationships, may
oversimplify recollections
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SHE did it…I think!!
Children’s Eyewitness Testimony
• Forensic developmental psychology
– Embellishment characteristic of fragility, impressionability, and
inaccuracy of memory
– Memories susceptible to suggestions of adults asking them
questions, especially repeatedly
– Children more prone to make inaccurate inferences about
reasons behind others’ behavior and are less able to draw
appropriate conclusions based on their knowledge of a situation
– Error rate is heightened when same question is asked
repeatedly
164
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Copyright © 2009 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458. All rights reserved.
Information Processing in
Perspective
PRO
CON
• Relies on well-defined
testable, processes which
alternative approaches
traditionally have paid
little attention
• Provides a clear, logical,
and full account of
cognitive development
• Focuses on series of
single, individual
cognitive processes
• Individual sequence of
processes never
adequately paint whole,
comprehensive picture of
cognitive development
164
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Copyright © 2009 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458. All rights reserved.
Vygotsky’s View of Cognitive
Development
• Cognition result of social interactions in
which children learn through guided
participation
• Children gradually grow intellectually and
begin to function on their own because of
assistance that adult and peer partners
provide
165
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Culture and Society Influences
• Nature of the partnership between
developing children and adults and peers
determined largely by cultural and societal
factors
165
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Zone of Proximal Development
• Cognition increases through exposure to
information that is new enough to be
intriguing, but not too difficult
• Greater improvement with help = greater
increases in zone of proximal development
165
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Scaffolding
• Support for learning and problem solving
that encourages independence and growth
• Aids in development of overall cognitive
abilities
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Cultural Tools
• Actual, physical items or intellectual and
conceptual framework for solving
problems
– Language
– Alphabetical and numbering schemes
– Mathematical and scientific systems
– Religious systems
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Copyright © 2009 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458. All rights reserved.
Assessing Vygotsky’s Perspective
PRO
CON
• Increasingly influential in
the last decade
• Helps explain growing
body of research about
importance of social
interaction in promoting
cognitive development
• Consistent with growing
body of multicultural and
cross-cultural research
• Lack of precision in
conceptualization of
cognitive growth
• Sparse information about
attention and memory
develop and how
children’s natural
cognitive capabilities
unfold
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Copyright © 2009 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458. All rights reserved.
Review and Apply
REVIEW
• Proponents of information processing approaches argue
that quantitative changes in children’s processing skills
largely account for their cognitive development.
• Instead of focusing on children’s cognitive limitations,
developmentalists using an information processing
approach focus on the cognitive advances that enable
children to develop considerable abilities.
• Vygotsky believed that children develop cognitively
within a context of culture and society. His theory
includes the concepts of zone of proximal development
and scaffolding.
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Copyright © 2009 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458. All rights reserved.
Review and Apply
APPLY
• Do you agree with the view that information processing
approaches see too many trees and lose sight of the
forest? Or do you think that Piaget saw too much forest
without accounting for enough trees? Explain.
• In what ways have educators and others begun to apply
Vygotsky’s ideas in schools and communities? Should
governments take an active role in this?
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GROWTH OF LANGUAGE
AND LEARNING
Discovering the Lifespan - Robert S. Feldman
Copyright © 2009 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458. All rights reserved.
Language Development
During preschool years:
• Sentence length increases at a steady pace
• Syntax doubles each month
• Enormous leaps in number of words used
through fast mapping
168
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Copyright © 2009 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458. All rights reserved.
What is fast mapping?
• New words are associated with their
meaning after only brief encounter
– By age 6, the average child has a vocabulary
of around 14,000 words
– Vocabulary acquired at rate of nearly one new
word every 2 hours, 24 hours a day
169
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Preschool Language on the Grow
• Use plurals and possessive forms of
nouns
• Employ the past tense
• Use articles
• Ask, and answer, complex questions
• Extend appropriate formation of words to
new words
169
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Copyright © 2009 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458. All rights reserved.
Learning what is not said…
• Preschoolers also learn what cannot be
said as they acquire principles of grammar
• Although they still make frequent
mistakes, 3-year-olds
– Follow principles of grammar most of time
– Are correct in their grammatical constructions
more than 90 percent of time
169
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Copyright © 2009 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458. All rights reserved.
Do you ever talk to yourself?
Discovering the Lifespan - Robert S. Feldman
Copyright © 2009 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458. All rights reserved.
I’m not talking to YOU…
Private Speech of Children
• Speech by children that is spoken and
directed to themselves
– Performs important function.
– Serves to try out ideas, acting as sounding
board
– Facilitates children’s thinking and helps them
control their behavior
– Serves an important social function
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Copyright © 2009 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458. All rights reserved.
What about practical
communication?
• Pragmatics is the aspect of language relating to
communicating effectively and appropriately with
others
• Helps children to understand the basics of
conversations
– Turn-taking
– Sticking to a topic
– What should and should not be said, according to the
conventions of society
– Use of different language in various settings
169
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Copyright © 2009 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458. All rights reserved.
Social Speech
• Before the age of 3:
– Speak only for their own entertainment
– Apparently unaware if anyone else can understand
• During preschool years:
– Begin to direct their speech to others
– Want others to listen
– Become frustrated when they cannot make
themselves understood
– Begin to adapt their speech to others through
pragmatics
169
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Copyright © 2009 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458. All rights reserved.
Learning from the Media
What do children learn
from television?
What do children learn
from the media?
170
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Copyright © 2009 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458. All rights reserved.
Saying No to the Show
American Academy of Pediatrics
– Recommends that exposure to television
should be limited
– Suggests that until age of 2, children watch no
television, and after that age, no more than 1
to 2 hours of quality programming each day
170
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Copyright © 2009 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458. All rights reserved.
What are the limits of preschoolers’
“television literacy”?
Preschool children
• Often do not fully understand plots
• Unable to recall significant story details
• Make limited and often erroneous inferences
about motivations
• Difficulty separating fantasy from reality
• Not able to critically understand and evaluate
advertising messages
170
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Copyright © 2009 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458. All rights reserved.
So…would you let your young
child watch?
Discovering the Lifespan - Robert S. Feldman
Copyright © 2009 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458. All rights reserved.
Taking the pre out of preschool
• Increasing number of children in out-ofhome care
• Some benefits to educational activities
before formal schooling
– Cognitive and social benefits from high
quality preschool experiences
171
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Copyright © 2009 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458. All rights reserved.
Varieties of Early Education
• Child care centers
• Family child care programs
• Preschools
– Montessori
– Reggio Emilia
• School-age child care
171
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Copyright © 2009 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458. All rights reserved.
How effective are early education
programs?
Children in EE programs
• Are more verbally fluent, show memory and
comprehension advantages, and achieve higher
IQ scores than at-home children
• Are more self-confident, independent, and
knowledgeable about social world in which they
live than those who do not participate
172
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Copyright © 2009 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458. All rights reserved.
Any downside?
Not all outcomes of outside-the-home
care are positive
Children in child care:
– Are found to be less polite, less compliant,
less respectful of adults, and sometimes more
competitive and aggressive than their peers
– Have a slightly higher likelihood of being
disruptive in class extending through the sixth
grade (when spending 10+ weeks)
– Poor programs actually may harm children
Discovering the Lifespan - Robert S. Feldman
Copyright © 2009 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458. All rights reserved.
172
What makes a good program
great?
Characteristics of Quality Child Care
• Providers are well trained
• Appropriate overall size and ratio of care providers to
children.
• Curriculum is carefully planned and coordinated among
teachers
• Language environment is rich
• Caregivers are sensitive to children’s emotional and
social needs
• Materials and activities are age appropriate
• Basic health and safety standards are followed
172
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Copyright © 2009 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458. All rights reserved.
Why does the US lag behind?
• No coordinated national policy on
preschool education
– Decisions about education have traditionally
been left to states and local school districts
– No tradition of teaching preschoolers
– Status of preschools in United States is
traditionally low
173
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Copyright © 2009 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458. All rights reserved.
The Purpose of Preschool: An
International View
173
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Copyright © 2009 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458. All rights reserved.
What justification could you use to
support preschool readiness
programs with your tax dollars?
• Graduates of high quality programs less likely to
repeat grades and more likely to graduate
• For every dollar spent on program, taxpayers
saved seven dollars by time graduates reached
age of 27
Discovering the Lifespan - Robert S. Feldman
Copyright © 2009 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458. All rights reserved.
What do you know about Head
Start?
Discovering the Lifespan - Robert S. Feldman
Copyright © 2009 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458. All rights reserved.
Review and Apply
REVIEW
• In the preschool years, children rapidly
increase in linguistic ability, developing an
improved sense of grammar and shifting
gradually from private to social speech.
• Preschoolers watch television at high
levels with mixes consequences.
174
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Copyright © 2009 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458. All rights reserved.
Review and Apply
REVIEW
• Preschool educational programs are
beneficial if they are of high quality, with
trained staff, good curriculum, proper
group sizes, and small staff-student ratios.
174
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Copyright © 2009 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458. All rights reserved.
Review and Apply
APPLY
• Is private speech egocentric or useful? Do adults
ever use private speech? What functions does it
serve?
• In your view, how do thought and language
interact in preschoolers’ development? Is it
possible to think without language? How do
children who have been deaf from birth think?
174
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