Transcript Document 7415948

Kathleen Stassen Berger
Part II
Chapter Six
The First Two Years: Cognitive Development
Sensorimotor Intelligence
Information Processing
Language: What Develops in the
First Two Years?
Prepared by Madeleine Lacefield
Tattoon, M.A.
1
The First Two Years: Cognitive Development
• Infant cognition
– cognition = “thinking”
• “thinking” in a very broad sense includes…
– language
– learning
– memory
– intelligence
2
The First Two Years: Cognitive Development
• Infants organize by the end of the first
year…
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
sensations and perceptions
sequence and direction
the familiar and the strange
objects and people
events and experiences
permanence and transiency
cause and effect
3
Sensorimotor Intelligence
• Piaget’s first stage
– infants learn through senses and
motor actions
4
Piaget and Research Methods
• Sensorimotor intelligence actually occurs
earlier for most infants than Piaget
predicted.
• Habituation, the process of getting used to a
stimulus after repeated exposure.
• If a new object appears and the infant reacts, it is
assumed they recognize the object as something
different.
5
Information Processing Theory
• “a perspective that compares human
thinking processes, by analogy, to
computer analysis of data, including
sensory input, connections, stored
memories, and output”
6
Information Processing Theory
• Affordance
– “…an opportunity for perception and
interaction that is offered by a person,
place, or object in the environment”
• Perception is the mental processing
of information that arrives at the brain
from the sensory organs
7
Information Processing Theory
• Affordance
– two people can have discrepant
perceptions of the same situation, not only
interpreting it differently but actually
observing it differently
– depending on:
• past experiences
• current developmental level
• sensory awareness of opportunities
• immediate needs and motivation
8
Information Processing Theory
• Information processing improves over
the first year as infants become quicker
to remember
• Experiences affect which affordances
are perceived…
9
Information Processing Theory
• Sudden Drops
– …the visual cliff, an apparatus to
measure depth perception
– infants become interested in “crossing”
the cliff about 8 months (having had
experience falling)
– the cliff “affords” danger for older infants
10
Information Processing Theory
• Movement and People
– dynamic perception
• primed to focus on movement and
change
– a people preference
• a universal principle of infant perception,
an innate attraction to other humans,
which is evident in visual, auditory,
tactile, and other preferences
11
Information Processing Theory
• Memory
– Even very young infants can remember
under the following circumstances:
• experimental conditions are similar to
“real life”
• motivation is high
• special measures are taken to aid
memory retrieval
12
Information Processing Theory
• A Little Older, a Little More Memory
– after about 6 months infants can retain
information for longer periods of time…
with less training or reminding
– by the middle of the 2nd year toddlers
can remember and reenact more
complex sequences
13
Information Processing Theory
• Memory is not one “thing”
– brain-imaging techniques reveal many
distinct brain regions devoted to
particular aspects of memory
• implicit memory is memory for
routines and memories that remain
hidden until particular stimulus bring
them to mind
• explicit memory is memory that can
be recalled on demand
14
Language: What Develops
in the First Two Years?
• “The acquisition of language,… its
idiomatic phases, grammar rules,
and exceptions, is the most
impressive intellectual achievement
of the young child.”
15
Language: What Develops
in the First Two Years?
• The Universal Sequence
– Around the world children follow the
same sequence of early language
development
16
Language: What Develops
in the First Two Years?
• Listening and Responding
• infants begin learning language before
birth…
• infants prefer speech over other sounds
– child-directed speech
• the high-pitched, simplified, and
repetitive way adults speak to infants
17
Language: What Develops
in the First Two Years?
• Babbling
– repeating certain syllables (e.g., da-dada).
• all babies babble, even deaf babies
(although later and less frequently).
• babbling is a way to communicate.
18
Language: What Develops
in the First Two Years?
• First Words
– usually around 1 year the average baby
speaks, or signs a few words
– by 13 months spoken language increases very
gradually
– 6 to 15 month-olds learn meaning rapidly and
comprehend about 10 times as many words
as they speak
19
Language: What Develops
in the First Two Years?
• The Naming Explosion
– a sudden increase in an infant’s
vocabulary, especially in the number of
nouns begins at about 18 months
– vocabulary reaches about 50 expressed
words at a rate of 50 to 100 per month,
21 month-olds saying twice as many as
18 month-olds
20
Language: What Develops
in the First Two Years?
• Cultural Differences
– the ratio of nouns to verbs and
adjectives show cultural influences.
– one explanation is the language itself
(i.e. English, Chinese differ)
– another explanation is social context
(toys and objects)
– every language has some concepts
encoded in adult speech
21
Language: What Develops
in the First Two Years?
• Sentences
– “The first words soon take on nuances
of tone, loudness, and cadence that are
precursors of the first grammar,
because a single word can convey
many messages by the way it is
spoken.”
22
Language: What Develops
in the First Two Years?
• Sentences
“Dada!” “Dada?” and “Dada.”
• each is a holophrase, a single word that
expresses a complete, meaningful thought.
• intonations varying in tone and pitch is
extensive in babbling and again in
holophrases at about 18 months
23
Language: What Develops
in the First Two Years?
• Theories of Language Learning
– 2 year olds worldwide use language well
– bilingual children keep two languages
separate and speak whatever language a
listener understands
24
Language: What Develops
in the First Two Years?
• Theories of Language Learning
– There are 3 theories of how infants
learn language:
• they are taught (view of B. F. Skinner)
• they teach themselves (view of Noam
Chomsky)
• social impulses foster learning
25
Language: What Develops
in the First Two Years?
• Theory One: Infants Need to Be Taught
– 50 years ago the dominant learning theory in North
America was behaviorism
– B. F. Skinner (1957) noticed that spontaneous babbling
is usually reinforced… a grinning mother appears,
repeating, praising, giving attention to the infant
– Parents are expert teachers, other caregivers help
– Frequent repetitions instructive when linked to daily life
26
Language: What Develops
in the First Two Years?
• Theory Two: Infants Teach Themselves
– a contrary theory is that language learning is
innate--adults need not teach it
– Norm Chomsky (1968,1980) felt that
language is too complex to be mastered
merely through step-by-step conditioning
27
Language: What Develops
in the First Two Years?
• Theory Two: Infants Teach Themselves
– universal grammar--all young children
master basic language at about the same
age
– Language Acquisition Device (LAD)
• a hypothesized mental structure that enables
humans to learn language, including the basic
aspects of grammar, vocabulary and intonation
28
Language: What Develops
in the First Two Years?
• Theory Three: Social Impulses Foster Infant
Language
– called social-pragmatic perceives the crucial starting
point to be neither vocabulary reinforcement
(behaviorism) nor innate connection (epigenetic),
but rather the social reason for language;
communication
– Infants communicate in every way they can because
humans are social beings and depend on one
another for survival and joy
29
Language: What Develops
in the First Two Years?
30
Language: What Develops
in the First Two Years?
• A Hybrid Theory
– the integration of all three perspectives…
– their model an emergentist coalition…
combing valid aspects of several theories
about the emergence of language during
infancy
31