Lecture Notes on Cognitive Development in Infancy | PSYC 4070, Study notes of Developmental Psychology

Download Lecture Notes on Cognitive Development in Infancy | PSYC 4070 and more Study notes Developmental Psychology in PDF only on Docsity! Chapter 5: Cognitive Development in Infancy Piaget’s Approach to Cognitive Development  Infants – How do they acquire knowledge? o Through direct motor behavior o I.e. Infants learn by doing – they touch, taste, smell etc. o Differs from older individuals like us o We typically learn by have facts communicated to us  Piaget’s Theory o Says children pass through series of universal stages o Stages are:  Sensorimotor  Preoperational  Concrete operational  Formal operational o Says “Fixed order to stages” – cant skip any o Both Physical Maturation and Relevant Experiences allow movement between stages  With development infants experience changes in understanding about what can/can’t occur in the world  Says development is a gradual process  Steady shift of behavior as child mores to next stage of cognitive development – behavior changes as one cognitively advances o Sensorimotor Stage  Initially reflexes/senses determine interaction with world  i.e. they are the center of cognitive life  ex. Sucking reflex – suck provides information about objects  Soon cognitive processes shift to curiosity of outside world  i.e. want to explore their environment  Achieve object permanence during this stage –  Object permanence: infants realize objects exist even when they cannot be seen  Ex. Previously if hid ball from their view, it ceased to exist; now if you try to hide it they will search for it  Infants conduct miniature experiments with objects  Ex. Will drop spoon several times o Each time they will observe the sounds it makes/ observing what happens to it  That is bounces, scares crap out of dog, etc.  Near end of stage, beginnings of thought emerge (18-24 months)  They form mental representations (internal images) of past events/people/objects  This allows them to have memory for things like their toys, friends, and play activities Memory during Infancy  Do infants have memory? o Yes o Know this because can distinguish a new stimuli from old o Implies some memory o Ex. They can recognize familiar faces from new ones and will smile at familiar faces and express fear for new ones  Memory increases with age o Ex. Experiment with crib mobile and learning  Could move mobile by kicking leg  2 month olds forgot after a few days/6 month olds remembered for weeks  Reminders/cues/hints work with infants but more effective with older infants o If they were shown a moving mobile, it brought the memory back for them and they began to kick to move mobile  Controversy over memory o Researchers disagree on age from which memories can be retrieved o Many cite “Infantile amnesia”  Lack of memory for experiences prior to age 3  Some say they have memories for events prior to age 3 o Current findings: memories for personal experiences not accurate before 18-24 months  Forgetting o Why do we forget?  Newer information may displace/block out/corrupt older info/ memories  I.e. newer memories become incorporated and make older memories less valid  This is a problem with recovered memories in regards to victims of abuse, also eyewitness testimony  Intelligence o Earliest Measures of Intelligence  Gesell studied several children of different ages  Determined behaviors typical for given ages  If child tested and did not perform behaviors typical for their age- then diagnosed as atypical or DD o Gesell’s Developmental Scales  Led to developmental quotient  DQ = overall score related to performance in four domains