Assignment

Student’s Name Muzamil Kousar

Student’s ID 06010611-011
Session B.S (HONS) 7th
Semester
Department Psychology
Subject Cognitive Psychology
Course Code PSY-407
Topic Cognitive Development
During Childhood

Submitted Date 6th January, 2010

Supervisor’s Name Miss Sobia Qaisar

UNIVERSITY OF GUJRAT
 Content Table
Introduction
Piaget’s Theory of Development
1. Piaget’s Stage Of Preoperational Thoughts
➢ Symbolic Function Sub stage
➢ Salient Features Of Preoperational Thoughts
➢ Intuitive Thought Sub-stage
1. Piaget’s Stage Of Concrete Operational Thought
➢
➢ Seriation
➢ Transitivity
➢ Classification
➢ Decentering
➢ Reversibility
1.
Piaget And Education
Vygotsky’s Theory of Development
➢ Zone of Proximal Development
➢ Scaffolding
➢ Language and Thought
Teaching Strategies Based on Vygotsky’s Theory
Evaluating and Comparing Vygotsky’s and Piaget’s Theories
Information Processing
Intelligence
Creativity
Language Development
➢ Mean Length of Utterance
➢ Rule Systems
Early Childhood Education
➢ Child-Centered Kindergarten
➢ Montessori Approach
Disorder In Children
1. Speech Disorders
➢ Delayed speech
➢ Stuttering
1. School Phobia
2. Form of Anxiety Disorders in Children
➢ Separation anxiety
➢ Avoidant disorder
➢ Over anxious disorder
Conclusion
References

Introduction
The word cognitive is roughly equivalent to thought. Hence cognitive
development means development of thought. During childhood, learning
and information-processing increase in speed, memory becomes
increasingly longer, and symbol use and the capacity for abstraction
develop until a near-adult level is reached by adolescence.

Cognitive development has genetic and other biological mechanisms, as is

seen in the many genetic causes of mental retardation. However, although it
is assumed that brain functions cause cognitive events, it has not been
possible to measure specific brain changes and show that they cause cognitive change.

Our coverage of cognitive development during childhood focuses on Piaget’s stage of

preoperational thoughts & concrete operational thought, Vygotsky’s theory of development,
Information processing, language development, early childhood education and disorders during
childhood.

Piaget’s Theory of Development

Piaget was a giant in the field of developmental psychology, the founder
of the present field of children’s cognitive development. Piaget regards
the development of intelligence as an interaction between an individual's
maturation and his or her social and physical environment. Cognitive
development, according to Piaget; it takes place by means of two
processes:

1. Organization, in which one psychological structure is integrated

with another.
2. Adaptation, in which psychological structures are modified in the course of interactions
with the environment. Adaptation consists of assimilation and accommodation.
• Individuals assimilate each new experience to what they already know.
• At the same time accommodate or modify what they know to take the new
experience into account.

According to Piaget there are four stages of cognitive development but there are two stages occur
during childhood these are:

1. Pre-operational period (from two years to seven years)

2. Period of concrete operation (from 7 years to 11 years)

Piaget’s Stage Of Preoperational Thoughts

The pre-operational stages is the significant step beyond the Sensory motor period because
preoperational children can learn not only by sensing and doing but also by thinking
symbolically and intuitively, an no only by acting but also by reflecting on their actions.

Symbolic Function Sub stage

The major important development of the preoperational stages is the symbolic function that
occurs between 2 & 4 years of age & is characterized by symbolic thought, ego centrism &
animism.

The symbolic function is the ability to learn by using symbols. A symbol is a mental
representation to which consciously or unconsciously, a person has attached meaning. It is
something that stands for really comes into it between ages 2 and 6. The young child gains the
ability to think about objects or events that are not present. Like if we see their drawings that are
fanciful and inventive. Suns are blue, skies are yellow, and cars float on clouds in thei symbolic,
imaginative world.

Three ways in which children show the symbolic function are

1. Deferred imitation
2. Symbolic play
3. Language

Deferred imitation: is imitation of an observed action after their time has passed. For example,
Ibraheem aged 3, sees his father shaving. Later, at his pre-school, he heads for the housekeeping
corner and begins to "shave" According to Piaget, Ibraheem saw the shaving, formed and stored
a mental symbol (probably a visual image), and later when he could no longer see it reproduced
the behavior by calling up the stored symbol.
In symbolic play: children make an object stand for something else. Hafsa, age 4, makes her
finger stand for a bottle and she "feeds" her doll by putting her finger to its mouth. Her laughter
as she does this show that she knows her finger is not really a bottle.
Language: The symbolic function is most impressive in language. Preoperational children use
language to stand for absent things and for events that are not taking place at the time. By using
the words apple tree to stand for something that was not there. Hafsa made an utterance with
symbolic character

Salient Features Of Preoperational Thoughts

Egocentrism is a salient feature o preoperational thought. It is the inability to distinguish
between one’s owns perspective and someone else’s perspective.
For example a 4 years old girl’s conversation on telephone with her father at home

Father: Hafsa, is mammy here?

Hafsa: (Silently Nods)
Father: Hafsa, May I speak to Mommy?
Hafsa: (Nods again silently)
Hafsa’s response is egocentric in that she fails to consider her father’s perspective before
replying. A non egocentric thinker would have responded verbally.

Animism another salient of preoperational thought is the belief that inanimate objects have
“lifelike” qualities and are capable of action.
For example: A young child might show animism by saying, “That tree pushed the leaf off, and
it fell down.

Intuitive Thought Sub-stage

The intuition sub stage is the second sub-stage of preoperational thought, stretches from 4-7
years of age. In this children begin to use primitive reasoning and want to know the answers to
all questions. They seem so sure about their knowledge yet are unaware of how they know what
they know?
In preoperational child lacks conservation & ask a barrage of questions.

For example a young child might be given the task dividing her peers into groups according to
whether they are boys or girls.

Centration focusing of attention on one characteristic to the exclusion of all others- inability to
shift quality or function from one set of criteria to another
Conservation

A belief in the permanence of certain attributes of objects or situations in spite of apparent.

For example The beaker test is well-known Piagetian test;

Two identical beakers are presented to the child. Then, the liquid from B into C, which is taller
and thinner then A or B. the child is asked if these beakers (A and C) have the same amount of
liquid. The preoperational child says no. when asked to point to the beaker that has more liquid,
the preoperational child points to the taller, thin beaker.
Piaget’s Stage Of Concrete Operational Thought
The concrete operational stage begins around age seven and continues until approximately age
eleven. During this time, children gain a better
understanding of mental operations. Children begin
thinking logically about concrete events, but have
difficulty understanding abstract or hypothetical concepts.
However, they can only think about actual physical
objects, and cannot handle abstract reasoning. They have
difficulty understanding abstract or hypothetical concepts.
This stage is also characterized by a loss of egocentric
thinking. Concrete child can achieves conservation of
number (age 6), mass (age 7), and weight (age 9)
During this stage, the child has the ability to master most
types of conservation experiments, and begins to understand reversibility. Conservation is the
realization that quantity or amount does not change when nothing has been added or taken away
from an object or a collection of objects, despite changes in form or spatial arrangement. The
concrete operational stage is also characterized by the child’s ability to coordinate two
dimensions of an object simultaneously;
Seriation
The ability to sort objects in an order according to size, shape, or any other characteristic. For
example, if given different-shaded objects they may make a color gradient.
Transitivity
The ability to recognize logical relationships among elements in a serial order, and perform
'transitive inferences' (for example, If A is taller than B, and B is taller than C, then A must be
taller than C).
Classification
The ability to name and identify sets of objects according to appearance, size or other
characteristic, including the idea that one set of objects can include another.
Decentering
Where the child takes into account multiple aspects of a problem to solve it. For example, the
child will no longer perceive an exceptionally wide but short cup to contain less than a normally-
wide, taller cup.
Reversibility
The child understands that numbers or objects can be changed, then returned to their original
state. For this reason, a child will be able to rapidly determine that if 4+4 equals t, t−4 will equal
4, the original quantity.
Piaget And Education
Piaget provided a sound conceptual framework from which to view learning and education.
Following are some more general principles in Piaget’s theory that can be applied to teaching.
1. Take a constructivist approach (Children learn when they are active and seek solutions
for themselves).
2. Facilitate rather than direct learning (Effective teachers design situations that allow
students to learn by doing through asking question by teachers and answering by
students).
3. Consider the child’s knowledge and level of thinking (Teachers need to interrupt what a
student is saying and respond in a mode of discourse that is not too far from the student’s
level).
4. Use ongoing assessment (Math and language portfolios, individual conferences in which
students discuss their thinking strategies, and students’ written and verbal explanations of
their reasoning can be used to evaluate progress).
5. Promote the student’s intellectual health (Children’s learning should occur naturally.
Children should not be pushed and pressured into achieving too much too early in their
development, before they are maturationally ready).
6. Turn the classroom into a setting of exploration and discovery (the teachers emphasize
students’ own exploration and discovery. The classrooms are less structured than what
we think of a typical classroom. Workbooks and predetermined assignments are not used.
Rather, teachers observe the students’ interest and natural participation in activities to
determine what the course of learning will be).

Vygotsky’s Theory of Development

Psychologist Lev Vygotsky proposed that children learn through interactions with their
surrounding culture. This theory, known as the socio-cultural perspective, states that the
cognitive development of children and adolescents is enhanced when they work in their Zone of
Proximal Development (ZPD for short).

Zone of Proximal Development

Zone of Proximal Development range of tasks too difficult for children to master alone but
which can be learned with guidance & assistance of adults or more skilled children. For example,
a child might not be able to walk across a balance beam on her own, but she can do so while
holding her mother’s hand.

Scaffolding
Scaffolding changing the level of support over course of a teaching session-more skilled person
adjusts amount of guidance to fit student’s current performance level. For example, as the child
becomes more confident in her balance, her mother can go from holding both hands, to
eventually holding one hand, and eventually she can stop holding her hand. The child will soon
be able to walk unassisted. Therefore, scaffolding instills the skills necessary for independent
problem solving in the future.

Language and Thought

Vygotsky believed that young children use Language and thoughts not only for social
communication but also to plan, guide & monitor their behavior in self-regulatory fashion. The
use of language for self-regulation is called inner speech or private speech. Children must use
language to communicate with others before they can focus inward on their own thoughts. This
period occurs between the age of 3 and 7 years of age and involves talking to oneself. After a
while, the self-talk becomes second nature to children, and they can act without verbalizing.
When this occurs, children have internalized their egocentric speech in the form of inner speech,
which become their thoughts.

Teaching Strategies Based on Vygotsky’s Theory

 Use child’s zone of proximal development, by teaching to child’s upper limit, where the
child is able to reach the goal only through close collaboration with the instructor. The
teacher gradually reduces the explanations, hints, and demonstrations until the student is
able to perform the skill alone.
 Use scaffolding when children need help with self-initiated learning activities, by
helping move to higher level of skill & knowledge. When the child hesitates, offer
encouragement. And encourage the child to practice the skill.
 Monitor & encourage children’s use of private speech
 Assess child’s ZPD, not IQ. The ZPD is a measure of learning potential. IQ, also a
measure of learning potential, emphasizes that intelligence is the property of the child. By
contrast, ZPD emphasizes that learning is interpersonal.
 Transform classroom with Vygotskian ideas the instructor asks questions, responds to
students’ queries, and builds on the ideas that students generate.
Evaluating and Comparing Vygotsky’s and Piaget’s
Theories
Piaget Theory Vygotsky Theory
Piaget’s views such speech as immature Vygotsky’s emphasis on importance of inner
speech in development.
Piaget’s theory does not have this social Vygotsky’s is a social constructivist approach,
emphasize. which emphasizes the social context of social
learning and that knowledge mutually built and
constructed.

Children construct knowledge by Children construct knowledge through social

transforming, organizing and recognizing interaction with others.
previous knowledge.
Teaching is that children need support to Teaching is that students need many
explore their world and discover knowledge. opportunities to learn with the teacher and more
skilled peers.

Information Processing
Stages of cognitive development as Piaget’s has given are not enough for describing the all type
of information. For this purpose we can studies the different cognitive processing during
childhood like;

➢ The child’s attention dramatically improves during early childhood. The deficit in
attention in early childhood is that the child attends to the salient rather than the relevant
features of the task.
➢ Significant improvement in short-term memory occurs during early childhood. Studies of
memory & children, speed of repetition was powerful predictor of memory span. If we
take an IQ test simply hear a short list of stimuli -usually digits- the memory span
increased from about 2 digits in 2-3 years old children to about 5 digits in 7 year old
children. But after the age of 7does not show as much increase. Long term memory
increase with age during middle and late childhood.
➢ During middle childhood a cognitive process occur that do not occur automatically but
require work and effort that is called control processes. They are under the learner’s
conscious controlled can be used to improve memory.
 ➢ Information processing psychologists have found that if the component of task the child
is performing are made interesting & simple. Children display greater cognitive maturity
than Piaget realized.
➢ Children are curious about the nature of human mind. In the following account,
children’s developing knowledge that;
• The mind exists. (I forget my doll)
• It has connections to the physical world. (Understanding that people can see
them, hear them, like them)
• It can represent objects & events accurately or inaccurately. (a boy places
some chocolate in a blue cupboard and then goes out to play. While he is outside,
his mother moves the chocolate to a green cupboard. When the boy returns and
wants he chocolate, the subject is asked where the boy will look for it. Three year
olds usually say “the green cupboard”, where the chocolate actually is, even
though the boy had no way of knowing the chocolate was moved. While 4 and 5
years old can understand false belief.
• It can actively interpret reality & emotions. (6 year old children do not
understand that a child would be sad or scared when his friends suggest they ride
bikes if that child previously was almost hit by a car when she could not stop her
bike because her legs were too shorter.
➢ Famous educator John Dewey (1993) proposed an idea when he talked about the
importance of getting students to think reflectively. Critical thinking is a thinking that
involves grasping the deeper meaning of ideas, keeping an open mind about different
approaches and perspectives, and deciding for one-self what to believe or do.
➢ Mata cognition is the individual knowledge about memory. It includes knowledge about
when and where to use specific strategies for learning or solving problems. At 4 to 5
years of age, they began to recognize that the mind can represent objects accurately and
inaccurately. By 5 to 6 years of age, children usually know that familiar items are easier
to learn than unfamiliar ones and that short lists are easier than longer ones.

Intelligence
Intelligence consists of verbal ability, problem solving, and the ability to adapt to and learn from
life’s every day experiences. Psychologist debate whether intelligence has one face or many. The
Binet and Wechsler tests are the most widely used individual tests of intelligence. A special
concern is cultural bias in intelligence test. The psychometric approach that emphasizes
individual differences and measurement of IQ was compared with the following other
approaches: Piaget’s theory, Vygotsky’s theory, social learning theory and information
processing.

Creativity
Creativity is the ability to think in novel and unusual ways and to come up with unique solutions
to problems. A number of strategies can be used to encourage children’s creative thinking,
including brainstorming.
Language Development
Language is an item of human culture which is an inseparable part of human life. Early
Childhood Language development in the first five years of life is the key for children’s
development of communication and language. Language and communicative competence are
critical for learning, engaging in social relationships, and succeeding in school and beyond.
Language and speech are primarily learned through imitation and observation. Therefore, the
child absorbs the language that is spoken in the environment totally with the tonal quality, the
syntax, the usages, and the emphases etc. It has been observed how a child can learn languages
which parent speaks. The child absorbs the language that is alive in the environment he or she
lives, which is a notable, noticeable phenomenon in human life.

Mean Length of Utterance

Brown’s five stages provide model for understanding young children’s language development.

Brown believes that Mean Length of Utterance (MLU) is a good index of child’s language
maturity. Stages indicate growth of language complexity

Stage 1 - 12 to 26 months of age = MLU 1.00 to 2.00

Vocabulary consists mainly of nouns and verbs, with several adjectives and adverbs. Typically
sentence like Mommy Bye-Bye
Stage 2 - 27 to 30 months of age = MLU 2.00 to 2.50

Plurals are correctly formed, past sentence is used, be is used, definite and indefinite articles are
used. Like Milk’s all gone

Stage 3 - 31 to 34 months of age = MLU 2.50 to 3.00

Yes-no questions appear and so on imperatives. Like Daddy come home? Mano no wants milk.

Stage 4 - 35 to 40 months of age = MLU 3.00 to 3.75

Once sentence is sometimes embedded in another. Like “I think it’s red”

Stage 5 - 41 to 46 months of age = MLU 3.75 to 4.50

Simple sentences and propositional relations are coordinated. Like “I like cookies because they
are cute”.

Rule Systems
As children move beyond two-word utterances, they know morphology rules. Begin using
plurals & possessive forms of nouns. Such as dogs and dog’s. Put appropriate endings on verbs
such as –s when the subject is third person singular, -ed for the past tense and –ing for the
present progressive tense. Use prepositions &various forms of verb to be such as “in, on” and as
“a, the” and as “I was going to the store”. As children move to elementary school, they become
skilled at using syntactical rules to construct lengthy & complex sentences. Like foots instead of
feet.

Early Childhood Education

Reading & writing skills should build on existing understanding of oral & written language. Too
many preschool children are being subjected to rigid, formal pre-reading programs with
expectations & experiences that are too advanced for cognitive levels of development.
Instruction should be built on what children already know about oral language, reading &
writing. There are two types of variations in childhood education;

Child-Centered Kindergarten involves whole child by considering physical, cognitive, &

social development & child’s needs, interests & learning styles. Experimenting, exploring,
discovering, trying out, restructuring, speaking, & listening describe excellent kindergarten
programs

Montessori Approach philosophy of education in which children are given considerable

freedom and spontaneity in choosing activities. Allowed to move from one activity to another as
they desire. Does not emphasize verbal interaction between teacher, child, & peers.

Disorder In Children
1. Speech Disorders
Though there are many different childhood speech disorders, psychological disturbance appears
to be implicated in only two of these conditions'1 delayed and stuttering.
 a) Delayed Speech
Most children say their first words within a few months after their first birthday. And between
eighteen and twenty four months, they usually begin to formulate two or three-word sentences
there are wide individual differences in this schedule, and a few months delay in developing
normal speech is rarely thought to have any diagnostic significance. Some normal children being
to speak much later than others. Albert Einstein, for example, did not utter his first words until he
was fully three years old. In some cases, failure to speak is an early sign of autism, deafness,
mental retardation, or some other specific form of brain damage.

b) Stuttering
Stuttering refers to the interruption of speech fluency through blocked, prolonged, or repeated
words, syllables, or sounds. Many people stutter on occasion: and speech hesitation in young
children is a very common phenomenon. Consequently, with stuttering as with so many other
childhood disorders, it is often difficulties to decide what a serious condition is and what is not.
Persistent stuttering occurs in approximately 1 percent of the population, males out numbering
females four to one. The disorder is not likely to appear either between two and three and-a-half
years or between five and seven years. In any case in onset is almost always before age twelve
(DMS-1I1 1980).

1. School Phobia
A phobia is an intense but unwarranted fear of some object or situation. Somatic symptoms such
as nausea, refusal to eat, vomiting and abdominal pains may accompany the fear or anxiety.
While children may develop animal phobias and transportation phobias (Kessler 1966), school
phobia is the most common.

Specifically, a school phobia consists of anxiety, panic and often abdominal pains that develop
when the child is faced with having to go to school. Bakwin and Bakwin (1972) remark that the
fear is usually related to a particular teacher, classmate, or anticipation of an exam.

Another etiological thesis states that going to school is feared because the child has not learned
to "separate" from his or her mother. The child' is pathologically attached to her. and the prospect
of separation engenders anxiety and panic.

2. Form of Anxiety Disorders in Children

Childhood anxiety may manifest itself in several forms. Among these are

1. Separation anxiety
2. Avoidant disorder
3. Over anxious disorder

1. Separation Anxiety:
In this disorder; children show "exaggerated distress at the separation from parent home, or
familiar surroundings" (DSM-III). They may ruminate about their parents becoming ill, injured,
or killed. In some cases these worries may include fantasies about being kidnapped or banned
when they are separated from their parents. Fears are shown by "expressing discomfort about
leaving home, engaging in solitary-activities and continuing to use the mothering figure as a
helper in buying clothes and entering social and recreational activities" (Wearkman. 1980).

2. Avoidant Disorders:
As with most of the anxiety related disorders, in avoidant disorders children also have difficulties
making transition. While usually fine at home, youngsters with avoidant disorders shrink from
interaction and show embarrassment, timidity, and withdrawal when forced to come in contact
with strangers. Timidity is a great roadblock to the building of normal peer relationships and to
the experiencing of interpersonal activities necessary to growth and maturity. Avoidant
youngsters, though not usually participating in many activities, do seem to want to be accepted
by peers and to be competitive, in academic and athletic situations. However, should their initial
effort meet with failure, they typically stop tying and quickly withdraw from the anxiety.

3. Overanxious Disorder:
While rumination can be part of all anxiety disorders, it is the major symptom in the overanxious
disorder. These youths ruminate about things such as examinations, possible future events, and
past difficulties. Interested in pleasing others and usually quite conforming, overanxious children
also are prone to gain attention by exaggerating their pains or illness and having more than their
share of accidents. Their sleep is often disturbed because night time appears to be an especially
favorable time to ruminate about the past day's event.

Conclusion
Children learn most effectively through interactions with others. Based on developmental
theories that emphasize the role of learning in social contexts, we know that caregivers and
teachers are a critical source of stimulation for young children. The way in which more
competent others are able to support young children's learning has been described as
"scaffolding" and includes a broad range of interactive styles that are consistently reported to
enhance children's ability to learn because they provide support for the young child's less mature
attention, cognitive, and language skills. Scaffolding occurs in everyday situations when
caregivers or teachers notice a child's interest in a toy or book and help him/her hold the object
and talk about how it works and what it is called.

Here are six key essentials for optimal support of young children's cognitive development. These
include;

1. Providing rich language environments through labeling, explanations about children's

interests, and frequent book reading on different topics.
 2. Responding to children's requests and signals promptly and sensitively.
3. Maintaining and expanding on children's interests in specific learning activities.
4. Avoiding negative and highly restrictive behaviors.
5. Providing opportunities for choice by the toddler/preschool periods when children are
more capable of beginning to direct their own learning.
6. Monitoring children's behavior. When this interactive style is apparent.
• Children are willing to signal their needs and interests.
• Caregivers and teachers respond to these in a sensitive and prompt manner.
• Children receive a supportive consequence and more effective learning occurs.

Research

Sex-related differences in cognition: Development during

early childhood
Fifty-five right-handed children from right-handed families between 2- and 5-years-of-age were
individually administered two batteries of hand preference, verbal and spatial measures with a
six month interval separating administrations. Early between-sex differences in production and
comprehension abilities were revealed. Girls outscored boys on measures of verbal fluency and
graphic reproduction of shapes. Boys outscored girls on a measure of verbal comprehension.
Within-sex differences between comprehension and production abilities were also apparent. At
both administrations, boys scored significantly higher on verbal tests of knowledge,
comprehension and reasoning than on measures requiring oral or manual production. Girls
showed the reverse pattern. By the second administration, however, the high production/low
comprehension pattern was only significant for girls consistently demonstrating high degrees of
right-hand preference across testing times. Significant between-sex differences in these
comprehension versus production ability patterns ranged between 1/2 to 11/6 standard deviations
in magnitude and accounted for 8–10% of the variance in children's ability difference scores.
These results are interpreted as support for a biological basis of early sex-related cognitive
differences and Kimura's (1983) model of sex differences in the organization of the left
hemisphere.
R. Harter Kraft and Laurie D. Nickel
University Of California, Davis USA
May 2002
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6W5P-45VF2KX-
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