Developmental Milestones in Infancy

Infants develop motor skills in a highly predictable

sequence, but they differ in the age at which they achieve these
skills. The bars in this chart show the age span at which most
children reach a particular developmental milestone. Some
children will attain these milestones earlier or later than the
ranges shown .
 (from birth to two years)

This stage is determined basically by

. This
is the process experienced between the
senses and the external or physical factor.
 SENSORIMOTOR STAGE

Stage Span Description

1 Birth
2 Extends to about 4
months
3 4-8 months Behavior oriented towards objects
4 8mos.-1 year
5-6 Second year of life
Behavior is reflexive
Habitual sucking, hand-eye
coordination, object awareness
and events beyond his body,
voluntary control, object
manipulation, repetition of
interesting behavior
Emergence of first clear signs of
intelligence, object permanence
Trial and error to achieve desired
ends
 (two to seven
years)

more likely develops language

 Cognitive process increase the ability

to store
 PREOPERATIONAL STAGE

Subdivision Span Description

 Preconceptual 2-4 years Rudimentary concept
Thinking formation, classification of
things according to
similarity, egocentric stage
 Period of 4-7 years Solving problems
Intuitive intuitively, failure to
Thought develop
conservation/cannot
reverse cognitive operations
(7 to 11 years)

Children’s thinking becomes more

and

Gaining better understanding of

as shown
in the realism, proportion and detail
in their drawings and paintings.
 is a key developmental
task at this period.

; generally
cannot apply the logic to problems that are
primarily verbal and hypothetical
 (11-16 years)

 Attain logical, rational and abstract

strategies

 Logical operations are now used for

problem solving

 This stage is characterized by

hypothesis-testing
“ ” or
relativism is formed

 Process of reading development is

significantly different –
is developed in attaining
meaning from the words read
“ give the
student the cognitive tools
needed for development”
– Technology, Reading, Language
and Arts by Willis, et al.
 Applied in any
Vygotskian Classroom

 Learning and development are

 According to , you
cannot really teach anyone anything.
Students must construct understanding
and knowledge in their own minds.
However, that process is facilitated by
collaboration and teacher guidance.
 The
can serve as a guide
for curricular and lesson planning.
 Children do not simply know
something or not know it. They
may arrive at a particular learning
experience without knowing
something but be ready to master
the task if they have appropriate
support.
 School learning should occur in a

 Constructivist instructional models

emphasize the need to provide learning
experiences within a meaningful context –
often the context in which the knowledge
is to be applied. can
facilitate this in many ways.

 Relate out-of-school experiences to the

child’s school experiences.
 Vygotsky’s zone of proximal
development emphasizes his belief
that learning is fundamentally a
.
 and can
be placed in three categories.

Independent level Instructional level Frustration level

Child performs (Zone of Proximal Child cannot
activities Development) perform
independently Child performs activities activities even
with help from others. with help

“What the child is able to do in

collaboration today he will be able to do
independently tomorrow”. –
 – One form of instruction inspired
by Vygotskian thinking

– It is an in
which the teacher adjusts to the child’s
level of development the amount and
type of support he or she offers the
child.
Thought and Language Connection

A phase in the
development of thought and
phase in the development of
speech can be observed. Vygotsky cited in a
study of Koehler and Buehler to give an
example of the preintellectual development
of speech. Koehler and Buehler referred to a
child’s babbling, crying and first words as the
because they are related
to the development of speech and are
unrelated to the development of thinking.
 Before two years of age, the
development of thought and speech are
separate. They melt and join at two years
to initiate a new form. Thought
becomes verbal, and speech becomes
rational. Speech serves the intellect as
thoughts are spoken. Social
environment is important to children’s
development because it can accelerate or
decelerate development. ( )
Language Development
is a tool for organizing
thinking because it bears the concepts
(Moll 1990).
 According to Vygotsky’s research, speech
develops first with external,
, then
, and finally,

egocentric
social speech speech inner speech
 Language plays an important role in
Vygotskian theory. As children begin to use
social speech, egocentric speech and inner
speech, they learn to communicate and to
and
Chomsky’s Psycholinguistics Biological
Predisposition to Language

is a field
of study that combines
psychology and linguistics to
study how people process
language and how language
use is related to mental
processes.
 The American linguist
believes that the ability to produce an endless
variety of sentences cannot be explained by
any theory involving learning by experience
and observation. He holds that such an ability
relies on

.
 Chomsky observes that the complexity
of children’s early language, and the
speed with which this complexity
increases, were beyond anything that
could be explained by their experience of
language use of adults around them.
This led him to postulate the
a
structure in the brain (yet undiscovered)
that has an
Language Acquisition Device

 The innate capacity for language

learning (which Chomsky, called the
or
) is what prepares the child to
make sense of language, to discover
the structure of meaning, making
potential of language.
 At each stage of Erickson’s theory
of psychosocial development, a
occurs that must be resolved with a
satisfactory balancing of opposites if
there is to be healthy progress theory
the next stage.
Stage Span Crisis Virtue

1 birth to 18 months Trust vs. Mistrust hope

2 18 months to 3 years Autonomy vs. Shame will

3 3-6 years Initiative vs. Guilt purpose

4 6-12 years Industry vs. Inferiority competence

5 12-18 years Identity vs. Role Confusion fidelity

6 18/20-40 years Intimacy vs. Isolation love

7 40-60 years Generativity vs. Stagnation care

8 60 till death Integrity vs. Despair wisdom

 states that refers to
an engagement of a group as to the
wrongness or rightness of a type of act.
 Morality ties in with ethics because
refers to an individual’s decision whereas
morality deals with a group decision
whereas deals with a group
decision as to how to act in a particular
situation.
 Levels Stages of Reasoning
Level I – Preconventional Stage 1 – Orientation to punishment and obedience
(ages 4-10) “What will happen to me?”
Children obey the rules of others to avoid
Emphasis in this level punishment. They ignore the motives of an act
is on external control. and focus on its physical form (such as the size
The standards are those of a lie) or its consequences (e.g. the amount of
of others, and they are physical damage).
observed either to avoid
punishment or to reap Stage 2 – Instrumental Purpose and Exchange
rewards. “You scratch my Back, I’ll scratch yours.”
Children conform to rules out of self-interest
and consideration for what others can do for
them in return. They look at an act in terms of
the human needs it meets and differentiate this
value from act’s physical form and
consequences.
 Levels
Level II – Morality of
Conventional Role Conformity
(ages 10-13)
Children now want to please
other people. They still observe
the standards of others, but they
have internalized these standards
to some extent. Now they want
to be considered “good” by
those persons whose opinions
are important to them. They are
now able to take the roles of
authority figures well enough to
decide whether an action is
good by their standards.
Stages of Reasoning
Stage 3 – Maintaining Mutual Relations, approval
of others, the golden rule.
“Am I a good boy or girl?”
Children want to please and help others,
can judge the intentions of others, and
develop their own ideas of what a good
person is. They evaluate an act according to
the motive behind it or the person
performing it, and they take circumstances
into account.
Stage 4 – Social System and Conscience.
“What if everybody did it?”
People are concerned with doing their
duty, showing respect for higher authority,
and maintaining the social order. They
consider an act always wrong, regardless of
motive or circumstances, if it violates the
rule and harms others.
 Levels
Level III – Morality of
Autonomous Moral Principles
(ages 13, or not until young
adulthood, or never)
This level marks the
attainment of true morality. For
the first time, the person
acknowledges the possibility of
the conflict between two socially
accepted standards and tries to
decide between them. The
control of conduct is now
internal, both in the standards
observed and in the reasoning
about right and wrong. Stages 5
and 6 may be alternative
methods of the highest level of
moral reasoning.
Stages of Reasoning
Stage 5 – Morality of Contract, of individual
rights and of democratically accepted
law.
People think in rational terms, valuing
the will of the majority and the welfare of
the society. They generally see these values
best supported by adherence to the law.
While they recognize there are times when
human need and law conflict, they believe
that it is better for society in the long run
to obey the law.
Stage 6 – Morality of Universal Ethical Principles
People do what they as individuals think
right, regardless of legal restrictions or the
opinions of others. They act in accordance
with their internalized standards, knowing
that they would condemn themselves if
they did not.
Emotional Intelligence

Emotional Intelligence has its

roots in the concept of
, first identified by
E.L. Thorndike in 1920.
 Psychologists have been uncovering other
intelligences for some time now, and grouping them
mainly into three clusters:

(the ability to
understand and manipulate with verbal and
mathematical symbols)

(the ability to
understand and manipulate with objects)

(the ability to
understand and relate to people)
- Russel, 1992
 defined social intelligence
as “the ability to understand and manage
men and women, boys and girls –

is a type of
social intelligence that involves the
ability to monitor one’s own and other’s
emotions, to discriminate among them,
and to use the information to guide
one’s thinking and actions.
 According to , emotional
intelligence subsumes
, and involves
abilities that may be categorized into five
domains:

 Managing emotions

 Empathy
 – observing oneself
and recognizing a feeling as it happens

– handling
feelings so that they are appropriate;
realizing what is behind a feeling; finding
ways to handle fears and anxieties, anger
and sadness.
 – channeling
emotions in the service of a goal;
emotional self-control; delaying
gratification and stifling impulses.

– sensitivity to other’s
feelings and concerns and taking their
perspective; appreciating the
differences in how people feel about
things.
 – managing emotions in
others; social competence and social
skills.
 by Daniel Goleman

Major Qualities that make up

Emotional Intelligence

 Mood Management

 Impulse
 The ability to
recognize a feeling as it happen is the
keystone of emotional intelligence.
People with greater certainty about their
emotions are better pilots of their lives
Bad and good
moods spice life and build character. The
key is balance.

Positive motivation
– the marshaling of feelings of
enthusiasm, zeal and confidence – is the
paramount for achievement.
 The essence of
emotional self-regulation is the ability
to delay impulse in the service of a
goal.

The capacity to know

how another person feels is important
on the job, in romance and friendship,
and in the family.
BEHAVIORAL APPROACHES

also called
holds that learning is
what changes behavior and thus causes
development.

is the psychological school

which holds that information about the
mind that can be reliably derived only
from observation of behavior and not
from reports of conscious experience.
famous experiment demonstrated
, a kind of
learning to which a person or animal
learns a response to a stimulus that
did not originally elicit that
response; after the stimulus is
repeatedly associated with another
stimulus that does not ordinarily
evoke the response.
 is learning
that occurs when a neutral stimulus
through repeated pairing with a stimulus
that elicits a specific response, comes to
elicit that same response.
is a stimulus
that naturally and invariably produces a
given response.
is a stimulus
that is initially natural but when repeatedly
paired with an unconditioned stimulus,
elicits the response associated with the later
stimulus.
 Classical conditioning is a type of learning in which an animal’s natural
response to one object or sensory stimulus transfers to another stimulus.
This illustration shows how a dog can learn to salivate to the sound of a
tuning fork, an experiment first carried out in the early 1900s by Russian
physiologist Ivan Pavlov.
 Operant Conditioning/
is a kind of learning in which an
animal or person continues to make a response
because the response has been reinforced
(strengthened) or stops making the response because
it has been punished.
is a stimulus that follows a
behavior and increases the likelihood that the behavior
will be repeated.
is a stimulus that follows a behavior
and decreases the likelihood that the behavior will be
repeated.
 is the step by step
procedure in operant
conditioning. Every time a
response is made, reinforcement
is given.
 Operant Conditioning
, pioneered by American psychologist
B. F. Skinner, is the process of shaping behavior by means of
reinforcement and punishment. This illustration shows how a
mouse can learn to maneuver through a maze. The mouse is
rewarded with food when it reaches the first turn in the maze
(A). Once the first behavior becomes ingrained, the mouse is not
rewarded until it makes the second turn (B). After many times
through the maze, the mouse must reach the end of the maze to
receive its reward (C).
 was the
first behaviorist to apply the stimulus-
response theories of learning to the
study of child development. He and
his followers believed that all
emotions, pleasant and unpleasant,
were learned. Indeed they believe that

– exclusively of simple
reflexes –
 did not limit
himself to the association between stimulus
and response. He put more emphasis on the
response of the organism. He further
believed that all learning is explained by
bonds or connections that are formed
between the stimulus and the response.
These connections are mainly through trial
and error; this theory was therefore called
, which means
 Law of Readiness

 Law of Effect
 This law states that if the learner is
prepared to act, to make him act is
satisfying; not to make him act is
annoying. Thorndike states that
readiness is a very important
condition in learning, because a
learner may be satisfied or frustrated
depending on his state of readiness.
 This law states that exercise, practice,
or repetition strengthens the bonds or
connections between the stimulus and
the response. For a connection to be
fixed, it must be used or repeated
frequently. On the other hand, the
non-use of the bond will weaken the
connection.
Thorndike’s greatest contribution to the
psychology of learning is the law of
effect. When an organism’s organism
response is accompanied or followed by
a satisfactory state, the strength of the
connection is increased. When an
annoying state accompanies or follows
the response, the strength of the
connection is decreased.
 Set or Attitude

 Response by Analogy
 Multiple response, or varied action, was for
Thorndike, the first step in all learning. It
refers to the fact that if our first response does
not solve the problem, we try other responses.

 What Thorndike called “attitudes”,

“dispositions”, “preadjustments” or “sets” was
his recognition of the importance of what the
learner brings to the learning situation.
 This is what Thorndike called “the partial or
piecemeal activity of a situation”. It refers to
the fact that only some elements of any
situation will govern behavior.

 We respond to situations not encountered

before as we would to a related situation that
we had encountered before. The amount of
transfer between the familiar situation and the
unfamiliar one is determined by the number
of elements that the two situations have in
common.
 It is closely related to Thorndike’s identical elements
theory of the transfer of training. The procedure for
demonstrating associative shifting is to begin with a
connection between a certain situation and a certain
response. The one gradually drops out stimulus
elements that were part of the original situation,
and adds stimulus elements that were not part of
the original situation.
 Polarity
 Thorndike argued that some stimuli and
responses belong together in a more natural
way than others and should therefore
become more readily connected in a
learning situation.

 A learned response is most easily given in

the direction in which it was formed.
 Thorndike found that a satisfying
state of affairs not only increased
the probability of recurrence of
the response that led to the
satisfying state of affairs, but also
increased the probability of
recurrence of the responses
surrounding the reinforced one.
 was
born out of a desire to understand
the conscious mind, free will, human
dignity, and the capacity for self-
reflection and growth. An
alternative to psychoanalysis and
behaviorism, humanistic psychology
became known as “the third force.”
 The humanistic movement was led by
American psychologists and
.
 According to , all humans are born
with a drive to achieve their full capacity and
to behave in ways that are consistent with
their true selves. Rogers, a psychotherapist,
developed , a
nonjudgmental, nondirective approach that
helped clients clarify their sense of who they
are in an effort to facilitate their own
healing process.
 At about the same time,
theorized that all people are motivated to
fulfill a . At the
bottom of the hierarchy are basic
physiological needs, such as hunger, thirst,
and sleep. Further up the hierarchy are
needs for safety and security, needs for
belonging and love, and esteem-related
needs for status and achievement. Once
these needs are met, Maslow believed,
people strive for the
ultimate state of personal fulfillment.
 Tolman’s Purposive Behaviorism
 , school of
psychology that deals mainly with the
processes of perception. According to
Gestalt psychology,

. The
context of an image plays a key role.
 (1880-1943),
German psychologist, was considered as
the
. His interpretation of the
“apparent movement” phenomenon,
presented in a paper in 1912, gave rise to
the influential school of Gestalt
psychology. With
and , Wertheimer
formulated Gestalt principles and applied
them to thinking and problem solving.
 In a normal individual,
means the self-
understanding and awareness of one’s
major motivations, desires, feelings and
the like.
 (1860-1959)
described his theory of learning as
. He viewed
learning primarily as a cognitive process,
a matter of acquiring beliefs and
knowledge about the environment and
then demonstrating that knowledge by
acting in purposeful, goal directed ways.
 Assuming for the moment that you
are learning something, the knowledge you
have just acquired represents a kind of
, hidden from the view
of an external observer. At some future
time, however, your present learning may
become manifest, open to the view of an
external observer.
 is the leading researcher
and theorist in the area of observational
learning.
also called social
learning theory occurs when an observer’s
behavior changes after viewing the behavior of
a model. An observer’s behavior can be
affected by the positive or negative
consequences called the vicarious
reinforcement or vicarious punishment of a
model’s behavior.
 Attention

 Production
 state that
concepts are the ideas that we think with.
Expressed more technically, concepts are our
internal, mental representations of the
properties of objects and event; those objects
or events that embody a concept or event are
said to form a conceptual category.

A is the fundamental unit of

thought – an idea of what a thing is.
 A is a way of grouping an array
of objects or events in terms of certain
characteristics that distinguish this group
from other object or events (
cited by ).
 sometimes refers to an idea
someone has (e.g. “My concept of a mother
is loving and compassionate”). At other
times, it is used like a hypothesis (e.g. “My
concept is that we are always in debt because
we spend too much on trivialities”).

 When the term concept is use in connection

with , it has a
more precise meaning and refers to the way
knowledge and experience are categorized.
 Concept foster cognitive economy
by dividing the world into
manageable units.
 Concept allows us to predict
information that is not readily
perceived.
 Assigning an object to a concept is
referred to as .
 Concepts enable us to go beyond the
information given (
)

 While such concepts are used relatively

infrequently, and accordingly have
relatively long name, they still provide
us with some cognitive economy and
predictive power. (
)
 - (psychology) processes by which people
and other organisms encode, store, and retrieve
information. refers to the initial
perception and registration of information.
is the retention of encoded
information over time. refers to the
processes involved in using stored information.
Whenever people successfully recall a prior
experience, they must have encoded, stored,
and retrieved information about the experience.
Conversely, memory failure—for example,
forgetting an important fact—reflects a
breakdown in one of these stages of memory.
 Short Term Memory/Working
Memory
 refers to the initial,
momentary recording of information in our
sensory systems. When sensations strike our
eyes, they linger briefly in the visual system.
This kind of sensory memory is called
and refers to the usually brief
visual persistence of information as it is being
interpreted by the visual system.
is the name applied to the same
phenomenon in the auditory domain: the
brief mental echo that persists after
information has been heard.
 Psychologists originally used the term short-
term memory to refer to the ability to hold
information in mind over a brief period of
time. As conceptions of short-term memory
expanded to include more than just the brief
storage of information, psychologists created
new terminology. The term working memory
is now commonly used to refer to a broader
system that both stores information briefly
and allows manipulation and use of the stored
information.
 Psychologists often study working memory
storage by examining how well people
remember a list of items. In a typical
experiment, people are presented with a series
of words, one every few seconds. Then they
are instructed to recall as many of the words
as they can, in any order. Most people
remember the words at the beginning and
end of the series better than those in the
middle. This phenomenon is called the
because the chance of
recalling an item is related to its position in
the series.
 Subjects in the immediate-recall
condition also showed the
, or better recall of the last items on
the list. The recency effect occurs because
people can store recently presented
information temporarily in working
memory. When the recall test is delayed
for 30 seconds, however, the information
in working memory fades, and the
recency effect disappears.
 The term is
somewhat of a catch-all phrase because
it can refer to facts learned a few
minutes ago, personal memories many
decades old, or skills learned with
practice. Generally, however, long-
term memory describes a system in the
brain that can store vast amounts of
information on a relatively enduring
basis.
 refers to memories
of specific episodes in one’s life and is what
most people think of as memory. Episodic
memories are connected with a specific
time and place. If you were asked to
recount everything you did yesterday, you
would rely on episodic memory to recall
the events.
 consists of the
world knowledge shared with other people
such as meanings of words, scientific
principles, and knowledge of historical
events. It refers to our general knowledge
of the world and all of the facts we know.

includes among
other things, knowing how, as opposed to
knowing that as in acquiring a skill. It refers
to the skills that humans possess.
 consists of knowledge
that is accessible by direct test – that is, by
recall or recognition, thus requiring the
conscious awareness of particular learning
experiences or episodes.

consists of knowledge
that is accessible only by indirect tests, which
measure the effects of prior experiences
without recall or recognition of specific
learning episodes.
 Memory improvement techniques are
called or
simply . Mnemonics
have been used since the time of the
ancient Greeks and Romans. In ancient
times, before writing was easily
accomplished, educated people were
trained in the art of memorizing.
 Pegword technique

 The Link System

(Preview, Questions,
Read, Reflect, Recite, Review)