Child Development :

An Introduction
UNIT 3 COGNITIVE AND LANGUAGE
DEVELOPMENT
Structure

3.1 Introduction

3.2 Objectives

3.3 Cognitive Theory of Piaget

3.3.1 A Few Basics of Piaget’s Theory
3.3.2 The Cognitive Stages

3.4 Language and Development

3.4.1 The Early Stages
3.4.2 The Later Stages

3.5 Cognitive and Language Development

3.6 Multilingualism
3.7 Factors Affecting Language Development
3.8 Let Us Sum Up
3.9 Unit-end Exercises

3.1 INTRODUCTION
As you know, in this block our attempt is to understand the various aspects of the elementary
school child’s development. In the previous Unit we tried to understand the Physical and
Motor Development. You must be having a fair idea of the stage of the physical and motor
development of the elementary school child already. In this Unit, we shall look at the
Cognitive and Language Development of the elementary school child. It is not possible to
understand and appreciate the characteristics of the elementary school child unless we
have a fair idea of what has gone before in the development sequence. Therefore in order
to understand our primary/elementary school child better it will be as essential to understand
the cognitive and language characteristics of the younger child, as it is to know what went
before. The first section in this unit will deal with cognitive development and the second
section discusses language development.

3.2 OBJECTIVES
After going through this Unit, you will be able to:
! understand the basic assumptions of the cognitive development;
! enumerate the stages of cognitive development;
! describe the first three stages of cognitive development;
! distinguish between the early and late cognitive stages;
! describe the stages of language development;
! distinguish between the early and later stages of language development;
! explain the interrelationship between cognition and language;
! understand multilingualism; and
! enumerate the factors affecting language development.
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 Cognitive and Language
3.3 COGNITIVE THEORY OF PIAGET Development

Before we begin let us go back a little and try to remember what is cognitive development.
While looking at the profile of the primary/elementary school child we had briefly tried to
gain an initial understanding of the different aspects of development. We had understood
cognition to be the human capacity to understand the environment. To solve problems,
the capacity of logical and abstract thought, memory and creativity are also understood
to be a part of cognition. This is a very broad definition of cognition. Also, logical and
abstract thinking are abilities that are found in adult thought, a child is yet in the process
of developing these abilities.
Does the elementary school child possess these abilities?
Let us study the entire section and then attempt to answer this question.
Yesterday we were watching a Science programme on the T.V. The programme was on
how mechanical energy is converted into electrical energy and the importance of electricity
in our life. A six-year-old who was watching the programme was unable to appreciate
the whole explanation. He was more concerned that trains run on electricity, whereas
ships and aeroplanes do not. But a fourteen-year-old could well understand what was
being said in the programme. As seen in this episode we all agree that the understanding
of an adolescent is different from that of a six-or seven-year-old. And surely the
understanding of the three-year-old is different from that of a seven-year-old. Even as
laypersons we all appreciate the fact that the child’s understanding of the world improves
as the child grows older. How does this improvement, or in other words, development
occur?
Unlike physical development we cannot see and measure cognitive development. We
can only observe its development from the behaviour of the individual. Different
psychologists have made attempts to understand cognitive development of human beings.
One psychologist who has made significant contribution in this direction was Jean Piaget,
a Swiss psychologist. His theory of cognitive development helps us in understanding a
child’s cognitive development a great deal, so let us first begin by trying to understand a
few basics of Piaget’s theory. These basics are essential in understanding cognitive
development of the child better.

3.3.1 A Few Basics of Piaget’s Theory

We shall proceed point-wise in understanding these basics, so let’s see the first point.
Piaget believes that the foetal development in the womb or the physical and
motor development follow a given sequence. Cognitive development also follows a
given sequence, which is universal. That is, all human beings will follow the given sequence.
And as in the case of development of a foetus where specific organs emerge and develop
at given times, like a pre- set programme, cognitive development also follows a similar
pattern with specific capabilities emerging at specific times.
This is so with the physical development also, where the child’s physical development
also follows a given programme:
Can you help us to sequence the following characteristics in the right order of their
appearance?
Sitting
Crawling
Lifting the head
Running
Standing
Walking 31
Child Development : Let us now proceed to the second point. Piaget does not view development as a continuous
An Introduction
progression with gradual quantitative changes. For him, like physical development,
cognitive development also occurs in stages with each stage being qualitatively
different from the other.

Thirdly, these stages unfold in an invariant sequence, with the latter stages being
dependent on the earlier ones. According to Piaget there are four stages of cognitive
development:

Stage I - The Sensory-Motor Stage (birth to 2 years)

Stage II - The Pre-Operational Stage (2 to 7 years)

Stage III - The Concrete-Operational Stage (7 to 12 years) and

Stage IV - The Formal Operational Stage

Check Your Progress

Notes: a) Write your answer in the space given below.

b) Compare your answers with those given at the end of the unit.

1. Fill in the blanks with the appropriate word/words:

i) Cognitive development follows a .......................which is.......................

ii) Like in foetal development, in cognitive development too ....................

capabilities emerge at a time ............... like a pre-set programme.

iii) Cognitive development occurs in .........................................................

iv) The stages in cognitive development are...............................................

v) According to Piaget the four stages of cognitive development are:

........................................................................................................

........................................................................................................

Let us now come to the fourth and the last point. Fourthly, Piaget gives a great
deal of importance to human interaction with the environment. He believe that
cognitive development depends greatly on the individual’s interaction with the
environment.

Let us take the fourth point in more detail --- we will do this by answering a few questions:

1. What does Piaget mean by interaction?

Ans. By interaction Piaget means the physical and-mental approaches that human beings
make towards the environment from birth onwards.

2. But, how does this interaction help cognitive development?

Ans. For Piaget, both mental and physical activities are important in gaining knowledge
(or in other words increasing understanding). Knowledge is developed in stepwise
progression by the interaction of the child with the world. The child actively selects
and interprets environmental information in the construction of his/her own knowledge
rather than passively copying the information as presented to the senses (like a
photograph). In fact the child ‘reconstructs’ and ‘reinterprets’ the environment
to make it fit in the existing mental structures.
32
3. Explain how child reconstructs and reinterprets the environmental information. Cognitive and Language
Development

Ans. The process of reconstructing and reinterpreting involves two mental processes
assimilation and accommodation.

To understand the process of assimilation and accommodation let us take the example
of our digestive system. The food we eat is not taken in or absorbed by our body as it is,
but is broken down into a fine paste by chewing and by being mixed with saliva. Enzymes
secreted in the stomach and the small intestine convert food to still simpler form so that
it is assimilated/absorbed by the body. Just like the digestive system, the mental processes
also ‘break down or simplify’ the information from the environment so that it is easily
understood, this entire process is known as the process of assimilation.

Have you ever thought as to why we do not feed new-born infants with solid food?

Because the new-born’s digestive system is not developed enough to digest solid food.
Therefore, the infant is fed on the mother’s milk which his/her system ‘assimilates’
easily. Gradually the infant gains strength, grows and his/her system develops a little
more, so what do parents do? They now introduce semi-solids and fruit juices which the
infant is now able to digest. This is so because the digestive system strengthens or changes
to allow the new food items to be assimilated. In cognitive development also it is not
possible for the growing child to understand everything in the environment. The child
tries to understand the environment with whatever capacities s/he has, but soon finds
that s/he cannot understand things with these abilities. The child tries to make changes in
his/her abilities so that s/he can understand the environment better. These changes that
the child makes in his/her mental structure is called the ‘process of accommodation’.
The process of assimilation and accommodation are the crux of the interactions
that are made with the environment.

Putting it more simply, assimilation is understanding new objects or ideas with the existing
capacity of understanding. Accommodation, on the other hand, is the tendency to adjust
to a new object, that is to change one’s understanding to fit in the new object. Initially the
child attempts to understand a new experience by using the capacities s/he has; when
they do not work s/he is forced to change her/his understanding. Each time that the child
changes her/ his understanding (accommodates) for a new event or a problem her/his
intellectual growth progresses a little.

This constant process of assimilation and accommodation in the human beings is the
way of interacting with the environment and gradually progressing towards cognitive
development. It is the way in which they reconstruct and reinterpret reality.

Check Your Progress

Notes: a) Write your answers in the space given below.

b) Compare your answers with those given at the end of this unit.

2. Define the terms ‘Assimilation’ and ‘Accommodation’

..............................................................................................................................

..............................................................................................................................

..............................................................................................................................

..............................................................................................................................

This elaboration on Piaget’s views on the process of cognitive development and not
merely the characteristics is essential because it helps us in knowing the way the
child’s mental processes work, the process in which development takes place. As
33
Child Development : practitioners in education, or even as parents this knowledge is going to help us in
An Introduction
creating the right situations for the child that will help him/her in the cognitive processes.

Let us now proceed to the next section-stages of the cognitive development. The
focus of our course is the primary/elementary school children with age group i.e. from 6
to 12 years. Therefore we will briefly discuss development of the sensory-motor stage
while discussing the cognitive development. The next two stages-the pre-operational stage
(2 to 7 years) and the concrete operational stage (7 to 12 years) will be discussed in detail
and not the formal operational stage (12 years onwards) as it would be beyond the concern
of the present Unit.

3.3.2 The Cognitive Stages

(a) The Sensory-Motor stage: (birth to 2 years)

The sensory-motor stage spans the period from birth to two years when the child begins
to talk. While understanding the basics of the cognitive theory, we saw that both physical
and mental activities are important for cognitive development. In fact in the early stages
of development, the beginning of thought is concentrated in the physical activity of the
child. At the sensory-motor stage the infant’s cognition is centred in his/her activities.
Our first thought is probably of disbelief, for we cannot imagine any kind of activities that
an infant of about 2 years can do which we can associate with cognitive development.

Let us try and list what an infant does during the first year of his/her life, beginning from
birth:

........................................................................................................................................

........................................................................................................................................

........................................................................................................................................

........................................................................................................................................

Yes, you are quite right. The infant grasps, sucks, looks, listens, cries, makes sounds and
moves her body, including head, trunk, arms and legs. For Piaget, cognitive activity of the
infant begins with these actions, as the child’s interaction with her world is essentially
through these reflex behaviours in interacting with the objects and the events in the
environment.

The development features of this period is that the child progresses from an organism
which was a bundle of reflexes to an organism who learns to:

— co-ordinate her reflexes

— synchronize her body movements to the perceptual uses in the environment. For
example, the infant who previously just moved her arms and legs for the sake of it
can now use her arms to reach for things she sees in the environment.

— co-ordinate simple motor actions.

— learns that the objects in the environment are permanent. That is, the newborn in the
initial months sees the world as a hazy fast moving film, in which things that move
out of her/his vision cease to exist for her/him. However, gradually, the child learns
to focus her/his vision and also learns that the object that move out of her/his vision
in fact do exist.

Apart from these, a significant achievement the child makes towards the end of the stage
is that the child graduates from trying out everything through actions alone and becomes
capable of ‘representational thought’. That is, the child becomes capable of representing
things mentally. For instance when somebody says the word ‘dog’ the child gets a mental
34
picture of a hairy object which makes a bow-bow sound. Another example is that now if Cognitive and Language
Development
the child requires something on the table s/he does not fumble with various actions, but
gets a mental picture of what s/he would like to do and then does exactly that! Learning
language is also a part of this ability because the sound and word of the language
are symbols representing objects and actions in the environment.

Let us define this ‘representational thought’:

Representational thought is an ability to represent experiences mentally rather

than to interact with them directly and physically. A mental image is the representation
of reality. Representational thought also includes the capacity to understand certain symbols
as representing reality, like words represent certain objects in the environment.

Notes: a) Write your answers in the space given below.

b) Compare your answers with those given at the end of this unit.

3. List any five significant characteristics of the sensory-motor stage:

i) .....................................................................................................................

.....................................................................................................................

ii) .....................................................................................................................

.....................................................................................................................

iii) .....................................................................................................................

.....................................................................................................................

iv) .....................................................................................................................

.....................................................................................................................

v) .....................................................................................................................

.....................................................................................................................

We now proceed to the next stage i.e., the pre-operational stage.

(b) The pre-operational stage (2 to 7 years)

We saw that towards the end of the second year, the child becomes capable of representing
experiences mentally without always having to interact with them directly or physically.
Also that the child begins to understand that symbols represent certain aspects of reality.
In fact, at the pre-operational stage the child consolidates these very abilities and this is
most noticeable in the play of the pre-operational child. The child during this stage engages
in what is called as symbolic play that is, wooden box is considered as a car, a rounding,
the steering wheel and the stick, a gun. That is during play an object takes the place of, or
represents something else in the child’s mind.

The pre-operational child progresses in the abilities that had emerged towards the end of
the sensory-motor stage. Thus we have with us the pre-operational child who is now
capable of representing reality mentally and who also understands that objects in reality
can be represented by words. However, these mental images and the thought processes
of the child are not as developed as those of an adult. In fact much of the child’s
thinking unsystematic, inconsistent, illogical and disjointed. We do not want you
to misunderstand and feel that the pre-operational child is incapable of any kind of cognitive
activity. Indeed now, we should understand that this growing child is in the process of
reaching adult-like thought gradually. It is just that at this stage the child is unable to see
35
Child Development : and understand things the way adults or even older children do. Before we proceed let us
An Introduction
look into a few episodes involving children of this age group.

A child of five had just watched a session of some black and white film on the T.V. The
mother said to the child ‘This is a film of our times’. A few days later the mother and child
were looking into an old album of the mother’s childhood which again happened to have
black and white photographs. This child of five looked at the mother and ask her. ‘so,
when did this world become coloured!’

A family had brought a set of measuring scales and everybody in the family was weighing
themselves. A child of four in the family too wanted to weigh himself. First he weighed
himself like everybody else in the standing position. He however was not satisfied and
asked others how much he would weigh in the sitting position.

Why do you think that children ask these questions?

Obviously they would not have asked these questions if their thinking had been like an
adult’s. Their thinking has certain drawbacks, let us see what are these limitations of the
pre- operational child’s thinking.

In the first episode the child having seen the black and white film and then the old
photographs of her parent coupled with the mother’s statement that this is a film of ‘our
times’ concluded that the world in the mother’s time was obviously ‘black and white’.
The child made this conclusion on the basis of what he saw as evident proof.

This brings us to the first limitation in the pre-operational child’s thinking which
that at this stage the child’s thinking is still limited to the perceptual and motor
characteristics of the objects or the situations. Perceptual characteristics refer to
the externally significant characteristics of the objects like size, colour, texture, etc. The
motor characteristics are whether the object is manipulatable, turnable, throwable and so
on. The child at this age is generally tied down to the world of concrete objects and
actions and more significantly, the perceptual and motor characteristics of these objects
and actions. As such his/her reasoning or logic is guided by these considerations. s/he
cannot think beyond what s/he sees.

Let us consider the second episode, why do you think the child had this doubt as to
whether he would weigh the same in the sitting position?

Ans. ................................................................................................................................

........................................................................................................................................

........................................................................................................................................

........................................................................................................................................

........................................................................................................................................

Here the child voices these doubts because to him/her, s/he and others appear bigger in
the standing position but appear smaller in the sitting position. Here again the child is
influenced by what s/he sees - the big and the small.

The child was unable to think that of course I would weigh the same, after all, I am the
same whether I sit or stand! But, the pre-operational child’s thinking-has been amply
shown in the many experiments’ Piaget and his associates have conducted. These are
called Experiments of Conservation. Some of these experiments are discussed in the
box given below. Let us analyse some of these experiments

Conservation experiments have been carried out using a variety of materials. Piaget felt
that conservation does not appear suddenly. It is a gradual process and different forms of
conservation emerge at different times in the child’s life.
36
 Cognitive and Language
1. Conservation of Number (ages 5 to 6) - Here the child is presented with two Development
rows of beads containing 5 beads each. The beads are spread out in the same
way in both the rows. The child is asked if both rows have the same number of
beads, the child answers ‘Yes’: Later the beads in one of the rows are piled up
and then the child is asked if the beads in both the rows are equal. Here the child
who is a conserver will say ‘Yes’ but a child at the pre-operational stage will say
that the longer row has more beads.

Fig. 3.1: Conservation of Number

2. Conservation of Liquid (ages 7 to 8) - Here the child is presented with two

identical glasses of coloured liquid, both having equal amount of liquid. The child
is then asked if both the glasses have equal amount of liquid, the child answers
‘Yes’. Then the liquid from one of the glasses poured in a tall and narrow glass,
(Fig. 5.2) and the child is asked again if the liquid in the tall glass and the other
glass is equal. The child who has mastered the conservation tasks will answer
‘Yes’, while a child who is still at the pre-operational stage will answer that the
tall narrow glass has more. The pre-operational child is influenced by what s/he
sees and the liquid in the tall narrow glass appears more.
Step 1 : Present two beakers with
equal amounts of liquid.

Step 2 : Present taller, thinner

breaker, and pour contents of B
into it.

Step 3: Ask: ‘‘Which beaker has more

liquid, A or C — or do they
contain the same amount?’’

Fig. 3.2 : Conservation of liquid

37
Child Development :
An Introduction 3. Conservation of Length (ages 7 to 8) – Like the other experiments this too
requires that the children realize that the length of an object remains constant
regardless how it is arranged.

4. Conservation of Mass (ages 7 to 8) – If two identical balls of moulding clay

(plasticene) are shown to the child and later one of them is flattened, is the amount
of clay in both the same? Here too the child who is able to see beyond the
apparent shapes realizes that the amount of clay in both is the same.

Fig. : 3.3 : Conservation of Mass

5. Conservation of Weight (ages 7 to 8) – Again if the child is shown identical balls

of modelling clay (plasticene) which are identical in weight as well, and then one of
them in flattened and the child is asked if both are equal? The pre-operational child
would be influenced by the look and say the one appearing larger weights more.
These experiments made Piaget conclude that the pre-operational thinking is irreversible.
That is, the child can understand how events happen in the present, but has difficulty
imagining the return of the present events to their original for example, that the larger
object weighs more.
Also, since the thinking of the child at this stage is highly influenced by the perceptual
characteristics, i.e., what she sees in terms of colour, size, length, shape, etc. the child is
unable to understand that since nothing has been added or subtracted from the objects
there should be no difference in the original quantity or number.
We have already discussed a few of the limitations of the pre-operational child’s thinking
but there are a few more of these limitations that we have to understand. The other
limitations of the pre-operational child are:
— Pre-operational thinking tends to be egocentric, that is, the child at this age
cannot understand the other’s point of view. In the sense the child in this age group
tends to think that what s/he thinks and understands is the understanding all have
and that there can be no other view to this.
— Pre-operational thinking tends to focus on only one aspect or dimension of
a problem at a time. For example, while looking at the height of an object, the child
is unable to consider any changes undergone in its width. The child is unable to
handle multiple characteristics.
— Pre-operational thinking tends to involve ‘transductive reasoning’ . The pre-
operational child reasons from one specific to another specific event, as opposed to
inductive and deductive reasoning. That is, in other words, the child cannot think
from particular to general or general to particular. Like for instance the child knows
that all birds therefore the child will be unable to conclude that therefore all birds
have feathers.
38
— The pre-operational child cannot understand relational terms such as larger Cognitive and Language
Development
than, darker than, etc. For example, coming back to those, two boys in this age
group, the five-year-old, every time ‘he watches a film or listens to a story, wants to
know who is ‘good’ and who is ‘bad’ or who is the ‘hero’ and who is the ‘villian’.
The young child cannot appreciate that people cannot always be categorized like
that and there could be characters in the story or the film, may have shades of good
and bad in them.
— Class inclusion which means that s/he cannot reason between part and whole
simultaneously.
— The child at this stage is not able to understand how things operate internally
or how things relate to one another.
These limitations make the pre-operational child’s thinking illogical and
inconsistent. We have been concentrating too much on the limitations of the pre-
operational child’s thinking. Before we sum up the discussion at this stage, let us recall
the achievements of this stage. The major faculty at this stage is the child’s increasing
ability to represent reality in terms of symbols and engage therefore in symbolic
interaction with tile environment and his/her world of imagination. Pre-operational
thinking is concrete, that is, the child works best with the world of her immediate
surroundings and her own perceptions of reality. The child is usually involved with
the present and with objects or experiences that can be easily represented by images and
simple words.
The period of pre-operational stage is to be seen as the child’s preparation for the next
stage of concrete operation.

Check Your Progress

Notes: a) Compare your answers with those given at the end of this unit.
4. From the words and phrases given below tick mark (1) the ones you think are
most appropriate for describing the pre-operational child.
i) egocentric
ii) reversible
iii) has permanence of object
iv) symbolic play
v) conservation
vi) abstract thinking
vii) can understand other’s point of view
viii) influenced by the perceptual characteristics
ix) can think of a number of aspects
x) representational thought

c) The concrete-operational stage

Thinking at the concrete-operational stage begins to overcome the limitations of the pre-
operational stage. To begin with, thinking at the concrete-operational stage no longer
consists of disjointed representational acts like snap shots but actions can now be
represented as a series of actions more like a film which can be replayed too! Seriously,
one of the achievements of the concrete-operational child is that s/he achieves
reversibility in her! his thinking. Now you may wonder what is ‘reversibility’ and
39
Child Development : how that helps the child’s thinking. Let us remember what we understand as irreversibility
An Introduction
in the pre-operational child.
Irreversibility is .................................................................................................................
.........................................................................................................................................
You are right, reversibility therefore is the ability by which the child becomes
capable of following a series of actions and then being able to follow back or in
other words ‘reverse’ these series of actions mentally.
Let us try to understand this with the help of an example. Let us take the example of
conservation of liquid.
Here step one involved showing two identical glasses of liquid.
Step two involved pouring liquid from one of these glasses into a tall glass and a narrow
glass.
As we saw, the pre-operational child was wholly influenced by the appearance of the tall
glass and the level of liquid in it, however, the older child becomes capable of reversing
the steps, that is, his/her logic allows him/her to think -”what will happen if the liquid from
the tall glass is poured back into the original glass?” This reversing the process makes
him/her realize that when back into the original glass the liquid is going to be as much as it
originally was. This ability to go through the series of action is called the ability of
“reversibility’.
This ability of reversibility helps the concrete-operational child in understanding the
conservation tasks. An understanding of quantity, that quantity remains the same unless
material is added or subtracted. As we saw in the experiments conducted by Piaget on
conservation that the pre-operational child was unable to appreciate this whereas the
concrete- operational child understands that the amount does not change regardless of
any number of changes in the physical appearance of the material. As seen in the experiment,
conservation of different aspects develops at different ages during the concrete-operational
stage itself.
Apart from the above conservation tasks discussed earlier in the Boxes the ability to
conserve area develops only when the child is about 8-years-old, while the ability to conserve
volume develops only by the time the child is about 11 to 12 years old.
By now, we are sure that you must have understood the meaning of conservation, the
different tasks, and the difference between the pre-operational and the concrete-operational
child’s thinking regarding conservation. Therefore let us now proceed further in
understanding the concrete-operational child.
Apart from the ability to conserve, the concrete-operational child develops another
mental capacity and that is the ability to classify on the basis of one characteristic be
it colour, size or shape. This is already developed by the age of five or six. Thus, when
given a group of geometric shapes, they are likely to group the objects according to shape,
size, or colour. As children grow older they are able to classify or form groups on the basis
of more than two to three characteristics. This ability to classify is closely associated with
the ability to form ‘classes’ and ‘sub-classes’. An adult can easily understand that there is
an Animal Kingdom in which there are birds and mammals, and then there are sea animals
and that dogs are just one kind of mammals. However, this kind of classes and sub-classes
are beyond the comprehension of the pre-operational child. During the concrete-operational
stage the child begins to understand the simpler forms of classes and sub-classes and
gradually progresses in understanding more complex formation of classes and sub-classes.
Although the concrete-operational child begins to classify into simple categories,
classification is a complex process and it takes some time before the child masters
all the aspects of classification. A child begins to classify objects into three or more
categories only by the age of eight or nine.
40
Multiple classification or the ability to classify objects simultaneously in two or more Cognitive and Language
Development
categories like people can be classified on basis of their sex, region, language, rural-urban
background. Piaget and others have found that 8-year-old children can usually classify
things into two categories. A few years later they are able to understand multiple
classification.
Unlike the pre-operational child who during the film or a cartoon show asks whether the
particular character is ‘good’ or ‘bad’, ‘villian’ or ‘hero’, the concrete-operational child is
able to understand that people can have different shades of goodness and badness in
them. The older child can appreciate the fact that people can be categorized in more than
just two extreme categories. Other examples would be -rich and poor, strong and weak,
wise and stupid and so on, the older child can understand the gradation but the younger
child cannot. This is so because the older child has the ability to see the relational merit or
demerit of a set of objects. Similarly they have the basic understanding that A is longer
than B, and B is longer than C, they are able to perceive the shades of differences and
place the objects in an orderly series.
This process by which the child observes the relational difference in a set of
objects and organises them in a series on the basis of these differences is called
‘seriation’.
Apart from these achievements the major progress that the child makes at the
concrete- operational stage is that the child overcomes his/her ‘egocentric’ way
of thinking. That is, the child now understands that his/her way of ‘thinking’ is not the
only way of thinking and that there could be other ways also. This acceptance of other’s
viewpoints in fact helps the child to broaden his/her knowledge and learn different aspects
of the same thing.
Although the concrete-operational child has made significant progress in his/her
thinking - s/he has yet not reached the adult-like thought. The following are a few limitations
in his/ her thinking:
— The concrete-operational child lacks the ability of Hypothetico-Deductive
thinking. That is the child is unable, to logically think of different possible aspects of
a problem and thinking out the pros and cons of each aspect discarding the irrelevant
and selecting the most appropriate.
— The child at this age is unable to systematically think through a problem. To
think of different alternatives of the problem and then to think of the logical conclusion
of each alternative. The concrete-operational child in contrast, does not employ a
planned approach to problem solving but resorts to a more time consuming trail and
error technique.
— The child at this stage lacks the ability to do abstract reasoning. The child
therefore may not be able to think of aspects like --- democracy, religion, morality,
etc.

Check Your Progress

Notes : a) Write your answers in the space given below.
b) Compare your answers with those given at the end of the unit.
5. Complete the following statements :
i) Conservation is the ability to
ii) Classification is the ability to
iii) Seriation is the ability to
iv) Multiple classification is the ability to
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Child Development :
An Introduction 3.4 LANGUAGE AND DEVELOPMENT
Language development refers to the words, their pronunciation and the methods of
combining them for the understanding of the others. Language development concerns
itself with the length and the patterns of sentence structure, grammatical construction and
syntax. It is most fascinating to know that a new born who can hardly talk or understand
what others say can by the end of 4 years understand 2500 to 2800 words and speak
about 1500 words!
How did this progress occur?
In this section we will try and understand the elementary school child’s language
development. Here we will briefly discuss the early stages of language development and
the characteristics of the primary/elementary school child and understand the relationship
between cognitive development and language development.

3.4.1 The Early Stages

When babies cry and their mothers respond to this cry; the first step in communication
takes place. In infancy, babies make their needs and discomfort or comfort known by
body movements, facial expressions and sounds — such as whispering, urgent screams,
gentle coos, attention seeking calls and laughter. These are the first and simple forms of
communication the infant makes.
It is usually around the third or fourth months that infants learn to manipulate their tongue
and lips along with their throat and voice and experiment with sounds they can make.
These sounds are usually ba, ma, aa, pa, da. Infants start repeating these sounds endlessly,
this is the ‘babbling stage’.
The babbling stage is a practice period during which infants become familiar with
the sounds they can produce and perfect these sounds.
The people around the child reinforce these sound by repeating the sound produces or by
repeating those combinations of sounds that come close to the words spoken around like
- ma, mama, baba, dada, etc. Aided by the people around, the child begins to experiment
with the various combinations of these sounds which in fact is learning of simple words.
Thus by the time the infant is of about 6 or 7 months, she begins to learn simple words
from the environment by joining vocalized syllables into repetitive sequences as mama or
baba. At 9 or 10 months the infant progresses beyond this stage and repeats words and
sounds that catches his/her attention when the others in the environment speak.
Beginning with these repeated sounds that begin to sound like words the child proceeds to
learn simple words that are spoken around him/her. By the time the child is 9 to 12 months
old, s/he begins to communicate with single word and these single words almost sound
like sentences in themselves like ‘ball’ could mean — the ball is there, give me the ball,
etc. The single word stage is followed by the two word sentence stage, these sentences
are a combination of a noun and a verb, ‘ball give’, ‘dog go’, ‘mama come’. The sentences
at this stage sound just like the telegrams we get and that is why this stage of language
development is called — telegraphic speech.
From two years onwards the child makes a remarkable progress in learning language. The
child first learns nouns, followed by verbs, adjectives and adverbs. They learn the usage
of pronouns, conjunctions and prepositions much later. By the time the child is about 4 to
5 years s/he almost shows a mastery over her/his native language in the way s/he speaks
and understands sentences. However, the child’s language is not yet fully developed and
may have certain problems like:
— certain aspects of grammar are not understood by the child, like the usage of
connective words like if, so, therefore, because, although, in spite of, etc.
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— difficulty in understanding double meaning words like bright, hard, sweet, cold, etc. Cognitive and Language
Development
— inability to understand sentences with double meaning or sentences having a surface
level and deeper meaning — sarcasm, taunts, similes, etc.
— inability to understand sayings and phrases.
— a significant drawback in the younger child’s speech is that it is ego-centric.
That is during the ego-centric stage the children do not direct their speech to anyone in
particular nor do they bother to listen if anybody is listening to them. They talk either to
themselves or for the pleasure of associating with anyone who happens to be there with
their activity for the moment. They merely enjoy talking in the presence of others. If you
have noticed a child of 3 or 4 is content to play ‘house-house’ by him/herself, the whole
time talking to him/herself:
— they are unable to carry out a conversation with others, also it is difficult for them to
change their manner of talking to suit the occasion or people of different age groups.
— Apart from this the preschool child’s descriptions or observations are restricted to
describing the concrete aspects of the objects. (colour, size, shape, sound, smell,
etc.)

3.4.2 The Later Stages

In the years from kindergarten to the seventh standard, speech performance improves,
grammar rules are better understood, variation in construction of sentences, vocabulary
and ordering of phrase show variety. There is a general consolidation of the language
skills from kindergarten to seventh grade.
An important development of this stage is that the child’s speech sheds ego-centrism and
becomes more socialized. In the sense, the child now no longer enjoys talking to him/
herself but is now interested in talking to others. In the socialised speech the child becomes
capable of exchanging thoughts, information or ideas with others. The child is also able to
appreciate or criticize the behaviour and the work of others, can exchange commands,
requests and threats. S/he also begins to understand others point of view. The child now
also begins to understand more abstract forms of language.
Thus, we saw in this section that the child makes significant progress in language
development that continues to make progress all through the elementary “ school years.
Now in the next section, we will try to see the interrelationship between cognition and
language.

3.5 COGNITIVE AND LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT

How are language and cognition interrelated? It is a question that is difficult even for
experts to answer, because it is not easy to exactly pinpoint the relationship between the
two. It is however generally agreed that language certainly aids thinking and problem
solving. Let us try and see ways in which language and cognition are related.
Verbal ability helps in thinking-and problem-solving. We saw that learning of
language at the age of 3 or 4 also made a significant difference in their way of thinking
and understanding the world. This thinking was very different from the thinking of the
infant. With the acquisition of language, the child began to use words in his/her thinking
and understanding. Language helps the child in labelling and describing things around, in
remembering and recalling them. Language becomes a means with which s/he organizes
his/her understanding and also guides his/her own behaviour. Language certainly helps
the thinking processes but one cannot say that ‘cognition is solely dependent on language’
otherwise how can we explain the cognitive progress of children who are born deaf and
dumb. Thus, we should understand that not all problem solving is based on verbal ability
but that verbal ability certainly facilitates cognitive abilities.
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Child Development : Before we conclude the unit there are two important points that we will discuss, one
An Introduction
is about multilingualism and the other pertaining to factors affecting language
development.

3.6 MULTILINGUALISM
It becomes necessary at this point, for us, to discuss an important factor in language
development that is especially unique to the Indian situation. This is the factor of
Multilingualism.
Now what do we understand by multilingualism? It is a situation where a child is
exposed to more than one language. In an urban Indian set up it is common to come
across a situation where a young child speaks language-A at home, language-B is spoken
in the neighbourhood, s/he goes to a school where the medium of instruction is English and
the second language to be learnt is Hindi or vice versa. So we have with us this child who
is handling 3 to 4 languages at a time. Undoubtedly, the situation is going to create problems
for the child. We cannot obviously undo the situation but understanding the situation as
parents and teachers will certainly help us.
The first aspect is related to the problems that arise in learning so many languages at a
time. The child of 3 or 4 is in the process of learning his/her mother tongue, by this age
s/he understands and speaks a number of words, constructs simple sentences and is in the
process of refining this language. When this child begins school where the medium of
instruction is different, the child has to begin the process of learning the new language all
over again. It is most natural that there is some confusion for the child in learning the new
language, the earlier language comes in conflict with the learning of the new language. In
other words, the language known is bound to interfere with the learning of the new language,
the interference occurs in the following ways:
l Interference in pronunciations: Any language has its own sounds, (the way the
words are pronounced). In India, we have a wide variety of languages, and each
language may have numerous dialects. The way words are pronounced in Bengali is
different from that in Tamil. Malayalam is different from Hindi and so on. The first
problem in learning a new language is to get used to the sounds and rhythm of the
new language. Although the child learns the new language, it may happen that the
way s/he pronounces the words of the new language are influenced by the
pronunciations of the earlier language. At other times, it could happen the other way,
the sounds of the new language could affect the earlier language.
l Borrowing of words: Here the problem is that the child gets confused with the
words in different languages s/he is exposed to and words from one language may
creep into the other language.
l Difficulty in sentences: Like pronunciation, every language has its own way of
constructing sentences. There is a particular way on which the subject and the verb
or the prepositions and the connectives are ordered. A child familiar with the mother
tongue has adapted to the grammar of his/her language so well that while learning a
new language the child has the tendency to structure the sentences in the same way.
Apart from these learning difficulties that occur, multilingualism affects other aspects
also: for one, language development in more than just a language. It is a mode of
communication. Language is a means through which people communicate their thoughts
and feelings to others. Mother tongue is the language is which the child has learnt to
express him/herself and understand others, in a way the child is most comfortable.
Therefore in learning a new language the child may have a certain amount of natural
aversion. At times, the child may overtly resist learning the new language whereas at
other times the resistance may not be expressed but could remain within the child. Parents
and teachers should understand this problem sympathetically and make suitable efforts to
help the child.
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Another problem is that a young child is very conscious of what others say and think Cognitive and Language
Development
about him/her, therefore, some children may feel hesitant in learning a new language,
they are afraid of making errors. In school, particularly inability to learn and master a new
language may hinder the child’s interaction with his/her teacher and peers. Here too an
understanding and non-pressurising approach should be adopted to help the child.

3.7 FACTORS AFFECTING LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT

Some of the factors that affect the child’s language development have been described
below:
1) Specific disabilities: Children having either auditory or vocal disability of any kind
may have a retarded language development. To begin with, these children may need
special assistance to make meaningful gain in the language development. Mental or
visual disability could also hamper the language development.
2) The home environment: The home environment plays a significant role in the
child’s language development. The language spoken at home by the different family
members, their vocabulary and grammar patterns, more importantly, the interaction
they have with the child or the time they spend with the child affects the child’s
language development. Interaction patterns where the parents or the family members
make it a point to talk to the-child, draw his/her attention to the various aspects of
the environment, explain things to the child, read out books to him/her, correct his/
her errors by correcting the structure of the sentence, supply the right word or
correct his/her pronunciation, helps the child’s language development greatly. It has
been found by researchers that generally these kinds of interaction patterns are
closely related to the education, income , and occupation of the parents. However,
this need not be true of parents who may be highly educated and earning well but do
not have the time to spend it with their child in which case the child is deprived of the
significant interaction patterns and that is what affects language development directly.
3) School: The type of learning experiences the child has at school and the opportunity
s/he gets in expressing him/herself as well as learning newer words and language
patterns, affects the child’s language development significantly. Here the role of
teachers, exposure to a variety of books, dramatisation and cultivation of reading
habits are particularly significant.
4) Peer group: Influence of the peer group is essentially observed in the words and
mannerisms children learn from their peer group. At times the language they learn
from friends may not gain approval from the teachers and family members. At other
times, of course, the child benefits from the reading interests and discussions s/he
has with the peers. In learning of other languages also, the informality of the peer
group helps the child to learn a new language more easily.
5) Media: Exposure to films, radio, T.V. and print matetial like magazines and books
also affects language development. It is most common to see children imitating
characters of films and T.V. programmes also, thereby speaking the way they do.
Also, the variety of programmes and issues dealt with by the media directly exposes
the child to numerous words and ideas and the way of structuring the sentences.
This exposure to media certainly affects the progress the child makes in the acquisition
of language.

3.8 LET US SUM UP

Let us try and briefly sum up all that we have learnt in this unit. This unit essentially dealt
with cognitive and language development of the primary/elementary school child. In
understanding the primary/elementary school child, it becomes necessary to understand
the earlier stages of development too. The theory of Piaget’s cognitive development was-
discussed in order to understand the cognitive development. The assumptions of the
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Child Development : cognitive theory are that cognitive development occurs in variant stages for all human
An Introduction
beings and specific abilities emerge at a specific point in life. The physical and mental
interaction of the human beings with the environment is important in cognitive development
There are four stages of cognitive development, the sensory-motor stage, the pre-operational
stage, the concrete- operational stage and the formal-operational stage. The salient points
covered in the unit are:
— In the sensory-motor stage the major achievement of the child is that s/he graduates
out of the action-oriented approach and learns to present things mentally, also gains
an out of the actionoriented approach and learns to present things mentally, also gains
an understanding that the objects in the environment are permanent and do not cease
to exist just because they go beyond his/her vision.
— In the pre-operational stage the child builds upon his/her ability of representing things
mentally. The progress at this stage is that the child learns to symbolically represent
things and makes significant strides in the language development. However, there
are a number of limitations in the pre-operational child’s thinking.
— In the concrete-operational stage the child overcomes a number of limitations of the
previous stage. Among other things during this stage the child’s thinking achieves
reversibility in thoughts, s/he also progresses on the conservation, classification and
seriation tasks. s/he also graduates out of his/her egocentric thought and learns to
appreciate other people’s point of view as well.
— The unit also dealt with the language development of the elementary/primary school
child. In the earlier stages, the forms of communication are the sounds the child
makes (cooing, babbling, etc.) From this the child progresses to one word or two
word sentences. In the elementary/primary school years, the child’s language
development makes remarkable progress and s/he now almost understands adult
speech. S/he, however, has difficulty in understanding complex sentences, abstract
words, thoughts and may not understand certain grammar structures.
— The interrelationship between cognition and language was also discussed. The language
development helps in cognitive development. However, cognitive development is not
dependent on language development.
— Multilingualism as a factor in language development was also discussed. This situation
creates learning problems for the child. In factors affecting the language development
the role of home, peers, school, media and physical disabilities were discussed.

3.9 UNIT-END EXERCISES

1. Give reasons for the following statements
i) A pre-operational child cannot be taught algebra.
ii) Knowing the process of cognitive development is important for parents and
teachers.
iii) The child does not understand the environment as it is like taking photographs.
iv) The 8-month-old child does not play house-house.
2. Answer the following (Restrict you answer to 150-200 words).
i) Compare the cognitive characteristics of the pre-operational and concrete-
operational child.
ii) Describe the early stages of language development and state their importance
for later language development.
iii) Discuss the phenomenon of multilingualism in the Indian context.
iv) Discuss the role of home in the child’s language development.
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 Cognitive and Language
ANSWERS TO CHECK YOUR PROGRESS Development

1. i) sequence, universal; ii) specific, specific; iii) stages; iv) invariant; v) sensori-
motor, pre-operational, concrete-operational and format operational.
2. Assimilation is understanding new objects or ideas with the existing capacity of
understanding while accommodation is to change the existing understanding in order
to understand a new object.
3. At the sensori-motor stage the child learns to:
i) co-ordinate her reflexes
ii) synchronize her body movements to the perceptual cues in the environment.
iii) co-ordinate simple motor actions.
iv) learns that the object in the environment are permanent, and
v) achieves the ability of mental representation.
i) egocentric; ii) has permanence of object; iii) symbolic play.
4. i) understand that quantity (solid, liquid...) remains the same in spite of external
changes, unless something is added or subtracted from it.
ii) form groups or sub-groups on bases of one, two or more common characteristics.
iii) grade a group of objects on the basis of relational difference in them.
iv) calamity objects simultaneously in two more categories.

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