CHAPTER 4: COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT OF CHILDREN

AND ADOLESCENTS
Objectives:
At the end of the chapter, the students are expected to:
1. identify the theories of cognition
2. explain the various theories of intelligence and learning styles
3. describe the factors affecting development
4. categorize exceptional development

Cognition is the process of learning in the broadest sense that includes perception, memory,
judgment, and thinking. It is both a mental activity and behavior that provides an understanding of
the world arising from biological, experiential, motivational, and social influences.

THEORIES OF COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT

A. PIAGET’S MAIN TENET: The Child Actively Seeks Knowledge
According to Piaget, human beings inherit two essential intellectual functions
which he called organization and adaptation.
Organization is in inborn and automatic, and it refers to the child’s tendency to arrange
available schemata into coherent systems or body of knowledge.
Adaptation is the child’s tendency to adjust to the demands of the environment.
Adaptation occurs in two ways:
 Assimilation is interpreting or understanding environment events in terms
of one’s existing cognitive structures and ways of thinking.
 Accommodation is changing one’s existing cognitive structures and ways
of thinking to apprehend environment events.

THE STAGES OF COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT (According to Jean Piaget)

 FIVE KEY BEHAVIORS OF PREOPERATIONAL:
1. Imitation – mimic someone’s behavior.
2. Symbolic play – pretending a stick is a sword.
3. Drawing – it begins as scribbles and develops into more accurate abstract.
4. Mental imagery – the child can picture many object in their minds.
5. Verbal evocation of events – use language to describe and represent events,
people and object.

B. VYGOTSKY’S SOCIO-CULTURAL THEORY OF COGNITIVE

DEVELOPMENT
According to Vygotsky, it emphasizes the crucial influence that social interactions
and language, embedded within a cultural context, have on cognitive development.

CENTRAL FACTORS OF COGNITIVE DEVELOPMET (According to Lev Vygotsky)

 CULTURE
o Vygotsky believed in the crucial role of cultured played on cognitive development
of children
o Vygotsky looked into the wide range of experiences that a culture would give to a
child.
 SOCIAL INTERACTION
o Vygotsky emphasized that effective learning happens through participation in
social activities
o Parents, teachers and other adults in the learner’s environment all contribute to the
process.
 LANGUAGE
o Language can be viewed as a verbal expression of culture
o Language opens the door for learners to acquire knowledge that others already
have.
o Learners use language to understand and solve problems.
 PRIVATE SPEECH - is a form of self-talk that guides the child’s thinking
and action.
 ZONE OF ACTUAL DEVELOPMENT – refer in which the child may
perform at a certain level of competency and he/she may not immediately
proficient at it.
 ZONE OF PROXIMAL DEVELOPMENT – refer to the difference between
the child accomplish alone and what he/she can accomplish with guidance
of another.
 SCAFFOLDING – refers to the support or assistance that let the child
accomplish a task he/she cannot accomplish independently.
 C. INFORMATION-PROCESSING THEORIES
-The information-processing approach takes the human mind as a system that
processes information.
-This is similar to computer programming where the processes involved are subject
to limitations and observance of logical rules.
-Information processing involves attention, memory and thinking.

ASSUMPTIONS OF INFORMATION-PROCESSING APPROACHES:

 THINKING IS INFORMATION PROCESSING
Mental activity or thinking is putting into the mind whatever information there is
to process in ways or means that can render the information understandable, functional and usable.
 MECHANISMS OF CHANGE ARE IMPORTANT TO DESCRIBE
Mechanisms like encoding, strategy construction, automatization, and
generalization all together help in instituting change in the children’s cognitive skills.
 THE COGNITIVE SYSTEM IS SELF-MODIFYING
Child is able to modify his responses to new situations or problems by using the
acquired knowledge and strategies from solving earlier problems.
 CAREFUL TASK ANALYSIS IS CRUCIAL
Childs’s cognitive performance is dependent on the problem or situation and the
ability to handle such according to his level of development.

D. BIO-CULTURAL THEORIES
One of the most current trends in developmental psychology is the established link between
physiological processes and development explained through universal changes and individual
differences.

THEORIES OF NATIVISM, ETHOLOGY, AND SOCIOBIOLOGY

 NATIVISM – views human as endowed with genetic traits seen in all members of the
species, regardless of differences in their environments.
 ETHOLOGY – points to genetically survival behaviors assumed to have evolved through
natural selection.
 SOCIOBIOLOGY – focuses on the study of society using the methods and concepts of
biological science.

BROFENBRENNER’S ECOLOGOCICAL THEORY

- This theory explains development in terms of relationships between people and their
environments, or contexts.
- Classify all the individual and contextual variables that affect development and to
specify how they interact.
MACROSYSTEM – contains the values and beliefs of the culture in which a child is growing up.
EXOSYETEM – are the cultural institutions which have indirect influence on the child’s
development.
MESOSYSTEM – consists of the interconnections between these components.
MICROSYSTEM – includes those units that have directly influence on the children (families,
school, religion and institutions)