Unit 2 - Cognitive Development in Infancy

(Chapter 5)

1. Piaget's approach.

● Piaget's view of the ways infants learn could be summed in a simple

equation : Action= Knowledge.
● Argued - infants don't acquire knowledge from facts, sensation and
perception but knowledge is the product of direct motor behaviour.
● Piaget's theory- based on stage approach to development, argued - children
pass through a series of 4 stages in fixed order from birth to adolescence.
a. Sensorimotor
b. Preoperational
c. Concrete operational
d. Formal operational

● Movement from one stage to another - when appropriate physical

maturation & relevant experiences are gained, without that children
assumed incapable of reaching their cognitive potential.
● Piaget argued - changes in the quality of children's knowledge and
understanding critical as they move from one stage to another.
● Mirror experiment - child exposed to 3 identical versions of mother all at
the same time with the help of mirrors, 3 month old infant interacts happily
with each, however, 5 month infant becomes agitated at the sight of
multiple mother's, child figured it has only one mother, viewing three is
alarming, this indicates child began to construct a mental sense of the world
which wasn't present two months earlier.
● Piaget believed in schemes- organized patterns of functioning that adapt
and change with mental development. At first related to physical or
sensorimotor activity later to mental level reflecting thought.
● Piaget suggested - 2 principles underline the growth in children's schemes.
1. Assimilation- process by which people understand an experience in
terms of their current stage of cognitive development and way of
thinking.
2. Accommodation - changes in existing ways of thinking that occur in
response to encounters with new stimuli or events.
● Earliest schemas primarily related to reflexes.
● Schemas quickly become more sophisticated as infants become more
advanced in their motor capabilities - to Piaget a signal of the potential for
more advanced cognitive development

The Sensorimotor period and its Sub-stages

● initial major stage, divided into 6 Sub-stages.
● Age at which an infant actually reaches a particular stage varies.
● Exact timing of the stage varies and reflects an interaction between infants
physical maturation and the nature of social environnement child is raised
in.
● Piaget - viewed development as a gradual process i.e infants gradually and
steadily shift behaviour as they move from one stage to next.
● Infants pass through periods of transition in which some aspects of their
behaviour reflect the next higher stage while other aspects indicate their
current stage.

1. Sub-stage 1 : Simple reflexes.

● During 1 month of life.
● During this period, the various reflexes that determine the infant's
interactions with the world are at the center of its cognitive life.
● Eg. The sucking reflex caused the infant to suck at anything placed on its
lips.

2. Sub-stage 2 : Primary circular reactions (primary habits)

● From 1 to 4 months
● At this age, infants begin to coordinate what are separate actions into single,
integrated activities.
● Eg.An infant might combine grasping an object with sucking on it, or staring
at something with touching.
● Chance motor events help the baby start building cognitive schemes through
a process known as a circular reaction.
● Primary circular reactions - schemas reflecting an infant's repetition of
interesting or enjoyable actions that focus on the infant's own body just for
the enjoyment of doing them.

3. Sub-stage 3: Secondary circular reactions.

● From 4 to 8 months
● During this period, infants take major strides in shifting their cognitive
horizons beyond themselves and begin to act on the outside world.
● Eg. A child who repeatedly picks up a rattle and shakes it in different ways to
see how the sound changes is demonstrating her ability to modify her
cognitive scheme about shaking rattles.
● Secondary circular reactions - schemes regarding repeated actions that
bring about a desirable consequence.
● Major DB primary & secondary circular reaction is whether the infant's
activity is focused on the infant and their own body (PCR) or involves acts
relating to the outside world (SCR).
● Vocalisation - SCR, ultimately leads to development of language and the
formation of social relationship - increases subsequently, infants learn if
they make noises, people around them will respond with their own noises.

4. Sub-stage 4 : Coordination of Secondary circular reactions.

● From 8 to 12 months.
● In this stage, infants began to use more calculated approaches to producing
events, coordinating several schemes to generate a single act.
● Infants began to employ goal directed behaviour.
● Eg. An infant will push one toy out of the way to reach another toy that is
lying, partially exposed, under it.
● They achieve object permanence during this stage.
● Object permanence - realization that people and objects exist even when
they cannot be seen. This awareness is a key element in the development of
emotional attachments later on. It feeds infants' growing assertiveness.
Only rudimentary understanding in the Sub-stage 4, takes several months
to comprehend completely. Peek a boo, container play, stacking play,
sensorimotor activities are some ways in which parents can enhance object
permanence in infants.

5. Sub-stage 5 : Tertiary circular reactions.

● From 12 to 18 months.
● At this stage, infants develop what Piaget regards as the deliberate variation
of actions that bring desirable consequences. Rather than just repeating
enjoyable activities, infants appear to carry out miniature experiments to
observe the consequences.
● Eg. A child will drop a toy repeatedly, varying the position from which he
drops it, carefully observing each time to see where it fails.
● These behaviours represent the essence of the scientific method.
● What is most striking about infants' behaviour during Sub-stage 5 is their
interest in the unexpected. Unanticipated events are treated not only as
interesting but also as something to be explained and understood. Infants'
discoveries can lead to newfound skills.

6. Sub-stage 6: Beginnings of thought.

● From 18 months to 2 years.
● The major achievement of substage 6 is the capacity for mental
representation, or symbolic thought. Piaget argued that only at this stage
can infants imagine where objects that they cannot see might be.
● Eg. Children can plot in their heads unseen trajectories of objects, so that if a
ball rolls under a piece of furniture, they can figure out where it is likely to
emerge on the other side.
● Mental representation - an internal image of a past event or object
● Understanding of causality becomes sophisticated.
● The ability to pretend or deferred imitation-an act in which a person who is
no longer present is imitated by children who have witnessed a similar act-
is also attained during this stage.

2. Evaluating Piaget's Approach

● Most development researchers would probably agree that in many

significant ways, Piaget's descriptions of how cognitive development
proceeds during Infancy are generally accurate.
● Yet there is substantial disagreement over the validity of the theory and
many of the specific predictions.

● Merits:
1. Accurate observation of the sequence of cognitive development and
increasing cognitive accomplishments that occur during Infancy.
2. appropriate growth parameters.
3. Inspired by Piaget's theory of cognitive development, Mishra (2014)
reviewed studies on cognitive development of children in India, and
concluded that it matched with cognitive development in the Indian
toddlers.
4. Piaget's proposition about the development of children's thought
process is largely supported by researchers.
● Demerits :
1. Critics contend that development proceeds in much more continuous
fashion, gradual increments step by step in a skillful manner, rather
than showing major leaps of competence at the end of one stage and
the beginning of the next. It can't be broken down into discrete
stages.
2. Development researcher Robert Siegler- cognitive development
proceeds not in stages but waves, there is an ebb and flow of cognitive
approaches that children use to understand the world, they move
back and forth over a period of time. Cognitive development - a
constant flux.
3. Infants keep oscillating between use of a more advanced cognitive
strategy to more basic strategy.
4. Piaget's notion of cognitive development- grounded in motor
activities, overlooked the importance of sensory and perceptual
systems present from a very early age in infants.
Eg. Children born without limbs (due to their mothers use of
teratogenic drugs) could experience normal cognitive developments
in spite of no motor activities.
Connection Piaget made between motor development and cognitive
development- exaggerated.
5. Object Permanence - Piaget believed that infants attain this after 1
year. Later researchers showed that due to improper techniques
Piaget proposed this.
Eg. Infants can't find the hidden rattle as they don't have motor skills
to explore, and also have poor memory.
6. Violation of expectation:Baillargeon conducted ingenious
experiments demonstrating earlier capabilities of infants in
understanding object permanence.
3 and half year old infant shown a physical event. Then variations
were created which were physically impossible. Suggested - they have
some sense of object permanence far earlier than Piaget was able to
discern.
7. Piaget - infants can imitate others behaviour with their limbs which
they can see. Others negated it. Newborns imitate facial expressions
just a couple of hours after birth, which is also affected by certain
kinds of environmental experiences.

Children from developed, western Countries are better than those in

nonwestern cultures. For instance, cognitive skills emerge on a different
timetable for children in non western cultures than for children living in
Europe and US. Eg. Children of Africa reach various sub stages of the
Sensorimotor period earlier than in France.
3. Memory capabilities in Infancy : Information Processing
Approach.

● Information Processing approaches to cognitive development seek to

identify the way that individuals take in, use and store information.
According to this approach, the quantitative changes in infants' abilities to
organise and manipulate information represent the hallmarks of cognitive
development.
● Focuses on the types of mental programs that people use when they seek to
solve problems.
● Information Processing has 3 basic aspects -
1. Encoding - process by which information is initially recorded in a
form usable to memory. Selective encoding takes place in infants.
2. Storage - refers to placement of material into memory.
3. Retrieval - process by which material in memory storage is located,
brought into awareness and used.
Only when all three processes are operating can information be processed.

● Automatization
a. the degree to which an activity requires attention. In some cases
automatic, in others deliberate.
b. Processes that require relatively little attention - automatic(walking,
reading), processes that require relatively large amounts of attention
- controlled.(many of the tasks that are now automatic for us, such as
holding a cup, at one time required your full attention)
c. Helps children in their initial encounters with the world by enabling
them to easily and automatically process info in particular ways.
d. Children without their awareness develop a sense of how often
different stimuli are found together simultaneously. This permits
them to develop an understanding of concepts, categorization of
objects, events or people that share common properties.
e. For eg. 4 legs, wagging tail and barking are often found together,
welearn very early in life to understand the concept of dog.
f. Some things we automatically learn are unexpectedly complex. For
eg. Infants have the ability to learn statistical patterns and
relationships.
g. Research suggests that mathematical skills of infants are surprisingly
good.

● Study development by psychologist Karen Wynn-

○ Hypothesis - infants as young as 5 months old are able to calculate
the outcome of simple addition and substation problems.
 ○ Experiment - infants were shown a 4inch high Mickey Mouse statue,
a screen was raised to hide it. Next, infants were shown identical
Mickey Mouse and then placed it behind the same screen. Depending
on the experimental condition, 2 outcomes occurred. One screen
revealed 2 statues (correct addition - 1+1=2) and the other just
one(incorrect addition - 1+1=1).
○ Because infants look at unexpected occurrences than at expected
ones, research examined the patterns of infants gazes in different
conditions.
○ Result - infants gazed longer at incorrect results than at correct one,
indicating they expected a different number of statues. In a similar
procedure, infants looked longer at incorrect subtraction problems
that at correct ones.
○ Conclusion - infants have rudimentary mathematical skills that
enable them to understand whether a quantity is accurate.
○ Existence of basic mathematical skills - supported by findings in non
humans too. Also about basic physics such as movement trajectories
and gravity.
○ Thus, research suggests - infants have innate grasp of certain basic
mathematical functions and statistical patterns. This inborn
proficiency is likely to form the basis for learning more complex
mathematics and stats relationship later in life.

Memory during Infancy

● Memory - process by which information is initially recorded, stored and
retrieved.
● Infants can distinguish new stimuli from old implying some memory of the
old must be present.
● Infants' memory capabilities increase as they grow older.
● In one study, infants were taught that they could move a mobile hanging
over the crib by kicking their legs. 2 month old infant forgot within a few
days while 6 month old infant remembered for as long as 3 weeks.
● Infants received 2 training session lasting 9 minutes each
● Infants recalled it even about a week later by the fact they began to kick
when placed in the crib with the mobile.
● 2 weeks later it was assumed that they had forgotten it completely but when
shown a reminder their memories were apparently reactivated.
● Other evidence confirms these results- hints can reactivate memories that
at first seem lost; the older the infant, the more effective such prompting is.
● Infants' memories do not differ qualitatively from adults.
● Information is processed similarly throughout life span, though the kind of
information processed changes.
● Different parts of the brain are involved with memory functions at different
ages.
● According to memory expert Carolyn Rovee Collier, all lose memory with
age. The more frequently information is retrieved the stronger its trace
becomes.

The Duration of Memory

● Although the process that underlie memory retention and recall seem
similar throughout life span, the quantity of information stored and recalled
does differ as infants develop.
● Older infants can retrieve info more rapidly and they can remember it
longer.
● Early experiments showed till age 3 infants lack memories of prior years
often called infantile amnesia. Later, experiments negated it. Eg. 6 months
old infants were shown strange events of light and dark sequences and
strange sounds. When they turned 1 and half /2 and half years, they still
demonstrated that they recalled it.
● Other research indicate-infants show memory for behavior and situations
which they have seen only once.
● Findings are consistent with evidence that physical traces of a memory in
the brain appear to be relatively permanent suggesting memories from
Infancy are enduring.
● Memory is susceptible to interferences from other, older or newer
information which may displace or block the existing ones, thereby
preventing its recall.
● Language - determines the way in which memory from early life can be
recalled. Older children may be able to report memories using the vocabulary
that they had available at the time of initial event when memory was stored.
Because vocabulary at that time would be limited they are unable to describe
the event later on in life, though it is actually in their memories.
● Memory susceptible to misrecollection if exposed to contradictory info
following the initial one.
● Most cases, memories of personal experiences in Infancy do not last into
adulthood.

Cognitive neuroscience of memory.

● 2 separate systems involved with long term memory.
1. Explicit memory - conscious and can be recalled intentionally (eg.
Recalling a phone number)
2. Implicit memory - memories of which we are not consciously aware
but that affect performance and behaviour. Consists of motor skills,
 habites, activities remembered with cognitive efforts. (eg. Riding a
bike)
● Both emerge at different rates and involve different parts of the brain.
Earliest memory - implicit, involves cerebellum and brainstem. Forerunner
- explicit, involves hippocampus.
● Explicit doesn't emerge until the second half of first year, it involves an
increasing no.of areas of the brain cortex.

4. Developmental scales to assess Intelligence & Individual

differences in Intelligence :IP Approach.

Infant Intelligence
● Educators, psychologists and other experts have yet to agree upon a general
definition of Intelligence behaviour.
● Even more difficult to define and measure intelligence in infants than it is in
adults.

Developmental Scales
● Arnold Gesell-formulated the earliest measure of infant development,
designed to distinguish between normally developing and atypically
developing babies, based his scale on examinations of hundreds of babies,
compared their performance at different ages to learn most common
behaviour at particular age-infant varying significantly from norms of given
age considered developmentally delayed /advanced.
● Developmental quotient (DQ) - developed by Gesell it is an overall
Developmental score that relates to performance in 4 domains :motor skills,
language use, adaptive behaviour, personal social behavior.
● Most widely used measure - Bayley Scales of Infant Development.
Developed by Nancy Bayley, the BSID evaluates an infant's development
from 2 to 42 months. It focuses on 2 areas :mental (senses, perception,
memory, learning, problem solving and language) and motor abilities (fine
and motor skills). A child who scores at an average level receives a score of
100.
● These scales are helpful in objectively understanding infants' current
development level.
● Development Assessment Scale for Indian Children or DASII applicable for
infants between the age of 3 months and 2.5 years, available in 3 languages:
hindi, english, marathi.
● Based on scores early intervention programs for children can be put in place.
● Scales-not useful in predicting future cognitive development.
 Information Processing Approaches to Individual Differences in
Intelligence.
● Contemporary approaches suggest that the speed with which infants
process information may correlate most strongly with later Intelligence, as
measured by IQ tests administered during adulthood.
● Habitation Test - infants who process information efficiently ought to be
able to learn about stimuli more quickly and they turn their attention away
from a given stimuli more quickly.
● Visual recognition memory - memory and recognition of a stimulus
previously seen
● Both of these relate to later measures of Intelligence.
Eg. Infants who are more efficient in information processing during the 6
months following birth tend to have higher Intelligence scores between 2
and 12 years of age, as well as higher scores on other measures of cognitive
competence.
● Cross-modal transference (the ability to identify a stimulus that previously
has been experienced through only one sense by using another sense) is
associated with intelligence.
● Research found that degree of Cross-modal transference displayed by an
infant at age 1 - which requires a high-level of abstract thinking-is
associated with intelligence.
● Even though there is an association between early information processing
capabilities and later measures of IQ, the correlation is moderately strong.
● Degree of environmental stimulation crucial in determining adult
intelligence.
● One should not assume Intelligence is permanently fixed in Infancy.
● Traditional IQ tests measure only one kind of Intelligence i.e linked to
academics. However, IQ components are many - artistic, musical,
professional, practical.
● Bayleys scale led to the misconception that little continuity existed, the
more recent information processing approaches suggest that cognitive
development unfolds in a more orderly, continuous manner from Infancy to
later stages of life.

Assessing Information Processing Approaches.

● The IP perspective on cognitive development during Infancy - different
from Piaget's.
● Piaget focuses on qualitative changes that occur in the Cognitive process,
whereas IP Approach focuses on quantitative.
● Piaget sees cognitive growth as occurring in fairly sudden spurts whereas IP
sees more gradual, step by step growth.
● Piaget's believes Cognitive growth is rooted ina and assessed by motor
skills, while IP Approach believes Cognitive Development in terms of a
collection of individual skills such as processing speed, memory which can
be measured by a wide variety of precise measuring tools.
● IP Approach focuses more on the Individual pieces of the puzzle of cognitive
development, while Piaget's Approach focuses more on the whole puzzle.
● Both critical in providing an account of cognitive development in infancy.

5. The fundamentals of language.

● Language - the systematic, meaningful arrangements of symbols, which

provides the basis for communication.
● Has several formal characteristics to be mastered as linguistic competence is
development. They include :
1. Phonology - refers to basic sounds of language, called phonemes,
that are combined to produce words and sentences. For eg. The a in
mat and the a in mate represent different phonemes in english.
2. Morphemes- smallest language unit that has meaning.
For eg. s, ed, ing.
3. Semantics - rules that govern the meaning of words and sentences.
As their knowledge of semantics develops, children are able to
understand the subtle distinction between "ellie was hit by a ball" and
"a ball hit ellie".
● In considering the development of language, we need to distinguish between
comprehension(the understanding of speech) and production (the use of
language to communicate).
Principle underlying the relationship between two: Comprehension precedes
production.
● For eg. During Infancy, comprehension of words expands at a rate of 22 new
words a month, while production of words increases at a rate of about 9 new
words a month, once talking begins.

Early sounds and Communication

● Cooing, crying, gurgling, murmuring and other noises by infants, though
not meaningful, play an important role in linguistic development, paving
the way for true language.
● Prelinguistic communication - communication through sounds, facial
expressions, gestures, imitation and other nonlinguistic means. Helps in
give and take of conversation, teaches infants about turn taking and back
and forth of communication.
● For eg. Fathers response to daughter's "ah" with an "ah" of his own
followed by daughters "ah" and so on.
● Babbling - Making speech like meaningless sounds, starts at 2 years, infant
repeats same vowel, changing pitch from high to low, goes from simple to
complex sounds, most obvious manifestation of Prelinguistic
communication, universal phenomenon, present in all languages and
culture.
● Deaf children also do babbling. Infants who use sign language babble with
hands. The areas of the brain activated during speech production of hand
gestures similar to speech production suggesting spoken language may have
evolved from gestural language.
● By the age of 6 months, babbling reflects the sounds of the language to
which infants are exposed, difference quite noticeable, untrained listeners
are able to distinguish between the language in which babbling takes place.
● The speed at which infants begin homing in on their language is related to
the speed of later language development.
● Communication also occurs in different ways.
For eg. 1.5 month Martha cries in anger when her ball is beyond reach.
2. 9 month Martha holds out her arm in the direction of the ball.
3.months later, Martha's parents clearly hear her say ball.
In all the above cases communication has occurred through different means.

First words
● Spoken somewhere around the age of 10 to 14 months.
● Linguistics differ in the criterion - some say infants should sound like
adults, others use stricter criterion - words should be clear, consistent
names to a person, event or object.
● Once infant starts to produce words, vocabulary increases at a rapid rate. By
age 15 months the average child has a vocabulary of 10 words and
methodically expands until the one word stage of language development
ends at around 18 months.
● Once that occurs a sudden spurt in vocab occurs.
● In just a short period of time (16to 24 months old) there is an explosion of
language, and a child's vocabulary increases from 50 to 400 words.
● Child's first words-regard both animate and inanimate.
● Holophrase-one word utterances that stand for a whole phrase, whose
meaning depends on the particular context in which they are used
● Culture has an effect on the type of first word spoken. Westerns-noun
initially, easterners -more verbs than nouns. Also, remarkable cross cultural
similarities.
 First Sentences
● Children generally first create two-word phrases around 8 to 12 months
after they say their first word.
For eg. Mama key(showing possession), dog bark(showing recurrent event).
These combinations- important, indicate the relationship between the 2
words. They are often comments and events occurring in the child's world.
● 2 year olds often use a particular sequence of words typically followed in
that particular language.
Eg. "Josh threw" as in English ( Josh threw the ball.)
● Often use telegraphic speech - speech in which words not critical to the
message are left out. Eg. Rather than saying "I put on my shoes", they say
"my shoes on".
● Underextension-the overly restrictive use of words is common among
children just mastering spoken language. Eg. Sara refers to only her blanket
as 'blankie' and not able to general other blankets as vlankie as well.
● Overextension-the overly broad use of words, overgeneralizing their
meaning. For eg. All objects with wheels assumed as cars. Ishows advances
are occurring in a child's thought process.
● Individual differences in the style of language used. Culture factors are
reflective.
1. Referential style - language used primarily to label objects. Seen more
in the US.
2. Expressive style - language used primarily to express feelings and
needs about oneself and others. Seen more in Japan.

6. The origin of language.

Learning theory Approach

● According to this approach, language acquisition follows the basic laws of
reinforcements and conditioning.
● Children learn to speak by being rewarded for making sounds that
approximate speech. Through the process of shaping, language becomes
more and more similar to adult speech.
● Limitation - doesn't seem to adequately explain how children acquire the
rules of language as readily as they do. For eg. Why the dog won't eat and
why won't the dog eat both spoken by children elicits the same response
and reinforcements from parents despite incorrect language usage. Under
these circumstances learning theory is hard to explain how children learn
properly.
● Children move beyond specific utterances they have heard and produce
novel phrases, sentences and constructions - an ability cannot be explained
by this approach.

Nativist Approach
● championed by linguist Noam Chomsky
● argues that there is a genetically determined, innate mechanism that directs
that development of language.
● Chomsky suggests - all world languages share a similar underlying
structure called universal grammar.
● In this view, the human brain is wired with a neural system called the
language acquisition device (LAD) that provides a set of strategies as well as
techniques for learning the particular characteristics of the language to
which a child is exposed.
● Support from Recent findings - language processing in infants involves
brain structures similar to those in adult speech processing suggesting
evolutionary basis for language.
● Critics - argue that certain primates are able to learn at least the basics of
language, an ability that calls into question the uniqueness of the human
linguistic capacity. Others point out though humans are genetically primed
to use language, its use still requires significant social experience in order
for it to be used effectively.

The Interactionist Approach

● combines learning theory and Nativist Approach.
● Suggests that language development is produced through a combination of
genetically determined predispositions and environmental circumstances
that help teach languages.
● Interactionists accept that innate factors shape the broad outlines of
language development, specific course of language development determined
by the language to which children are exposed and reinforcements they
receive for using the language in a particular way.
● Social factors, motivation provided by members of society, culture and one's
interaction with others leads to the use of language and the growth of
language skills.
● Different factors play different roles at different times during childhood, full
explanation for language acquisition then remains to be found.
 Infant Directed speech
● Earlier called as motherese because it was assumed that it applied only to
mothers.
● A type of speech directed towards infants, characterized by short, simple
sentences .
● The pitch becomes higher, the range of frequencies increases, and the
intonation is more varied.
● There is repetition of words and topics are restricted to items that are
assumed to be comprehensible to infants such as concrete objects in the
baby's environment.
● Sometimes include amusing sounds that are not even words, similar to the
kind of telegraphic speech used by infants.
● Changes as children become older, language directed to them are more adult
like qualities, sentences become longer and complex and pitch is used to
focus on particular words. However, words are still spoken slowly and
deliberately.
● Infant Directed speech - Important in infants acquisition of language.
● Neonates and infants prefer Infant Directed speech rather than normal
speech.
● Babies addressed with this speech-learn language faster, become more
linguistically competent and begin to use more words.
● Cultural variations are present.

Gender Differences
● From the time of birth, the language parents employ with thirer children
differs depending on the childs sex, according to research conducted by
development psychologist Jean Berko Gleason.
● Gleason found that by 32 months, girls hear twice as many diminutives as
boys hear.
● Diminutives decline with increasing age, their use consistently remains
higher at speech directed towards girls than boys.
● Parents respond differently to children's requests depending on the child's
gender. Eg. A firm 'no' might be given to a male child but 'why don't you do
this?' to a girl child.
● Boys tend to hear firmer, clearer language, while girls are exposed to
warmer phrases, often referring to inner emotional states.
● No direct evidence supports association between this speech and child's
behaviour in adulthood.
● Men and women use different sorts of language as adults. Women tend to
use tentative, less assertive language than men.