Cognitive Development

of Early Childhood

Lecture 10:
C6035 Human Development
 Cognitive Developmental
Changes
Piaget’s Preoperational Stage of Development
 Preoperational stage stretches from
approximately 2 to 7 years of age
 Signifies time when stable concepts are formed,
mental reasoning emerges
 Egocentrism begins strongly & then weakens
 Magical beliefs are constructed
 Child does not yet think in operational way
 Operations being internalized sets of actions that
allow child to do mentally what before did
physically
Piaget’s Preoperational Stage
of Development
Symbolic Function Substage
 First substage of preoperational thought,
occurring roughly between ages of 2 & 4
 During which young child gains ability to
represent object mentally that is not present
 Egocentrism feature of preoperational
thought in which child is not able to
distinguish between one’s own perspective &
someone else’s perspective
 Animism limitation within preoperational
thought, whereby child believes that
inanimate objects have ‘lifelike’ qualities &
capable of action
Piaget’s Preoperational Stage
of Development
Intuitive Thought Substage
 Second substage of preoperational thought
occurring approximately between 4 & 7 years
 Children begin to use primitive reasoning & want
to know answers to all sorts of questions
 Centration focusing of attention on one
characteristic to the exclusion of all others-
inability to shift quality or function from one set of
criteria to another
 Conservation evidence of centration in child’s
idea of amount remaining same regardless of
how container changes
 Vygotsky’s Theory of
Development
 Zone of Proximal Development range of tasks
too difficult for children to master alone but
which can be learned with guidance &
assistance of adults or more skilled children
 Scaffolding changing the level of support over
course of a teaching session-more skilled
person adjusts amount of guidance to fit
student’s current performance level
 Language and Thought young children use
language to plan, guide & monitor their behavior
in self-regulatory fashion - called this inner
speech or private speech.
Evaluating and Comparing
Vygotsky’s and Piaget’s Theories
 Vygotsky’s emphasis on importance of
inner speech
 Piaget’s views such speech as
immature
 Vygotsky’s theory is social constructivist
approach which emphasizes social
contexts of learning-fact that knowledge
is mutually built & constructed
Teaching Strategies Based on
Vygotsky’s Theory in classroom
 Use child’s zone of proximal development, by
teaching to child’s upper limit
 Use scaffolding when children need help with
self-initiated learning activities, by helping
move to higher level of skill & knowledge
 Use more skilled peers as teachers
 Monitor & encourage children’s use of private
speech
 Assess child’s ZPD, not IQ
 Transform classroom with Vygotskian ideas
Information Processing
 Study of different cognitive processes of mental world of
young children
 Attention child’s ability to pay attention changes
drastically during preschool years Visual attention to
television increases during period, but they tend to react
to features (color, sound, size) to exclusion of content
 Memory In short-term memory individual retain
information for up to 15 or 30 seconds
 Short-term memory increases during early childhood
 Studies of memory & children, speed of repetition was
powerful predictor of memory span
Task Analysis

 Information processing psychologists

have found that when tasks are made
interesting & simple
 Children display greater cognitive
maturity than Piaget realized
The Young Child’s Theory of
Mind
 Children’s developing of the mind
includes awareness that mind exists
 It has connections to the physical world
 It can represent objects & events
accurately or inaccurately
 It can actively interpret reality &
emotions
Language Development
Stages and Rule Systems
 Brown’s Stages Mean length of utterance
(MLU) is a good index of child’s language
maturity. Stages indicate growth of language
complexity

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

Stage 2 - 27 to 30 months of age = MLU 2.00 to 2.50
Stage 3 - 31 to 34 months of age = MLU 2.50 to 3.00
Stage 4 - 35 to 40 months of age = MLU 3.00 to 3.75
Stage 5 - 41 to 46 months of age = MLU 3.75 to 4.50
Rule Systems: Morphology,
syntax, semantics & pragmatics
 As children move beyond two-word
utterances, they know morphology rules
 Begin using plurals & possessive forms of
nouns,
 Put appropriate endings on verbs,
 Use prepositions &various forms of verb to be
 As children move to elementary school, they
become skilled at using syntactical rules to
construct lengthy & complex sentences
 Literacy and Early Childhood
Education
 Literacy begins in infancy
 Reading & writing skills should build on existing
understanding of oral & written language
 Too many preschool children are being
subjected to rigid, formal pre-reading programs
with expectations & experiences that are too
advanced for cognitive levels of development
 Instruction should be built on what children
already know about oral language, reading &
writing
Early Childhood Education
Variations in Early Childhood Ed
 Child-Centered Kindergarten involves
whole child by considering physical,
cognitive, & social development &
child’s needs, interests & learning styles
 Experimenting, exploring, discovering,
trying out, restructuring, speaking, &
listening describe excellent kindergarten
programs
Early Childhood Education
Variations in Early Childhood Ed
 Montessori Approach philosophy of
education in which children are given
considerable freedom and spontaneity
in choosing activities
 Allowed to move from one activity to
another as they desire
 Does not emphasize verbal interaction
between teacher, child, & peers
Developmentally Appropriate &
Inappropriate Practices
 Education of Young Children
 Knowing that children develop at
varying rates, educators and
psychologists promote programs in
which child’s specific developmental
level is taken into consideration
 These programs emphasize hands-on
activities versus paper-and-pencil
activities or other large group strategies
Education for Children Who Are
Disadvantaged
 Project Head Start designed to provide
children from low-income families
opportunity to acquire skills &
experiences important for success in
school
 Project Follow Through different types
of educational programs where enriched
programs are carried through first years
of elementary school
Effects of Early Childhood
Education
 Studies show that children who attend
preschool or kindergarten
 Interact more with peers, both positively
and negatively
 Are less cooperative with & responsive
to adults
 Are more socially competent & mature
Nonsexist Early Childhood
Education
 Important goals of nonsexist early
childhood education programs
 1. Free children from constraining
stereotypes of gender roles
 2. Promote equality for both sexes by
facilitating each child’s participation in
activities
 3. Help children develop skills that will
enable them to challenge sexist
stereotypes & behavior
Does Preschool Matter?
 The issue is not whether preschool is
important, but whether home schooling can
closely duplicate what competent preschool
program can offer
 Psychologist David Elkind believes early
childhood education should become part of
public education, but on its own terms
 Early childhood should have its own
curriculum, its own methods of evaluation &
classroom management, & its own teacher-
training programs
School Readiness
 Expectations for young children’s skills
& abilities need to be based on
knowledge of child development & ways
in which children learn
 Basic principle of child development is
that there is tremendous normal
variability both among children of same
chronological age & within an individual
child