Child Development, 3/e by Robert Feldman

Chapter 6
Cognitive Development in Infancy

Created by Barbara H. Bratsch Feldman Child Development, 3/e

©2004 Prentice Hall
• What are the fundamental features of
Piaget’s theories of cognitive development?
• How do infants process information?
• How is infant intelligence measured?
• By what processes do children learn to use
language?
• How do children influence adults’
language?

Feldman Child Development, 3/e

©2004 Prentice Hall
 Jean Piaget (1896-1980)
Action = Knowledge
• Knowledge is the product of direct motor behavior
• Stage approach to development – four distinct
stages- sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete
operational, formal operational. These stages occur
from birth to adolescence and a combination of
physical development and relevant experience are
necessary to move from one stage to another

Feldman Child Development, 3/e

©2004 Prentice Hall
 Sensorimotor Stage
Substage 1: Simple Reflexes birth to 1 month Reflexes at the center of cognitive life

Substage 2: First habits and Primary 1-4 months Coordinate separate actions into single,
circular reactions integrated actions

Substage 3: Secondary circular reactions 4-8 months Begin to act on outside world

Substage 4: Coordination of secondary 8-12 months Calculated approaches. Object

circular reactions permanence begins

Substage 5: Tertiary circular reactions 12-18 months Carry out miniature experiments to
observe consequences

Substage 6: Beginnings of thought 18-24 months Capacity for mental representation or

symbolic thought. Imagine where objects
might be that they cannot see.

Feldman Child Development, 3/e

©2004 Prentice Hall
Transitions

Feldman Child Development, 3/e

©2004 Prentice Hall
 Piaget Concepts
• Circular Reaction – an activity that permits the construction of positive
schemes through the repetition of a chance motor event
– Primary – schemes reflecting an infant’s repetition of interesting or enjoyable
activities just for the enjoyment of doing them
– Secondary – schemes regarding repeated actions that bring about a desirable
consequence
– Tertiary – schemes regarding the deliberate variation of actions that bring desirable
consequences
• Goal-directed behavior – several schemes are combined and coordinated to
generate a single act to solve a problem
• Mental representation – internal image of a past object or event
• Deferred imitation – when a person who is no longer present is imitated, eg
pretend to drive when mom not there driving
• Object permanence – realization that people and objects exist even when they
cannot be seen

Feldman Child Development, 3/e

©2004 Prentice Hall
Piaget Concepts

Feldman Child Development, 3/e

©2004 Prentice Hall
 Criticism of Piaget’s Theory
• Waves, not stages – Robert Siegler (1995) suggested development in
waves, or ebb and flow, vs. stages
• Motor development may not be the only basis – Piaget was not familiar
with sensory and perceptual systems
• Object permanence may occur earlier – motor skills or memory deficits
may not allow that concept to develop earlier
• Fixed pattern – infants may be able to imitate facial expressions earlier
than Piaget proposed

Feldman Child Development, 3/e

©2004 Prentice Hall
 Information Processing
Approaches
Information is encoded, stored and retrieved
much like a computer

Feldman Child Development, 3/e

©2004 Prentice Hall
 Memory in Infants
• Memory, the process by which information is
initially recorded, stored and retrieved, is certainly
in the realm of infants. Infant memory capabilities
increase with age.
• Infantile amnesia is a lack of memory for
experience that occurred before 3 years old
• Early memories appear to be implicit. Explicit
memory emerges by the second half of the first
year.

Feldman Child Development, 3/e

©2004 Prentice Hall
 Intelligence in Infants
• Determining what is meant by intelligence in infants represents a
major challenge for developmentalists.
• Developmental quotient (DQ) is an overall developmental score that
relates to performance in 4 domains:
– Motor skills- balance and sitting
– Language use
– Adaptive behavior – alertness and exploration
– Personal and social skills – feeding and dressing
• Bayley Scales of Infant Development – used on 2 to 42 month old
children and focuses on mental abilities: senses, perception, memory,
learning, problem solving, language and motor skills: fine and gross
motor skills

Feldman Child Development, 3/e

©2004 Prentice Hall
 Information Processing and
Infants
• Visual recognition memory – the memory and recognition
of a stimulus that has been previously seen
• Cross-modal transference – the ability to identify, using
another sense, a stimulus that has previously only been
experienced through one sense. For example, a baby
recognizes a tool by sight that she only touched before
• When this occurs in an infant at one year old, these skills
are associated with intelligence scores years later
• Piaget focused on qualitative changes and growth in spurts,
whereas information processing looks at quantitative
changes, a much more gradual approach

Feldman Child Development, 3/e

©2004 Prentice Hall
 Language and Infants
Language is a systematic, meaningful arrangement of
symbols that provides a basis for communication

• Phonology refers to basic sounds of language

• Morpheme is the smallest language unit that has meaning
• Semantics are rules that govern meaning of words and
sentences

Feldman Child Development, 3/e

©2004 Prentice Hall
 Language and Infants
• Prelinguistic communication refers to communication through sounds, facial
expressions, gestures, imitation, and other nonlinguistic means
• Babbling refers to making speechlike but meaningful sounds
• Holophrases are one-word utterances that stand for a whole phrase, whose
meaning depends on the context used
• Telegraphic speech is speech in which words not critical to meaning are left
out
• Underextension – overly restrictive use of words, common among children
just mastering spoken language
• Overextension – overly broad use of words, overgeneralizing their meaning
• Referential style – speaking style in which language is used primarily to label
objects
• Expressive style- speaking style in which language is primarily used to
express feelings and needs about oneself and others

Feldman Child Development, 3/e

©2004 Prentice Hall
 Learning Theory Approach vs.
Nativist Approach
• Learning theory says that language
acquisition follows the basic laws of
reinforcement and conditioning
• Nativist approach states a genetically
determined, innate mechanism directs
language development

Feldman Child Development, 3/e

©2004 Prentice Hall