MODULE 13:

Cognitive
Development of Infants
and Toddlers

- Brenda B Corpuz, Ph.D.

Cognitive Development

• refers to the development in the

way a baby thinks. This includes
his language, communication
and exploration skills.
There are 4 stages of
Cognitive Development:
1.Sensorimotor
2.Preoperational
3.Concrete Operational
4.Formal Operational
Sensorimotor Stage
• “In this stage, infants construct an
understanding of the world by
coordinating sensory experiences
with physical motoric actions”.

Piaget divided it into six sub-stages:

1. Simple Reflexes birth – 6 weeks
• Coordination of sensation and action
through reflexive behaviours.

THREE PRIMARY REFLEXES DESCRIBED

BY PIAGET
-Sucking of objects in the mouth
-Following moving or interesting objects
-Closing of the hand when an object makes
contact with the palm
2. First habits and primary circular
reactions phase 6 weeks - 4 months

• Coordination of sensation and two

schemas:
• Primary reaction because the action
is focused on the infants body.
• Circular reaction because it is a
repetition of an action that initially
occurred by chance.
3. Secondary Circular Reaction
Phase 4 – 8 months
• Development of Habits.
• This stage is associated primarily with
the development of coordination between
vision and prehension.

THREE NEW ABILITIES

-Intentional Grasping of desired objects
-Secondary Circular Reaction
-Differentiations between ends and means
4. Coordination of reactions stage
secondary circular 8 – 12 months

• Coordination of vision and touch

hand-eye coordination; of schemes
and intentionally
• Piaget’s calls the “First proper
intelligence”
• This action is directed towards a
goal
5. Tertiary Circular reactions,
novelty and curiosity 12-18 months
• Piaget describes the child at this
juncture as the “young scientist”,
conducting pseudo experiments to
discover new methods of meeting
challenges.
6. Internalization of Schemes
18 – 24 months

• Infants develop the ability to use

primitive symbols and form
enduring mental representations.
• This stage is associated with the
beginnings of insight or true
creativity.
OBJECT PERMANENCE
• is the understanding that objects
continue to exist even when they
cannot be seen, heard or touched.
ABSTRACTION
• Piaget’s cognitive development shows that the
development begins from reflexive behaviours to
more refined and more coordinated activities.
• Cognitive Development of infants evolves in
orientation from becoming focused on
themselves to becoming object or world-
oriented, from one that is action-based to one
that is mentally-based, from one that does not
involve much of coordination of schemes to one
involving intentionally, novelty and curiosity and
from a thinking that is purely sensorimotor to a
symbolic one.
• Piaget’s sub-stages are termed circular
because the adaptive behaviour to the
world involves repeated actions.
• Primary Circular Reactions- are oriented
toward the infant’s own body.
• Secondary Circular Reactions- are
repetitive actions that involve recreating
events babies observe outside of their
bodies.
• Tertiary Circular Reactions- is when a
baby does things over and over again.
Learning and Remembering
• Yes! Pavlov’s classical conditioning and
Skinner’s operant conditioning have been
proven to apply to infants.
• All of us experience infantile amnesia, the
inability to recall events that happened
when we were very young. Generally, we
can remember little or nothing that has
happened to us before the age of 5 years.
Language Development
• Infants appear to be programmed to tune
in to their linguistic environment with the
specific goal of acquiring language.
Infants clearly have remarkably acute
language learning activities even from an
early age.
• Within the first years of life, we humans
seem to progress through the following
stages:
1. Cooing- which compromises largely
vowel sounds.
2. Babbling- which compromises
consonant as well as vowel sounds.
3. One word utterances- are limited in
both the vowels and consonants.
4. Two word utterances
5. Basic adult sentence structure
• Halophrases- to convey intensions, desires and
demands.

Example: baby, ball, mama, dada

• Overextension error- the child overextends the

meaning of the words in his existing lexicon to
cover things and ideas for which a new word is
lacking.

Example: four- legged animal may be “doggie”

• Telegraphic Speech- two or three word
utterances with rudimentary syntax but with
articles and prepositions missing.

Example: "Daddy is here“ by saying "Daddy here"

Language Acquisition Device
(LAD)
• “ Metaphorical organ that is responsible
for language learning. Just as a heart is
designed to ump blood this language
acquisition device is pre-programmed to
learn language, whatever the language
community children find themselves in”

Chomsky, (1965-1972)
Domain: Language, Pre-reading
and Pre-math
• LANGUAGE (Receptive Language)
0-6 months
- Watches primary caregiver
7-12 months
- Understands “No”
13-18 months
- Points to 5 body parts when asked to do so
19-24 months
- Points to 5 named pictured objects when asked
to do so
• LANGUAGE (Expressive Language)
0-6 months
- Makes cooing, babbling and other vocal sounds
7-12 months
- Repeats sounds produced by others
13-18 months
- Speaks in single words
- Says “yes” or “no” appropriately
19-24 months
- Uses pronouns
• PRE-READING AND PRE-MATH (Matching)
7-12 months
- Able to match 2 identical objects
19-24 months
- Matches identical objects
- Matches identical pictures
• PRE-READING AND PRE-MATH (Rote Sequencing)
19-24 months
- Counts from 1 to 5 errors, gaps or promps
Domain: Cognitive
Development
• ATTENTION AND ACTIVITY LEVEL
0-6 months
- Looks steadily at novel stimuli
7-12 months
- Looks with interest at picture books
13-18 months
- Resists interruption while engaged in play
• HIGHER-ORDERED MENTAL ABILITIES (Concept
Formation)
0-6 months
- Experiments with new toys and objects
7-12 months
- Looks for partially hidden objects
13-18 months
- Can tell whether something is hot or cold
19-24 months
- Can tell which is shorter of 2 items
- Can tell which is nearer of 2 items
• HIGHER-ORDERED MENTAL ABILITIES (Cause-
Effect Relationship)
0-6 months
- Acts on an object to achieve an objective
7-12 months
- Uses an object to get something he wants
19-24 months
- Asks “Why?”
- Understands reasons behind daily practices
- Knows where to return most of his things
• MEMORY (Memory for experiences: Episodic
Memory)
0-6 months
- Child reacts in recognition of someone he has
met several times.
13-18 months
- Child reacts in recognition of familiar places
besides his home
19-24 months
- Child is brought somewhere and correctly
recalls having been there before
• MEMORY (Memory for concept- based
knowledge: Semantic Memory)
19-24 months
- Hums a recognizable tune
- Memorizes some gestures of action songs
• HIGHER-ORDERED MENTAL ABILITIES (Logical
Reasoning)
• HIGHER-ORDERED MENTAL ABILITIES
(Planning and Organizing)
• HIGHER-ORDERED MENTAL ABILITIES (Creative
Thought)
Thank you