COGNITIVE
DEVELOPMENT
OF INFANTS AND
TODDLERS
FOUR STAGES OF First Stage: Sensorimotor Stage
COGNITIVE • Infants construct an understanding of the
DEVELOPMENT world
• Sensorimotor • Coordinating sensory experiences (seeing
• Preoperational and hearing) with physical motoric actions
• Concrete Operational
• Formal Operational
6 Sub-stages of Sensorimotor
1. Simple Reflexes - Birth 6 weeks
o sucking of objects in the mouth
o following moving or interesting objects
o closing of the hand
FOUR STAGES OF
COGNITIVE 2. First habits and primary circular
DEVELOPMENT reactions phase - 6 weeks to 4 months
o Primary reaction - focus on the infant’s
• Sensorimotor
• Preoperational body
• Concrete Operational o Circular reaction – repetition of an
• Formal Operational action
o Passive reaction caused by classical or
operant conditioning can begin.
o Example: infant might repeat the motion
of passing their hand before their face.
FOUR STAGES OF 3. Secondary circular reactions phase - 4 to 8
COGNITIVE months
o Development of coordination between vision
DEVELOPMENT
and prehension
• Sensorimotor o Three abilities:
• Preoperational intentional grasping for a desired object
• Concrete Operational secondary circular reactions
• Formal Operational
differentiations between ends and means
4. Coordination of reactions stage secondary
circular - 8 to 12 months
o Coordination of vision and touch hand-eye
o Development of logic and coordination
between means and ends
FOUR STAGES OF
COGNITIVE o “first proper intelligence”
DEVELOPMENT o Beginning of goal orientation
• Sensorimotor o The deliberate planning of steps to meet
• Preoperational an objective
• Concrete Operational
• Formal Operational
5. Tertiary Circular reactions, novelty, and
curiosity - 12 to 18 months
o Discovery of new means to meet goals
o “youngest scientist” - conducting
pseudo-experiments
FOUR STAGES OF 6. Internalization of schemes (Invention of New
COGNITIVE Means Through Mental Combination) - 18 to
DEVELOPMENT 24 months
o Use primitive symbols and form enduring
• Sensorimotor representations
• Preoperational o Beginning of insights or true creativity
• Concrete Operational
• Formal Operational
Object permanence - understanding that objects
continue to exist even when they cannot be teen, head, or
touched.
Sub stages - termed circular because the adaptive
behavior to the world involves repeated actions.
FOUR STAGES OF
COGNITIVE Circular reactions - attempts to repeat an event
DEVELOPMENT that the baby likes
- serve as the building blocks for
• Sensorimotor
• Preoperational
intelligence (Pasek, K and Golinkoff, R, 2003)
• Concrete Operational
• Formal Operational Primary Circular Reactions - infant’s own
body
Secondary Circular Reactions - toward the
environment including others
FOUR STAGES OF Criticism of Piaget’s theory on Cognitive
Development
COGNITIVE o Development occurs in fixed sequence of
DEVELOPMENT discontinues spurts across task domains, tasks, and
• Sensorimotor contexts.
• Preoperational o Brainerd, 1978 - it occurs as a continuous process
• Concrete Operational rather than in discontinuous stages of development.
• Formal Operational
Learning and Remembering
o Pavlov’s classical conditioning and Skinner’s
operant conditioning have been proven to apply to
infants.
o Infantile Amnesia - inability to recall events that
happened when we were very young
FOUR STAGES OF Language Development
COGNITIVE o Infants acquiring language learning abilities
DEVELOPMENT even from an early age
o 5 stages in producing language:
• Sensorimotor
• Preoperational Cooing - largely vowel sounds
• Concrete Operational Babbling - consonant as well as vowel
• Formal Operational sounds
One-word utterances - limited in both
vowels and consonants
Two-word utterances and telegraphic speech
Basic adult sentence structure with
continuing vocabulary acquisition
FOUR STAGES OF Holophrases - to convey intentions, desires and
COGNITIVE demands. Usually the words are noun that the child
DEVELOPMENT observes or wants.
• Sensorimotor
• Preoperational 8 months - have vocabularies of 3 to 100 words
• Concrete Operational
• Formal Operational Overextension error - overextends the meaning of
words in his/her existing lexicon to cover things and
ideas for which a new word is lacking
1.5 to 2.5 years age - children start combining single
words to produce two word utterances.
FOUR STAGES OF Telegraphic Speech - two word or three word with
COGNITIVE rudimentary syntax but with articles and
DEVELOPMENT prepositions missing.
• Sensorimotor
• Preoperational Language Acquisition Device (LAD)
• Concrete Operational o Noam Chomsky - humans have an innate
• Formal Operational LAD
o “metaphorical organ”, responsible for
language learning.
o Professor Laura-Ann Petito of Dartmouth
College in Hanover - 5 months of age, babies
are already specializing by using the;
FOUR STAGES OF
COGNITIVE left side of their brains for language
DEVELOPMENT sounds
right side for expression emotion
• Sensorimotor o Right side of the body controlled by left
• Preoperational
• Concrete Operational side of the brain
• Formal Operational o Left side of the body controlled by the right
side of the brain
o Right side of the mouth - for babbling
o Babbling - language function controlled by
the left side of the brain
THANK YOU FOR LISTENING
BY: BABY JEAN E. MENDOZA
