Lecture notes
Cognitive Development
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- Newcastle University (NCL)
Cognitive Development
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Lecture 5 – Cognitive Development Cognitive development - thinking, problem solving, concept understanding, information
processing and overall intelligence
Two approaches to understanding
o Domain general - Piaget
One line of development determines all others changes in the child's intellectual
repertoire
If something goes wrong in one area of cognition, in the course of development,
it will impact other areas of cognition too
o Domain specific - Vygotsky
Different lines of cognitive development operate fairly independently. Cognition
is a modular, heterogeneous system
Since modules operate fairly independently of one another, if one fails to fully
develop, others can still operate successfully
Jean Piaget (1896-1980)
o First to suggest that children see the world differently to adults
o First to develop methods to investigate this
Piaget's research methods based primarily on case studies
Descriptive
o First to offer systematic theoretical account of process of mental growth
o Child's ability to be logical underpinned intellectual development
o Changes in intellectual development are either the direct or indirect result of changes in
logical ability
o Basic concept
Children develop as they interact with objects in their environment, and form
mental representations of the world based on those experiences = constructivist
Notions
Concepts and schemata - a concept or framework that organizes and
interprets information
Assimilation - process of translating and incorporating incoming
information using current schemas - similar information = equilibrium
Accommodation - the process of adaptive current/old knowledge
structures in response to new experiences - information encountered is
sufficiently different therefore challenge to current schemas =
disequilibrium
Equilibrium - state of mental balance in which people are not confused
because they can use their existing thought processes to understand
current experiences and ideas.
Disequilibrium - state of cognitive discomfort. shift from assimilation
toward accommodation, then back toward assimilation
Egocentrism - inability to see the world through anyone else's eyes
Conservation - the principle that properties such as mass, volume, and
number remain the same despite changes in the forms of objects
o Paiget's cognitive development stages
Cannot develop to late stage without developed through all preceding stages
first
Sensorimotor (birth-2 years)
Intelligence in action
Child interacts with environment by manipulating objects
Sensory contact understanding
Child explores world using senses
, Initially sucking/grasping and moving onto reaching for objects out of
reach
Key milestone: object permanence
Initially infants cannot understand an object exists out of sight
Around 7/8 months a child will begin to understand the
object/person still exists when out of sight
Preoperational (2-7 years)
Thinking dominated by perception
Egocentrism
Children in the pre-operational period only direct attention to limited
aspects of a given situation
They have an egocentric view of the world
The three mountains task has been used to assess knowledge at this
stage
Key milestone: reduce egocentrism and complete three mountain task
Used with children from 4 years
Shown a model of 3 mountains like this
They were sat at position A and a doll would be placed at
position B, C or D
The child was asked to choose a photograph which showed
what the doll could see
The child was being asked about the perspective of another
person
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