Theories of Cognitive Development (Alternatives to Piaget) Flashcards
Why not just one theory?
- Child development is a complex and varied process, no single theory accounts for all of it
- Theories of cognitive and social development focus on different capabilities
- Combined, they allow a broader appreciation of cognitive development than any one alone
Cognitive development?
- Perception
- Attention
- Language
- Problem-solving and reasoning
- Memory
- Conceptual understanding
Social development?
- Emotions
- Personality
- Family & peer relationships
- Self-understanding
- Aggression
- Moral & prosocial understanding
Theories of Development 4?
- Piagetian Theory
- Evolutionary Theories
- Socio-cultural Theories
- Information Processing Theories
Ethnological (The study of animal behaviour) and evolutionary models?
- We know that evolution influenced human traits such as bipedalism, opposable thumbs, and brain size
- > so it is plausible that evolution also influenced our behaviour.
- Evolution is geared toward reproduction and survival.
- Certain genes predispose individuals to behave in ways that are more successful toward these goals.
4 different theories of Development?
- Piagetian Theory
- Evolutionary Theories
- Socio-cultural Theories
- Information Processing Theories
Key aspects of Social Learning Theories?
- Experience is the most important factor in a child’s social and personality development
- Learning theories are continuous: the same mechanisms control learning and behaviour throughout life
- Children learn though conditions and reinforcement (behaviorist learning)
- Children learn through observation and imitations of others (social learning)
Key aspects of Social Learning Theories?
- Experience is the most important factor in a child’s social and personality development
- Learning theories are continuous: the same mechanisms control learning and behaviour throughout life
- Children learn though conditions and reinforcement (behaviorist learning)
- Children learn through observation and imitations of others (social learning)
What are the mechanisms of change in social learning theories? + example of research
Observation and imitation of others
Albert Bandure
Core-Knowledge Theories: Child as Theorist
Principles?
- Children have innate cognitive capabilities
- Focus on areas (such as understanding people and objects) that have been important thought put our evolutionary history -> often endorse a modularity approach
Core Knowledge Proposal,
Core Knowledge Domains?
- Physics (object cognition)
- Number (numerical cognition)
- People/agency
- Biology
- Language
Object Cognition? What does infants know?
- Infants know A LOT about the physical world before they are capable of operating on it
1. Continuity
2. Coherence
3. Contact
-> Evidence within the first few months of life goes beyond the sense data (contra Piaget)
Adaptive benefits of going Beyond the Sense Data?
- There are more apples on the tree
- Danager out of sight, does not mean its gone
- Who kicked the ball?
Sociocultural Theories of Cognitive Development? (Piaget vs. Vygotsky)
- Whereas Piaget depicted children as trying to understand the world on their own
- Vygotsky portrayed them as social beings intertwined with other people who were eager to help them learn and gain skills
Describe how cognitive development occurs in interpersonal contact?
- Interactions with parents, siblings, teachers, and playmates)
- Emphasised importance of play
- > Children are products of their cultures
How Cognitive Change Occurs according to Sociocultural Theories?
- Zone of proximal development:
Range between what children can do unsupported and what they can do with optimal social support - Social scaffolding:
More competent people provide temporary frameworks that lead children to higher-order thinking (used interchangeably with ‘guided participation’) - Joint attention:
Intentional focus on a common referent - Intersubjectivity:
Mutual understand established during communication - a ‘meeting of the minds’ - Social referencing:
Children look to social partners for guidance about how to reskins to unfamiliar events
Sociocultural Theories Summary
- Children are active learners
- Adults and peers play instrumental role in facilitating learning
- Emphasis is more on content than on cognitive process/mechansim
Sociocultural Constraints?
Psychical
Social
Economic
Cultural
Historical
Psychical = home, school, urban vs. rural neighborhood etc.
Social = parents, siblings, teachers, friends, peers, etc.
Economic = national wealth, societal wealth, family wealth
Cultural = language, values, traditions, attitudes/beliefs, laws, political structure, technology, etc.
Historical = influences all these other factors, e.g. traditional practices, policies, economy, technology etc.
Brofenbrenner’s ecological model? + 5 systems
a child’s environment is composed of multiple layers, extending from the child at the center, outward to the entire society.
Five different systems: the microsystem, the mesosystem, the exosystem, the macrosystem, and the chronosystemm.
View of children’s nature according to information-processing theories?
- Information-processing theorists view children as undergoing continuous cognitive change
- Important changes are viewed as constantly occurring, rather than being restricted to special transition periods between stages
The Child as Problem Solver? Which theory?
- Information-Processing Theorist view children as active problem solvers
- With development, children’s cognitive flexibility helps them pursue their goals
The Child as a Limited-Capacity Processing System? (3)
Cognitive development arises from children gradually surmounting their processing limitations though
– Increasing efficient execution of basic processes
– Expanding memory capacity
– Acquisition of new strategies and knowledge
Information-Processing Theory: Basic Processes?
Basic processes are the simplest and most frequently used mental activities:
- Associating events with one another (two events that do not occur in temporal closeness)
- Recognising objects or principals as familiar
- Recalling facts and procedures
- Generalising from one instance to another
- Encoding: the process of representing in memory information specific features of objects and events - Being able to remember stuff!
Processing Speed? Which 2 biological processes
- The speed with which children execute basic processes increases greatly over the course of childhood
- Biological maturation and experience contribute to increased processing speed
- Two biological processes that contribute to faster processing are myelination and increased connectivity (Rich associations with other things) among brain regions.
