Professional Documents
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HBEC1203 Cognitive Dev
HBEC1203 Cognitive Dev
COGNITIVE
DEVELOPMENT
Dr Rohani Abdullah
Project Directors:
Module Writer:
Dr Rohani Abdullah
Moderator:
Dr Azhar Md Adnan
Open University Malaysia
Developed by:
Printed by:
Table of Contents
Course Guide
xixvi
Topic 1
1
2
7
7
15
22
22
22
23
23
24
24
25
27
27
Topic 2
29
30
30
36
41
42
44
44
48
50
52
55
57
57
iv
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Topic 3
58
59
59
62
76
77
77
81
81
81
82
84
85
86
Topic 4
87
88
89
90
92
96
98
102
104
106
106
107
110
111
113
114
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Topic 5
116
117
117
Topic 6
145
147
147
150
152
153
154
155
164
165
165
166
169
170
171
Topic 7
Development of Representation
7.1 Childrens Theory of Mind
7.1.1 Development of Theory of Mind
7.1.2 Origin of Theory of Mind
7.1.3 Metacognition and False Beliefs
7.2 Memory Development
7.2.1 Multi-store Model
7.2.2 Sensory Memory (SM)
7.2.3 Short-term Memory (STM) or Working Memory
7.2.4 Long-term Memory (LTM)
174
175
175
176
177
180
181
181
184
187
119
120
122
123
124
142
143
144
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
7.3
Memory Processes
7.3.1 Memory Encoding
7.3.2 Memory Consolidation
7.3.3 Memory Storage
7.3.4 Memory Retrieval
Summary
Key Terms
References
190
190
191
192
194
200
202
203
Topic 8
204
205
205
206
211
213
214
215
215
218
218
220
223
225
226
Topic 9
227
229
230
233
237
238
239
239
TABLE OF CONTENTS
9.3
vii
241
241
241
243
247
249
251
253
255
256
258
259
260
262
264
267
267
269
271
275
276
279
281
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
COURSE GUIDE
COURSE GUIDE
xi
INTRODUCTION
HBEC1203 Cognitive Development is one of the courses offered by Faculty of
Education and Languages at Open University Malaysia (OUM). This course is
worth three credit hours and should be covered over 8 to 15 weeks.
COURSE AUDIENCE
This course is offered to learners undertaking the Bachelor of Early Childhood
Education with Honours programme.
As an open and distance learner, you should be acquainted with learning
independently and being able to optimise the learning modes and environment
available to you. Before you begin this course, please ensure that you have the
right course material, and understand the course requirements as well as how the
course is conducted.
xii
COURSE GUIDE
STUDY SCHEDULE
It is a standard OUM practice that learners accumulate 40 study hours for every
credit hour. As such, for a three-credit hour course, you are expected to spend
120 study hours. Table 1 gives an estimation of how the 120 study hours could be
accumulated.
Table 1: Estimation of Time Accumulation of Study Hours
Study Activities
Study
Hours
60
10
Online participation
12
Revision
15
20
120
COURSE OUTCOMES
By the end of this course, you should be able to:
1.
2.
3.
4.
COURSE GUIDE
xiii
COURSE SYNOPSIS
This course is divided into 10 topics. The synopsis for each topic is as follows:
Topic 1 gives an overview on concepts in cognitive development. The history of
studies and issues on cognitive development are elaborated in this topic.
Topic 2 describes how genetic inheritance is transmitted from generation to
generation. In order to appreciate cognitive development, we need to understand
and analyse how genetics form the biological bases of childrens intelligence.
Topic 3 analyses three theories namely Piagets theory of cognitive development,
Vygotskys socio-cultural theory and Fischers dynamic skill theory. The
knowledge of these three theories will enlighten us on how to support children
as dynamic and constructive learners.
Topic 4 explains perspectives on the information processing system with
particular focus on the Neo-Piagetian views of cognitive development. The
knowledge of the information processing perspectives will enable us to ease
childrens problem-solving strategies as well as reduce their production and
utilisation deficiencies.
Topic 5 discusses the concept of growth and development of attention in
children. This topic particularly focuses on cognitive inhibition and attention
strategies. It analyses the influence of Gestalt principle of perceptual organisation
and illusion on our understanding of the world around us.
Topic 6 details out the developmental changes in auditory and visual perception.
In this topic, there are elaborations on sound and speech perception, visual acuity
and scanning, perception of three-dimensional space as well as problems in
auditory and visual perception. Intermodal perception is also analysed using the
perceptual differentiation theory and inter-sensory redundancy hypothesis.
Topic 7 deliberates on the childrens development of representation using theory
of mind, false-beliefs and metacognition. It also examines the memory storage at
three different levels of sensory memory, short-term memory and long-term
memory. In addition, this topic enables you to evaluate processes involve in
memory formation, which comprises of encoding, consolidation, storage
(rehearsal and organisation) as well as retrieval.
xiv
COURSE GUIDE
COURSE GUIDE
xv
Summary: You will find this component at the end of each topic. This component
helps you to recap the whole topic. By going through the summary, you should
be able to gauge your knowledge retention level. Should you find points in the
summary that you do not fully understand, it would be a good idea for you to
revisit the details in the module.
Key Terms: This component can be found at the end of each topic. You should go
through this component to remind yourself of important terms or jargon used
throughout the module. Should you find terms here that you are not able to
explain, you should look for the terms in the module.
References: The References section is where a list of relevant and useful
textbooks, journals, articles, electronic contents or sources can be found. The list
can appear in a few locations such as in the Course Guide (at the References
section), at the end of every topic or at the back of the module. You are
encouraged to read or refer to the suggested sources to obtain the additional
information needed and to enhance your overall understanding of the course.
PRIOR KNOWLEDGE
No prior knowledge required.
ASSESSMENT METHOD
Please refer to myVLE.
REFERENCES
Berk, L. E. (2013). Child development (9th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson.
Bjorklund, D. F. (2012). Childrens thinking: Developmental function and
individual differences (5th ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
Demetriou, A., & Raftopoulos, A. (Eds.). (2004). Cognitive developmental
change: Theories, models, and measurement. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge
University Press.
Goswami, U. (Ed.). (2011). The Wiley-Blackwell handbook of childhood cognitive
development. Oxford, UK: Blackwell.
xvi
COURSE GUIDE
Topic Introduction to
Cognitive
Development
LEARNING OUTCOMES
By the end of this topic, you should be able to:
1.
2.
3.
INTRODUCTION
I was sitting in a room, watching children of different ages demonstrate their
ability to see shapes, colours, numbers and even read texts blindfolded. It
was their second day of exposure to a technique called power brain. The ability
of these children to conduct feats blindfolded eventually expands to solving
Rubiks cube, shooting targets with arrows, riding a bicycle, skateboarding and
completing their homework such as mathematics calculations or comprehension.
The two-day brain activation programme triggers the brain to conduct all forms
of amazing accomplishments. The youngest child in the room, a five-year-old
picked up the skills the fastest. He was able to read shapes, colours, numbers and
texts by the end of the first day. The older 15-year-olds were able to read either
colours or shapes or numbers. What the preschooler did in two days took the
teenagers one week to achieve.
What makes the difference in the achievements of these children? Is it because
the brain of the preschooler is more malleable than the teenager? What if we
expose a toddler to the same activities? Will the toddler do better than the
preschooler?
Copyright Open University Malaysia (OUM)
TOPIC 1
1.1
TOPIC 1
Cognitive Themes
Cognitive development deals with the maturing of the ability to think
and understand. A number of recurring themes emerge in cognitive
development. These themes are explained in the following Table 1.1.
Table 1.1: Themes in Cognitive Development
Theme
Description
Attention
Perception
Memory
(b)
TOPIC 1
Implicit versus
explicit memory
Data-driven
processing versus
conceptually driven
processing
Concept formation
Mental
representation
Meta-cognition
Stage Concept
A number of theories view cognitive development in stages. Flavell (1971)
noted that there are four key implications of the stage concept. They are
explained in Table 1.2.
TOPIC 1
(c)
(d)
Key Implication
Description
Quality changes
Concurrent
assumption
Abruptness
assumption
Coherent
organisation
(ii)
Process Model
What does a process model mean?
A process model is a small-scale model that outlines the mental steps
involved in a task and makes predictions that can be investigated.
TOPIC 1
Description
Sequential stages
of processing
Independent and
non-overlapping
stages
One stage has to finish its operation before the next stage
can begin and the duration of one stage does not affect the
others.
Parallel processing
Conceptuallydriven processing
Data-driven
processing
Contextual effects
TOPIC 1
SELF-CHECK 1.1
1.
2.
3.
4.
1.2
Thinking about the nature of thought dates back to ancient thinkers such as Plato
(427347 BC) and Aristotle (384322 BC). In 387 BC, Plato suggested that the
brain was the seat of mental processes. As for Aristotle, he wrote about the basic
principles of memory in his work De Memoria (Concerning Memory) and
introduced the mind as a tabula rasa (blank slate) at birth. Then, Homer (7thcentury BC), Socrates (470399 BC) and Descartes (15961650) have contemplated
on how the mind works and how to improve it. After Descartes, several early
psychologists begun conducting more systematic research that are linked to our
current understanding of cognitive psychology.
1.2.1
Early Psychology
(a)
TOPIC 1
(ii)
In fact, for human perceptions of sight and sound, the perceived brightness
or loudness is proportional to log10 (actual intensity measured with an
accurate non-human instrument).
(b)
TOPIC 1
(c)
10
TOPIC 1
He is known for his mathematics of the eye, theories of vision, ideas on the
visual perception of space, colour vision research, and on the sensation of
tone and perception of sound.
(d)
TOPIC 1
11
His ideas were influenced by Charles Darwin. In 1890, James published his
book, Principles of Psychology, in which he insisted that thoughts and
feelings exist and are vehicles of knowledge. Topics discussed in this book
includes the brain, habits of the mind, stream of thoughts, attention,
conception, sensation, perception, memory, imagination and reasoning.
James felt that mental processes are fluid and have a stream of
consciousness, which helps us adapt to our environment.
(f)
12
TOPIC 1
TOPIC 1
13
14
TOPIC 1
(ii)
TOPIC 1
15
1.2.2
The years from 1945 through 1960 were a period of rapid reform in experimental
psychology. The challenges to neo-behaviourism came both from within and
outside, nudging psychologists to move in a new direction. In order to deal with
practical concerns, psychologists were forced to think of human behaviour
differently. Just as 1879 marked the beginning of psychology, 1960 hailed the
launching of cognitive psychology.
Gestalt psychology started in Germany in the early 20th century and then the
emerging field of computer science in the second half of the century. Both Gestalt
psychology and information processing theory share the idea that the brain
interprets information rather than simply react to it. The information processing
approach focuses on the study of the structure and function of mental processing
within specific environmental contexts.
Copyright Open University Malaysia (OUM)
16
TOPIC 1
Other researchers in the area of intelligence study how human beings learn from
experience, reason well, remember important information and adapt to the
environment include Jean Piaget and Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky. Piagets
theory of cognitive development describes the process and stages by which we
acquire the ability to participate in abstract symbolic thought. Piagets theory is
often contrasted with the views of Jerome Bruner and Lev Vygotsky.
With the development of cognitive psychology, fields that appear unrelated such
as communications engineering and computer science contribute fascinating
ideas that are fundamental to emerging cognitive psychology. Cognitive
psychologists see humans as active participants who seek out, alter and shape
their experiences. They also use mental processes to transform information in the
course of their cognitive development. How people perceive event affects how
they respond to that event. The following sections discuss Gestalt psychology,
information processing perspective and some cognitive-developmental
viewpoints in detail.
(a)
Gestalt Psychology
Gestalt psychology made its appearance in Germany in 1910. The Gestalt
psychologists, notably Max Wertheimer (18801943), Kurt Koffka (1886
1941) and Wolfgang Khler (18871967), emphasised that individuals
perceive objects and patterns as whole units and that the perceived whole is
more than the sum of its parts. These three Gestalt psychologists are shown
in Figure 1.11.
(a)
(b)
(c)
Figure 1.11: (a) Max Wertheimer (18801943), (b) Kurt Koffka (18861941) and
(c) Wolfgang Khler (18871967)
Source: timerime.com
TOPIC 1
17
The German word gestalt roughly means whole, form or pattern. Gestalt
psychology began in 1910, with Max Wertheimers experiments on the phi
phenomenon, published in a paper entitled Experimental Studies on the
Perception of Movement. The continual pattern of flashing the lights on and
off gives an impression of a single light moving back and forth from one
position to another. To the Gestaltists, this is a proof that people perceive
patterns or wholes rather than separate sensations.
(b)
18
(c)
TOPIC 1
TOPIC 1
19
20
TOPIC 1
(ii)
(ii)
TOPIC 1
21
ACTIVITY 1.1
Form a study group. Summarise and highlight the contributions of
early psychologists (in the 19th century) to your understanding of
cognitive development and psychology.
22
1.3
TOPIC 1
1.3.1
1.3.2
TOPIC 1
1.3.3
23
1.3.4
24
1.3.5
TOPIC 1
1.3.6
TOPIC 1
25
ACTIVITY 1.2
Conduct a meta analysis on current theories on cognitive development.
Summarise the finding from your analysis. Discuss your finding in
light of your own observations of children in your neighbourhood.
Thinking about the nature of thought dates back to ancient thinkers such as
Plato (427347 BC), Aristotle (384322 BC), Homer (7th-century BC), Socrates
(470399 BC) and Descartes (15961650).
26
TOPIC 1
TOPIC 1
Abruptness assumption
Accuracy of performance
Memory
Attention
Mental representation
Cognitive themes
Meta-cognition
Coherent organisation
Modes of representation
Concept formation
Neo-Piagetian
Conceptually-driven processing
Perception
Concurrent assumption
Piagets legacy
Process model
Data-driven processing
Quality changes
Explicit memory
Response time
Gestalt psychology
Sociocultural theory
Implicit memory
Stage concept
27
28
TOPIC 1
Demetriou, A., Spanoudis, G., Shayer, M., Mouyi, A., Kazi, S., & Platsidou,
M. (2013). Cycles in speed-working memory-G relations: Towards a
developmental-differential theory of the mind. Intelligence, 41, 3450.
Flavell, J. H. (1971). Stage-related properties of cognitive development. Cognitive
Psychology, 2, 421 453.
Halford, G. S. (1987). A structure-mapping approach to cognitive development.
International Journal of Psychology, 22 (56), 609642.
James, W. (1890). The principles of psychology. Retrieved from
http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/j/james/william/principles/contents.html
Johnson, J., Im-Bolter, N., & Pascual-Leone, J. (2003). Development of mental
attention in gifted and mainstream children: The role of mental capacity,
inhibition and speed of processing. Child development, 74(6), 1594-1614.
Miller, P. H. (2004). Cognitive development: Here, there and everywhere.
Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 5, 461-492.
Pascual-Leone, J. (1987). Organismic processes for neo-Piagetian theories: A
dialectical causal account of cognitive development. International Journal of
Psychology, 22(56), 531570.
Toomela, A., & Valsiner, J. (Eds.) (2010). Methodological thinking in psychology:
60 years gone astray. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.
Schwartz, M., & Fischer, K. W. (2004). Building general knowledge and skill:
Cognition and microdevelopment in science learning. In A. Demetriou & A.
Raftopoulos (Eds.), Cognitive developmental change: Theories, models and
measurement. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Sternberg, R. (2003). Cognitive psychology (3rd ed.). Belmont, CA: Thomson
Wadsworth.
of Cognitive
Development
LEARNING OUTCOMES
By the end of this topic, you should be able to:
1.
2.
3.
4.
INTRODUCTION
Sometimes, we say or hear these statements: You have your fathers eyes,
Hes smart just like his parents, All my siblings can play instruments or sing,
we take after our mother.
Well, whether or not we have studied biology and genetics, it is natural for us to
associate our abilities and attributes to our parents, grandparents, siblings and
other relatives.
Now let us think about the people that we know and their children. How many
characteristics do the child or children share with their parents? Does one child
resemble both parents, while another resembles one particular parent or perhaps
neither? Apart from appearance, we may notice that children will take after their
parent(s) in terms of intelligence, personality, mental health and patterns of
behaviour.
30
TOPIC 2
Thus, this topic will discuss the relationship between biology and genetics with a
childs development. By learning this, we will get a better understanding on how
genes are passed on and how genes may be altered (for better or worse). In
addition, we will observe how nature (heredity) and nurture (environment) may
affect the development of the child. Last but not least, we will also explore
different theories on how it is possible for genes to affect a person from birth to
adulthood and how the brain develops.
2.1
BIOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS
2.1.1
Genetic inheritance may occur through sexual reproduction. Every human life
begins with the formation of a single cell during conception. When the fathers
sperm inseminates a mothers ovum they combine to create a new cell known
as a zygote (refer to Figure 2.1). This cell contains the biochemical material to
create a human being, in which 23 chromosomes from the sperm combine with
23 chromosomes from the ovum.
TOPIC 2
The process where a zygote replicates itself is called mitosis (see Figure 2.2).
31
32
TOPIC 2
The zygote divides itself into two cells, then the two will become four, four
becomes eight and so on. Before each division, the cell will duplicate its 46
chromosomes. These duplicated sets move in opposite directions, each having
identical 23 pairs of chromosomes (46 in total). This process creates billions of
cells that eventually form the muscles, bones, organs and the rest of the childs
body. Mitosis continues throughout life and allow for growth and recovery.
(a)
Genetic Code
Each sperm (fathers) and ovum (mothers) contains 23 chromosomes. A
normal person has a total of 46 chromosomes. All these chromosomes
function in pairs, except for sex chromosomes.
Researchers have identified 22 matching pairs of chromosomes known as
autosomes, numbered from longest (1) to shortest (22). The 23rd pair
consists of sex chromosomes.
In females, the pair is identified as XX, and in males it is called XY. The X
chromosome is relatively large, while the Y chromosome is short (see
Figure 2.3).
TOPIC 2
33
34
TOPIC 2
For those that are heterozygous, the following outcomes are possible:
(i)
Even if a person does not express a recessive trait, he/she may pass
on the trait. This person is known as a carrier.
Based on Figure 2.4, in recessive inheritance, where both parents have
brown eyes but are carriers of the gene for blue eyes (expressed Nn),
the following is likely:
One in four children will have brown eyes (NN) and will not
inherit the recessive gene for blue eyes;
Half of the children will become carriers (Nn) of the blue eyed
gene but will be seen as having brown eyes; and
One out of the four children will receive both recessive genes (nn)
and will appear to have blue eyes.
TOPIC 2
35
Codominance
The child may also fully express characteristics from both alleles. In
this case, the phenotype may compromise between two different
genes. For example, when the father has type-A blood type and the
mother has type-B blood, this may result in a child with type AB
blood.
To conclude, there are three possible outcomes in gene inheritance. They are:
(a)
(b)
The child will display a compromise between both parents genes (as in
skin colour); and
(c)
The child will fully express both parents genes (as in blood type).
SELF-CHECK 2.1
The mechanism for children to inherit their parents genes are set in
motion before a child is born. Briefly explain the following processes
and how they relate to heredity:
(a)
Conception; and
(b)
Mitosis.
36
2.1.2
TOPIC 2
We do realise that genes play a vital role in physical and mental development.
They are able to accomplish this by providing instructions to the body to create
certain cells or behave in certain ways. Genes affect which cells are part of the
brain, the central nervous system and circulatory system.
They instruct the production of amino acids, which form enzymes and other
proteins that help create new cells. For instance, the amount of melanin
production in the eye may affect eye colour. The gene may order for less pigment
to be produced for people with light eyes (blue or green), compared to those with
darker eyes (brown).
At the same time, the actions of the genes may be affected by the environment
(nurture). Genes do not decide or code human characteristics, instead they
may interact with the environment to produce proteins that influence a childs
traits.
For example, Ali has inherited the genes for being tall. However, he grows up in
a family with many children. Since he has to share the familys limited resources
including food, Ali does not have enough nourishment to grow to his full
potential. He ends up being of average or below average height, in spite of his
actual potential. This may also apply to children who grow up in better
conditions than their parents and grandparents. These children may end up
bigger and taller than older family members since they were given better
nutrition during the crucial stages of physical development.
Behavioural genetics focuses on the contributions of nature and nurture to
diversity in human traits and abilities. Certain traits are polygenic (affected by
many genes); this includes intelligence and personality. Researchers believe that
they are able to find out how much each factor (nature and nurture) contributes
to differences among children.
Kinship studies allow researchers to compare the characteristics of family
members and use this data to estimate the heritability of their traits. The most
common kinship studies are twin studies where they compare identical twins
(who share all their genes) and fraternal twins (who share some genes). It is also
common to study adopted children who have no genetic relation to their
adoptive parents. This allows researchers to test the nature versus nurture
concept.
TOPIC 2
37
Did you know that some portions of our IQ are inherited? Genes account for
almost half of the variation in our IQ scores. According to Robert Plomin and his
colleagues (1997), as children grow, genes seem to contribute more to individual
differences in IQ. Identical twins tend to show comparable intellectual
attainment.
During childhood, adopted childrens IQ correlated to both their biological as
well as adoptive parents IQ. By adolescence, childrens resemblance to biological
parents lingers, but adoptees intellectual performance become increasingly
different from their adoptive parents. This theory seems to support that as the
children get older, the genetic influence on cognitive development becomes
stronger.
(a)
38
TOPIC 2
Canalisation
Genes may also restrict the development of certain traits to one or a
few outcomes. The idea means that certain genotypes limit the
possible phenotypes in response to different environments. If a trait is
canalised, it will develop similarly in a different environment, and
only strong environmental forces may change it.
Motor development in babies tends to be strongly canalised, and
nearly all children will be able to sit up, crawl and walk. Most
children are also likely to develop linguistic ability at a certain age.
Intelligence and personality are usually less canalised and vary more
dramatically based on environment.
(ii)
TOPIC 2
39
40
TOPIC 2
Student B Fatin
(Tendency for average IQ)
Enriched
High IQ
High IQ
Normal
High IQ
Average IQ
Unstimulating
Low IQ
Low IQ
Environment
As shown in Table 2.1, students A (Azlin) and B (Fatin) may start off
with the same IQ score in an unstimulating environment. However,
Azlin (who has a tendency for higher IQ) may perform better than
Fatin (who has tendency for average IQ) in a normal or enriched
environment. It is also possible for Fatin, if raised in an enriched
environment, to have similar IQ scores to Azlin.
(b)
TOPIC 2
41
For example, children who are quiet and non-demanding may receive less
interaction and stimulation from their family because they seem content or
able to be by themselves. When they enter school, these children tend to
lack social and communication skills which makes it difficult to join the
other children in play and other activities. This would make them more
socially withdrawn or isolated.
Niche construction is a social and not an individual process. Reconsider the
quiet baby in the previous example. If the child had a parent or caregiver
who highly enjoyed spending time with the child and found the childs
passiveness as pleasant, the child would have someone who is willing to
spend more time with him/her. This would provide the child with the
stimulation required to learn the necessary communication skills. While the
child may still be socially reserved, he/she is equipped with the social skills
to interact appropriately with others.
This relates to another term, co-construction. The term co-construction is
used to describe how these niches are shaped and reshaped when a child
interacts with those around them family, teachers, neighbours and
friends.
ACTIVITY 2.1
Let say in the future, you manage to clone yourself and create a twin
version of yourself. As your clone twin grows older, your friends and
family point out that there are some differences between your twin and
you when you were that age. How would the twin be different from the
original donor (you)? Why would this difference in attributes and
behaviour exist?
2.1.3
Did you realise that some of the habits and behaviours people engage in are due
to tradition? We may eat with our hands or take off our shoes when we get home
due to cultural or societal practices. There are also behaviours that are due to
evolutionary cause. Almost all humans were born with the ability to walk
upright. This ability emerged when our ancestors developed a smaller pelvic
structure and larger brain size, compared to their predecessors.
42
TOPIC 2
Thus, the environment has always been the main threat to humans and animals.
Our ancestors had to survive different climates, natural disasters, changing food
supplies and various diseases. As proposed by Charles Darwin, species will often
adapt and evolve to ensure that we are able to survive these challenges.
The individuals phenotypes are more adaptive to environmental conditions.
They are more likely to survive and be reproduced in future generations. The
term survival of the fittest describes the fact that the odds of survival are greater
for species whose traits better fit the environment. Nature selects those who
are well adapted to the environment, by allowing them to survive and
reproduce. These adaptive traits which expand descendants survival chance
are passed on. On the other hand, maladaptive genes are likely to die out.
2.2
TOPIC 2
43
We will often inherit resources from our predecessors as well as their genes. It is
common for families to remain in the same area or geographically close to their
ancestors. The evolutionary potential to inherit any resource is present in the
following generations, which explains why each generation will resemble the
last.
One metaphor that is used to describe the DST is the computer program
metaphor. Just as how a computer may carry information to run processes, genes
may carry information to run the bodys functions. Data (genes) is required by all
processes, but data alone is helpless in creating an outcome. Genes are still in
control of the process, but have limited power. They still need enzymes to
execute these functions. However, one must be cautious not to oversimplify this
theory based on the mentioned metaphor.
Another metaphor that may be used is the blueprint and the building. The
blueprint will not specify what actual materials are required. However, they will
mention the specifications that must be satisfied in order to build the building.
During the building process what type of materials used may affect the structural
integrity of the building based on how well they satisfy the specifications.
Rather than replicators passing from one generation to the next and then
building inter-actors, the entire developmental process reconstructs itself from
one generation to the next through numerous interdependent causal pathways.
Each organism plays a part in the whole ecosystem and as a group they will
likely evolve together instead of a particular individual or population of
organisms evolving independently.
How does the developmental systems theory relate to the development of human
intelligence? It is likely that genes influence the basic structure for the brain.
Experience will instead influence how the circuitry of the brain is shaped. This
includes the electrical and chemical activities that occur before birth due to the
stimuli received by the mother. After birth, the childs brain circuitry is affected
by the information received through their own senses.
SELF-CHECK 2.2
The developmental systems theory can be likened to a computer
program. Do you agree with this statement? Justify your answer.
44
2.3
TOPIC 2
Before we can appreciate human cognition and mental processes, we must first
delve into its basic biological connection which is the brain. Every thought we
think, every emotion we feel, every sensation we receive, every decision we reach
and every move we make can be traced back to the tiniest functional unit of the
brain, the nerve cell or neuron.
2.3.1
Neuronal Development
The brain and the nervous system is a communication system and neurons are its
basic unit. All our thoughts, feelings and behaviours begin with the activity of
neurons the specialised cells that conduct impulses through the nervous
system. Neurons function to receive and transmit neural impulses. We have three
specialised neurons which perform the following tasks:
(a)
Afferent (sensory) neurons receive sensations from our sense organs and
receptors (eyes optic nerve; ears auditory nerve; nose olfactory nerve;
or skin tactile nerve) and send them to the brain or spinal cord.
(b)
Inter-neurons process the data between neurons in the brain and the spinal
cord. Perception is the process by which sensory information is actively
organised and interpreted by the brain (the process of giving it meaning).
We have to learn to perceive. For example, blind people whose sight has
been restored differ greatly in their ability to develop useful perception.
Seeing meaningful images does not come naturally to them.
(c)
Efferent (motor) neurons impart signals from the brain and spinal cord to
the glands and the muscles, enabling our body to move.
Electrical and chemical signals are transmitted from one neuron to another.
Produced in the neural tube, neurons migrate along pathways to major parts of
the brain. By the third trimester of pregnancy, some 100 to 200 billion neurons
have already been formed.
TOPIC 2
45
Neurons will take the form of the areas of the brain that they migrate to. Neurons
that migrate to the visual area of the brain become visual neurons and neurons
that migrate to the part of the brain that controls hearing become auditory
neurons. The following Table 2.2 describes the basic structure of a neuron.
Table 2.2: Basic Structure of a Neuron
Structure
Function
Cell body
Axon
A long fibre that carries messages away from the cell body to
other cells.
Dendrites
Receive messages from other cells and transfer them to the cell
body.
Synapses
Neurotransmitters
Myelin
The following Figure 2.5 shows you the structure of a neuron graphically.
46
TOPIC 2
Glial cells produce myelin that form sheaths around individual neurons. This
may act as an insulator to speed up the transmission of neural impulses. This
allows the brain to communicate more efficiently with different parts of the body.
Myelinated fibres which fire more rapidly are less sensitive to stimulation and
have more specialised functions.
Myelinisation occurs chronologically and at different rates for different areas
of the brain. This process occurs prenatally for the sensory system. This may
explain why children have advanced sensory abilities long before they can speak.
When the neural pathways between the brain and skeletal muscles myelinate,
their motor capabilities improve. They learn to roll over, sit, stand, walk and
eventually run. Most motor areas will be completely myelinated before the child
reaches two years of age.
However, some areas of the brain do not completely myelinate until the mid to
late teens or early adulthood. For example, the frontal cortex and reticular
formation (which allow us to pay attention for a longer time) are not fully
myelinated at puberty. This may explain why children may have shorter
attention spans than teenagers or adults.
Myelinisation enhances the efficiency between emotive subcortical areas and the
regulatory prefrontal cortical areas of the brain. These are the areas that help
children to process and respond to social and emotional cues. As a result, they
may be more sensitive to expression of fear and disapproval from others.
Children are also able to monitor their own emotional reactions in a better way.
TOPIC 2
47
Three-year-old Nick discards the gift and looks for the next present to
unwrap.
Six-year-old Sara pauses and says thank you before moving on to the next
gift.
Neural development can be divided into three stages. These stages are explained
in Table 2.3.
Table 2.3: Three Stages of Neural Development
Stage
Description
Stage I: Proliferation
or neurogenesis
Stage III:
Differentiation or
cyto-differentiation
48
2.3.2
TOPIC 2
Synapse formation occurs rapidly in the months following birth (see Figure 2.6).
The peak of synapse varies in different areas of the brain. Synapse formation in
the visual cortex begins at three months of age and peaks between four and
12 months. The prefrontal cortex may begin developing around the same time
but only peaks at 24 months of age.
Babies may have more synapses and neurons than they need and synaptic
pruning may begin. Selective cell death or apoptosis may occur at different rates
for different parts of the brain. The adult density of synapses for the visual cortex
is attained around two to four years of age, while the prefrontal cortex may
continue its growth into the teen or adult years.
TOPIC 2
49
Approximate Weight
Birth
350 grams
25%
6 months
700 grams
50%
2 years
1050 grams
75%
5 years
1260 grams
90%
10 years
1330 grams
95%
The last three prenatal months and the first two years after birth is a period of
brain growth spurt. Between seven months to one year of age, the brain weight
increases about 1.7 grams a day.
The newborns brain is able to direct basic functions such as breathing and
wake/sleep cycles yet unable to control coordinated movement and mental
operations.
50
2.3.3
TOPIC 2
What is neocortex?
Neocortex or cerebrum is a multi-layered sheet of neurons that surrounds the
brain.
It is the part of the brain primarily responsible for higher mental processes such
as language, memory and thinking. In addition, it is divided into different
regions, displayed in Figure 2.7.
The primary regions include the frontal lobe, temporal lobe, occipital lobe and
parietal lobe. They are further divided into the sensory regions (hearing, sight
and bodily sensation), association regions (thought and consciousness, visual
cortex, auditory cortex) and motor regions (body movement and coordination).
Secondary areas include regions that integrate information and have many
connections with other areas of the brain.
TOPIC 2
51
(b)
(c)
The parietal lobe contains the somatosensory cortex which registers and
processes touch, pressure, temperature and pain sensation. The occipital lobe
contains the primary visual cortex which processes visual information.
As for the temporal lobe, it contains:
(a)
(b)
(c)
Association areas where memories are stored and auditory stimuli are
interpreted.
A persons brain function and structure may change according to age. These will
cause changes in cognition and behaviour which may be observed in various
stages of life. The first areas to mature are the primary motor areas and the
primary sensory areas. By six months of age, the cerebral area is developed to the
point where it can direct most of the babys movements.
During adolescence, changes occur in the brain which may relate to their major
change in behaviour and thinking. The frontal lobe is most affected which may
decrease in relative size at this time. There may also be changes in distribution of
neurotransmitters which decrease in the frontal cortex and limbic system, an area
associated with emotion.
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2.3.4
TOPIC 2
TOPIC 2
53
Though they may seem identical, the left and right cerebral hemispheres serve
different functions, as indicated in Table 2.5. Scientists continue to explore how
some cognitive functions are dominated by one hemisphere or the other.
Table 2.5: Functions of the Brain Hemispheres
Hemisphere
Functions
Left hemisphere
Right hemisphere
Have you ever heard the term brain plasticity? What does it mean?
Brain plasticity is the ability of the brain to change as a result of learning and
experience.
A highly plastic brain is able to form new synapses. It is also able to take over a
function intended for a different part of the nervous system. An immature or
young brain is highly plastic.
An immature plastic brain is slow and inefficient because its neurons are
not fully myelinated yet. This may explain why younger children process
information slower than older children. Older children and adults are able to
process information automatically and without conscious awareness. In fact,
young children must work harder to obtain the same results as older children.
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TOPIC 2
SELF-CHECK 2.3
Tick () the hemisphere (left or right) which controls the following
specialised abilities:
Specialised Ability
Hemisphere
Left
Right
TOPIC 2
55
When the fathers sperm inseminates a mothers ovum they combine to create
a new cell known as a zygote which contains the biochemical material to
create a human being.
Genes are the basic units of heredity. They contain the instructions of the
physical traits and behavioural and psychological traits.
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TOPIC 2
The term co-construction is used to describe how these niches are affected by
how the individual interacts with the environment.
DST suggests that both nature and nurture are important causal factors and it
is impossible to look at them separately. It emphasises the life cycle generated
through the interaction of a developing organism with its environment.
The computing metaphor purports that genes are the carriers of information
but have limited power and still rely on enzymes to execute our bodily
function.
The blueprint and building metaphor suggests that the genes provide the
specification but the environment determines what materials are used to
build the building (the organism).
All our mental processes and behaviours begin with the activity of neurons,
specialised cells that receive, process and transmit impulses through the
nervous system.
Glial cells produce myelin that form sheaths around individual neurons
that protect and insulate axons. Myelinisation occurs chronologically and at
different rates for different areas of the brain. Myelinisation enhances the
efficiency between emotive subcortical areas and the regulatory prefrontal
cortical areas of the brain.
Brain plasticity refers to the extent new synapse can be formed and different
parts of the brain are able to take over a function intended for a different part
of the nervous system.
TOPIC 2
Alleles
Heterozygous
Axons
Homozygous
Behavioural genetics
Migration
Canalisation
Mitosis
Chromosome
Myelinisation
Co-construction
Natural selection
Dendrites
Neocortex
Neurons
Differentiation
Phenotype
Dominant allele
Plasticity
Genes
Proliferation
Recessive allele
Heredity
Synapses
57
Berk, L. E. (2013). Child development (9th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.
Bjorklund, D. F. (2011). Childrens thinking: Developmental function and
individual differences (5th ed.). Belmont CA: Wadsworth.
Gottesman, I. I. (1963). Genetic aspects of intelligent behavior. In N. R. Ellis (Ed.),
Handbook of mental deficiency (253296). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
Plomin, R., Fulker, D. W., Corley, R., & DeFries, J. C. (1997). Nature, nurture and
cognitive development from 1 to 16 years: A parent-offspring adoption
study. Psychological Science, 8, 442447.
Scarr, S., & McCartney, K. (1983). How people make their own environments: A
theory of genotype-environment effects. Child Development, 54, 42435.
Topic Sociocultural
Perspectives of
Cognitive
Development
LEARNING OUTCOMES
By the end of this topic, you should be able to:
1.
2.
3.
4.
INTRODUCTION
Let us begin this topic with a scenario.
Muzani was hardly three years old when we returned to Pasir Putih
to celebrate hari raya that year. As he chased the chickens in the yard,
he repeated bird bird. Fly bird! Fly bird! All the chickens
flapped their wings and scuttled off in all directions. Mama, why
arent the birds flying? Muzani had grown up in the city, in which he
had seen a lot of birds perched on the trees, roof, grass, almost
everywhere. Each time he tried to approach these birds, they would
fly off before he could reach them. When he sees the chickens
roaming in the village, he tries to apply the bird schema to the
chickens but it does not work. He thus had to adapt his bird schema
to include the characteristics of the chicken, a process described by
Piaget as accommodation.
Copyright Open University Malaysia (OUM)
TOPIC 3
59
3.1
Jean Piaget (18961980) discovered that younger children are just as intelligent as
older children, adolescents and adults. They merely think in ways that are
qualitatively different from those who are older than them. Children of the same
ages tend to reason and make the same wrong answers. Piaget concluded that
there were some age-related patterns in the way children interpreted the world.
Piagets theory is viewed as a constructivist approach to cognitive development.
According to this approach, children expand their understanding of the world
through discoveries from personal activities and experiences. Each child needs a
broad range of experience with the environment in order to achieve optimum
cognitive development. Cognition is also influenced by physical development
and maturation. In addition, cognition progresses in identical order of stages for
every child.
3.1.1
60
(a)
What is a Schema?
Piaget describes a schema as the simplest form of concept or mental image
that helps a child to understand objects, actions, events, situations, ideas
or perceptions. It can be discrete and specific or sequential and elaborate.
Piaget (1953) defined three main forms of schemata (plural of schema).
These are explained in Table 3.1.
TOPIC 3
Description
Behavioural
Symbolic
Operational
Babies early schemata are built from their reflex actions. These schemata
gradually grow into sensorimotor actions. With language acquisition,
toddlers shift from sensorimotor-based schemata to those based on
symbolic images. Symbolic-based schemata are mental representations,
which are easier for the mind to manipulate, cluster and categorise based
on similarities of objects, events or ideas.
A childs level of cognitive development is related to the increase in the
number and complexity of the schemata that he or she has learnt. Schemata
are stored as mental representations in the childs mind. They are applied
when needed, to make sense of the world and to respond to situations.
(b)
TOPIC 3
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There are two major principles that guide cognitive development namely
adaptation and organisation. Adaptation entails two complementary
actions which are assimilation and accommodation:
(i)
(ii)
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TOPIC 3
3.1.2
(ii)
TOPIC 3
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TOPIC 3
(v)
TOPIC 3
65
Description
Symbolic function
Intuitive thought
Mental Representation
The acquisition of language enables the preoperational child to
communicate their thoughts in symbolic form using words. For
example, they can now sort objects according to criteria, such as types
of animals or flowers. The ability for mental representation also
expands their ability to talk about objects which are not present in the
immediate environment.
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TOPIC 3
(ii)
Imaginary Play
In imaginary play, preoperational children can use one object to
symbolise another. For example, two-year-old children and older will
use far less realistic objects such as a block to signify a hotdog,
whereas children aged 18 months will only use realistic-looking toy
telephone in their imaginary play.
Preoperational children also use symbols in fantasy play, in which
they pretend to be something they are not (like a cat or a bird) or to
engage in fantasy activities (like a teddy bear reading them a story).
For Piaget, imaginary play allows them to practice and reinforce
their newly acquired schemas. The types of imaginary play children
indulge in reveal their degree of mental representation.
Children who spend more time on imaginary play are advanced in
general intellectual development and have better skills in making
friends with other children of the same age. Nonetheless, they are
still egocentric and have difficulties seeing things from different
perspectives.
TOPIC 3
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Animistic Thinking
What is animistic thinking?
Animistic thinking is the conviction that inanimate objects are
alive. They have feelings and can think.
For example, when they trip on a log, they scold the log for pushing
them and making them fall. Childrens animistic thinking is closely
linked with their egocentric view, which leads to believe that nonliving objects have life, like themselves.
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TOPIC 3
TOPIC 3
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(vii) Classification
What does classification mean?
Classification is the ability to group objects together into sets on
the basis of common features such as sound, appearance, colour,
shape and size.
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TOPIC 3
TOPIC 3
71
in third group (by shape only). Otherwise they may put the large
triangles, squares and circles in one group and the small triangles,
squares and circles in another group (by size only).
(viii) Transductive Reasoning
What does transductive reasoning mean?
Transductive reasoning is the tendency to rationalise from one
particular event to another particular event.
Young children at nursery link together two events that occur in time
and space in a cause and effect fashion. For example, a child looking
at a balloon, reasons; My ball is round. That thing there is round.
Therefore, that thing is a ball. Extensive experiences with varied
objects and the opportunity to compare and contrast them can benefit
young children in refining their understanding of objects in their
environment.
(c)
Conservation
Children in the concrete operational stage are able to conserve. They
can focus on several aspects of a task at once and link them. For
example, children now know that the amount of water in a tall and
narrow glass remains the same, even when poured into a short and
wide glass. They realise that no matter what shape of glass or
container the water is poured into, its amount does not reduce or
increase. Their ability to conserve is related to improvement in their
cognition which consists of:
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(ii)
TOPIC 3
Hierarchical Classification
What does hierarchical classification mean?
Hierarchical classification is the ability to simultaneously organise
objects into classes and subclasses.
TOPIC 3
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Then we have idealism and criticism and decision making related to abstract
thinking. They are explained as follows:
(a)
Idealism and Criticism: With the capacity for abstract thinking, adolescents
become more uncompromising with the standards. Their perfectionism and
critique cause them to work harder to bring about social change which
benefits everyone.
(b)
ACTIVITY 3.1
Create your own research group. Conduct a research on five, six, nine
and ten-year-olds on the conservation tasks listed in Figure 3.3. What
do the children think? Compare your answers. Do younger children
have different understanding of the tasks, compared to older children?
Explain.
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TOPIC 3
SELF-CHECK 3.1
Identify the stage in (choose between A to D) which children/
adolescents acquire the following cognitive abilities:
3.2
A.
B.
C.
Sensorimotor stage
D.
Preoperational stage
1.
Hypothetico-deductive reasoning
2.
Hierarchical classification
3.
Reversibility
4.
Object permanence
5.
Egocentrism
6.
Spatial representation
Lev Semanovich Vygotsky (1978) highlighted the effect of social and cultural
contexts on childrens thinking. According to him, children are born with the
basic perceptual and retention capabilities that improve during the first two
years, as they interact with their social environment. They hear as people talk
around them or to them. As children attend to the social interactions around
them, they stumble upon mental structures from their culture.
According to Vygotskys sociocultural theory, all cognitive functions occur at
two levels; the social plane and the psychological plane. Any function begins
as a social interaction between the child and others around him or her. This
interaction is then internalised through private speech. This process occurs
continuously and becomes more complex over time.
In other words, learning first occurs between the child and the expert (teacher,
parent or older sibling), then within the child. When children are learning
new concepts or difficult tasks, they often rely on the support of private speech.
This involves an internalisation process. What does internalisation mean?
Internalisation is the process by which an external activity is transformed
through speech into an internal activity and performed mentally.
Copyright Open University Malaysia (OUM)
TOPIC 3
3.2.1
77
Loud self-talk;
(b)
(c)
Private speech helps children regulate their focus as they think through and
organise their problem-solving strategies. As they master a concept, they need
less and less private speech. Eventually they internalise it completely as silent
inner speech.
Private speech appears occasionally after the cognitive structure has been
internalised. This happens when they are working on a difficult task or when
they are confused about how to proceed or if they make a mistake on a task.
3.2.2
There are two levels of mental functions: elementary and higher mental
functions. Elementary functions, such as hunger and sensing are inborn, thus do
not need to be learnt. Meanwhile, higher mental functions, such as language,
require training. The shift from elementary to higher mental functions is enabled
through cultural tools, such as symbols.
The culture and society define what is important to learn and how it is learnt.
Knowledge and cognition is viewed as a socially shared product of dynamic
interactions between individuals within the group rather than an individual one.
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(a)
TOPIC 3
ZPD refers to the range of problems children can solve when they are given
some assistance. Within this zone, each child has an individual range of
potential for learning and completing a variety of tasks they cannot do on
their own, but can succeed when they are facilitated by others who are
more skilled.
At any point within the ZPD, there are three possible levels of ability:
(i)
Below the lower boundary of the ZPD is the most difficult tasks a
child can do on his or her own, without assistance;
(ii)
(iii) Above the upper boundary of the ZPD are tasks a child cannot do, no
matter how much support is given.
The tasks within this zone entail mental functions that the child is in the
process of internalising but has not fully mastered. This zone is dynamic.
The potential level of learning for a child keeps sliding up throughout
life with every new attainment of skill. Thus, the final destination of a
development is never reached as the childs attainment keeps moving to the
next level.
For example, a child who has just learnt to stand up, cannot walk. With an
adults help, the child is able to take a number of steps, but not run. With
daily assistance and practice, the child eventually learns how to walk. Now
the ability to walk that used to be within the childs ZPD is below it. This
means that the child can now walk without help. In addition, running has
fallen within the childs ZPD.
What eventually happens within a supportive environment is an
achievement of a skill that is far beyond a childs age-expected development.
TOPIC 3
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(ii)
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TOPIC 3
For example, a child who has just begun to read will initially display
marginal participation in the activity. As he or she begins to decode
and recall the sounds of each letter, his or her participation builds up
and its quality transforms. He or she begins to name specific letters
and even spot simple words in the environment. With increased
mastery of reading, he or she becomes a more active participant, such
as reading simple books on his or her own.
(iii) Collaborative Learning It is a natural outgrowth of Vygotskys
theory. In collaborative learning, parents and teachers promote
childrens cognitive development by providing them with
opportunities to team up to work on projects, create ideas and think in
ways that an individual child would not achieve alone.
They help each other solve problems by sharing information,
competences and strategies as they work together. Collaborative
learning experiences which occur within childrens ZPD facilitate
their mastery of the sociocultural cognition.
(iv) Reciprocal Teaching In reciprocal teaching, a collaborative group
which is made up of a teacher and a few children who take turns
speaking. The group members use four cognitive strategies in
reciprocal teaching: inquiring, reviewing, explaining and forecasting.
Reciprocal teaching generates a ZPD in which children increasingly
learn to scaffold each others progress. Childrens cognitive skills
show more advancement when their collaborator is either an expert
peer or an adult.
(v)
TOPIC 3
3.2.3
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3.3
3.3.1
Fischer describes his view of stages in the following four major stages or tiers (see
Table 3.3).
Table 3.3: Fischers Four Major Stages
Stage
Description
Tier of reflexes
Sensorimotor tier
Representational tier
Abstract tier
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3.3.2
TOPIC 3
Each tier consists of four levels which overlap between each tier. The top level in
each tier is also the first level of the next tier. Therefore, the total number of levels
is 13, not 16. Each tier indicates an evolutionary set of potential human skills.
Each tier yields a much more complex set of outcomes than the previous tier (see
Table 3.4).
Table 3.4: Fischers Level of Cognitive Development
Level
Description
Level of single
sets
Level of
mappings
Level of
systems
Level of
systems of
systems
Fischer uses the following examples to illustrate the various structures in each
tier:
(a)
(b)
(c)
TOPIC 3
(d)
83
Fischers theory places an emphasis on the environmental and social rather than
individual factors as causes of development. Fischer accepts Vygotskys zone
of proximal development in which childrens potential for understanding and
problem solving is always greater than actual ability. Scaffolding from more
competent adults or peers and internalisation can progressively transform this
potential into actual skill or ability. Fischer believes that childrens true level
(a ceiling for all domains) can be determined in a condition in which they are
completely at ease and provided with seamless scaffolding.
According to dynamic skill theory, high support contexts can yield optimal
performance (best response level based on each childs level of cognitive
development). Functional performance yields a just enough to get by level
of responses which does not represent the childs peak level of cognitive
development. Since the optimal and the functional levels are both equally
pertinent in assessing childrens cognitive development, it is necessary for us to
map each childs developmental range, and assess accordingly (Fischer & Bidell,
2006).
ACTIVITY 3.2
Fischers dynamic skill theory merges Piagets stages with concepts
from Vygotskys theory, brain organisation and skill construction.
What aspect of cognitive development Fischer has handpicked from
each theory? What elements has he added in his theory to explain the
dynamic nature of cognition?
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TOPIC 3
TOPIC 3
Abstract tier
Operational
Accommodation
Organisation
Adaptation
Assimilation
Preoperational stage
Behavioural
Private speech
Collaborative learning
Psychological plane
Reciprocal teaching
Cooperative learning
Reflex actions
Disequilibrium
Representational tier
Equilibrium
Fishers dynamic skill theory
Formal operational stage
Guided participation
Inter-subjectivity
Level of mappings
Level of systems
Level of systems of systems
Levels of single sets
Make-believe play
Scaffolding
Schemata
Sensorimotor stage
Sensorimotor tier
Social plane
Stages
Symbolic
Tier of reflexes
Vygotskys sociocultural theory
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TOPIC 3
Topic Information
Processing
Approach to
Cognitive
Development
LEARNING OUTCOMES
By the end of this topic, you should be able to:
1.
2.
INTRODUCTION
In Topic 3, we have discussed the influence of Piaget and Vygotsky on the
theories of cognitive development. Piaget saw children as active agents in
their own development, constantly constructing knowledge and changing their
cognitive structures to better understand the world.
Vygotsky, on the other hand, highlighted the social and cultural influences
on childrens cognitive development. Children internalise cultural values and
problem-solving strategies through interaction with more skilful partners,
acquired within their zone of proximal development.
88
However, the limitations of these two theories have led many scholars to seek a
better approach in understanding human cognition. Thus, this topic presents a
discussion on the acquisition of cognition from the perspectives of the
information processing system. The information processing perspectives explain
cognitive development in terms of maturational changes in basic components of
a childs mind.
The information processing perspectives address how as children mature, their
brains progress, leading to improved ability to process data obtained through
their senses. They emphasise continuous cognitive development.
4.1
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)
(f)
(g)
4.1.1
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How is our mind similar to a computer? Almost half a century ago (in 1968),
Richard Atkinson and Richard Shiffrin have developed a multi-store model of
the information processing system. But, the idea of memory stores has been
initiated more than a century ago by William James. James (1890) termed
primary memory as thoughts held for a short time in consciousness and
secondary memory as a permanent unconscious store.
Atkinson-Shiffrins multi-store model explains how memory processes
information. It states that our memory has three components which comprises a
sensory register, a working memory or short-term store and a long-term store.
The multi-store model will be described in detail later in Topic 7.
According to the information processing perspective, both the computer and our
mind process information. The computer gives us some clue about the
unobservable processes that goes on in the human mind. Both the mind and
computer have limited capacity for processing information.
Like the computer, our mind has a hardware and software. Our minds hardware
comprises of the brain, the sensory receptors and their neural connections. How
about the software? Our minds software includes rules, strategies and other
mental programmes that register, interpret, store, retrieve and analyse data.
Yet, the fantastic digital computer does not come close to explain our miraculous
human mind. At best, the analogy to the computer merely gives a broad
framework of how our mind works.
For example, a simple action of seeing an object entails an intricate processing of
millions of cells. The light waves which register the image travel through the
cornea, iris, pupil, lens, rods/cones on the retina. They are then converted into
neural impulses that pass through the bipolar cells, optic nerve, optic chiasm,
ganglion cells in the thalamus and lateral geniculate nucleus to the primary
visual cortex. All these processes occur in one millisecond. Even the full capacity
of a supercomputer cannot be equated with the complexity of a seemingly simple
visual system. In fact, the retina alone contains 100 million cones (for colour
sensation) and seven million rods (for visual acuity).
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There are four major assumptions in the information processing approach. These
assumptions are listed in Table 4.1.
Table 4.1: Four Major Assumptions in the Information Processing Approach
Assumption
Thinking
Analysis
stimuli
Description
The thinking process includes perception of the stimuli, encoding the
same and storing the data.
of
Situational
modification
Obstacle
evaluation
4.1.2
(a)
91
Mental Power
A well-researched construct that Pascual-Leone proposed is mental power.
What does mental power mean?
Mental power refers to the maximum number of information units
children can hold in mind at one time in order to visualise their
connections or use to solve a problem.
The available mental power is shared by two kinds of schema. They are:
(b)
(i)
(ii)
Interrupt Operator
Mental power functions together with the interrupt operator; the central
inhibition process that enables children to focus on the current task. It
turns off schemata unrelated to the task. In doing so, it ensures that the
existing mental power is used as efficiently as possible.
The two operators work together to maximise mental attention. This
enables the child to engage fully on a specific task by ignoring other
unrelated stimuli. The progress in childrens information processing
capacity is due to the progress in their mental capacity and mental
concepts.
What does mental capacity mean? Mental capacity is the amount and type
of data that can be processed at any given time, such as working memory.
How about mental concepts? What do they represent? Mental concepts are:
(i)
(ii)
92
4.1.3
Unlike Pascual-Leone, Case believed that not all children develop in every
domain at the same time. The capacity of childrens processing system sets the
limits for the kind and the complexity of the cognitive structures they can
construct at a given age. His theory consists of:
(a)
(ii)
93
(b)
Description
Sensorimotor
structures
(1 to 1 years)
Inter-relational
structures (1 to
5 years)
Dimensional
structures
(5 to 11 years)
Vectorial
structures
(11 to 19 years)
Sequence of Complexity
Within each of the four structures, cognitive development evolves along a
sequence of complexity (see Figure 4.1).
94
Figure 4.1: Sequence of complexity within stages in the executive control structures
Source: http://psysc613.wikispaces.com/Neo-Piagetian+Theory
Description
Operational
consolidation
Unifocal
coordination
Bifocal
coordination
Children can attend to two factors at a time. The child can now
hold a ball in his or her left hand while eating with his or her
right hand.
Elaborated
coordination
95
Cognitive Changes
There are three factors contributing to cognitive changes. They are listed in
Table 4.3.
Table 4.3: Three Factors Contributing to Cognitive Changes
Factor
(d)
Description
Brain
development
Habituation of
schemata
Formation of
central
conceptual
structures
96
4.1.4
Developmental Model
Commons developmental model accounts for two aspects of behaviours:
(i)
(ii)
The model discriminates the task from the performance. The participants
developmental stage is based on his or her performance on a task of a given
order of hierarchical complexity. Less complex tasks must be attained
before more complex tasks can be acquired.
(b)
Dimensions of Tasks
What can you say to define tasks? Tasks are sequences of possibilities, each
presenting stimuli and requiring action or a sequence of actions that
transpire systematically. Properties of tasks (stimuli or the relationship
among stimuli) and behaviours are different. Responses to tasks are
measured and analysed. Behaviours are examined based on the complexity
of the task (Commons & Miller, 2001).
97
One major basis for this developmental theory is task analysis. How well an
individual performs a task depends on:
(i)
(ii)
(ii)
These axioms make it possible for MHCs application to meet real world
requirements. In MHC, there are three axioms to meet in order for the
higher order task to coordinate the next lower order task. These axioms are:
(i)
98
(ii)
(iii) Order of Definition: The order of the organising action and what it
acts upon in the chain is fixed. The ordering must be non-arbitrary.
The MHC is consistent with the information processing perspectives of
cognitive development. These perspectives assert that advancement to higher
stages or levels of cognitive development is produced by enhanced processing
efficiency and working memory capacity. That is, higher-order stages put higher
demands on these functions of information processing. Thus, their sequence of
development indicates the information processing potentials at consecutive ages.
4.1.5
Architecture of Mind
According to Demetriou, our mind is organised in three functional levels
which comprise two levels of knowing processes (an environment-oriented
level and a self-oriented level), as well as a level defined by processing
potentials:
(i)
(ii)
99
Description
Speed of
processing
Control of
processing
Reaction time
to situations
(b)
Developmental Dynamics
Firstly, let us examine developmental causality. Have you ever heard this
term? What does it mean?
Developmental causality is a synergic force in which change can begin
from any of the three fundamental levels of mind and can spread to the
two other levels.
In other words, the systems are attuned to each other. Any change in any of
them affects others. The direction of change is determined by the system
that changes first. It will draw the other systems in the path towards which
it has changed.
All the processes mentioned previously advance with age. The speed of
processing expands steadily from early childhood to middle age and it
then begins to decline again. For example, six-year-old children take about
750 milliseconds to identify a simple object which an adult takes only
450 milliseconds to do so.
Control of processing and executive control also improve with age. This
improvement allows children to attend to more complex data, focus
for a longer time and process more stimuli and responses alternately
while filtering out irrelevant information. For example, a stimulus with
conflicting data which takes 2000 milliseconds for a six-year-old child to
recognise, may take a young adult 750 milliseconds to recognise.
All components of working memory increase with age, but its exact
capacity fluctuates with the type of data. For example, in the spatial
domain, it differs from three units for six-year-olds to five units for 12-yearolds. In the mathematical concept, it varies from about two units for sixyear-olds to about four units for 12-year-olds.
Demetriou and his colleagues (2010a; 2010b) employed the functional shift
model to explain these differences: When the mental units of a given level
reach a maximum degree of complexity, the mind tends to reorganise these
units at a higher level of representation, making them more manageable.
For example, in the verbal domain, the focus shifts from words to
sentences. Once a new mental unit is created, the mind prefers to work with
the new unit, instead of the prior less efficient units. The functional shift
model explains how new units are created causing an advancement in
stage.
4.1.6
Graeme Halford believed that children are very organised, intelligent and
adaptive. They have the ability to absorb a huge amount of data from their
environment, represent it and utilise it to build problem-solving skills.
In addition, he explained why children understand things the way they do. He
talked about how they use that understanding to reason, develop problemsolving strategies, organise memories and boost learning.
Halford (1993) identified five essential properties of childrens understanding.
These properties are explained in the following Table 4.5.
Table 4.5: Five Essential Properties of Childrens Understanding
Property
Description
Representation
Generality
Generativity
Guidance of
skills
Organisation of
information
(b)
(c)
(d)
The higher-level rules are more abstract and flexible. They are less dependent
on specific properties of each task and are more transferable. However, they
also impose higher information processing demands. Children who lack the
information processing capacity for a particular level of structure mapping will
be able to attain concepts that belong to that level.
The theory is used to predict the characteristic age of attainment of cognitive
tasks including transitivity, classification, interpretation of algebraic expressions,
analogies, logical reasoning and hypothesis testing. It is argued that the fourstructure mapping levels can subsume the four main stages of cognitive
development (Halford, 1987).
4.1.7
Description
Verballinguistic
intelligence
Logicalmathematical
intelligence
Spatialvisual
intelligence
Bodilykinaesthetic
intelligence
Musical
intelligence
Interpersonal
intelligence
Intrapersonal
intelligence
Naturalist
intelligence
Existential
intelligence
SELF-CHECK 4.1
Examine the following statements and tick if they are true or false.
Statement
True
According to Pascual-Leone, the mental power of a 10year-old can hold in mind at one time in order to solve a
problem is six units of data.
A childs executive control structure for problem solving
comprises of identifying the problem, aims of problem
solving and a basic strategy necessary to settle the
problem.
According to Case, when reading a story book, a fouryear-old child is able to use dimensional structures to
coordinate several ideas in the story.
Michael Commons believed that using hierarchical
complexity, a number of lower order actions can be
combined to form the next stage of behaviours task.
Demetriou organised the mind in three functional levels:
(a)
(b)
(c)
False
4.2
DEVELOPMENT OF STRATEGIES
Let us start this subtopic with memory strategies. What do they mean?
Memory strategies are ways in which we organise the data that we are
processing so as to heighten our future recall of the data.
The use of memory strategies varies in both types of strategies used as well as the
effectiveness of the strategies used across different age groups.
Developmental theorists once believed that before children enter formal
schooling, they were astrategic. What does it mean? It means that children
were not capable of using any strategies in solving problems. However, later
research reveals that children are capable of using various forms of memories.
Siegler and his colleagues formulated the adaptive model of strategy choice to
describe childrens multiple strategy use and how strategies change over time.
He believed that a range of strategies is present within a childs cognitive
repertoire at any one time. These strategies compete with each other for use.
Sometimes, one strategy will win and at other times, another strategy will win.
With age, experience and enhanced information processing skills, more
sophisticated strategies are chosen. Thus, the min strategy tends to replace the
sum strategy. Later on, the decomposition and fact retrieval strategies replace
min strategy. However, for new tasks and less familiar tasks, children tend to
regress to the older, less sophisticated strategies.
4.2.1
However, Siegler did not think that strategy development is not a simple matter
of forsaking older, less sophisticated strategies for newer, more powerful ones.
Rather, multiple strategies coexist in a childs mind and old strategies never
die. They merely lie in wait for an opportunity to be used when newer, more
preferred strategy is not quite adequate for a task.
Therefore, Siegler did not see strategies progressing in a stage-like manner in
which older strategies are completely replaced by newer and more advanced
strategies. Rather, they are acquired in a series of overlapping waves.
In addition, Siegler noticed that children try out diverse strategies on many types
of problems. These include games, memory for lists of items, basic mathematical
facts, numerical estimation, conversation, spelling, reading first words and
telling time.
4.2.2
Development of Strategies
Preschool children cannot tell apart memory from perception. They use a few
simple strategies for remembering. In order to remember objects, they tend to
verbally name or visually inspect items. For example, to locate objects in hideand-seek games, eighteen to thirty-six-month-old children use simple strategies
to solve their problems. When told to remember where Big Bird was hidden so
that they can later wake him up from his nap, these children try to remember by
constantly eyeing or pointing to its hiding place (DeLoache, 1986).
Their use of memory strategies may be more consistent if they are taught to use
them and constantly reminded to use them each time they need to remember
things. For example, three and four-year-olds applied a range of likely strategies
(Henry & Norman, 1996). With practice, they became more efficient, that is, made
fewer moves to fill an order.
Strategy use for basic mathematical facts and other types of problems follow
a similar pattern. Childrens strategy use has a tendency to progress in the
following order:
(a)
An inaccurate method;
(b)
(c)
Even children as young as two years old demonstrate the same sequence when
they solve uncomplicated problems, such as how to use a tool to obtain an out-ofreach toy (Siegler, DeLoache & Eisenberg, 2010). While examining strategies,
children check out which work best and which are useless.
Children eventually choose the min strategy (a strategy which minimises the
task) on the basis of two adaptive criteria: accuracy and speed. As children
identify useful strategies, they discover more about the tasks at hand. The
solutions they choose are associated with the existing nature of the tasks.
For example, when six-year-old Haziq handles mathematical questions, his
strategies vary. Now and again he guesses, without using any strategy.
Occasionally, he uses the sum strategy in which he counts from one using his
fingers. For example, for the question 3 + 4, he puts up three fingers and then
four more. He then counts one by one as he calls out, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7! Often, he
starts with the lower digit, 3, and counts on (3, 4, 5, 6, 7!). Or he applies the min
strategy, beginning with the higher digit, 4, and counts on (4, 5, 6, 7!).
4.2.3
As stated before, developmental theorists once thought that young children were
astrategic; they were not capable of using any problem-solving strategies.
However, later research discovers that instead of being astrategic, younger
children merely display production deficiencies. Even two and three-year-olds
have rudimentary strategies (Miller & Seier, 1994). They simply fail to produce
suitable strategies that could improve learning and memory, even though they
are capable of using them.
For example, young children who do not repeat a list of words in preparation for
a memory test will do so when trained to do so. Thus, their memory performance
often improves with training. However, the improvement is often short term.
Young children taught to use a strategy seldom do as well as older children who
use the same strategy naturally.
In one study, four to eight-year-olds were taught to use sorting or a clustering
strategy when performing memory tasks (Schwenck, Bjorklund & Schneider,
2009). The levels of recall and strategy used were higher for older children,
compared to younger children. This is because older children applied more
strategies than younger children. Even four-year-old children used more than
one strategy. Clustering is an early, less effective strategy. Multiple-strategy use
and chiefly sorting are applied more often and effectively by older children.
The ability to produce a relevant strategy is not the end of strategy development.
Acquiring a new and more complex strategy does not always lead to substantial
advances in task performance. Instead, young children who spontaneously use a
memory strategy for the first time, often display a utilisation deficiency. They
experience little or no benefit from it during recall tasks. Utilisation deficiency
arises due to two causes:
(a)
(b)
An acquisition of a more complex strategy marks the onset of a proficient, loweffort strategy that eases recall. Even after a child easily produces the strategy
fully and consistently, it takes some time before the child can access and execute
the strategy effortlessly and integrate it with other mnemonic strategies and
activities.
The fact that children display both production deficiencies and utilisation
deficiencies implies that the growth of strategic thinking is a slow and uneven
process. In fact, Sieglers recent studies of childrens problem-solving strategies
show just how uneven the process can be.
ACTIVITY 4.1
Conduct a test on three children aged six, eight and 10 years old. Create
five arithmetic questions, such 8 + 3 = ? Summarise your findings.
What strategies do the children use? Choose one of the information
processing perspectives to explain your findings.
Robbie Case believed that the capacity of childrens processing system sets
the limits for the kind and the complexity of the cognitive structures they can
construct at a given age. Information processing capacity progresses through
four stages in executive control structures correspond with Piagets stages.
Graeme Halford believed that children have the ability to absorb a huge
amount of data from their environment, represent it and utilise it to build
problem-solving skills. He identified five essential properties of childrens
understanding and four levels of dimensionality or structure mapping.
Hierarchical complexity
Astrategic
Logical-mathematical intelligence
Mental power
Musical intelligences
Cognitive changes
Commons model of hierarchical
complexity
Demetrious three level theory of the
architecture and dynamics of
developing mind
Developmental dynamics
Naturalist intelligence
Obstacle evaluation
Organisation of information
Pascual-Leones theory of
constructive operators
Relative complexity of actions
Developmental model
Representation
Dimensions of tasks
Sensory register
Sequence of complexity
Existential intelligence
Situational modification
Guidance of skills
Intrapersonal intelligence
Min strategy
Clustering
Generativity
Interpersonal intelligence
Interrupt operator
Bodily-kinaesthetic intelligence
Generality
Halfords structure-mapping
approach to cognitive
development
Spatial-visual intelligence
Thinking
Utilisation deficiency
Verbal-linguistic intelligence
Case, R., Okamoto, Y., Griffin, S., McKeough, A., Bleiker, C., Henderson, B., &
Stephenson, K. M. (1996). The role of central conceptual structures in the
development of childrens thought. Monographs of the Society for Research
in Child Development, 61(12, Serial No. 246).
Commons, M. L., & Miller, P. A. (2001). A quantitative behavioral model of
developmental stage based upon hierarchical complexity theory. Behavior
Analyst Today, 2(3), 222240.
DeLoache, J. S. (1986). Memory in very young children: Exploitation of cues to
the location of a hidden object. Cognitive Development, 1, 123137.
Demetriou, A., Mouyi, A., & Spanoudis, G. (2010a). The development of mental
processing. In W. F. Overton (Ed.), Biology, cognition and methods across
the life-span: Handbook of life-span development (vol. 1), in Editor-inchief: R. M. Lerner. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
Demetriou, A., Spanoudis, G., & Mouyi, A. (2010b). A three-level model of the
developing mind: Functional and neuronal substantiation. In M. Ferrari
and L. Vuletic (Eds.), The developmental relations between mind, brain,
and education: Essays in honor of Robbie Case. New York: Springer.
Gardner, H. (2000). Intelligence reframed: Multiple intelligences for the 21st
century. New York, NY: Basic Books.
Halford, G. S. (1987). A structure-mapping approach to cognitive development.
International Journal of Psychology, 22(56), 609642.
Halford, G. S. (1993). Childrens understanding: The development of mental
models. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Halford, G. S., & Andrews, G. (2011). Information processing models of cognitive
development. In U. Goswami (Ed.), The Wiley-Blackwell handbook of
childhood cognitive development. Oxford, UK: Blackwell.
Henry, L. A., & Norman, T. (1996). The relationships between memory
performance, use of simple memory strategies and metamemory in young
children. International Journal of Behavioural Development, 1, 177199.
Pascual-Leone, J., & Goodman, D. (1979). Intelligence and experience: A
neopiagetian approach. Instructional Science, 8(4), 301367.
Copyright Open University Malaysia (OUM)
Topic Role of
Knowledge in
Cognitive
Development
LEARNING OUTCOMES
By the end of this topic, you should be able to:
1.
2.
INTRODUCTION
At 10 months old, Mimi stays awake for longer periods at a time. She can now
play for hours. Even when she is very tired, she refuses to take a nap. She rubs
her eyes, yawns and whimpers. But if you try to rock her to sleep, she will
protest. On the contrary, if you give her another new toy to play with, her mood
soars again. It may keep her entertained for a few more minutes until fatigue sets
in once more.
This topic sheds light on how children develop attention. The ability to focus
is vital in order for the child to receive and process information from the
environment. A child who is not able to sustain attention will not be able to learn
much about an object or complete a task.
TOPIC 5
117
5.1
ATTENTION
Attention and lack of it determines the type and amount of information that is
considered in any task. When we focus and concentrate on certain visual or other
sensory information, we must disregard a great deal of other information. We
tend to fix our attention on the information that is important to us and ignore the
rest.
5.1.1
Growth of Attention
Did you realise that the babies capacity to pay attention to their environment
plays an important role in their cognitive development? For example, in order
for babies to figure out that cats have fur, they must first attend to the cat.
The process of attention appears to involve four distinct phases that can be
distinguished by changes in infants heart rates. These four phases are explained
in the following Table 5.1.
Description
Phase I:
Stimulusdetection reflex
Phase II:
Stimulus
orienting
Phase III:
Sustained
attention
In the third phase, the heart rate remains slow as the baby mentally
absorbs the stimulus. The baby may become quiet and may not be
distracted by another new stimulus. It is a voluntary state in which
the baby firmly controls and pays attention on the stimulus.
Phase IV:
Attention
termination
One of the most momentous developments in the first two years is babies
growing capacity to focus their attention. During this time, babies are also
becoming more adapted at processing data about the targets of their attention.
At three months of age, babies can sustain their attention only for periods of
five to 10 seconds. A one-year-old tends to stare at his or her own picture
with rapt attention for a long period of time. A two-year-old may just look at
the same picture briefly. Younger babies take more time to process data.
While infants attention to simple visual displays decreases after the first
few months of life, attention to complex stimuli increases. An experiment
was conducted in which babies ages six to 24 months were shown computergenerated display of simple geometric patterns and a Sesame Street video. All the
babies spent about the same amount of time watching the computer-generated
film. These children looked longer at the Sesame Street video. The development
of attention, especially sustained attention, has a huge impact on babies
emerging ability to recall past events and understand the environment, which is
our next subject of discussion.
TOPIC 5
5.1.2
119
This process improves sharply between ages six to 10, with gains continuing
through adolescence. For example, a child who is so focused on a TV show does
not notice that you have returned home from work.
Selective attention occurs on a daily basis. Children are not able to give attention
to every stimulus that exists in the environment. Thus, they use selective
attention to choose what stimuli to focus on. Children tend to give more attention
to stimuli that appeal to their senses or to what are familiar. For example, a
hungry child will pay more attention to the smell of a cheese cake baking in the
oven, rather than a colouring activity, especially if cheese cake is her or his
favourite food.
5.1.3
Cognitive Inhibition
In order to achieve maximum attention on a task, a child must have the ability
to inhibit unrelated stimuli. Cognitive inhibition enhances the childs capacity
to process information by removing extraneous stimuli from working memory.
Children who are skillful at inhibition can prevent the mind from drifting to
irrelevant distractions in the environment. In doing so, inhibition releases
working-memory resources to focus on the current task.
TOPIC 5
121
Besides assisting children recall, think and solve problems, inhibition helps them
control their behaviour in public settings. In order to socialise, children have to
curb urges and inhibit negative emotions. The ability to confine thoughts and
behaviour improves with age. Children age three and four years do much better
when they are expected to follow simple commands, as in the Simon says
game. On more complex tasks in which they have to inhibit unrelated stimuli,
children show noticeable improvements from early to middle childhood.
Older children are better at resisting the urge to pay their attention toward a
dominant stimulus and maintain attention on a less dominant stimulus (PascualLeone & Johnson, 2011). For example, an experiment was conducted in which the
children must tap once after the adult taps twice and tap twice after the adult
taps once or must say night to a picture of the sun and day to a picture of the
moon. Three and four-year-old children made many errors, but six and sevenyear-old children found the tasks very easy.
The ability to resist a dominant stimulus is related to cognitive flexibility; a
mental ability to adjust attention in response to changing rules or demands.
Cognitive flexibility is part of executive functioning; a higher-order cognition
linked with the skill to control thinking. Executive functioning includes other
aspects of cognition, such as inhibition, memory and organisation. Executive
functioning predicts social maturity as well as reading and mathematics
achievement, from kindergarten through high school (Rhoades, et al., 2011).
The ability to sustain attention and inhibit irrelevant stimulus is associated with
brain development and adult scaffolding of attention. Rapid growth of the
prefrontal cortex increases the childs ability to concentrate and generate more
intricate play goals. When adults help toddlers and young children maintain a
focus of attention by offering suggestions, questions and comments about the
childs current interest, sustained attention improves. Adults can also lead games
requiring frequent inhibition and cognitive flexibility. They can promote roleplay activities which give children opportunities to restrain impulses and think
before they act.
More attentive children are better developed cognitively and socially (PrezEdgar, et al., 2013). Many skills, such as exploration, problem solving, academic
learning, language and social interaction benefit from an improved ability to
concentrate.
5.1.4
Attention Strategies
Description
Production
deficiency
Control
deficiency
Utilisation
deficiency
Effective
strategy use
Children tend to show utilisation deficiencies if the new and more sophisticated
strategies are superior in solving the problems they face. These deficiencies may
be due to the following reasons:
(a)
The new strategy may need too much mental effort to execute. Thus, the
children have little cognitive resources left to collect and hold information
relevant to the problems they face.
(b)
(c)
TOPIC 5
123
In a number of experiments, Patricia Miller and her colleagues gave three to nineyear-olds a task requiring a selective attention strategy (DeMarie-Dreblow &
Miller, 1988). The children were given a large box with rows of doors that could
be opened. On half the doors were pictures of cages which meant that there were
animals behind them. On the other half were pictures of houses which meant that
there were household objects behind them. Children were asked to remember the
location of each object. They were given some time during which they can open
any doors they wished and examine what were behind them. Next, they were
shown pictures of some objects, one at a time and asked to point to the objects
locations.
Five-year-olds were able to apply the selective attention strategy (opening only
relevant doors). However, they also tend to open the wrong doors. Young
children spend only short times involved in tasks, have difficulty focusing on
details and are easily distracted. When given detailed pictures or written
materials, young children fail to search thoroughly. Older children have better
planned attention strategies.
ACTIVITY 5.1
Choose two children aged between five to eight years old. Play a
memory game using picture card (three pairs of picture cards for five
year olds and five pairs of picture cards for seven year olds). Observe
their attention strategies. What are the differences between the
behaviours of the younger, compared to the older child?
5.2
PERCEPTION
Did you know that information from the environment is received and processed
at two levels? These levels are sensation and perception. Sensation receives
visual, auditory and other sensory stimuli through the sense organ and transfers
them to the brain. Perception processes (recognises, interprets, transforms and
organises) the sensory information in the brain. It is closely related to all higherorder cognitive functions (such as reasoning, concept formation, problem
solving, memory and others) as well as sensory motor behaviour.
5.2.1
Perceptual Organisation
What is perception?
Perception is the process by which sensory data is dynamically organised and
deciphered by the brain.
For example, we sense sounds in hertz and decibels, but perceive melodies; we
sense light of different wavelengths and intensities, but perceive a colourful
world of objects and people; yellow has a wavelength of 600 and red, 700.
Then we have sensations. What are sensations, in comparison to perceptions?
Sensations are the raw data we receive through our sense regarding our
surroundings while perceptions are the process outcomes.
TOPIC 5
125
Figure-ground Relationship
Did you know that the figure-ground relationship is the most central
principle of perceptual organisation? As we see our world, certain
object (the figure) is more obvious from the background (the ground).
We are born with the ability to form figure-ground relations. Figureground perception is present very early in life.
Figure-ground perception is not limited to vision. When we listen to a
symphony orchestra, the melody tends to stand out as figure, while
the rest of the accompaniment becomes the ground. A toothache
stands out as figure, while the other sensory stimuli we receive that
day are reduced to ground.
Figure 5.2 displays a well-known picture that examines the figureground relationship. What is the figure and what is the ground? Do
you see the woman and the saxophone player?
Multi-stable Perception
What does multi-stable perception mean?
Multi-stable perception is the inclination of two vague perceptual
images to pop back and forth interchangeably between each other.
This can be seen in the Necker cube and in Rubins face-vase illusion
in Figure 5.3. However, Gestalt does not explain how images appear
multi-stable, only that they do.
(iii) Invariance
What does invariance mean?
Invariance is a property of perception whereby simple geometrical
objects are recognised.
These geometrical shapes are seen, no matter how they are rotated,
translated and scaled, even if it is deformed, in different lighting or
has different component features. Let us look at Figure 5.4 for an
example.
TOPIC 5
127
Figure 5.5: Example of patterns we see when squares are arranged in varied
proximity
Source: http://imgarcade.com/1/gestalt-principles-proximity/
Copyright Open University Malaysia (OUM)
Law of Similarity
Objects that are similar in appearance are usually perceived as
belonging to the same group. Let us look at the following Figure 5.6.
In Figure 5.6, the squares form a cross pattern, while the circles
form four square patterns. When similarity occurs, an object that is
dissimilar to the others becomes a focal point. This is called anomaly.
Now let us move on to Figure 5.7. What can you say about this figure?
The object in Figure 5.7 on the far right becomes the centre of attention
in this picture. The principle of similarity may also be applied for
sound. For example, when we listen to orchestra music, we tend to
group the instruments and perceive them as units the drums,
violins, trumpets and piano based on similarity in sounds.
Copyright Open University Malaysia (OUM)
TOPIC 5
129
In Figure 5.8, our eyes will naturally follow a line or curve. We see
a smooth flowing crossbar of the H that leads to the maple leaf.
Continuity also applies when two singers sing or two instruments
play in harmony. The notes in the melody line are perceived as
seamless and the notes in the harmony line as belonging together,
even if they overlap on the same note and then cross over.
(vii) Closure
A picture which creates a familiar image is usually perceived as a
complete figure, even if the image has gaps or is incomplete. Our
mind tends to fill in these gaps. Let us see Figure 5.9 which
demonstrates this principle.
TOPIC 5
(b)
131
Depth Perception
Next, let us examine depth perception. What is depth perception?
Depth perception is the ability to estimate the distance of objects from
one another and from ourselves.
Depth perception helps us figure out the arrangement of objects in the
surroundings. It also guides our movements or motor activities. With depth
perception, we climb and descend stairs without stumbling.
The concept of depth is one of the most studied aspects of perception.
Eleanor Gibson and Richard Walk (1960) design the ingenious visual cliff
apparatus used in the original study of depth perception (see Figure 5.11).
TOPIC 5
133
Relative Size and Height: If two objects are around the same size,
the one that is closer to us will look a lot bigger and taller in our
visual field. Conversely, the object that is further away normally
looks smaller and shorter.
In Figure 5.14, the trees that are closer have wider space in
between them, while the trees that are farther away overlap more.
The proximal trees also have more detailed, coarser trunks and
appear bigger and taller than those further away.
TOPIC 5
(c)
135
Perception of Motion
We perceive motion, no matter where in our visual field it occurs. When
objects move in our visual field, they project images that move across the
retina.
We can also perceive apparent motion, that is, perception of movement
when objects do not move at all. If a number of motionless lights are
flashed on and off in sequence, these lights will appear to move from one
spot to the next. This type of motion perception is called phi phenomenon.
An example of a phi phenomenon is decorative lights used during festive
occasions.
Another form of phi phenomenon occurs when we watch a motion picture.
In a movie, we perceive apparent motion of people and objects moving, but
when in reality, everything is motionless. This form of motion is known as
stroboscopic motion, in which a series of still pictures are flashed in rapid
succession to give the illusion of movement.
(d)
Perceptual Constancy
Even though we view objects or other people from different angles and
distances and under different lighting conditions, we perceive the same
shape, size, brightness and colour. This phenomenon is called perceptual
constancy and it can be in the form of shape, size, brightness and colour.
(i)
In Figure 5.15, the door projects very different images on the retina
when it is fully closed, half opened or fully opened. However, because
of shape constancy, we continue to perceive the door as rectangular,
no matter what the images we get on our retina.
(ii)
TOPIC 5
137
Puzzling Perceptions
Did you know that our mind has the tendency to all forms of puzzling
images? Earlier, we have noted that we often perceive apparent motions
that do not exist as in the phi phenomenon but seem real in our daily life,
such as festive lights and movies. There are three types of puzzling,
extraordinary perceptions discussed in this section. They are ambiguous
figures, impossible figures and illusions, as follows:
(i)
Impossible Figures
At first glance, many impossible figures do not seem so unusual. Let
us check out Figure 5.17.
TOPIC 5
139
Mller-Lyer Illusion
What is the Mller-Lyer illusion?
The Mller-Lyer illusion is actually a misapplication of size
constancy.
In Figure 5.18, even though the two lines are of equal length, the
diagonals stretching outward from both ends [line (a)] make it
looks longer, compared to the diagonals pointing inward [line (b)].
Now let us look at Figure 5.19. How do our minds perceive this
figure?
(a)
(b)
TOPIC 5
141
Ponzo Illusion
Did you know that the Ponzo illusion also plays an interesting
trick on our estimation of size? Let us look at Figure 5.20.
Based on Figure 5.20, which rails on the railroad track are larger?
Both of the horizontal bright lines are the same length, but our
eyes perceive the proximal rails to be larger. Again, contrary to
our perceptions, all the rails along the track are the same size. In
fact, all these illusions are really misapplications of principles that
nearly always apply in normal everyday experience.
ACTIVITY 5.2
Create a group of six people. Try out the illusions from Figures 5.2 to
5.20. What do you see? Summarise your findings and relate to what you
had just read on perceptions.
The process of attention appears to involve four distinct phases that can be
distinguished by changes in infants heart rates (stimulus-detection reflex,
stimulus orienting, sustained attention and attention termination).
Sustained attention during play with toys improves sharply between the ages
of two and three years, but have difficulty attending to details. Children
aged five years and older are better at adjusting their attention to task
requirements, switching mental sets within a task.
Depth perception is the ability to estimate the distance of objects from one
another and from ourselves. It helps us figure out the arrangement of objects
in the surroundings and guides movements.
TOPIC 5
143
Adaptable attention
Law of similarity
Ambiguous figures
Linear perspective
Attention
Monocular cues
Attention strategies
Mller-Lyer illusion
Attention termination
Multi-stable perception
Perception
Brightness constancy
Perception of motion
Closure
Perceptual constancy
Cognitive inhibition
Perceptual organisation
Colour constancy
Ponzo illusion
Control deficiency
Production deficiency
Convergence
Reification
Depth perception
Retinal disparity
Extraordinary perceptions
Selective attention
False perceptions
Shape constancy
Size constancy
Gestalt principles
Stimulus orienting
Impossible figures
Stimulus-detection reflex
Interposition
Sustained attention
Invariance
Law of continuity
Utilisation deficiency
Law of proximity
Courage, M. L., Reynolds, G. D., & Richards, J. E. (2006). Infants visual attention
to patterned stimuli: Developmental change and individual differences
from 3- to 12-months of age. Child Development, 77, 680695.
DeMarie-Dreblow, D., & Miller, P. H. (1988). The development of childrens
strategies for selective attention: Evidence for a transitional period. Child
Development, 59, 15591587.
Gibson, E. J., & Pick, A. D. (2000). Perceptual learning and development: An
ecological approach to perceptual learning and development. Oxford:
Oxford University.
Gibson, E. J., & Walk, R. D. (1960). The visual cliff. Scientific American, 202,
6771.
Pascual-Leone, J., & Johnson, J. (2011). A developmental theory of mental
attention: Its applications to measurement and task analysis. In
P. Barrouillet & V. Gaillard (Eds.), Cognitive development and working
memory: A dialogue between neoNeo-Piagetian and cognitive approaches.
New York, NY: Psychology Press.
Prez-Edgar, K., Kujawa, A., Nelson, S. K., Cole, C., & Zapp, D. J. (2013). The
relation between electroencephalogram asymmetry and attention biases to
threat at baseline and under stress. Brain Cognition, 82(3): 337343.
Rhoades, B., Warren, H. K., Domitrovich, C. E., & Greenberg, M. T. (2011).
Examining the link between preschool social-emotional competence and
first grade academic achievement: The role of attention skills. Early
Childhood Research Quarterly, 26(2), 182191.
Ruff, H. A., & Capozzoli, M. C. (2003). Development of attention and
distractibility in the first 4 years of life. Developmental Psychology, 39(5),
87790.
Welch-Ross, M., & Miller, P. H. (2000). Relations between childrens theory
of mind and a selective attention strategy. Journal of Cognition and
Development, 1, 281293.
Topic Perceptual
Development:
Auditory and
Visual
Development
LEARNING OUTCOMES
By the end of this topic, you should be able to:
1.
2.
3.
INTRODUCTION
Do you realise that our world is in black and white, but we see a multi-coloured
world? Yet, even more startling is a discovery of how little of the world we
actually sense! The electromagnetic rays ranges from less than 0.0001 nanometres
(nm) to more than 100 metres, but our human eye detects only a thin slice of this
vast spectrum of rays (see in Figure 6.1).
The shortest wave visible to our eyes is perceived as violet (400nm), while the
longest visible waves appear red (700nm). We do not see rays below 400nm, such
as ultraviolet light, X-rays or gamma rays. Rays above 700nm which include
infrared waves, microwaves or radio waves are also invisible to our eyes.
Despite the short spectrum that is visible to our eyes, our normal visual
experience of our environment stretches beyond the colours of the rainbow. Our
brain can detect thousands fine shades of colour, providing us with a perception
of a vibrant colourful world.
Thus, this topic presents childrens development of auditory and visual
perception. Babies are born with the capacity to perceive form in their
surroundings. They have the capacities for visual, hearing and intermodal
perception from birth. Like adults, newborn babies interests are captivated by
loud noises, bright lights and transformations in their surroundings.
Both vision and hearing are involved in guiding childrens motor actions. As
such, perceptual functioning develops remarkably fast in early childhood.
Hearing develops considerably more rapidly, compared to vision. Auditory
perception reaches almost adult-like level by the end of the first year.
TOPIC 6
Vision is the least developed sense in a newborn baby. Nonetheless, the optic
nerve and the visual centres in the brain reach almost adult-like levels by the end
of early childhood. Thus, the visual perception is fully functioning by the time
the child enters formal schooling.
Babies are innately inclined to search for auditory and visual structure in the
environment. They analyse sounds and speech for regularities, detecting familiar
words, word order sequences and syllable stress patterns. They look for features
that stand out in objects and faces, detecting internal features, complex designs
and stable relationships among them. The development of intermodal perception
also reflects this principle, such as they seek common traits and rhythm in a voice
and face, locating unique voiceface matches.
6.1
DEVELOPMENT OF AUDITORY
PERCEPTION
Do you know that babies can hear since they are in the womb? In fact, their
capacity to hear is more sensitive than adults. At birth, babies can hear all kinds
of sounds, but these sounds are still incoherent to their brain. Over the first six
months, babies have begun to organise sounds into complex patterns: musical
phrasing as early as four months and rhythmic patterns at six months.
Newborn babies can distinguish almost all speech sounds. They prefer listening
to their own mothers voice and distinct, high-pitched and expressive voices.
Babies capacity to analyse the speech stream for patterns is impressive.
By six months, they grow more perceptive of the sounds commonly found in
their mother tongue. Within the same period, they learn to perceive word
boundaries, word meanings and simple word order rules.
6.1.1
Sound Perception
As mentioned earlier, babies respond to sounds long before they are born. They
are more attentive to some sounds than others. Newborn babies prefer complex
sounds (like noises and voices) as compared to pure tones (like sounds of bell).
Similar to adults, babies process both speech and music sounds categorically.
They can discriminate peoples voices from other types of sounds. Babies like
voices better than any other sounds. They are especially attuned to the sounds of
human language.
In order to perceive sound, the ear must first sense them. Sound is generated
when things vibrate and cause particles of air to move. It travels about 700 miles
per hour. We can sense vibrations between 30 and 20,000 times per second.
Vibrations of air are perceived as sounds. In order to hear, sound needs a
medium through which to move. Air, water or other solid objects can carry
sound waves.
We hear sounds in terms of:
(a)
(b)
(c)
Auditory Localisation
Firstly, what does auditory localisation mean?
Auditory localisation is an ability to determine the source of a detected
sound in direction, distance and location.
TOPIC 6
There are six signs that can be used to approximate the proximity to a
sound location. They are listed and explained in Table 6.1.
Table 6.1: Signs to Estimate the Distance to a Sound Source
Sign
Description
Direct/
Reflection ratio
Loudness
Sound spectrum
Initial time
delay gap
(ITDG)
Movement
Level difference
Did you know that newborn babies are able to localise sound in space?
Two-weeks-old babies look toward the direction of a sound. The capability
to locate the exact direction of a sound progresses substantially over the
first half of the year. It improves more during the preschool years.
(b)
Sound Patterns
According to Winkler et al. (2009), newborn babies can discriminate a range
of sound patterns such as:
(i)
(ii)
(iii) Two or three-syllabic speech sounds with stress patterns such as pa pa versus pa- pa; and
(iv) Two languages articulated by a bilingual speaker; provided that the
languages diverge in their rhythmic structures, such as Chinese
versus English.
(c)
Musical Patterns
In the first year, babies become more perceptive to elaborate patterns. Twoto four-month-old babies can discriminate changes in tempo. They can
recognise the same tune played slightly faster. By four to seven months of
age, babies can sense musical phrasing. Babies like Mozart minuets with
definite musical phrasing better, compared to music with clumsy halts
(Jusczyk & Krumhansl, 1993).
Six to seven-months-old babies can discriminate differences in rhythmic
patterns of musical tunes. They can tell if its beat structure has two counts
(a marching song) or three counts (a waltz). They can detect the accent
structure, for example, if the song begins on the first beat or on the fourth
beat (Hannon & Johnson, 2004). By 12 months, babies can identify identical
tunes performed in a higher (g-major) and lower (c-major) key.
6.1.2
Speech Perception
Analysing speech helps babies structure other aspects of their auditory world.
Newborn babies are especially interested in motherese or infant-directed
speech that has a high pitch and slow, exaggerated pronunciation. Young babies
pay more attention to speech sounds than to structurally comparable non-speech
sounds (Vouloumanos et al., 2010). As mentioned earlier, speech perception
consists of phonemic and speech stream, described as follows:
(a)
Phonemic Perception
Newborn babies can detect any speech sounds. They can sense distinct
peculiarities between speech sounds. Very young babies can perceive
phonemes, the smallest sound categories in human speech that indicate
meanings.
TOPIC 6
As early as two days old, they prefer listening to the language that has been
spoken around them than a foreign language. For example, babies suck
vigorously on a nipple that releases the ba sound. Once they get use to
the sound (habituate), they stop sucking on the nipple. When the sound is
changed to another sound such as pa, they begin to suck again. This
reaction suggests that babies detect this subtle difference.
By analysing the babies brain waves when they listen to speech sounds and
contrasting their reactions with the words that they pick up when they get
older, researchers discover that early exposure to language shapes the
babies brain. The brains of babies who are exposed to monolingual
environment are wired to understand only one language and sounds. On
the other hand, the brains of babies who are exposed to multilingual
experiences are better to perceive phonetic sounds in languages they have
early exposure to.
Phonemes vary from language to language. For example, /r/ and /l/ are
different phonemes in English but not in Japanese. Newborn babies can
perceive all the sound peculiarities used in any existing language. Their
ability to perceive unfamiliar sounds in a foreign language is sharper than
any adult (Jusczyk & Luce, 2002). In contrast, adults perceive only those of
their native language. For example, Japanese babies can perceive the
difference between /r/ and /l/; adult speakers of Japanese cannot. In
addition, two-month-olds can distinguish a variety of phonemes.
The ability to discriminate phonemes begins to narrow to just those
phonemes that are present in the native language when babies are about six
to eight months old. This age corresponds with the age they begin to
articulate their first faltering language-like sounds. Phonemes that are not
used in their native tongue are screen out. At five months of age, babies
begin to perceive syllable stress patterns in their mother tongue. They also
begin to recognise their own names.
Seven-month-old babies can detect regularities in word sequences. They are
able to tell apart the ABA structure of sa ti sa from the ABB structure
of do ma ma. They appear to sense the simple word order rules, a skill
which helps them learn basic grammar. Those who are accustomed to
regularities in nonsense words structures can detect similar patterns in
strings of musical tunes and animal sounds.
(b)
6.1.3
Our brain is divided into two hemispheres: left and right. Damages in these two
hemispheres have difference impacts in the auditory perception; left hemisphere
damage to the auditory cortex impairs the recognition of language while right
hemisphere damage injures the ability to analyse non-speech sounds.
TOPIC 6
Description
Auditory
apperceptive
agnosia
Auditory
agnosia
Auditory
verbal agnosia
SELF-CHECK 6.1
Describe the development of babys sound and speech perception in the
first year of life. Then suggest the kind of language environment you
would set up for young babies in order to optimise their language
potential.
6.2
Numerous studies have been conducted to determine exactly what and how well
babies can see. In discovering the environment, we rely on our vision more than
any other senses. However, at birth, vision is still very immature. In order for the
brain to interpret visual stimuli, the visual sensory system must transmit its
information to the visual cortex. Visual acuity and perception of depth, patterns
as well as objects are mastered progressively over the first year.
Although the basic anatomy of the visual system is complete at birth, they are not
fully matured. The cells of the retina which captures light and converts it into
information transmitted to the brain are still sparsely packed. The lens muscles
(which adjust our vision) are still frail and the images on the two retinas are not
yet aligned.
Copyright Open University Malaysia (OUM)
As a result, newborn babies vision is still very blurry. The movements of their
eyes are also not well coordinated. The inability of their eyes to focus reduces
their visual acuity. Newborn babies are therefore unable to accommodate their
vision to objects that are close-up or distant. Their best image is about one foot
away. Thus, a close up image of a parents face looks fuzzy to them.
Once the visual cortex is able to receive and process the visual stimuli, the child
will learn to process and recognise the data received. Development of visual
perception includes spatial location, depth, forms, patterns, movement, face and
colours.
6.2.1
Babies visual acuity improves substantially in the first six months of their life.
They could see the outlines of objects quite clearly and they also seem to see the
same qualitative, distinct colours as adult do.
Newborn babies are very near-sighted, with a visual acuity of 20/600. In other
words, the clarity of objects 20 feet away look as blurry as those placed 600 feet
away to adults (see Figure 6.2). Visual acuity improves rapidly, reaching 20/80
by six months.
(a)
(b)
Figure 6.2: Comparison between an adults view (a) and newborn babys view
(b) of mother
Copyright Open University Malaysia (OUM)
TOPIC 6
Nonetheless, babies visual system is advanced enough to see images that are one
foot away from them (the closeness of their mothers face when breastfeeding).
Their visual acuity makes eye contact possible between babies and their mothers,
enabling early interaction between them. By eight months old, when babies have
learnt to crawl, their visual acuity is close to the adult level. It reaches a visual
acuity of 20/20 by four years (Slater et al., 2010).
Despite their near-sightedness and their difficulty in focusing, newborn babies
actively scan their surroundings from the earliest days of life. Marshall Haith
(1980) and his colleagues discovered that neonates scan with short eye movements
even in a completely darkened room. When the lights are turned on after babies
have been in the dark, they pause in their scanning when their gaze encounters
an object or some change of brightness in the visual field. This early sensitivity to
changes in brightness is linked with the edges and angles of objects.
6.2.2
Depth Perception
Do you know that babies are able to perceive depth even before they start
crawling? In fact, they can actually identify where objects are in space. They
can ascertain if objects are close to them or far away. By the time they begin
crawling, they are well-equipped for safety and can detect deep from
shallow surfaces and avoid drop-off. This has been proven by Gibson and
Walk (1960)s experiment. Their experiment revealed that six to 14 months
old babies readily crossed the shallow side and halt just before reaching the
deep side (see Figure 6.3).
Figure 6.3: Crawling babies halt just before reaching the deep side of the visual cliff
Source: http://scienceblogs.com
Description
Motion is the first depth cue babies are exposed to. Babies three
to four weeks old flicker their eyelids warily when watching a looming
object approach their face as if it is about to hit them. Three to fivemonth-olds react differently to looming objects. They press the head
backward; throw the arms outward, with intense blinking responses as if
in anticipation of an impending collision (Schmuckler & Li, 1998).
Older babies have more experience being carried about. They observe
others and things move around them and learn more about depth. By the
time babies are three months old, movement in space has helped them
figure out that objects are three-dimensional, not flat.
Binocular
cues
Firstly, let us learn binocular vision. Have you ever heard about it? What
does it mean? Binocular vision is the ability to coordinate vision of both
eyes. Between two to three months of age, babies have attained binocular
vision. Sensitivity to binocular cues improves rapidly over the first year.
Babies quickly use binocular cues in reaching for objects, adjusting arm
and hand movements to match the distance of objects from the eyes
(Loftus et al., 2004).
TOPIC 6
Monocular
cues
Awareness
of invariant
features of
the
environment
(b)
TOPIC 6
(ii)
Contrast Sensitivity
What does contrast sensitivity refer to?
Contrast sensitivity refers to the babies ability to detect the
difference in the amount of light in two or more patterns.
This ability explains early pattern preferences. Let us look at Figure 6.4
for an example.
Figure 6.4: The contrast sensitivity in babies during the first few weeks of life
Source: Berk (2013)
Let us look at Figure 6.5. What can you say about it in terms of size
and shape constancies?
Figure 6.5: Babies notice that objects hanging on mobiles in their crib look
bigger when they get near and smaller when they move further away, but
the shapes do not change
Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOnJH5QWuNk
TOPIC 6
Face Perception
Babies tendency to look for organisation in a patterned stimulus is relevant
to face perception. Newborn babies prefer to look at human faces,
compared to other striking visual stimuli, such as toys. Four-day-old babies
like to look at their mother more than at strangers. Babies face preference is
influenced by their visual acuity or ability to detect the detailed features
present in faces.
(a)
(b)
Figure 6.6: Newborn babies prefer normal, upright pictures of face (a) as compared
to jumbled face (b)
Source: http://www.perkinselearning.org
In real life, people move their eyes, mouths, heads and other body parts.
Within these natural surroundings, babies of two hours old identify and
prefer their mothers face, compared to a stranger (Bushnell, 2001).
Babies immediately practise their perceptive tendency to find patterns in
faces. Newborn babies prefer photos of faces with open eyes that look
straight at them. They also prefer attractive human and animal faces, such
as cats (Quinn et al., 2008). In addition, they prefer human faces over other
salient visual stimuli, such as toys.
In looking at sketches of human faces, babies aged one month tend to gaze
at the sides of the face, especially the hairline or chin. At two to three
months, when scanning ability and contrast sensitivity improve, they scan
the faces internal features more thoroughly, halting at every striking part
(eyes, brows, hair and mouth).
TOPIC 6
Around three months, babies can detect uniqueness of features in each face.
They can identify the variation in fairly identical snapshots of two different
faces. Five-month-old babies perceive emotions as cohesive forms. This
ability strengthens over the second half-year. They can differentiate
positive faces (joyful) from negative ones (miserable).
Babies scrutinise faces differently with varied pattern characteristics. Sixweek-old babies tend to stare more at the internal features (eye brow and
lips) than edges, when they are exposed to dynamic stimuli, such as their
mothers nodding and smiling face.
Experience influences face processing too. Familiarity causes babies to form
group biases at a tender age. By three months, they recognise female faces
more easily than male ones. Three to six-month-old babies frequently
exposed to members of their own race prefer the faces of members from
similar race. This own-race preference does not exist in babies who have
regular exposure to other races. Thus, own-race bias can be reversed
through exposure to racial diversity, stressing the significance of early
experience in shaping cultural tolerance (Heron-Delaney et al., 2011).
(d)
Colour Perception
Newborn babies possess all or nearly all of the physiological prerequisites
for seeing colour in a rudimentary form. Despite their preference for
coloured over grey stimuli, newborns are still weak at perceiving colours.
However, when two colours are equally bright, they do not differentiate
them. By two months of age, babies ability to perceive different colours is
almost as good as adults.
6.2.3
Description
Cortical
blindness
Visual agnosia
Simultanagnosia
Visual
apperceptive
agnosia
Associative
visual agnosia
Prosopagnosia
Achromatopsia
Tritanopia
Protanopia
A defective colour vision in which red and green hues are confused;
green cones are filled with red cone opsin.
Akinetopsia
Optic ataxia
Ocular apraxia
TOPIC 6
SELF-CHECK 6.2
Haris started crawling at eight months. Within a few weeks, he learnt
not to rush headlong down a slope. At 11 months, he begins to walk. Do
you think he will try to walk down the stairs headfirst? Discuss your
views, applying the concept of affordances.
6.3
INTERMODAL PERCEPTION
So far, we have talked about babys sensory capacities as if they are independent
of each other. Under normal circumstances, sensory stimuli overlap and are
interconnected.
6.3.1
The capacity for auditory-visual matching continues to progress over the next
several months. Three and four-month-old babies can make a distinction between
cheerful and depressed speech, but only when they look at the speakers face.
Once learnt, babies can separate positive from negative emotion in each sensory
modality first voices, then faces.
As a matter of fact, communications between mothers and babies benefit from
intermodal experiences. Mothers create a supportive learning environment, by
simultaneously combining the verbal, visual and tactile stimuli. To analyse
speech, babies use other senses besides their sense of hearing. When mothers
speak to five to eight-month-old babies, they often combine words with gestures
and touch. A baby remembers better when he hears his mother utters mummy
as he sees her face, smells her odour and touches her cheeks simultaneously, as
shown in Figure 6.7.
6.3.2
TOPIC 6
First, the child must ascertain what the unique features are (such as
how does a cube differ from a ball?); and
(ii)
Second, the child must acquire the skills to apply these unique
pertinent features to isolate unalike objects.
Description
Abstraction
Filtering out
irrelevant
data
This process is learning to ignore aspects of the stimuli that are not
crucial in the learning process, as pitch is not vital in some
languages.
Selective
attention
(ii)
(b)
(ii)
TOPIC 6
Babies are born with the capacity to perceive form in their surroundings.
They have the capacities for visual, hearing and intermodal perception
from birth. Their interests are captivated by loud noises, bright lights and
transformations in their surroundings.
In the first year, babies become more perceptive to elaborate patterns. Two to
four-month-old babies can discriminate changes in tempo.
In the first six months, babies gradually organise sounds into complex
patterns: musical phrasing as early as four months and rhythmic patterns of
musical tunes at six months.
Auditory agnosia
Musical patterns
Musical phrasing
Auditory perception
Phonemic perception
Auditory-visual matching
Protanopia
Binocular cues
Rhythmic patterns
Colour perception
Sound patterns
Cortical blindness
Sound perception
Depth perception
Speech perception
Face perception
Speech stream
Intermodal perception
Tritanopia
Localisation
Monocular cues
Visual agnosia
Motion
Visual perception
TOPIC 6
TOPIC 6
Slater A., Quinn P. C., Kelly D. J., Lee K., Longmore C. A., McDonald P. R., &
Pascalis, O. (2010). The shaping of the face space in early infancy: Becoming
a native face processor. Child Development Perspectives, 4(3), 205211.
Vouloumanos, A., Hauser M. D., Werker, J. F., & Martin, A. (2010). The tuning of
human neonates preference for speech. Child Development, 81(2), 517527.
Winkler, I., Haden G. P., Ladining, O., Sziller, I., & Honing, H. (2009). Newborn
infants detect the beat in music. Retrieved from http://www.pnas.org/
content/early/2009/01/26/0809035106.full.pdf+html
Yoshida, K. A., Pons, F., Maye, J., & Werker, J. F. (2010). Distributional phonetic
learning at 10 months of age. Infancy, 15(4), 420433.
Topic Development of
Representation
LEARNING OUTCOMES
By the end of this topic, you should be able to:
1.
2.
3.
INTRODUCTION
Let us look at these scenarios.
Liza, where is your one fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish? asked
grandma. The 10-month-old baby looks around for her favourite
Dr Seuss book. She smiled excitedly and crawled quickly towards the
book, which she spotted lying on the other end of the carpet.
Four-year-old Amy walked into KFC restaurant. She pointed to the
menu on the wall and exclaimed, Mummy, I want two original
drumsticks with mashed potato and Milo!
Most of us have a good idea of what the term memory means. It is being able to
remember or recall some information. First, memory is something recalled from
the past. The past could be a childhood memory from years ago or something
that happened only moments ago. Second, memory is a process of storing data or
retrieving it for use.
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7.1
7.1.1
The theory of mind advances in the same way in varied cultures. It emerges as
intuitive social skills among nine months old babies. By the time babies are
15 months old, they are aware that others have a different perspective of their
surroundings.
Reflective social cognition which emerges in the toddler strengthens during the
preschool years. Young children aged three years discover that beliefs and wants
form actions. They know that others have different needs, preferences and
feelings.
By age four, young children know that others may think different things. They
realise that others can have false beliefs. They realise that others do or say
something incorrect because of their false belief.
Young childrens development of theory of mind varies due to environmental
factors, such as family dialogues, parenting styles, sibling relationships, story
books and imaginary play. In addition, child factors, such as language and
cognitive regulatory abilities also play a part in their theory of mind.
7.1.2
A number of views exist about how children develop a theory of mind at young
ages. These are further explained in Table 7.1.
Table 7.1: Five Views on How Children Develop a Theory of Mind at Young Ages
View
Description
Early forms of
communication
Imitation
Imaginary play
Through imaginary play, children note that their mind can alter
each object signify.
Language
Realise that they can use words to talk about their mental states
and reflect on their ideas.
Social
interaction
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Most children guess it has bandages. Then, they are shown that the box in
fact contains a small doll.
The children are then asked to envision their peers response if probed on
what is inside the Band-Aid box. Most of the children reply that the peers
will think that the box has bandages. Then, when they are asked to recall
what they see in the box a while earlier, they often respond with a doll.
(b)
Perceptions The child is aware that what others see in front of them
is not necessarily the same as what the child sees;
(ii)
Desires The child is aware that others will make an effort to get
what they want and will become upset when they do not get it; and
(iii) Emotions The child is able to tell apart positive emotions from
negative ones.
Three to four-year-olds know that thinking is an activity that transpires in
the mind. They can think about something without seeing, hearing or
touching it. Their minds have developed mental images about the objects in
their surroundings. They act (based on these images) not on what the
objects really are.
During the course of childhood years, metacognition advances as children
form a simple theory of mind. There are three types of metacognitive
knowledge as described in Table 7.2.
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Description
Knowledge of
cognitive capacities
Knowledge of
memory strategies
Cognitive selfregulation
(ii)
The child acquires the ability to save existing data. They are used for
active problem-solving and keep it prepared for retrieval as required;
and
(iii) The child acquires the ability to make purposeful systematic searches
for data beneficial for problem-solving, even when its use is still
uncertain.
ACTIVITY 7.1
Create your own false belief task to test the theory of mind among
preschooler and school-aged children. Pick two preschoolers and two
school-aged children to examine the false belief task. Summarise your
findings. What are the differences in their theory of mind? How does
Flavells theory help you to explain the childrens theory of mind at
different age?
7.2
MEMORY DEVELOPMENT
Thus, the process act of remembering entails successful completion of three main
activities: acquisition, storage and retrieval.
Acquiring information consists of attending to, sensing, encoding and
transforming data into something that will be saved in the memory. Storage
consists of retaining data in memory while retrieval occurs when data from the
memory is fetched mentally when the need arises.
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Multi-store Model
Data is received through the sensory memory which registers and retains sights,
sounds, smells, tastes and textures briefly.
In short-term memory, we actively use strategies (such as maintenance and
elaborative rehearsals) as we function on a restricted amount of data. The central
executive chooses what to focus on, synchronises data, picks, operates and
monitors strategies.
The major storage space is long-term memory, our limitless information centre. As
abundant data is stored in long-term memory, we need effective strategies to
retrieve them from the store whenever we want to use it.
Figure 7.2: Components of the multi-store model
Source: http://blog.lib.umn.edu/meriw007/psy_1001/
7.2.2
However, our sensory memory holds data precisely, for only a brief period. For
example, visual memory typically retains images for a tiny portion ( 1 10 ) of a
second, just long enough to sustain what you see before it vanishes when you
blink your eyes.
The stimuli picked up by our senses can be either perceived, in which case they
enter our sensory memory or ignored, in which case they vanish almost
promptly. To receive a stimulus, we do not need to show any conscious effort. In
fact, it normally occurs outside our control. Our brain is designed to only process
useful data. The rest of the data are disregarded.
Unlike other types of memory, the sensory memory cannot be sustained
through rehearsal. Sensory memory is a super short-term memory and
decays instantly. For example, visual sensory memory lasts about 200 to
500 milliseconds ( 1 5 to 1 2 second) after the perception of an item. The sensory
memory for visual stimuli is also known as the iconic memory.
Sensory memory for sound is similar to that for vision. We experience auditory
sensory memory when someones words seem to linger in our mind. Auditory
sensory memory is retained for about two seconds, slightly longer than the
fraction of a second for visual sensory memory. Echoic memory refers to the
memory for auditory stimuli.
Then we have haptic memory. It is the memory for the sense of touch. The
sense of smell is more powerfully linked with memories and their associated
emotions than the other senses. This is because the olfactory bulb and olfactory
cortex which process smell sensations are only about three synapses to the
hippocampus (which stores memory).
Data from our surrounding is received through our senses. Practically everything
we see, hear, touch, smell or taste is held in our sensory memory. According to
George Sperling (1960), our vision can take in most or all of the 12 items at a
single glance (this can be proved in Activity 7.1). When guided by a high,
medium or low tone that signals to report only the top, middle or bottom row of
items, people correctly report almost all the items after viewing the letters for
only 15 10000 to 1 2 second. The following Figure 7.3 summarises sensory memory.
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Data transfers from the sensory memory into short-term memory by means of
attention process which screens out unrelated stimuli and zooms only on
relevant ones. It is a cognitive strategy that enables us to ignore other aspects of
the surroundings and focus just on the aspect that is of interest.
Thus, a wealth of data in its raw natural form can be stored briefly in our sensory
memory. This brief period is just long enough for us to begin processing the
sensory stimuli and to select the most vital data for further processing in the next
memory system short-term memory.
In order to store encoded information, some physiological transformation must
transpire in the brain a process called consolidation. Consolidation usually
occurs spontaneously.
However, if we are unconscious for any reason, the process of forming a
permanent memory may be impeded. That is why someone who has been in a
serious car accident may awaken in a hospital and not remember what has
happened.
ACTIVITY 7.2
Look at the three rows of letters displayed below for five seconds. Then,
close your eyes. Repeat the letters with your eyes closed.
MDSK
WPZV
NJRH
How many can you recall?
7.2.3
(ii)
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(ii)
(iii) In a visual search task, they were shown a single digit and asked to
signal if it was among a set of digits that appeared on a screen.
On all tasks, processing time decreased with age. There was a rapid decline
in processing time, trailing off around age 12.
(b)
(ii)
Working memory tasks: From two to about four or five items from
early childhood to early adulthood.
Early childhood lays the bases of executive function. Parallel rapid synaptic
formation trailed by synaptic pruning in the prefrontal cortex is the
primary area responsible for working memory. Development in
preschoolers prefrontal cortex brings about advances in their capacity to
direct attention, restrain inappropriate behaviours and think flexibly.
Synaptic pruning and maturation of the prefrontal cortex persist during the
school years, increasing childrens executive function. They can process
more demanding tasks that entail the assimilation of working memory,
inhibition, planning, flexible use of strategies, self-monitoring and
self-correction of behaviours. Executive function improves further in
adolescence, when the prefrontal cortex attains an adult level of synapses.
(c)
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7.2.4
Declarative Memory
Declarative memory (also called explicit memory) stores facts, knowledge
and personal episodes that can be pictured in images and stated orally. It
keeps data we can recall deliberately. There are two types of declarative
memory episodic memory and semantic memory (see Table 7.3).
Description
Episodic memory
or event memory
Semantic
memory
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Non-declarative Memory
What does non-declarative memory stand for? Non-declarative memory
(also called implicit memory) consists of familiar responses, habits and
skills, such things as brushing our teeth or riding a bicycle. Motor skills are
learnt through repetitive practice. Although non-declarative memory is
achieved gradually, once secured, they become a habit and executed
effortlessly. For example, most of us probably drive a car, without being
conscious of each part of the car such as the steering wheel, gear, clutch or
signal lights.
Associated with non-declarative memory is a phenomenon known as
priming, in which a prior experience with a stimulus boosts their ease of
future recall. The ability exists without an awareness of ever seeing the
stimulus before. For example, the word elephant is flashed so briefly on a
computer screen that it is not perceived consciously. Later, when asked to
name as many animals as possible, the word elephant emerges.
Besides performance, priming also affects preferences and behaviours.
Those exposed fleetingly to art pictures tend to like the same type of art,
compared to those unexposed to them. Those exposed to photos of certain
people tend to relate to those people more than others unexposed to the
photos.
ACTIVITY 7.3
Find a comfortable corner in your house. Sit back and relax. Think of
the happiest moments in your life. Describe the occasion. Think of your
routine journey to work. Describe your experience. What do you
remember about going to work yesterday? What did you wear? Who
did you meet on the way? How do you feel? Comparing the two
experiences, which one do you remember with more details? Relate
both autobiographic memories with your emotions. How do you feel on
each occasion?
7.3
MEMORY PROCESSES
7.3.1
Memory Encoding
Do you know that encoding is the first step to form memory? The process of
encoding converts the perceived object of interest into a concept that can be
stored in the brain and later be used from short-term or long-term memory.
Encoding occurs on different levels:
(a)
(b)
Encoding begins with sensory input. The sensations are perceived, decoded in
the related sensory areas of the cortex. A memory trace or engram (a hypothetical
biochemical change in the neurons) is created in response to the external stimuli.
The hippocampus then sorts, compares and links the new sensations with
existing memories. It evaluates these inputs and decides if they should be sent to
long-term memory. The hippocampus is one rare area in the brain which
produces totally new neurons.
Physically, the process of forming a memory originates with attention which is
controlled by the thalamus and frontal lobe. An unforgettable event triggers
neurons to fire more frequently, expanding the chance that the event is stored as
a memory.
Excitement increases attention. The emotive component of an event is controlled
by the amygdala. The real sensations resulting from an event are then processed
and stored in the hippocampus.
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There are four main types of encoding. They are explained in the following
Table 7.4.
Table 7.4: Four Main Types of Encoding
Type
Description
Acoustic
encoding
It is the process by auditory input such as sounds and words which are
stored for future use. It is facilitated by the phonological loop which
permits feedback within the echoic memory to be subvocally repeated in
order to ease recall.
Visual
encoding
Tactile
encoding
Semantic
encoding
7.3.2
Memory Consolidation
(b)
7.3.3
Memory Storage
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Each type of memory filters the abundance of data that we receive every day.
Data that is often repeated tends to be retained in the long-term memory.
After consolidation, long-term memories are stored in the brain so that
potentiation exists between groups of neurons. A group of neurons in the
auditory cortex, for example, store a sound. Some are even encoded in surplus,
many times, in many parts of the cortex. Thus, if a memory trace is deleted, it can
still be retrieved.
Forgetting, therefore, may be due to complete encoding of memories or
difficulties with its recovery process. Sometimes, we may try to recall a name and
fail, but evoke the memory later. The data is thus available in our memory, but
we have a problem with our retrieval strategy and the encoding of the data.
Forgetting is thus a temporary or permanent failure to retrieve a piece of memory
that has been noted in the brain. Forgetting is usually quite fast at the beginning.
It becomes slower as time passes. Facts that have been learnt well (names, objects,
vocabulary) are not easily forgotten, especially after three years. Unlike amnesia,
forgetting is considered as a common incident related certain fragments of data.
There are ways to enhance your memory. They are:
(a)
Rehearsal
Rehearsal is a memory strategy that involves repeating items over and over,
silently or out loud, to remember them. For example, we rehearse phone
numbers to keep them in short-term memory long enough to dial the
number. There are two types of rehearsal:
(i)
(ii)
(b)
Organisation
Organisation involves grouping related items. Young children, around age
seven opt for rehearsal and age eight opt for organisation, tend to show
control and utilisation deficiencies in using these strategies (Bjorklund,
Dukes & Brown, 2009). The ability to group items into more abstract
categories improves recall dramatically, because more items can be placed
into fewer categories.
Memory is associative nature. Encoding can thus be enhanced by an
organisational memory strategy known as elaboration, whereby a
relationship between two or more unconnected data is constructed.
In doing so, the new data is incorporated into a wider, logical narrative that
is easily recognised, such as in the use of mnemonics. Verbal, visual or
auditory connections with other, easy-to-remember constructs are linked to
the data that is to be memorised. Rhymes, acronyms, acrostics and codes
can all be applied in the same way.
Familiar examples of elaborations are Roy G. Biv for the rainbow colours,
or Tom old aunt sat on her coat and hat which ease our recall of the
tangent, sine and cosine ratios in the Pythagoras Theorem.
When we apply mnemonic strategies, we are actually repeating facts in
our hippocampus a number of times. In doing so, we strengthen their
connections, thus improving the prospect of remembering them.
By late childhood, children begin to apply elaboration as a memory
strategy. Older children are more skilful in applying elaboration than
younger ones. Elaboration is common among teenagers who are proficient
in generating meaningful connections between items.
7.3.4
Memory Retrieval
During recall, the brain replays a pattern of neural activity that was formerly
produced in response to a precise event, reflecting the brains perception of the
actual incident. In fact, the act of remembering is no different from the act of
thinking.
Copyright Open University Malaysia (OUM)
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Memory retrieval entails revisiting the neural pathway that has been created by
the brain when the memory was formed. The strength of the pathway influences
the speed in which the memory is recalled. Memory retrieval reverts a memory
from LTM to STM or working memory. It restores long-term memory, thus
reconsolidates and strengthens it.
To use information that has entered our long-term memory, we need to recover
it. The efficiency of human memory retrieval is amazing. Most of us remember
through direct retrieval where facts are linked directly to a question or cue.
Retrieval strategies include the following:
(a)
Recognition
What does recognition mean?
Recognition is identifying something that is familiar a face, a name, a
taste, a melody.
Recall
How do we differentiate between recall and recognition? Recall and
recognition differs in that a recognition task does not necessitate a supply of
information. It merely requires us to recognise it when we see it. Young
children are better at recognition than recall. Recall begins before one year
of age. However, younger childrens recall is quite flawed, compared to
older children. Older children apply a broader variety of retrieval cues.
Type
Free recall
Description
It is the process in which a person recalls a list of items freely in
any order. Free recall normally involves one of the following:
The primacy effect (items at the beginning of the list are
remembered first and most);
The recency effect (items at the end of the list are remembered
first and most); or
The contiguity effect (items that are close to each other in time
or space in the list are recalled successively).
Cued recall
Serial recall
Young children apply serial recall in learning their ABCs, nursery rhymes
and learnt any sequences of actions that must be performed in a precise
order. A serial recall is usually simpler than a free recall. In a serial recall,
every word or action functions as a cue for next word or action.
Preschoolers are able to express what they remember and follow
instructions on easy memory tasks. In recalling a set of objects, they have
not begun to organise them in categories. They use memory strategies,
when remembering results in getting what they want.
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(ii)
(iii) Keyword method Identify a word that has the same sound as the
new word and then create an image that links the keyword with the
meaning of the new word;
(iv) Method of Loci Items are recalled by their physical locations;
(v)
Figure 7.4: Examples of first letter technique for remembering the keys on
string instruments
Source: http://bornonatuesday.com/comic/13/
(c)
(d)
Reconstruct
To reconstruct or remember complex and meaningful material, we need
to interpret the information based on our existing knowledge. Children
reconstruct stored information, revising it in meaningful ways to ease their
recall. As time passes, children create more conjectures about past events.
This process magnifies the complexity of recreated data, reducing the
accuracy of the recalled information.
(e)
Scripts
What do scripts mean?
Scripts are a special form of reconstructive memory. They refer to broad
descriptions of what normally happens in a certain situation such as a
birthday party.
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Autobiographical Memories
What do autobiographical memories mean?
Autobiographical memories are representations of past events with
personal meaning.
In order to form an autobiographical memory, children must have a selfimage to be able to encode episodes as incidents in my life, a milestone
reached at the age of two and the ability to integrate incidents into a
cohesive life narrative. Infantile amnesia is an inability to recover incidents
that occurred to us when we were younger than three, may reflect the nonverbal nature of infants and toddlers memory processing.
(g)
Eyewitness Memory
Compared with older children, preschoolers are more prone to memory
errors when they describe past experiences. This is because their verbal
skills are still underdeveloped. Younger children may agree with adults just
to gratify them.
Preschool children are weak at source-monitoring, knowing where their
information comes from, even within minutes after obtaining it. Their
dependence on total representations leads them to forget more easily than
older children. Nonetheless, even three-year-olds can precisely remember
incidents directly related to them when they are probed using the right
technique.
SELF-CHECK 7.1
Examine the following statements and identify the concepts that
described the statements.
Statement
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Concept
Children as young as one and half years know when others are copying their
gestures, behaviours or words. Two to three-year-olds know the difference
between reality and make-believe. Three to four-year-olds know that people
act on their beliefs, rather than on how the world really is.
Copyright Open University Malaysia (OUM)
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Encoding is the first key step to forming memory. The process of encoding
converts the perceived object of interest into a concept that can be stored in
the brain and used later from short-term or long-term memory.
Acoustic encoding
Organisation
Priming
Autobiographical memories
Recall
Recognition
Reconstruct
Rehearsal
Eyewitness memory
Relearning
Scripts
Haptic memory
Semantic encoding
Long-term memory
Semantic memory
Memory consolidation
Sensory memory
Memory development
Memory encoding
Short-term memory/working
memory
Memory retrieval
Synaptic consolidation
Memory storage
System consolidation
Metacognition
Tactile encoding
Multi-store model
Theory of mind
Non-declarative memory/implicit
memory
Visual encoding
Visual sensory memory/iconic
memory
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Topic Strategies in
Enhancing
Cognitive
Development
LEARNING OUTCOMES
By the end of this topic, you should be able to:
1.
2.
3.
INTRODUCTION
People differ in intelligence. For instance, do you have friends who excel in their
examinations without any apparent effort? They get straight As for every subject
they enrol in. Does that mean they have higher IQ than you?
Then, do you have friends who are exceptionally adept in social occasions? They
do not excel in formal examinations, but given the microphone in public, they
impress everyone with their glib. They appear so brilliant, with their quickwitted jokes. They just know the right things to say in public. Yet, we do have
friends who are averse to crowds, but know exactly what to do when your car or
computer breaks down.
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205
Among all these friends, who exactly is a truly intelligent person? What about
our creative neighbours, those who write songs, make movies, create new
inventions, such as our car, television, handphone or a simple can opener, that
improve our quality of life? According to Howard Gardner, all of us have
multiple intelligences. Some of us have more of certain intelligences and less of
others. No two persons have the exact same blend.
Different types of intelligences may be influenced by different skills, talents or
abilities. Some people are more or less born with it and show higher mental
capacity from an early age. Others may have environments which encouraged
them to cultivate certain types of intelligences such as going to a school with
good facilities and teachers.
8.1
8.1.1
Genetic Factors
As for adopted children, they are shown to have a higher IQ correlation with
their biological parents than those of their adoptive parents. These studies can be
interpreted as evidence for a genetic influence on IQ. In other words, the greater
the genetic similarity between family members, the more they resemble one
another in IQ.
As discussed in Topic 2, a persons genotype may influence the type of
environment they seek out and are likely to experience. Genes do not guarantee
that a child will reach their full potential. A child who is genetically predisposed
to pursue intellectual challenges may not fulfil his or her full potential if raised in
a barren or unstimulating environment with few challenges. Alternately, a child
who is not intellectually predisposed may achieve an above average IQ, if raised
in a stimulating environment.
8.1.2
Environment Factors
Parent Influence
In other adoption studies it has been shown that adopted children who left
disadvantaged family backgrounds to be placed with highly educated
adoptive parents show an improved score on IQ tests. While IQ was still
correlated to the IQ of the biological mothers, the adoptees performed
higher (by 10 or 20 points) than one would expect on the basis of the IQ and
education of the biological parents.
Children of degree-educated mothers perform particularly well during
tests compared to children of mothers with no qualifications. Children
with mothers aged 30 years and above perform better than children with
younger mothers. Children of unemployed parents also achieved lower test
scores than those with employed parents.
Parental care and attention plays a vital role in the childs cognitive
development. Parents who put emphasis on learning had children who
achieved higher test scores. Certain activities such as reading to the child,
visiting the library and playing educational games have a positive effect on
a childs IQ scores.
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Weak or absent prenatal care and family stress may prevent children from
attaining their full potential. In fact, any factor that discourages effective
child-rearing may have a negative effect on cognitive development.
Households with four or more children have lower ability scores than those
with fewer or no siblings. As parents have more children, it becomes more
difficult to provide attention to each one. Children with single parents
obtain lower test scores due to the same reason.
Parents may shape how a child develops during different stages of his or
her life. The following are factors that improve the likelihood of healthy
cognitive development (see Table 8.1).
Table 8.1: Factors that Improve the Likelihood of Healthy Cognitive Development
Factor
Description
Infancy and
toddlerhood
Early
childhood
Middle
childhood
(b)
Home Environment
The childrens home environment has strong impact on childrens cognitive
development as they spend most of their time at home and are easily
affected by their development.
There are obvious advantages for children who come from households in
the middle class and above range. This effect has been observed among
poor African American children who have been adopted by white, middle
class families. These children were capable of achieving above average IQs
while their peers who remain in poverty are likely to achieve lower than
average IQ.
This may be due to several reasons:
(i)
(ii)
(iii) Children from poor families are also more likely to have problems
related to poor housing and live in unsafe environments. Children are
at risk to various physical and mental health problems and it will be
more difficult to complete schoolwork or learn at home; and
(iv) Low income families may also be unable to afford age-appropriate
books, toys and other experiences that may contribute to a stimulating
home environment.
(c)
External Environment
The community that a child grows up in will affect the childs development.
Older children spend a lot of their time interacting with their community
and school environment. Low-quality schools with poorly equipped
facilities may be detrimental to a childs development. Children will lose
the advantages they may have had if they only spend time reading books at
the library, experimenting in a well equipped science lab or playing football
on the school field.
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(ii)
Sociocultural Factors
The socioeconomic status (SES) index combines three interrelated variables:
(i)
Years of education;
(ii)
Prestige of ones job and the skills it requires (social status); and
The gap between middle and low-SES children may account for some of the
ethnic differences in IQ. However, when black and white children match on
the SES score this gap is reduced by a third to a half.
This difference in intellectual performance among different ethnicities may
be explained by three general hypothesis:
(i)
A Cultural/Test Bias
The way the tests are administered are geared towards those who are
Caucasian and middle class. It is less likely for children from minority
backgrounds to be familiar with the vocabulary required as they may
speak a different dialect at home.
White parents have also been shown to ask more knowledge-training
questions (what sound does the cat make?) compared to African
Americans who ask real-life questions (where did you go after
school?) that they may not know the answer to.
(ii)
Genetic Hypothesis
Arthur Jensen (1998) expressed that according to the genetic
hypothesis group differences in IQ are hereditary. He divided
intellectual abilities in two broad classes:
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ACTIVITY 8.1
It has been a few months in to Ernas first year in primary school.
Teachers have observed that she has been struggling in class compared
to the others. Discuss how the following factors may be causing her
poor performance:
(a)
Genetics; and
(b)
Socioeconomic status.
8.1.3
Recall that in Topic 2, 3 and 4, we have discussed different views about how we
acquire our intelligence. To recap, we will briefly summarise Piagets, Vygotskys
and Gardners theories as follow:
(a)
(ii)
Activity is the ability to act on the environment and also learn from it.
(iii) Social experiences occur every moment a child interacts with another.
Through this, children are able to learn and change the way they think
to suit (or in some cases defy) the ones they interact with.
(iv) Equilibration is an attempt to balance what one already knows and
then learn from our environment. Piaget believed that children were
constantly changed by the new stimuli and events. These new
experiences would cause imbalances which prompt them to make
mental adjustments. Children attempt to restore equilibrium by
balancing new knowledge to suit an existing one or may even change
what they believe completely.
(b)
(c)
TOPIC 8
8.2
213
Description
Discovery learning
Sensitivity to
childrens readiness
to learn
Acceptance of
individual
differences
Vygotskys theory highlights the cultural variation in cognitive skills and the
vital role of teaching in cognitive development. Vygotsky believed in exposing
children to socially rich and meaningful activities in zones of proximal
development during preschool years. This would prepare children for the selfdiscipline required for future academic learning. Teachers will inform, correct
and ask children to explain their studies (literature, mathematics, science and
social studies).
The reading, writing and mathematical activities of children who attend school in
scholastic societies produce cognitive capacities that are different from those in
traditional cultures, where children do not attend formal schooling. For example,
the spatial skills of Aborigine children whose food-gathering pursuits demand
that they track the direction through dense jungles and the perceptive reckoning
of Melanau fishermen, to navigate their way home across vast seas, are just as
highly developed in their cognition. Each is a unique form of symbolic thinking
required by activities that make up that cultures way of life.
Reciprocal learning occurs when a teacher with two to four students form a
collaborative group. Each member will take turns to lead dialogues. Within
the dialogue, the group members will question, summarise, clarify and
predict with reference to the learning materials. Children exposed to this
technique are able to scaffold anothers progress and acquire higher level
learning skills.
(b)
Peer collaboration is based on the concept that more expert peers can
support childrens development. Cooperative learning encourages students
to form small groups to work toward common goals. Children will profit
from having a more experienced and capable peer to lead the task. These
expert peers are able to assist children and this leads to improved selfesteem among all participants.
8.2.1
Classical Conditioning
This allows children to recognise what events occur together in the world and
how to anticipate what will happen in the future. Their environment becomes
more orderly and predictable.
How can classical conditioning occur? Let us say that a mother will stroke her
babys head when she wishes to nurse the baby. Soon the baby will learn to
associate this gesture with nursing and may make sucking movements whenever
his head is stroked.
Young infants in particular can be classically conditioned when the association
between the two stimuli has survival value usually to get food. Other responses
such as fear are difficult to condition in young babies. They will only begin to
have biological need to make these associations when they develop the motor
skills to escape unpleasant events.
TOPIC 8
8.2.2
215
Operant Conditioning
8.2.3
Compensatory Intervention
This initial optimism began to fade soon after. After a year or two of elementary
school, the gains they made on IQ test had largely disappeared. Critics saw the
programme as a failure yet many developmentalists were reluctant to agree.
They argued that these interventions were not meant to simply boost IQ, but
instead improve the childs academic performance. Others argue that the effects
of the interventions might be cumulative and it would take several years before
the full benefits were apparent.
In 1982, Lazar and Darlington reported the long-term effects of 11 high quality,
university-based programmes in the 1960s. They would examine the participants
academic records and administer IQ and achievement tests at regular intervals
throughout their elementary school years. They also interviewed the participants
mothers to determine their feeling of self-worth, attitudes about school and
academic achievement, their work aspirations, as well as the mothers own
aspirations for their children and their feelings about their childrens progress at
school. The studies showed the following results:
(a)
(b)
Participants were still more likely to meet their schools basic requirements
and less likely to be assigned to a special education or be held back in
school;
(c)
These children were more likely to have positive attitudes about school and
(later) job-related successes;
(d)
Their mothers were also more satisfied with and had higher occupational
aspirations; and
(e)
Many believe that if compensatory education begins earlier in life and lasts
longer the effects may be even better. Based on compensatory education, there
are also ways to help parents become more involved in childrens learning
activities.
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217
Studies have shown that the most effective intervention programmes are most
effective when they involve parents in one way or another. Other studies favour
two-generation intervention which provides children with high-quality preschool
education, and also provides disadvantaged parents with social support and
educational and vocational training. These types of family interventions are more
likely to improve parents psychological well-being and may translate to more
effective patterns of parenting.
The Carolina Abecederian Project was another early intervention programme
that selected families at risk of producing mildly retarded children. The selected
families were all on welfare and most had single parents who had scored well
below average on standardised IQ test.
The project began when the participating children were only six to 12 weeks old,
and continued for the next five years. Half of the at-risk children took part in a
special daycare programme. The programme ran from 7.15a.m. to 5.15p.m., five
days a week for 50 weeks each year, up until the child entered school. The
remaining control group was given the same dietary supplements, social services
and paediatric care given to their peers in the experimental group but they did
not attend daycare.
Over the next 15 years, the progresses of these two groups were assessed during
regular intervals by administering IQ tests and periodic tests of academic
achievement. Those in the experimental group began to outperform the control
group starting at age 18 months and maintained this IQ advantage through
age 15. They also outperformed the control group in all areas of academic
achievement from the third year of school onwards.
These results show that when intervention is early and extended the children
involved reap numerous benefits. Family intervention may also make
disadvantaged mothers who participate more in their childrens lives and
become more confident and effective in their parenting. This change not only
benefited the first born child who received the stimulating daycare but also all
the subsequent children.
8.2.4
Problem-Solving Competence
Problem-solving competence involves reasoning. Reasoning is a type of problemsolving method that requires one to make an inference. This would require
reviewing the evidence presented and coming up with a conclusion based on
that evidence. For example, you know that Jeff is your cousin. Jeff introduces you
to his brother John. This would mean that John is also your cousin.
Analogical reasoning involves using something you already know to understand
something that you do not know yet. Analogies are basically similarity relations.
This is useful in acquiring knowledge in new situations.
In order to use analogical reasoning effectively, children must be familiar with
certain knowledge. They may reference their own past experiences or those of
others through observation or information.
Young childrens stories such as Goldilocks and the Three Bears may be used for
this purpose. In the story, Goldilocks will encounter objects of different sizes
small, medium and big. They learn that the medium bed is larger than the small
bed and the big bed is larger than the medium bed. Through this, they may
assume that the large bed is bigger than the small bed. This may translate large >
medium > small. They may also assume that the Daddy Bear who uses the big
bed is larger than the Baby Bear who uses the small bed. Children familiar with
this story may use it as a reference to rank order, temperature, width or height.
As children get older, they will still use analogical reasoning to acquire new
information and solve more complex problems. In this sense, this is a useful tool
for children to learn how to learn.
8.2.5
(b)
(c)
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219
German studies have shown that teachers who emphasise conceptual knowledge
(children will construct meaning in the word problems) are more successful in
improving childrens mathematics achievement. The children often draw on their
knowledge of relationship between operations. They are able to come to a
conclusion quickly through estimation instead of exact calculation.
According to Siegler, childrens mathematics strategies include:
(a)
(b) Min strategy: A min strategy is a more sophisticated strategy, which begin
with the larger number and then, count up from there. For example, in this
case, we begin with, 5 [and continue to], 6, 7, 8.).
(c)
Technically, children are supposed to progress from using the sum strategy to
using the min strategy to using fact retrieval. Yet, findings reveal that individual
children use multiple-strategy and variable-strategy at any given time (Siegler &
Svetina, 2006). The frequency that each strategy is used varies with age. Older
children tend to use more sophisticated strategies more often (Schwenck,
Bjorklund & Schneider, 2009).
8.2.6
Early Literacy
We are aware that learning to read and write is critical to a childs success in
school and later in life. Children may be exposed to early literacy through
various pre-reading and writing activities. Caretakers may read to the child
daily, children may look at or handle books; they may play with a variety of
media and begin showing interest in pictures, letter and numbers.
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221
The most important attainment in terms of literacy for preschool children is the
ability to use symbols. They must understand that one thing has the ability to
represent another thing.
There are different schools of thought when it comes to early literacy. One is
the drill and worksheet camp which advocates learning through practice
and memorisation of letters and numbers. The play perspective believes that
pretence, the ability to have one thing stands for another is important. They
would encourage learning to dramatic and sociodramatic play. Caretakers
would guide and facilitate play opportunities to encourage them to happen
spontaneously.
Literacy can develop through multiple means. The social and cultural practice
aspect is where young children may learn through the discourses that occur in
their homes and neighbourhoods. Hypothesis testing is when young children
would modify what they know and think about written language when they test
a new piece of information against what they already know.
Reading requires us to apply multiple skills at the same time. We must perceive
letters and words and translate them into speech. The words hold information
which we must process in order to interpret its meaning. Then we combine each
sentence to understand the passage or story as a whole.
Literacy involves more than rote learning for the alphabet. In order to read
effectively, most or all these skills must be done automatically. Young children
today are constantly exposed to written symbols. They are exposed to letters and
numbers on calendars, advertisements and signs. Young children learn to make
sense of the words they are familiar with.
Literacy development requires careful planning and instruction. There are
several strategies that we can implement to support emergent literacy in early
childhood. Some of them are explained in Table 8.3.
Table 8.3: Strategies that We Can Implement to Support Emergent Literacy in Early
Childhood
Strategy
Description
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223
ACTIVITY 8.2
Ninas son will be turning three this year. Suggest some ways that she
may cultivate his early literacy skills at home.
The main factors that influence cognitive development are genetics and
environment.
Genetics plays a vital role in cognitive development. Studies show that there
is high correlation between IQ and genetic similarity.
Environment will still affect whether a child is able to reach his or her full
potential or not. Environment factors can be seen through parent influence,
home environment, external environment and sociocultural factors.
Piaget suggests that four factors affect cognitive development. They are
biological maturation, activity, social experiences and equilibration.
In operant conditioning, infants act on the environment and the stimuli that
follow their behaviour change the probability that the behaviour will occur
again.
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225
Classical conditioning
Operant conditioning
Compensatory intervention
Parent influence
Early literacy
Problem-solving competence
Environment
Reasoning
External environment
Gardners theory of multiple
intelligences
Genetics
Sociocultural factors
Vygotskys theory of cognitive
development
Home environment
Intelligence and
Creativity
LEARNING OUTCOMES
By the end of this topic, you should be able to:
1.
2.
3.
INTRODUCTION
Do you know who holds the record for the highest IQ (intelligence quotient) in
the world? Probably the first person that comes to our mind is Albert Einstein
or Socrates or some other remarkable philosopher or mathematician. Well, the
answer is someone else the record holder of the highest IQ happens to be a
woman!
Marilyn Mach vos Savant (see Figure 9.1) is an American magazine columnist,
author, lecturer and playwright who holds the record for the highest IQ
(intelligence quotient) in the world.
Here is another interesting fact she obtained an incredible score of 228 on the
Stanford-Binet IQ test at 10 years of age! In fact, her score is considered high. Do
you know why? This is because her score is nearly 30 points higher than that of
her nearest competitor.
Now, let us think of another person, Dr. Robert Jarvik (see Figure 9.2), the worldfamous inventor of the Jarvik artificial heart, who also happens to be Marilyns
husband.
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229
Unlike Marilyn, Jarvik was a poor test taker. In fact, his score on IQ and
admissions tests were so low that he was unable to get admission into any
medical school in the United States. After a great deal of effort, he was finally
accepted into a medical school in Italy, where he received his MD degree.
After graduation, he returned to practise in the United States, where he created a
device which kept many critically ill heart patients alive until a suitable heart
transplant could be performed. Dr. Jarvik combined his medical knowledge and
his mechanical genius to produce the worlds first workable artificial heart.
Like Dr. Jarvik, many brilliant persons have poor school achievement. Renowned
inventors like Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, Isaac Newton and even
the eminent Albert Einstein were labelled slow learners. Einstein summarised IQ
test aptly when he stated, Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its
ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing it is stupid.
This topic discusses on intelligence and creativity. It discusses the debate on how
we assess intelligence. There are many IQ tests that we can try and explore. How
valid are these IQ tests? Who is more intelligent? Marilyn the IQ record holder or
Jarvik the artificial heart inventor? Let us find out the answer!
9.1
9.1.1
TOPIC 9
(b)
231
(ii)
Louis Thurstone and his wife, Thelma G. Thurstone, (1941) factoranalysed 50 mental tests administered to eighth-graders and college
students. They found that seven separate, unrelated factors exist.
They called these factors primary mental abilities: spatial ability,
perceptual speed, numerical reasoning, verbal meaning, word
fluency, memory and inductive reasoning.
Then, they concluded that these abilities really make up Spearmans
idea of g, but a single IQ score obscured more than it revealed. A
profile showing relative strengths and weaknesses on the seven
primary abilities would provide a more accurate picture of a persons
mental ability. Spearman and Thurstone eventually resolved their
differences, each supporting the others perspective.
(c)
TOPIC 9
233
(i)
A general ability factor at the peak of the hierarchy which affects our
performance on countless cognitive tests; and
(ii)
processing and higher test scores. The fMRI scores for high scorers show lower
metabolic rate of the cerebral cortex, implying that they need less mental energy
for thinking (Fink & Benedek, 2014).
Other factors, such as flexible attention, memory and thinking strategies are also
vital in calculating IQ. These explains some of the links between response speed
and test performance. In fact, measures of working memory capacity correlate
well with mental test scores especially fluid measures in both school-aged
children and adults.
Children who use effective strategies gain more knowledge and retrieve it
promptly, permitting them to do better on tests. Similarly, let us recall from
Topic 5 that working memory resources depend on effective attention skills, such
as cognitive inhibition (preventing unrelated data from interfering on the task) as
well as sustained and selective attention. These attention skills are thus good
predictors of IQ.
(a)
TOPIC 9
(ii)
235
The context in which the test is performed (the culture, era and
cohort);
(ii)
(iii) The information processing skills that reveal how each person tackles
the tasks.
(b)
Typical Strengths
Linguistic
Left hemisphere,
temporal and frontal
lobes.
Logicalmathematical
Musical
Right anterior
temporal and frontal
lobes.
Spatial
Right hemisphere,
parietal posterior,
occipital lobe
Bodily
kinaesthetic
Interpersonal
Frontal lobes.
Intrapersonal
Frontal lobes.
Naturalist
Spiritual/
existential
TOPIC 9
237
SELF-CHECK 9.1
1.
2.
9.2
With the birth of the first IQ test by Alfred Binet and Theodore Simon in 1905,
then came other intelligence tests. This topic merely discusses selected tests,
which include the Bayley scales of infant development, the Stanford-Binet
intelligence scales and the Weschler scales. Other tests, such as Kaufman brief
intelligence test and McCarthy scales of childrens abilities are not reviewed in
this topic.
9.2.1
Efforts have been made to assess infant intelligence by computing the rate at
which babies attain the key developmental milestones. The most widely used test
for babies is the Bayley scales of infant development.
Its revised version, Bayley scales of infant and toddler development (Bayley-III)
is designed for babies aged one to 42 months (Bayley, 2005). It has three parts:
(a)
(b)
(c)
On the basis of the first two scores, the infant is given a developmental quotient
(DQ), rather than an IQ. The DQ summarises how well or poorly the infant
performs, compared to other infants of the same age. DQs are useful for
monitoring babies developmental progress and for detecting mild or severe
mental disorders.
However, they do not predict later IQ. The kinds of abilities infant scales and
IQ tests tap are different. Infant scales are intended to assess sensory, motor,
language and social skills. IQ tests (like WISC) stress on abstract abilities, such as
verbal reasoning, concept formation and problem solving. So, to expect DQ to
predict IQ is like expecting a babys height to predict his future weight. In other
words, they measure different things.
Information processing theorists have discovered that certain measures of infant
attention and memory are much better at predicting IQ during the preschool and
grade school years than are the Bayley scales. Three traits seem notably
favourable and they are:
(a)
Visual reaction time or how fast babies look when shown an object;
(b)
(c)
Preference for novelty or the extent to which they prefer novel stimuli to
familiar ones.
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239
Measures of these traits taken during the first four to eight months of life have an
average correlation of .45 with IQ in childhood. Visual reaction time relates more
to later measures of performance IQ, while other measures link more to verbal
IQ.
9.2.2
Mental age
100
Chronological age
7
100 IQ of 140 (gifted IQ)
5
The Stanford-Binet intelligence scales, fifth edition (SB5), revised in 2003 is an
individually administered IQ test for those aged two to 23. It has 10 subtests
which are combined to produce five factor indices (such as, fluid reasoning,
knowledge, quantitative reasoning, visual-spatial processing and working
memory), two domain scores (such as, verbal IQ and non-verbal IQ) and a full
scale IQ reflecting overall intellectual ability.
9.2.3
David Wechsler thinks that the Stanford-Binet test was laden with items that
require verbal skills. It is thus biased against children who are not proficient in
English or those who have reading or hearing difficulties.
In 1939, Wechsler designed the first intelligence test, WechslerBellevue
intelligence scale, for those aged 16 and older. This test has been revised and
renamed as the Wechsler adult intelligence scale (WAIS-R). The test contains
both verbal and non-verbal subtests, which yield verbal and performance IQ
scores, as well as a full IQ score.
Copyright Open University Malaysia (OUM)
In 1949, Wechsler constructed the Wechsler intelligence scale for children (WISC)
aged six to 16. The current version, Wechsler intelligence scale for children-IV
(WISC-IV) has been revised and renormed in 2003 to compensate for the Flynn
Effect. The Wechsler preschool and primary scale of intelligence-III (WPPSI-III) is
designed for children between ages three and eight.
One advantage of the Wechsler scales is their ability to identify intellectual
strengths in verbal and performance areas. Items on the performance subtests
include the ability to assemble puzzles, solve mazes, reproduce geometric
designs with colour blocks and rearrange sets of pictures into a meaningful story.
Wechsler also believed that differences in a persons scores on the various verbal
and performance subtests could be used for diagnostic purposes.
The Wechsler scales soon became popular. Not only did the new performance
subscales allow children from all backgrounds to display their intellectual
strengths, but also the tests were also sensitive to inconsistencies in mental skills
that may be early signs of neurological problems or learning disorders. The
distribution of IQ scores for these scales is shown in Figure 9.3.
The average IQ test score for everyone in the same age group is 100. On the
Wechsler intelligence tests, about 50 per cent of the scores are in the average
range, between 90 and 110. About 68 per cent of the scores fall between 85 and
115, and about 95% fall between 70 and 130. Last but not least, about two per cent
of the scores are above 130 (superior) and about 2% falls below 70 (mental
retardation).
TOPIC 9
9.3
241
9.3.1
In the early 1920s, the term gifted was used to describe the intellectually superior
those with IQs in the top 2 to 3% of the population. Today, the giftedness has
expanded to include both the remarkably creative and those who excel in the
visual or performing arts.
By tradition, the gifted were assigned either to acceleration or enrichment
programmes. Acceleration supports their progress at a rate that matches their
ability. They may skip a grade, advance through subject matter at a faster rate
or enter college early. Enrichment programmes expand their knowledge by
providing them special courses, such as foreign language or music appreciation,
or special experiences intended to promote advanced thinking skills.
9.3.2
(b)
Better adjusted both personally and socially. They enjoyed better mental
health and were healthier;
(c)
(d)
TOPIC 9
243
9.3.3
What is Creativity?
Decisions on creativity consider not only the uniqueness and quality of the
product but also the process of attaining it. Typically, generating a creative
product involves hard work. Instead of adhering to conventions, it merges
formerly incongruent ideas.
Creativity produces inventions, scientific findings, movements in art or social
programmes vital for social advancement. Therefore, it is essential to identify
its components and foster them from young. Conceptions of creativity have
transformed in the past two decades. An appreciation that intelligence is more
than mental abilities that forecast school achievement has stretched perceptions
of giftedness to include creativity.
Cognitive/Intellectual Resources
Creative work requires a range of high-level cognitive skills. It
involves an ability to identify problems, detect a gap in existing
knowledge, a need for a new product or a deficiency in present
processes. Once a problem is identified, we need the ability to define
it, to transform it from a vague to a clearly specified state.
Creativity involves alternating between divergent and convergent
thinking. In confining the alternatives, creative individuals rely on
insight processes, merge and reorganise features in unexpected but
suitable ways. At an early age, childrens opportunities to engage in
reflecting on competing ideas and selecting the most promising are
vital. School-age childrens ability to judge can be boosted by
coaching them on skills to evaluate the originality of ideas.
Copyright Open University Malaysia (OUM)
TOPIC 9
245
Personality Resources
Certain personality characteristics foster the cognitive components of
creativity, ensuring that they are applied to best advantage. These
characteristics are:
TOPIC 9
(b)
247
Preparation
Incubation
Illumination
Translation
Searching for
information that
may help solve
the problem.
Being suddenly
struck by the right
solution.
Transforming the
new insight into
useful action.
Take note that the incubation stage is possibly the most crucial part of the
process. It occurs below our conscious level.
9.3.4
Description
Picture
construction
Picture
completion
Lines/circles
As for the verbal forms, there are seven subtests which are further explained in
Table 9.3.
Table 9.3: Seven Subtests in Verbal Forms
Subtest
Description
Asking
Guessing
causes
Guessing
consequences
Product
improvement
Unusual uses
Unusual
questions
Just suppose
TOPIC 9
9.3.5
249
Have you ever heard about savant syndrome? What does it mean?
Savant syndrome is a term which describes a person with a mental disability
who exhibits prodigious talents beyond the normal range.
The most impressive examples of savant syndrome appear in people with very
low level of general intelligence but display amazing mental feats or excellent
skills in specific areas, such as rapid computation.
Savant syndrome is a curious combination of retardation and genius. In 1978,
Rimland sampled 5,400 children with autism and found that about 10 per cent of
them are savants, whereas only 1 per cent of non-autistic population are savants.
Idiot savants had special abilities which include music, mental calculation and
realistic drawing (Rimland, 1978).
Savant skills usually appear in six areas of intellectual functions:
(a)
Calendar estimating;
(b)
Mathematical computation;
(c)
(d)
(e)
(f)
Spatial skills.
(b)
(c)
Leslie Lemke has a savant syndrome. He has cerebral palsy, blind and
mentally retarded. He could not speak until adulthood. However, he can
repeat perfectly on the piano any musical piece he has heard just once. He
can also imitate songs in German or Italian flawlessly, even though his
ability to speak is still crude.
(d)
(e)
Daniel Tammet is an English writer and translator and is the most studied
autistic savant as he is the only savant who can describe what he sees in his
head. For example, he revealed that each number up to 10,000 has its own
unique shape, colour, texture and feel. His 2006 memoir, Born on a Blue
Day, about his life with Asperger savant syndrome, was named a best
book for young adults in 2008 by the American Library Association.
Tammets books which include Embracing the Wide Sky and Thinking in
Numbers have been published in 20 languages. He was elected a Fellow of
the Royal Society of Arts in 2012.
TOPIC 9
9.3.6
251
Can you recall the geniuses in Lewis Termans research? Not a single one of them
has produced an invention or win a Nobel Prize. Not all geniuses are creative.
Thus, extraordinary intelligence is essential but not enough for high creativity.
Creativity is not limited to special people who are born gifted with talent and
ingenuity. Everyone has the potential to be creative. Daniel Tammet claims that
savant abilities are an outgrowth of natural, instinctive ways of thinking
about numbers and words, that normal brains can be taught to develop (Wilson,
2009).
Psychologists suggest to stimulate creativity, capable youths can be place in
programmes where they can work together with similar peers, take intellectual
risks, acquire skills relevant to their talents and reflect on ideas without being
rushed to the next assignment.
In classrooms where knowledge acquisition is stressed over using knowledge
originally, childrens thinking tends to be fixed on churning out precise answers.
Brilliant students who are not sufficiently challenged, occasionally lose their
drive to excel.
Some societies, such as the Asian cultures, view academic achievements as a
symbol of accomplishment. They are so obsessed with scholastic feats that they
stifle the development of creativity. They tend to stress on mastery of knowledge
and analytical skills over creating unique ideas.
There is some evidence that creative abilities can be learnt or at least improved.
In interventions meant to foster creative expression in high school art classes in
Beijing, students were asked to make collages. One group was given a broad
direction to be creative, a second group was given precise directions on how to
be creative (fold or tear materials ) and a control group with no creativity
directions.
Students in the first two creative groups produce collages that were more
creative than those produced by students in the control group (Niu & Liu, 2009).
Students in the precise-direction group performed best, implying that a brief
guidance in how to take a creative approach can boost artistic novelty.
Some pedagogical contexts are more conducive for high creativity than others.
For example, children from Montessori schools perform high on all creativity
measures, across all grades and gender. The types of creative potential that may
be most encouraged in the Montessori school context are creative writing and
idea generation based on abstract stimuli (Besanon, Lubart & Barbot, 2013).
Copyright Open University Malaysia (OUM)
ACTIVITY 9.1
Conduct an investigation on the Montessori programme. Examine its
philosophy and describe aspects of the programme that is conducive in
fostering childrens creativity at the following developmental period:
(a)
Toddlerhood;
(b)
Preschoolers; and
(c)
School-age.
TOPIC 9
253
Presently, there is still no clear consensus about what intelligence is. Different
theorists have their own ideas about which traits (and how many of them) are
core aspects of intelligence.
Joy Paul Guilford comes up with a model of intellect which has 180 basic
mental abilities generated from three major dimensions (five content six
operations six products).
Cattell and Horn suggest that Spearmans g factor and Thurstones primary
mental abilities can be reduced to two major dimensions of intellect fluid
intelligence and crystallised intelligence.
The most widely used test for babies is the Bayley scales of infant
development. Designed for babies aged one to 42 months, it has three parts;
motor scale, mental scale and infant behaviour.
In the early 1920s, the term gifted was used to describe the intellectually
superior those with IQs in the top two to three per cent of the population.
Today, the giftedness has expanded to include both the remarkably creative
and those who excel in the visual or performing arts.
Creativity is the ability to generate unique, useful product that others have
not thought of (Sternberg & Kaufman, 2011).
TOPIC 9
255
The Torrance tests of critical thinking measures creativity with both verbal
(seven subtests) and figural (three subtests) forms.
Musical
Naturalist
Bodily kinaesthetic
Componential intelligence
Consequences test
Processing speed
Contextual intelligence
Psychometric view
Creativity
Crystallised intelligence
s factor
Experiential intelligence
Savant syndrome
Figural form
Spatial
Fluid intelligence
g factor
Spiritual/Existential
Giftedness
Intelligence
Interpersonal
Intrapersonal
Linguistic
Logical-mathematical
Triarchic theory
Unusual uses test
Verbal form
Weschler scales
Model of intellect
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opportunities. Educational & Child Psychology, 30(2), 7988.
Carroll, J. B. (1993). Human cognitive abilities: A survey of factor analytic studies.
New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Collins, M. A., & Amabile, T. M. (1999). Motivation and creativity. In R. J.
Sternberg (Ed.), Handbook of creativity. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge
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Fink, A., & Benedek, M. (2014). The creative brain: Brain correlates underlying
the generation of original ideas. In O. Vartanian, A. S. Bristol, & J. C.
Kaufman (Eds.), Neuroscience of creativity. Cambridge, UK: MIT Press.
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the K-12 education that every child deserves. New York, NY: Penguin
Putnam.
Horn, J. L., & Noll, J. (1997). Human cognitive capabilities: Gf-Gc theory. In D. P.
Flanagan, J. L. Genshaft, & P. L. Harrison (Eds.), Contemporary intellectual
assessment: Theories, tests and issues. New York, NY: Guilford.
Kornhaber, M. L. (2004). Using multiple intelligences to overcome cultural
barriers to identification for gifted education. In D. Boothe & J. C. Stanley
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Topic Working on
10
Representation
Skills
LEARNING OUTCOMES
By the end of this topic, you should be able to:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
INTRODUCTION
Let us begin this topic with a scenario.
While driving home from school, Ryan insists that his mother turns
up the radios volume as his favourite song comes on. As the chorus
comes on, he sings at the top of his lungs, Raging night; Energised
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259
However, this is the actual version of the chorus for that particular
song:
10.1
Humans are unique from other organisms in their creation and use of language.
We are able to convey complex information through the expression of several
words. We learn to generate thousands of meaningful auditory patterns and
combine them based on a set of rules to produce an infinite number of messages.
Language is an inventive tool, one we may use to express our ideas, desires
emotions and interpretations of what we have seen, heard and experienced.
the most significant means of preserving and passing on knowledge, values
beliefs. It affects our development as it mediates our activities, relationships
thinking.
and
It is
and
and
What children say in a situation is not simply a repetition of what they have
heard or said before. They may come up with new phrases on the spot and
mention topics that have nothing to do with the ongoing conversation or
situation.
Three and four-year-olds are able to converse quite well with each other as long
as their statements follow the rules and social conventions of the language they
are speaking.
Language may be among the most complex bodies of knowledge that we acquire
in our life. However, children from all cultures come to understand and use
language very early in life. In fact, some infants are able to talk before they can
walk.
10.1.1
What does a child have to learn in order to master their native language?
After years of research, linguists have identified that the following are needed
for linguistics proficiency phonology, morphology, semantics, syntax and
pragmatics. These five components are further explained as follows:
(a)
Phonology refers to the basic units of sounds that are used in language.
Each language uses sounds that humans are capable of generating. No
two languages have precisely the same phonologies. Children learn to
discriminate, produce and combine the sounds of their native language in
order to create speech. At first, a child may recognise their name, familiar
objects and later, oftenheard phrases.
Let us consider the sentence, His car did not stop at our house. If you
heard this read aloud and heard, Hiskardid nots top atour ouse, you
would have difficulties understanding the sentence.
(b)
Morphology is how words are formed from sounds. These rules include
rules for forming past tenses of verbs by adding ed and forming plurals
by adding s. It specifies how combinations of sounds form meaningful
words.
(c)
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(d)
261
Syntax refers to rules that specify how words are combined to form
meaningful phrases and sentences. For example:
(i)
(ii)
Finally, in order to become an effective communicator they must not only master
these five aspects, but also be able to interpret and use non-verbal signals (facial
expressions, intonation, gestures and others). This is to help clarify the meaning
of verbal messages and is a means of communicating in its own right.
10.1.2
How are children able to learn such a complex symbol system so quickly? Some
infants are able to use words to refer to objects before they can even walk. By the
age of five, they know most of the syntactical structures of their native language
though they have yet to have any formal grammar lessons. The following are
some theories of language development:
(a)
(b)
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Young children are more likely to acquire and use the proper names for
toys when reinforced to do so by receiving the toys to play with. Children
whose parents encourage their child to converse by asking questions and
making requests are more linguistically advanced than their peers whose
parents are less conversational.
However, there are some criticisms regarding to this theory. Research has
shown that parents are less likely to shape grammar as they are more likely
to approve the truth value (semantics) rather than syntax. For example, a
child points at a picture of a cow. Parents would more likely approve of the
statement She cow (grammatically incorrect but true), rather than Thats
a dog (grammatically correct but untrue). Also, children are not able to
imitate adults precisely. They may say Door broken rather than The
door is broken.
(c)
The fact that children all over the world reach certain linguistic milestones
at the same age seems to support this theory. Animals are able to
communicate with each other, but this holds no resemblance to our abstract
rule-bound system. Even with training, apes are only able to communicate
at the level of a two year old child.
10.1.3
As discussed in earlier topics, the brains major function centres in the left
cerebral hemisphere. If one of these areas is damaged it may result in aphasia a
loss of one or more language functions such as:
(a)
Injuries to Brocas area (near the frontal lobe of the left hemisphere) may
affect speech production rather than comprehension. They may speak with
great effort in brief meaningful phrases but leave out words such as is,
and and the. They may say Eat steak to mean Ill eat the steak.
(b)
Injuries to Wernickes area (on the temporal lobe of the left hemisphere)
may affect understanding of speech, yet those affected may speak fairly
well although what they say makes little sense. They may say something
like, That foozle needs to eat so I will put some in, when they mean The
cat is hungry so I will feed it.
The following Figure 10.1 shows you the Brocas area and Wernickes area inside
the brain.
Figure 10.1: A view of the left hemisphere of the brain highlighting Brocas and
Wernickes area
Source: en.wikipedia.org
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The left hemisphere is sensitive to some aspects of language from birth. Speech
sounds may create electrical activity from the left side of an infants brain. Music
and non-speech sounds would create greater activity from the right cerebral
hemisphere. Newborns are prewired for speech perception and are prepared to
analyse speech-like sounds.
Erik Lenneberg (1967) proposed sensitive-period hypothesis whereby language
should be most easily acquired between birth and puberty. During this period,
the lateralised brain is increasingly specialised for linguistic functions. This is
based on observations where child aphasics often recover lost language functions
without any special therapy, whereas adults would require therapeutic
intervention to do the same.
During this sensitive period, it may be easier to learn a second language. Native
speakers of Korean or Chinese were tested on their mastery of English grammar.
Those who began learning English between three and seven years of age were as
proficient as native speakers were. Those who began after puberty (particularly
after 15 years of age) performed poorly.
There are also differences in early and late second language learners in the
organisation of the brain. Speaking either of their two languages activates the
same area of the brain if they learnt it before puberty. For those who acquired it
after puberty, it is found that different areas of the brain are activated. This
implies that learning language is easier in early life as the cognitive system is
well suited for this task.
The interactionist viewpoint expresses that language development results from a
complex interplay between biological maturation, cognitive development and
their linguistic environment along with the childs attempts to communicate with
his or her companions.
Interactionist believe that young children all over the world talk alike because
they are a member of the same species and share many common experiences. The
brain matures slowly and predisposes children to develop similar ideas at the
same age which they express in their own speech.
An infants first words focus on objects they have manipulated or on actions they
have performed. They understand their experiences through their sensorimotor
schemes. They will talk about whatever cognitive understanding they learn at the
moment. Words like gone or oh oh are used while playing games like peeka-boo.
Parents may also correct the childs grammatically incorrect sentence through
expansion. For example, when the child says kitty eat, the parent responds
Yes, the kitty is eating. Another way is to recast the sentence into new
grammatical forms. In response to the same comment they may say Yes, the
kitty is hungry. This improves the chances of the child picking up new
grammatical forms. Parents can also extend the conversation (topic extension) by
carrying on without revising what the child says.
Grammatical speech is likely to be used out of social necessity to allow others to
understand exactly what they mean. There is a strong relationship between the
number of words acquired and the grammatical complexity of their speech.
Since languages main function is as a means of communication, it develops
through social interactions between a child and their companions. Before infants
learn to speak, they are taught how to take turns in conversation (even if all they
do is laugh or babble).
Parents will create a supportive learning environment to allow them to get used
to the rules of language. They may ask Whats this? or What is the kitty
doing? while reading a picture book. This itself provides them with basic
conversation skills including taking turns, understanding that things have names
and there are proper ways to ask questions and give answers.
Listening to a conversation or exposure to speech on its own may not improve
language learning. They require social interactions and active use of the
language. Dutch-speaking children who watched German language television
did not acquire German vocabulary or grammar (Snow et al., 1976).
Hearing children of deaf parents will have a normal pattern of language
development as long as they spend five to 10 hours in the company of a
hearing/speaking adult who converses with them.
ACTIVITY 10.1
There are several theories on how language was developed. Discuss the
following:
(a)
(b)
Interactionist viewpoint.
TOPIC 10
10.2
267
Our next discussion on childrens language development includes its five stages;
(a)
Prelinguistic phase,
(b)
Holophrase phase,
(c)
Telegraphic phase,
(d)
Preschool and
(e)
10.2.1
Prelinguistic Period
Children are said to be in the prelinguistic phase of language from the first 10 to
13 months of life. They are unlikely to speak their first meaningful word during
this period. However, they are still quite responsive to language from the day
they are born.
When newborns are spoken to, they will often open their eyes, gaze at the
speaker and even make sounds. By the third day, they are able to recognise their
mothers voice and will show preference to female strangers. They will also
prefer the sound patterns of the language their mother speaks compared to those
of a foreign language. The ability to discriminate non-speech and speech-like
sounds are either innate or acquired during the first few days and weeks of life.
Adults tend to speak to infants in a high tone that attracts their attention. They
vary their tone of voice to communicate different messages to infants. Rising
intonations are used to recapture the attention of a baby who looks away Look
at daddy! Falling intonations are often used to comfort or to elicit positive affect
such as smiles and bright eyes when the baby appears sad. Babies recognise that
these tones have meanings and will often make sounds in response to them.
After six months, infants begin to get used to the rhythm of a language. This is
how they segment what they hear into phrases and words. By seven months of
age, infants can detect phrase units and seem to prefer listening to speech that
contains natural breaks and pauses. They now prefer to listen to speech samples
that match the speech patterns of the language of their caregiver.
By the time the infant is two months old, they are able to make vowel-like noises
such as cooing oohs and aahs. They are more likely to coo when they are
content and after being fed. By the time they are four to six months old, they are
able to babble, where they make vocalisations that sound like words but convey
no meaning maaama or papapa. For the first six months, even deaf infants
are capable of the same vocalisations. This suggests that early babbling is
influenced by the maturation of the brain and muscles controlling verbal
articulation.
By the end of the first year, the infants babbling may match the tonal qualities of
the language they hear and they begin to sound as if they are speaking that
language. In fact, babies learn the tune before they learn the words. Certain
sounds are reserved for certain situations. They may make the mmmmm
sound while making requests and aaaaah sound when manipulating objects.
By now infants are aware that certain speech sounds have meanings and are
about ready to talk.
By the time an infant is seven to eight months old, they learn to take turns while
speaking. They will wait for the person they are speaking to stop talking before
they respond. This may have come about because parents will usually say
something to the baby, wait for them to respond (smile, cough, burp, coo or
babble) and address the baby again.
They may also learn turn-taking through nose touching, playing or sharing toys.
Infants respond better to organised social games than disorganised social games
by four months of age. By nine months, they are able to understand when the
rules are not followed in a game. They may make sounds when an adult does not
take their turn. They may make sounds urging the adult to continue by offering a
toy or they may proceed with the game and look at the adult again to make their
move.
By eight to ten months, infants are able to use gestures and other non-verbal
responses (facial expressions) when communicating. There are two preverbal
gestures:
(a)
(b)
By the time they are able to speak, young children will supplement their speech
with gestures or intonational cues to make sure they are understood. For
example, pointing at a cat that passes by and yelling Kitty!
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Although they are very responsive to speech, studies show that preverbal infants
understand only a few words, if any. In one study, 11 and 13-month-old infants
were asked to look at an object familiar to them. The mothers were out of sight so
they were unable to give non-verbal cues. Only the 13-month-old babies who
understood the meaning of the words would look at the mentioned object over
other objects. The 11-month-old babies were likely to gaze at other stimuli as they
were to look at the mentioned object.
Receptive language (comprehension) often occurs before productive language
(expression) as 12 to 17-month-old babies seem to understand the meaning of
words long before they use them.
Parents may practice the following strategies to encourage early language
learning:
(a)
Respond to the infants coos and babbles with words and speech sounds.
This familiarises them with words and allows them to experience turntaking;
(b)
(c)
(d)
Engage in frequent conversation with the infant as this may foster early
language development and later academic success;
(e)
Expand (or add on) the sentence when a child speaks; and
(f)
Read to children often and engage them in dialogues about the books.
10.2.2
Holophrase Period
Do you know that the first stage of meaningful speech is the holophrase period?
But what do holophrases mean?
Holophrases are single words that seem to represent an entire sentences
worth of meaning.
By the middle of the second year, infants are able to make their own simplified
versions of adult words such as appo for the word apple. These
mispronunciations occur across languages suggesting that this may be due to
biological constraints, namely an immature vocal tract.
This does not mean that all toddlers sound alike even if they are exposed to the
same language. This is because articulating phonemes and combining them into
words is a vocal-motor skill.
By four to five years of age, young children are able to pronounce most words in
nearly the same way that adults do. As their vocal tract matures, they have more
chances to decipher phonemic combinations and make fewer errors.
Children will have a vocabulary spurt or naming explosion at 18 to 24 months of
age where they may add from 10 to 20 new words a week. A typical two-year-old
may produce nearly 200 words and understand a far greater number.
The first 50 words they learn are often objects (including familiar people). These
tend to be objects that can be manipulated (toys or clothes) or objects that are able
to move on their own (animals or vehicles). A toddlers first words may also refer
to familiar actions (run or play). It appears what infants mainly talk about is
understood through their own or others sensorimotor activities.
Infants may display different styles of communicating too. The referential style is
when the words they use are mainly those that refer to other people or objects.
The expressive style is when their vocabularies contain more personal or social
words such as please, thank you, do not and stop it.
More children fall into the referential style compared to the expressive style.
Referential children think words are meant for naming objects whereas
expressive children may use their words for more social interactions and to call
attention to their own or others feelings.
Culture may also play a role, as American mothers are more likely to use
language to teach children how to interact with objects. Japanese mothers tend to
emphasise on social routines and consideration for others. For example, when
referring to the family pet, an American mother may say Look at the kitty
playing, whereas a Japanese mother may say Give the kitty some love.
Children from Asian cultures such as Japan, China and Korea are more likely to
acquire personal or social words as they emphasise more on interpersonal
harmony.
Children are able to apply the fast-mapping process to quickly acquire and retain
words after they have heard it applied on a small number of occasions.
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Despite this ability, toddlers tend to attach meanings to words that differ from
what they mean to adults. Overextension is when they refer to a word for a wide
variety of objects or events using the word doggie for all four legged furry
animals. Underextension is the opposite of overextension where they would use
a general word to describe a smaller range of objects using the word cake
only to describe cheesecake.
Children may use processing constraints to narrow down what a new word
might mean. Object scope constraint is when they understand that a word is
assigned to a specific object rather than its attributes. For example a hat and a
chair are two different objects. They will display mutual exclusivity and almost
never call a hat a chair. For a word that may apply to the same object, they
will apply lexical contrast constraint. For example, a few types of cats can be
called a kitty. A tabby cat is a cat with specific features (stripes on their head,
shorter hair).
Syntactical bootstrapping is used to help children understand the meaning of
new verbs. Consider the following two sentences:
(a)
(b)
The kitty and the bird are eating (eating is a synchronised action).
When children hear one word or the other, they prefer to look at a video that
matches what they have heard. The verbs syntax provides important clues to
what it means.
The familiar verb may limit the possible referent of a noun. Let us assume that a
child knows what the word eating means. When he or she hears the sentence
Ali is eating chicken, the child will map this name onto the meaty substance
that Ali is consuming rather than wondering if chicken refers to the carrots,
rice or other objects on the dining table.
10.2.3
Telegraphic Period
At about 18 to 24 months of age, young children are able to combine words into
simple sentences. They may say sentences such as Mama sleep, and Kitty
drinks milk. These early sentences are referred to as telegraphic speech similar
to telegrams; they contain only important content words such as nouns, verbs
and adjectives. They leave out the non-essentials such as articles, prepositions
and auxiliary verbs.
It is believed that children omit words due to their own processing and
production constraints. However, telegraphic speech is not as universal as
research had thought. Russian and Turkish children are able to produce short but
reasonably grammatical sentences from the beginning. These languages stress
more on small grammatical markers and have less rigid rules about word order
than other languages.
Since these early sentences are incomplete and the meanings are often
ambiguous, children will supplement these words with gestures and intonational
cues. Toddlers become quite sensitive to social and situational determinants of
effective communication. By two years of age, they are proficient at turn-taking
and learn they must stand close to a listener or raise their voice to compensate for
the distance.
Two to two and half-year-olds may consider what the person they are talking to
know (or does not know) when choosing a conversational topic or making
a request. They prefer to talk about events that the other person has not
experienced or do not know about. They may monitor the other persons
response to their message and clarify what they mean. For example, a child
requests for a toy duck and the adult responds, You want the shoe? They will
often repair this message by saying I no want that! Want duck!
Young children also learn certain sociolinguistic expectations. They may learn
that they have to be polite to get what they want and begin to understand what is
considered polite and what is not. Parents may reinforce this through polite
social interactions. It is common for a parent to ask What do you say after
someone gives you something?
In between the period of two and half to five years of age, children learn to
produce sentences that are complex and adult-like. Children learn to understand
more about grammar and the pragmatics of language and communication.
Grammatical morphemes are modifiers that give more precise meaning to our
sentences. Children learn that adding s allows you to pluralise sentences,
ing indicates present tense or ed indicates past tense and to indicate location
through prepositional morphemes like in and on.
Children may also overextend these grammatical morphemes in a phenomenon
known as overregularisation. They may say things like I washed my hairs, or
It runned away.
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Each language has rules for creating variations of the same sentence through
transformational grammar. The statement I was eating fried rice can be
modified in various ways (Schoneberger, 2002) and may produce:
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d) Relative clauses (I who hate spicy food, was eating fried rice); and
(e)
Compound sentences (I was eating fried rice and Jill was eating noodles).
Children learn transformational rules step by step, as they learn to ask questions,
negate prepositions and create complex sentences. Two kinds of question can be
found in virtually all languages. Yes/no questions ask whether a statement was
true or false (for example, Have you eaten?). Wh questions are questions
that almost always begin with a wh (such as who, what, where, when or
why). These will require responses that go beyond a simple yes or no.
A childs earliest questions are often statements transformed into yes/no
questions such as Kitty eat? Occasionally wh words will be placed at the
beginning of telegraphic sentences (What kitty eat?). In the second phase of
question, they will learn to use the proper auxiliary or helping verbs (What is
kitty eating?).
Childrens negative sentences develop in steps. Children may begin by placing a
negative word in front of a statement they wish to negate (No shoe). These first
negatives may be ambiguous in meaning. No shoe may mean:
(a)
(b)
(c)
By age three, children will begin to produce complex sentences. For example:
(a)
(b)
Conjunctions to join simple sentences (The kitty was stuck and I got him
out);
(c)
Embedded sentences (The man who sent the box went home); and
(d)
Typical Behaviour
Phoneme perception
Discriminates language from non-language sounds
Crying
Three months
Cooing
Six months
Babbling
Loss of ability to discriminate between non-native phonemes
Nine months
First words
Twelve months
Eighteen months
Vocabulary spurt
First two-word sentences (telegraphic speech)
Twenty four
months
Thirty months
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10.2.4
275
Preschool Period
During the preschool period, children learn a few conversational skills that help
them communicate more effectively and help them accomplish things. Threeyear-olds are often aware of illocutionary intent where the real underlying
meaning may not correspond to the literal meaning. This may be used to a childs
advantage to turn a statement into a command. In the following statement, threeyear-old Nisa uses this to get herself a cookie from the babysitter:
Three to five-year-olds also learn to tailor their messages to their audience. For
example, a four-year-old may use simple short sentences when explaining
something to a two-year-old. When they are explaining something to an adult
they would use more complex sentence and tend to be more polite.
10.2.5
By the time they enter school, children will have obtained a lot of linguistic
competence in a remarkably brief period. They are able to produce bigger and
longer words, more complex sentences and begin to think about and manipulate
language in ways that was impossible before.
Children are able to use personal pronouns by ages five to eight. Children easily
understand complex passive sentences and conditional sentences (If you finish
homework early, you can play outside) by ages seven to nine.
Childrens knowledge of semantics and semantic relations will continue to
expand throughout their school years. By the age of six, children are able to
understand approximately 10,000 words. By the age of 10, children should be
able to comprehend 40,000 words.
However, they may not use all these words in their everyday speech and may
not have heard them in use before. They have gained morphological knowledge,
the knowledge of the meaning of morphemes that make up a word. This allows
them to analyse unfamiliar words such as hopelessness and quickly figure out
what they mean.
Through morphological knowledge, children may learn to understand sarcasm.
For example, a playmate may say, Wow, this is so heavy, when they are able to
pick up an object the others find too heavy. The contradiction between the literal
meaning and what is implied along with sarcastic intonation allows them to
detect sarcasm in their friends remark. The following Table 10.2 explains more
on the linguistic development based on ages.
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Phonology
Coos
Babbles (in
sound and
intonation of
native
language)
One to
two years
Three to
five years
Speech sounds
organised into
phonemic
categories of
native
language
Recognises
correct
pronunciation
Semantics
Grammar
Prefers mothers
voice and sound
of native
language
Analyses speech
stream for words
and syllables
Comprehends
words
Sensitive to
clause and
phrase
boundaries
Recognises
familiar words
Communicative
gestures
Vocabulary up to
several hundred
words
Telegraphic
speech (two
word
combinations)
Three-word
sentences
appear, adds
grammatical
morphemes
Gradually
generalises
grammatical
forms
Adds
grammatical
morphemes in
a regular order
Simplifies
word
pronunciation
Improved
phonological
awareness
Creates words to
fill in for words
not yet mastered
Improved
word
pronunciation
Understands
metaphors
(based on
concrete, sensory
comparisons)
Notices
structure of
word
sequences
Pragmatics
Establishes joint
attention
Engages in
vocal exchanges
and turn-taking
games
Engages in
conversational
turn-taking and
topic
maintenance
Additional
conversational
strategies
Grasps
illocutionary
intent
Adjusts speech
to listeners
perspective and
social
expectations
Asks to clarify
ambiguous
messages
Produces
chronological
narratives
Six to ten
years
Eleven
years to
adulthood
Extends
phonological
awareness to
all phonemes
in words
Masters
syllable stress
patterns
Masters
syllable stress
patterns of
abstract words
Understands the
meaning of
about 10,000
words
Acquires
meanings of new
words from
context
Appreciates the
multiple
meanings of
words
(metaphors and
humour)
Comprehends
over 40,000
words
Understands
subtle, nonliteral word
meanings
(sarcasm, irony
and proverbs)
Refines
complex
grammatical
structures (the
passive voice
and infinitive
phrases)
Continues to
refine complex
grammatical
structures
Uses advanced
conversational
strategies
(shading)
Refines
understanding
of illocutionary
intent
Communicates
clearly in
demanding
situations (on
the telephone)
Produces classic
narratives rich
in orienting
information
and evaluations
Improved
ability to
communicate
clearly and in
accord with
social
expectations in
diverse
situations
Children also become better at semantic integrations where they may draw
linguistic inferences to understand more than what is actually said. For example,
a six or eight-year-old may hear, Roger didnt see the rock, Roger fell off his
bicycle. They may infer that Roger must have hit the rock and fell off this
bicycle.
Children will develop metalinguistic awareness, an ability to think about
language and to comment on its properties, by the age of four to five. They
display more phonological awareness (sand without the s sound is and) and
grammatical awareness (they are aware that I be done is incorrect).
Adolescents are able to further expand their vocabularies by adding abstract
words (such as ironic) that they rarely hear or may have heard but do not
understand.
TOPIC 10
10.2.6
279
Environment
Children who grow up in higher income homes were exposed to more
spoken language. Language competence (such as vocabulary and ability to
use language to interact) is not learnt through single exposure. It depends
on how many opportunities a child gets to communicate with those within
and outside his or her family during the crucial early years of language
learning.
Children with siblings will spend a fair amount of time conversing with
their siblings or listening to a sibling converse with a parent. They may
improve their communication skills in order to communicate with each
other.
Older siblings are less likely to adjust their speech when speaking to a
younger sibling compared to when speaking to parents. As a result
younger siblings may have comprehension problems. The older sibling is
more likely to monitor and repair his or her own ambiguous messages so
he or she can be understood. Older siblings are less likely to correctly
interpret a younger siblings uninformative messages. In turn, they are
more likely to learn from their failures and attempt to speak in ways that
they will be understood.
Different cultures have different practices when it comes to exposing their
children to language. North American mothers are known to talk to their
babies from birth (some even before birth) and use their responses to
converse with their babies. Other cultures such as the Mayan of Mexico and
the Walpiri of Australia believe there is no point engaging in pre-linguistic
conversation and talk very little to their babies.
There are also cultures where adults believe it is important to actively teach
their children how to talk. The Kaluli of New Guinea believe that children
must be taught language just as they are taught how to behave. They begin
a speech activity called elema, where the mother would say the words that
she wants the child to repeat followed by the command Elema.
Copyright Open University Malaysia (OUM)
(b)
Bilingualism
Outside of America, most children grow up bilingual and are able to speak
two (or more) languages by the time they reach puberty. Studies have
shown that children exposed to two languages early on (before age three)
had little difficultly becoming fluent in both.
By three years of age, bilingual children are aware that the two languages
are interdependent systems and each is associated with particular contexts
in which it is to be spoken. By the time the child reaches four years of age,
they show normal proficiency in the language of their community as well
their second language depending on how much they were exposed to it.
For those who learned a second language sequentially (after the age of
three), it often took no more than a year to achieve proficiency in the second
language.
There have been positive cognitive consequences to bilingualism. Bilingual
children score similarly or higher than their monolingual peers on IQ test,
Piagetian conservation problems and general language proficiency.
Bilingual children also outperform monolinguals on measure of
metalinguistic awareness, especially when required to recognise the
correspondence between letters, words and their phonological components
or when required to detect grammatical errors. This metalinguistic
advantage may be because early on bilingual children learn that linguistic
representations are subjective. For example, the Malay word for cat is
kucing, which neither looks nor sounds alike.
Bilingual children also do better at non-linguistic tasks that require selective
attention to overcome distractions. This may be because bilinguals are
well practiced at monitoring their surroundings and producing language
understood by their immediate companions while inhibiting the distracting
second language which will be irrelevant to the situation.
There are clear benefits to two-way bilingual education during preschool or
primary school. Studies were conducted on Mexican American immigrant
children taught in bilingual preschools. The children involved had strong
gains in English proficiency that would serve them well in public schools.
At the same time, they were still as proficient in Spanish as their peers who
stayed at home in a predominantly Spanish language environment.
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281
ACTIVITY 10.2
Children have different levels of language development during
different stages of their lives. Explain the phonological development
during the following periods:
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
Phonology refers to the basic units of sounds that are used in language.
Syntax refers to rules that specify how words are combined to form
meaningful phrases and sentences.
There are five stages of language development namely (i) the prelinguistic
phase, (ii) the holophrase phase, (iii) the telegraphic phase, (iv) the preschool
and (v) the middle childhood and adolescent periods.
Children are said to be in the prelinguistic phase of language from the first 10
to 13 months of life.
They are unlikely to speak (they may coo or babble) but are still responsive to
speech (prefer mothers voice and may react to sounds). They will also learn
to take turns and gesture to communicate.
Children will have a vocabulary spurt and learn to pronounce the same way
that adults do. Two common styles of communicating are referential (words
are used to refer to others) or expressive (personal or social words).
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283
At about 18 to 24 months of age children enter the telegraphic stage and are
able to combine words into simple sentences.
Children also understand and are able to use transformational grammar and
relational contrasts.
During the preschool period, children learn a few conversational skills that
help them communicate more effectively and help them accomplish things.
By the time they enter school, children will have obtained a lot of linguistic
competence in a remarkably brief period. They are able to produce bigger
and longer words, more complex sentences and begin to think about and
manipulate language in ways that was impossible before.
Some other factors that affect linguistic development are the socio-economic
background, amount of siblings and culture.
Children below the age of three easily pick up and become proficient in two
languages if they grow up in a bilingual environment.
Bilingualism
Overregularisation
Brocas area
Personal pronouns
Declarative gestures
Phonology
Empiricist perspective
Pragmatics
Environment
Prelinguistic phase
Expressive style
Preschool period
Fast-mapping
Processing constraint
Holophrase
Productive language
Imperative gestures
Receptive language
Referential communication
Referential style
Semantics
Linguistic universals
Sensitive-period hypothesis
Metalinguistic awareness
Sociolinguistic knowledge
Syntax
Morphological knowledge
Telegraphic period
Morphology
Underextension
Nativist perspective
Vocabulary spurt
Wernickes area
Overextension
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285
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