UNIVERSITY OF CAGAYAN VALLEY

Tuguegarao City, Cagayan

SCHOOL OF LIBERAL ARTS AND TEACHER EDUCATION

Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences

CHILD AND ADOLESCENT LEARNERS AND LEARNING DEVELOPMENT

FINAL COVERAGE
Module Number: 02
Title/Topic/Reading: Continuation of Cognitive Development of Children
and Adolescents
Overview/Introduction: It was once believed that infants lacked the ability to
think or form complex ideas and remained without
cognition until they learned language. It is now
known that babies are aware of their surroundings
and interested in exploration from the time they are
born. From birth, babies begin to actively learn. They
gather, sort, and process information from around
them, using the data to develop perception and
thinking skills.
Cognitive development refers to how a person
perceives, thinks, and gains understanding of his or
her world through the interaction of genetic and
learned factors. Among the areas of cognitive
development are information
processing, intelligence , reasoning, language
development , and memory.
Learning Objectives: 1. Identify the theories of cognition
2. Explain the various theories of intelligence and
learning styles
3. Describe the factors affecting development
4. Categorize exceptional development
Discussion/Analysis:

D. ACHIEVEMENT MOTIVATION AND INTELLECTUAL PERFORMANCE

COMES IN VARIOUS MANIFESTATIONS:

• A tendency to strive for successful performance
• To evaluate performance against specific standards of excellence.
• To experience pleasure out of a successful performance.
• Academic motivation and intellectual performance impacts on the children’s performance along with
experiences in the family, school, peers, and community.

INTELLIGENCE
• Is the capacity to think and understand. It includes the combination of various separate abilities that
includes verbal communication, abstract thinking, logical reasoning and use of common sense.

FOUR DIFFERENT CONCEPTUAL APPROACHES TO INTELLIGENCE

1. PSYCHOMETRIC APPROACH
• Refers to measurement of hidden intelligence or mental characteristics. Through analysis of results of
intelligence tests the structure of human intelligence is caused by one factor or a combination of
factors.
• Psychometric approach was established by British psychologist Charles Spearman.
2. FACTOR ANALYSIS AND GENERAL INTELLIGENCE
• Applied to intelligence, factor analysis establishes the relation of different measures of intelligence.
• Factors analysis will reveal a different common factor given a particular situation.
3. COGNITIVE APPROACH
• Concerns itself with the processes that result to intelligent behavior.
• The products of intelligence come from mental operations that enable one to give answers to
questions and solutions to problems.
4. THE IMPLICIT (implied) THEORY APPROACH
• Asserts that intelligence is that which is used every day.
• A person manifests practical intelligence by trying to analyze situations, solve problems, and interpret
information by being conscious of the implications of his actions on others.

III. FACTORS AFFECTING DEVELOPMENT: Three Factors which Affect Modern Development,
Psychologists point to Age-Related Changes – Universal, Group-Specific and Individual

1. UNIVERSAL CHANGES
• Are the changes all individuals undergo as biological organism. We all go through the processes of
growth and maturation as we age.
• Every organism is subject to a genetically programmed maturing process.
• In other words, all physical changes that happen from infancy to adulthood are programmed and are
part of the plan for the physical body.
• Some changes are universal arising from shared experiences that eventually serve as shared patterns
of normal experiences like that right time to marry, right time to enter into a serious relationship, and
the right time to live an independent life. Even the concept of three meals a day, breakfast, lunch, and
dinner are a shared universal experience.

2. GROUP – SPECIFIC CHANGES

• Are the changes manifested and observed from members growing up together in a particular group
and hence influenced heavily by the dominant culture.
• The development of people is not only influenced by culture but also varied historical events that
impact on the life of the people. People then become a product of the social political and cultural
milieu where they belong or are situated.

3. INDIVIDUAL CHANGES
• These are the changes typical of particular individuals and which result from unique, unshared events.
• Every individual is unique, a product of a unique combination of genes which sets him apart from
anyone. This is attributed to genetic differences.
• There are also characteristics unique to persons like intelligence and personality, which constitute
another class of individual differences.

A TYPICAL DEVELOPMENT
• This kind of development is harmful to individual in that it deviates from the typical or normal
development path. Usually, this points to the abnormal or maladaptive behavior.
THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVE ON DEVELOPMENT

TWO FUNCTIONS OF THEORIES:

1. They help explain the knowledge about how children develop
2. they encourage further researches anchored on predictions about behavior that can be tested and
evaluated.
• Structural-organismic perspectives zero in on the composites of the developing organism. They
consider the quality of various changes in the stages of human development.
• Freud’s Psychodynamic Theory and Erikson’s Psychosocial Theory belong to this category. They
assert that a child responds to a set of biological drives.

IV. EXCEPTIONAL DEVELOPMENT

• Every child is unique to himself, in personality traits, in cognitive abilities, in physical stature, in
emotional stability, and others.
• An IQ score above 130 signals intellectual giftedness, whereas a score below 70 in intelligence testing
indicates mental retardation visibly demonstrated by the child’s inability to cope with appropriate
activities of everyday life.
• Even among the gifted children, there can be difficulties in learning attributed to language
impairments and reading disabilities, called dyslexia.
• Exceptional development in children can be seen in both the intellectually gifted and those with
intellectually deficits.

A. INTELLECTUALLY GIFTED
• There are educational alternatives for gifted children. Some of these are in the form of enrichment
programs like, special activities designed to make their educational advancement more interesting and
challenging. There are also special classes for the gifted where they are made to involve themselves in
 particular areas of their interest.

B. CHILDREN WITH INTELLECTUAL DEFICITS

DOWN SYNDROME
• Is characterized by a distinct physical appearance, and physical and mental retardation. The most
characteristics are almond shaped eyes, folded eyelids, and short stature. Children with down
syndrome are susceptible to respiratory infections, heart disorders, leukemia, and pneumonia.
• Mental retardation can be moderate to severe. They are also at risk to develop Alzheimer’s disease
later in life. However, with the advancement of the treatment for physical disorders afflicting these
children, their life span has greatly increased. Some are able to reach age 60.
• Is caused by a deviation in the set of chromosomes labeled number 21. This disorder is also known as
trisomy 21.
• Infants with Down Syndrome may develop fairly normally for their first six months, but unless they
receive special therapy their rate of intellectual growth begins to decline after about a year.

1. TURNER SYNDROME
• Is a chromosome abnormality found in females in which secondary sex characteristics are developed
only with the administration of female hormones. Any abnormality in the internal reproductive organs
cause permanent sterility.
2. KLINEFELTER’S SYNDROME
• Is a form of chromosome abnormality characterized by feminine physical characteristics like breast
development and rounded broad, hipped figure.
• When a male inherits an extra X chromosome, it results in the XXY pattern, making him sterile.
Similar to a triple X female, an individual with this type of syndrome is sometimes mentally retarded
and has verbal language deficits and reading problems.
• A male who inherits an extra Y chromosome, the XYY pattern once believed to be accompanied by
excessive aggressiveness is very likely to suffer some cognitive impairment. The XYY men generally
age taller than normal men, but they have not been shown to be any more aggressive or violent than
others.
3. PERVASIVE DEVELOPMENTAL DISORDERS
• Is a collection of disorders characterized by gross deficits in many areas of cognitive, emotional, and
social development. This result from severe and pervasive impairment of social interaction and
communication skills. Such disorders are often referred to as psychoses (broadly, disturbances in
which the person’s functioning is so maladaptive that he or she is said to be out of touch with reality).
Behaviors are unusual and incapacitating than other forms of psychoses.
• Pervasive developmental disorders have often been confused with schizophrenia a serious disorder
characterized by hallucinations, delusions, and other kinds of thought disorders.
• These two disorders differ in ages of onset: while pervasive development disorders become evident in
the first few years of life, schizophrenia most commonly manifests in late adolescence or early
adulthood. Schizophrenia is not found with any great frequency in children.
4. AUTISTIC DSORDER
• Is a pervasive developmental disorder otherwise known as early infantile autism or childhood autism
• The first to have identified this order is psychologist LEO KANNER (another name for the disorder is
KANNER’S AUTISM) who noted its many puzzling and disturbing characteristics.
• Is characterized by the inability of the children to communicate and interact socially. These autistic
children have specific language deficiencies, demonstrate a need for sameness in their environment,
and engage in repetitive behaviors.

These features include:

a. EXTREME AUTISTIC ALONENESS
 An autistic is a loner. He expresses lack of interest in other people.

b. LANGUAGE ABNORMALITIES
 Rather than engage in conversation, the autistic tends to repeat the words rather than reply, answer or
engage in conversation.

c. REPETITVE BEHAVIORS
 An autistic extends concentration on something and preserves the sameness of the environment.

 Public awareness about autism has improved. There are more films and books about autism aside
from the introduction of the use of a broader diagnostic criterion thus increasing the number of
 children being labeled autistic. Usually, autism commonly appears in boys than in girls. The ratio is 3
to 5 boys to 1 girl.

d. ASPERGER’S SYNDROME
• Was first identified by an Austrian physician HANS ASPERGER in 1944 calling it a developmental
disorder which has many symptoms similar to that of autism. However, it is considered a mild form of
autism since people with this syndrome manifest a higher mental functioning.
• DSM- IV, Diagnostic and Statistical manual of mental disorders classifies Asperger’s as a separate
disorder although a controversy has existed as to whether it is a distinct syndrome or a form of autism
should include Asperger’s because no biological tests have been yet identified for either disorder.

ECHOLALIA
• Is a form of autism where the autistic repeats what is said by another rather than respond to a
question. It is usually a word for word repetition. Moreover, they suffer from language problem
called pronoun reversals.