COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT OF INFANTS

AND TODDLERS

May Anne S. Matabang

Presentor
Cognitive Development
 Ittalks about how infants psychological processes
involved in thinking and knowing develop into young
children.
 In infancy refers to development in the way a baby
thinks.
 This includes his/her language, communication and
exploration skills.
Sensorimotor stage
 Infants construct an understanding of the world by
coordinating sensory experiences with physical, motor
action and gain knowledge of the world from the
physical action they perform on it.
 An infant progresses from reflexive, instinctual action
at birth to the beginning of symbolic thought toward
the end of the stage.
 Six Substage of the Sensorimotor
1. Simple Reflexes
2. First Habits and Primary Circular Reactions
3. Secondary Circular Reactions
4. Coordination of Reactions Stage Secondary
Circular
5. Tertiary Circular Reactions, Novelty, and Curiosity
6. Internalization of Schemes
Substage 1: Simple Reflexes (from birth to 6 weeks)
Coordination of sensation and action through reflexive behaviors.

 Sucking of objects in the mouth

 Following moving or interesting objects with the eyes
Closing of the hand when an object makes contact with the palm
Substage 2: First habits and Primary Circular
Reactions (6weeks-4months)
 It involves coordinating sensation and new schemas. In the first few months
of life,infants’ behaviors are focused almost exclusively on their own
bodies (in Piaget’s terminology, the behaviors are primary) and are
repeated over and over again (i.e., they are circular). Infants also begin to
refine their reflexes and combine them into more complex actions.
 Substage 3: Secondary Circular Reactions (4-8 months)
 In this stage the stage the infants become more subject-oriented, moving
beyond self-preoccupation repeat actions that bring interesting or pleasurable
results. This stage is associated primarily with the development of coordination
between vision and comprehension. Three new abilities occur at this stage:
Intentional grasping for a desired object, secondary circular reactions , and
differentiations between ends and means.
 Substage 4: Coordination Of Reactions Stage Secondary
Circular (8-12 months)

 Coordination of vision and touch-hand-

eye coordination of schemes intentionally.
This stage is associated primarily with the
development of logic and the coordination
between means and ends. This is an
extremely important stage of development
, holding what Piaget calls the “first proper
intelligence”. Also,this stage marks the
beginning of goal orientation ,the
deliberate planning of steps to meet an
objective. The action is directed towards a
goal.
 Substage 5: Tertiary Circular Reactions, Novelty, and
Curiosity (12 to 18 months)

 Infants become intrigued by the many

properties of objects and by the many
things they can make happen to objects;
they experiment with new behavior. This
stage is associated primarily with the
discovery of the new means to meet goals.
Piaget describes the child as the “young
scientist” conducting pseudo-experiments
to discover new methods of meeting
challenges.
Substage 6: Internalization of Schemes (18 to 24 months)

 Infants develop the ability to use primitive symbols and form enduring
mental representations .This stage is associated primarily with the
beginnings of insight , or true creativity. This marks the passage into the
preoperational stage. Evidence of an internal representational stage.
Symbolizing the problem-solving sequence before actually responding.
Development of Object Permanence

 A critical milestone during the sensorimotor period is the

development of object permanence. Introduced during
substage 4 above, object permanence is the
understanding that even if something is out of sight, it
continues to exist. The infant is now capable of making
attempts to retrieve the object.
Do infants learn and remember?
Language Development

 Infants appear to be programmed to tune in to their linguistic

environment specific goals of acquiring language. Infants
clearly have remarkably acute language learning abilities even
from the an early age.
 5 Stages in Producing Language

1. Cooing
2. Babbling
3. One-word Utterances
4. Two-word Utterances and telegraphic speech
5. Basic adult sentence structure
1. Cooing - which comprises largely vowel sounds.
2. Babbling - which comprises consonant as well as vowel sound most
people ears the babbling of infants growing up among speakers from
different language groups sounds very familiar.
3. One-word Utterances - these utterances are limited in
both the vowels and the consonants they utilize.
4. Two-word Utterances and telegraphic speech
5. Basic adult sentence structure (present by about
4years with continuing vocabulary acquisition.
Holophrase - to convey intentions, desires and demands usually,
the word are nouns describing familiar objects that the child
observes.

Language Acquision Device (LAD)

- Noam Chomsky (1965, 1972), noted linguist, claims that humans
have an innate language acquisition device (LAD). This LAD is a
“metaphorical organ that is responsible for language learning. Just
as a heart is designed to pump blood this language acquisition
device is pre-programmed to learn language, whatever the language
community children find themselves in.”
THANK YOU!