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Cognitive development

Cognitive Development 2168

Photograph by: Bruce Rolff

Definition

Cognitive development is the construction of thought processes, including remembering, problem solving, and controlling, from childhood through adolescence to machismo.

Description

It was once believed that infants lacked the ability to call back or form complex ideas and remained without cognition until they learned linguistic communication. It is now known that babies are aware of their surround and interested in exploration from the time they are born. From nativity, babies begin to actively learn. They assemble, sort, and procedure information from around them, using the data to develop perception and thinking skills.

Cerebral 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 evolution are information processing, intelligence , reasoning, language development , and memory.

Historically, the cognitive development of children has been studied in a variety of ways. The oldest is through intelligence tests, such as the widely used Stanford Binet Intelligence Quotient (IQ) exam first adopted for utilise in the United States by psychologist Lewis Terman (1877–1956) in 1916 from a French model pioneered in 1905. IQ scoring is based on the concept of "mental age," co-ordinate to which the scores of a child of average intelligence match his or her age, while a gifted child's performance is comparable to that of an older kid, and a irksome learner's scores are similar to those of a younger kid. IQ tests are widely used in the United States, but they have come under increasing criticism for defining intelligence too narrowly and for being biased with regard to race and gender.

In dissimilarity to the emphasis placed on a child's native abilities by intelligence testing, learning theory grew out of work by behaviorist researchers such as John Watson (1878–1958) and B. F. Skinner (1904–1990), who argued that children are completely malleable. Learning theory focuses on the role of environmental factors in shaping the intelligence of children, peculiarly on a child's ability to learn by having certain behaviors rewarded and others discouraged.

Piaget'south theory of cognitive development

The most well-known and influential theory of cognitive evolution is that of French psychologist Jean Piaget (1896–1980). Piaget'south theory, first published in 1952, grew out of decades of extensive observation of children, including his own, in their natural environments as opposed to the laboratory experiments of the behaviorists. Although Piaget was interested in how children reacted to their environment, he proposed a more active function for them than that suggested by learning theory. He envisioned a child'due south noesis as equanimous of schemas, basic units of noesis used to organize past experiences and serve as a footing for understanding new ones.

Schemas are continually being modified past two complementary processes that Piaget termed absorption and adaptation. Assimilation refers to the process of taking in new information by incorporating it into an existing schema. In other words, people assimilate new experiences past relating them to things they already know. On the other mitt, accommodation is what happens when the schema itself changes to accommodate new knowledge. According to Piaget, cognitive development involves an ongoing endeavour to achieve a balance between assimilation and accommodation that he termed equilibration.

At the center of Piaget's theory is the principle that cognitive evolution occurs in a serial of iv distinct, universal stages, each characterized by increasingly sophisticated and abstract levels of thought. These stages ever occur in the same order, and each builds on what was learned in the previous stage. They are equally follows:

Sensorimotor phase (infancy): In this period, which has six sub-stages, intelligence is demonstrated through motor action without the use of symbols. Noesis of the world is express, merely developing, considering information technology is based on physical interactions and experiences. Children acquire object permanence at about 7 months of age (memory). Concrete development (mobility) allows the child to begin developing new intellectual abilities. Some symbolic (language) abilities are adult at the end of this stage.
Pre-operational phase (toddlerhood and early on babyhood): In this period, which has two sub stages, intelligence is demonstrated through the use of symbols, language utilize matures, and memory and imagination are developed, but thinking is done in a non-logical, non-reversible manner. Egocentric thinking predominates.
Concrete operational stage (elementary and early adolescence): In this stage, characterized past seven types of conservation (number, length, liquid, mass, weight, surface area, and volume), intelligence is demonstrated through logical and systematic manipulation of symbols related to concrete objects. Operational thinking develops (mental actions that are reversible). Egocentric thought diminishes.
Formal operational stage (adolescence and adulthood): In this stage, intelligence is demonstrated through the logical use of symbols related to abstruse concepts. Early in the period there is a return to egocentric thought. Only 35 percent of high school graduates in industrialized countries obtain formal operations; many people practice not think formally during adulthood.

The well-nigh meaning alternative to the piece of work of Piaget has been the information-processing approach, which uses the reckoner equally a model to provide new insight into how the human listen receives, stores, retrieves, and uses data. Researchers using information-processing theory to report cognitive development in children take focused on areas such as the gradual improvements in children'due south ability to take in information and focus selectively on certain parts of it and their increasing attention spans and chapters for retentiveness storage. For case, researchers have institute that the superior memory skills of older children are due in part to memorization strategies, such equally repeating items in club to memorize them or dividing them into categories.

Infancy

As soon every bit they are born, infants begin learning to use their senses to explore the world effectually them. Well-nigh newborns can focus on and follow moving objects, distinguish the pitch and volume of sound, run into all colors and distinguish their hue and brightness, and kickoff anticipating events, such as sucking at the sight of a nipple. By 3 months one-time, infants can recognize faces; imitate the facial expressions of others, such as smiling and frowning; and respond to familiar sounds.

At six months of age, babies are only get-go to understand how the world around them works. They imitate sounds, enjoy hearing their ain vocalism, recognize parents, fear strangers, distinguish between animate and inanimate objects, and base altitude on the size of an object. They also realize that if they drop an object, they can pick information technology upwardly once more. At four to seven months, babies can recognize their names.

By nine months, infants tin can imitate gestures and actions, experiment with the concrete properties of objects, understand simple words such as "no," and empathize that an object still exists fifty-fifty when they cannot meet information technology. They also brainstorm to test parental responses to their behavior, such as throwing food on the floor. They remember the reaction and test the parents once again to run across if they become the same reaction.

At 12 months of historic period, babies can follow a fast moving object; tin speak two to fours words, including "mama" and "papa"; imitate animal sounds; acquaintance names with objects; develop attachments to objects, such as a toy or coating; and experience separation anxiety when abroad from their parents. By 18 months of age, babies are able to sympathize about 10–fifty words; place trunk parts; feel a sense of buying by using the word "my" with sure people or objects; and can follow directions that involve two different tasks, such as picking up toys and putting them in a box.

Toddlerhood

Betwixt 18 months to three years of age, toddlers have reached the "sensorimotor" stage of Piaget's theory of cognitive evolution that involves rudimentary thought. For example, they empathise the permanence of objects and people, visually follow the displacement of objects, and begin to use instruments and tools. Toddlers start to strive for more than independence, which can nowadays challenges to parents concerned for their safety . They also empathize discipline and what behavior is appropriate and inappropriate, and they understand the concepts of words similar "please" and "thank you."

Ii-year-olds should be able to empathize 100 to 150 words and start adding about ten new words per day. Toddlers also have a better agreement of emotions, such as dear, trust, and fear. They begin to sympathize some of the ordinary aspects of everyday life, such every bit shopping for nutrient, telling time, and being read to.

Preschool

Preschoolers, ages iii to six, should exist at the "preoperational" stage of Piaget's cerebral development theory, meaning they are using their imagery and memory skills. They should be conditioned to learning and memorizing, and their view of the globe is unremarkably very self-centered. Preschoolers usually accept also developed their social interaction skills, such as playing and cooperating with other children their own age. It is normal for preschoolers to test the limits of their cerebral abilities, and they learn negative concepts and actions, such as talking back to adults, lying , and bullying. Other cerebral development in preschoolers are developing an increased attention span, learning to read, and developing structured routines, such every bit doing household chores.

School age

Younger schoolhouse-age children, 6 to 12 years former, should be at the "concrete operations" stage of Piaget's cognitive development theory, characterized by the ability to use logical and coherent deportment in thinking and solving problems. They understand the concepts of permanence and conservation past learning that volume, weight, and numbers may remain abiding despite changes in outward advent. These children should be able to build on past experiences, using them to explicate why some things happen. Their attention span should increase with age, from existence able to focus on a chore for about 15 minutes at age 6 to an hour by age nine.

Adolescents, ages 12 through 18, should be at the "formal operations" stage of Piaget'south cognitive development theory. It is characterized by an increased independence for thinking through problems and situations. Adolescents should exist able to understand pure abstractions, such as philosophy and higher math concepts. During this age, children should exist able to acquire and employ general information needed to adapt to specific situations. They should also be able to larn specific information and skills necessary for an occupation. A major component of the passage through boyhood is a cerebral transition. Compared to children, adolescents think in ways that are more advanced, more than efficient, and mostly more complex. This power can be seen in five ways.

Showtime, during adolescence individuals go amend able than children to think about what is possible, instead of limiting their thought to what is real. Whereas children'southward thinking is oriented to the here and at present—that is, to things and events that they can notice direct—adolescents are able to consider what they observe against a backdrop of what is possible; they can call up hypothetically.

2nd, during the passage into adolescence, individuals become meliorate able to think almost abstract ideas. For example, adolescents detect it easier than children to comprehend the sorts of higher-order, abstract logic inherent in puns, proverbs, metaphors, and analogies. The boyish's greater facility with abstract thinking too permits the awarding of advanced reasoning and logical processes to social and ideological matters. This is clearly seen in the adolescent'due south increased facility and interest in thinking most interpersonal relationships, politics, philosophy, religion, and morality.

Third, during adolescence individuals begin thinking more than often about the process of thinking itself, or metacognition. As a upshot, adolescents may display increased introspection and self-consciousness. Although improvements in metacognitive abilities provide important intellectual advantages, one potentially negative byproduct of these advances is the tendency for adolescents to develop a sort of egocentrism, or intense preoccupation with the self.

A fourth modify in cognition is that thinking tends to go multidimensional, rather than express to a single outcome. Whereas children tend to recollect about things one aspect at a time, adolescents can see things through more complicated lenses. Adolescents depict themselves and others in more than differentiated and complicated terms and find information technology easier to look at problems from multiple perspectives. Existence able to sympathize that people's personalities are not one-sided or that

(Table by GGS Information Services.)

Cognitive development
Historic period	Activeness
SOURCE : Miller-Keane Encyclopedia and Dictionary of Medicine, Nursing, and Allied Wellness, 5th ed . and Child Evolution Institute, http://world wide web.childdevelopmentinfo.com.
One month	Watches person when spoken to.
Ii months	Smiles at familiar person talking. Begins to follow moving person with eyes.
Four months	Shows interest in bottle, breast, familiar toy, or new environs.
Five months	Smiles at own image in mirror. Looks for fallen objects.
Half dozen months	May stick out tongue in faux. Laughs at peekaboo game. Vocalizes at mirror prototype. May act shy around strangers.
Seven months	Responds to ain name. Tries to establish contact with a person by cough or other noise.
8 months	Reaches for toys out of reach. Responds to "no."
Nine months	Shows likes and dislikes. May attempt to prevent confront-washing or other activity that is disliked. Shows excitement and interest in foods or toys that are well-liked.
Ten months	Starts to understand some words. Waves bye-bye. Holds out arm or leg for dressing.
Eleven months	Repeats performance that is laughed at. Likes repetitive play. Shows interest in books.
Twelve months	May understand some "where is...?" questions. May kiss on request.
Fifteen months	Asks for objects by pointing. Starting to feed cocky. Negativism begins.
18 months	Points to familiar objects when asked "where is...?" Mimics familiar developed activities. Know some torso parts. Obeys two or three uncomplicated orders.
2 years	Names a few familiar objects. Draws with crayons. Obeys constitute simple orders. Participates in parallel play.
Two-and-a-half years	Names several mutual objects. Begins to take interest in sex organs. Gives full names. Helps to put things away. Peak of negativism.
Iii years	Constantly asks questions. May count to 10. Begins to draw specific objects. Dresses and undresses doll. Participates in cooperative play. Talks well-nigh things that have happened.
Four years	May make up silly words and stories. Outset to depict pictures that represent familiar things. Pretends to read and write. May recognize a few common words, such as own proper name.
V years	Tin recognize and reproduce many shapes, letters, and numbers. Tells long stories. Begins to empathize the difference between existent events and make-believe ones. Asks significant of words.

social situations can take unlike interpretations depending on one'southward betoken of view permits the boyish to have far more sophisticated and complicated relationships with other people.

Finally, adolescents are more likely than children to see things as relative, rather than absolute. Children tend to see things in absolute terms—in black and white. Adolescents, in contrast, tend to see things equally relative. They are more likely to question others' assertions and less likely to take facts equally absolute truths. This increase in relativism tin be particularly exasperating to parents, who may feel that their boyish children question everything just for the sake of argument. Difficulties often arise, for example, when adolescents begin seeing their parents' values as excessively relative.

Mutual problems

Cognitive harm is the general loss or lack of development of cerebral abilities, especially autism and learning disabilities. The National Institutes of Mental Health (NIMH) describes learning disabilities as a disorder that affects people'due south power to either interpret what they see and hear or to link information from different parts of the brain. These limitations can show up in many ways, such every bit specific difficulties with spoken and written language, coordination, self-control, or attention. Such difficulties extend to schoolwork and can impede learning to read or write or to do math. A kid who has a learning disability may have other weather condition, such as hearing problems or serious emotional disturbance. Yet, learning disabilities are non caused past these conditions, nor are they caused by ecology influences such as cultural differences or inappropriate education.

Parental concerns

Equally of 2004 it is widely accepted that a child's intellectual power is adamant by a combination of heredity and environment. Thus, although a child's genetic inheritance is unchangeable, at that place are definite ways that parents tin can raise their kid's intellectual evolution through environmental factors. They can provide stimulating learning materials and experiences from an early on age, read to and talk with their children, and help children explore the world around them. Equally children mature, parents can both challenge and support the kid's talents. Although a supportive environment in early childhood provides a clear advantage for children, information technology is possible to brand upwardly for early losses in cognitive development if a supportive environs is provided at some afterward period, in dissimilarity to early disruptions in physical development, which are ofttimes irreversible.

When to call the medico

If, by age three, a child has problems agreement simple directions or is perplexed when asked to practice something simple, the parents or primary caregiver should consult a physician or pediatrician. The child may have a delay in cerebral development. Parents should as well consult a healthcare professional if, later historic period iii, their child'southward cognitive development appears to exist significantly slower than their peers.

KEY TERMS

Autism —A developmental disability that appears early on in life, in which normal brain development is disrupted and social and communication skills are retarded, sometimes severely.

Noesis —The deed or process of knowing or perceiving.

Egocentric —Limited in outlook to things mainly relating to oneself or bars to one's own affairs or activities.

Learning disabilities —An harm of the cognitive processes of agreement and using spoken and written language that results in difficulties with one or more academic skill sets (e.one thousand., reading, writing, mathematics).

Metacognition —Awareness of the process of cognition.

Schemas —Fundamental core beliefs or assumptions that are part of the perceptual filter people use to view the world. Cognitive-behavioral therapy seeks to change maladaptive schemas.

Stanford-Binet intelligence scales —A device designed to measure somebody's intelligence, obtained through a series of aptitude tests concentrating on different aspects of intellectual functioning. An IQ score of 100 represents "boilerplate" intelligence.

Resources

BOOKS

Bjorklund, David F. Children'due south Thinking: Cognitive Development and Private Differences. Stamford, CT: Wadsworth Publishing, 2004.

Pica, Rae. Your Agile Child: How to Heave Physical, Emotional, and Cognitive Evolution Through Historic period-Appropriate Activity. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2003.

Thornton, Stephanie. Growing Minds: An Introduction to Children'south Cognitive Evolution. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.

Wadsworth, Barry J. Piaget's Theory of Cognitive and Affective Development: Foundations of Constructivism , 5th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Allyn & Bacon, 2003.

PERIODICALS

Blumberg, Fran. C., and Lori M. Sokol. "Boys' and Girls' Use of Cognitive Strategy when Learning to Play Video Games." The Journal of General Psychology (April 2004): 151–58.

Dahl, Ronald. "Risk-Taking and Thrill-Seeking." Behavioral Healthcare Tomorrow (June 2004): SS6–SS7.

Li, Xiaoming, and Melissa S. Atkins. "Early Childhood Computer Experience and Cerebral and Motor Development." Pediatrics (June 2004): 1715–22.

Thurber, Christopher A. "I Am. Therefore, I Call back: Explanations of Cognitive Evolution." Camping Magazine (July-Baronial 2003): 36–41.

Wacharasin, Chintana, et al. "Factors Affecting Toddler Cognitive Development in Low-Income Families: Implications for Practitioners." Infants & Young Children (April-June 2003): 175–81.

Zinner, Susan. "The Office of Cerebral Evolution in Pediatric Medical Decision-making." Global Virtue Ethics Review (January 2004): N/A.

ORGANIZATIONS

Cognitive Development Club. University of North Carolina, PO 3270, Chapel Loma, NC 27599. Web site: http://www.cogdevsoc.org.

National Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. 3615 Wisconsin Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20016. Spider web site: http://www.aacap.org.

WEB SITES

Developmental Psychology: Cognitive Development , 2004. Available online at http://www.psy.pdx.edu/PsiCafe/Areas/Developmental/CogDev-Child/alphabetize.htm (accessed November 9, 2004).

Piaget's Theory of Cerebral Development , 2003. Bachelor online at http://chiron.valdosta.edu/whuitt/col/cogsys/piaget.html (accessed November ix, 2004).

Ken R. Wells