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• Cognition

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inner processes and products of the mind that lead to "knowing." o Includes all mental activity - attending, remembering, symbolizing, categorizing, planning, reasoning, problem solving, creating, and fantasizing.

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• Jean Piaget

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influenced contemporary field of child development more than any other individual

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o Constructivist approach

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children construct virtually all knowledge about their world through their own activity You don't start out as cognitive being; adaptation of mind over time There are 4 broad stages that are characterized by qualitatively different ways of thinking (stages are invariant - they always occur in a specific order, no stage skipped; and stages are universal - they are assumed to characterize children everywhere)

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o Schemes

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organized ways of making sense of experience; ex: the way you behave in class versus out of class

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o Mental representation

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internal depictions of information that the mind can manipulate; most powerful mental representations are images

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o Organization

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: a process that occurs internally, apart from direct contact with environment; once children form new schemes, they rearrange them, linking them with other schemes to create a strongly interconnected cognitive system

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o Adaptation

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building schemes through direct interaction with the environment Assimilation: use current schemes to interpret world - child has scheme of eating with hands, so she eats by bringing food to mouth Accommodation: building new schemes or adjusting old ones to interpret world - once introduced with fork, child realizes they can still eat food by bringing it towards their mouth, but they use the fork to do so Examples - adult labels a crayon as "orange" and a child tries to taste it (assimilation); child sees shark at aquarium and asks his mother if she saw the fish (assimilation); child learns that although a dolphin lives in the ocean, it is a mammal not a fish (accommodation)

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Equilibration

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movement between equilibrium (assimilate more) and disequilibrium (accommodate more)

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• Basic ideas of Piaget's theory

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o Piaget believed children move through 4 stages (sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational) during which infants' exploratory behaviors transform into the abstract, logical intelligence of adolescence and adulthood; children are active participants in their learning

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• Sensorimotor stage

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: infants and toddlers "think" with their eyes, ears, hands and other sensorimotor equipment; they cannot yet carry out activities mentally

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• Circular reaction

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provides special means of adapting their first schemes; it involves stumbling onto a new experience caused by the baby's own motor activity. o Reflexive schemes o Primary circular reactions o Secondary circular reactions o Coordination of secondary circular reactions o Tertiary circular reactions o Mental representation

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o Reflexive schemes

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- newborn reflexes

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o Primary circular reactions

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simple motor habits centered around infants own body; limited anticipation of events

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o Secondary circular reactions

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actions aimed at repeating interesting effects in the surrounding world; imitation of familiar behaviors

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o Coordination of secondary circular reactions

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intentional, goal-directed behavior; object permanence

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o Tertiary circular reactions

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exploration of the properties of objects by acting on them in novel ways

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o Mental representation

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- internal depictions of objects and events; deferred imitation

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• Sensorimotor development

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o Intentional behavior o Mental representation

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o Intentional behavior

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goal-directed; coordinating schemes deliberately Object permanence - understanding that objects continue to exist when out of sight; ability to retrieve hidden objects A-not-B search error object permanence is incomplete at first; babies will still search for an object in the first place it was hidden even after seeing it moved to a different location; awareness not complete

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o Mental representation

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arriving at solutions rather than trial-and-error Have a representation of objects even when they're not there Deferred imitation: ability to remember and copy behaviors of models who are not present Make-believe-play: children act out every day and imaginary activities; they are able to make-believe-play because they are aware concepts exist

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• Violation-of-expectation method

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showing babies an expected event (one that follows physical laws) and an unexpected event (a variation of the first event that violates physical laws). Heightened attention to the unexpected event suggests that the infant is "surprised" by a deviation from physical reality - and therefore, is aware of that aspect of the physical world o Shows children have object permanence earlier then Piaget thought - as early as 2.5 months

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• Development of Categorization

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o Categorization helps infants make sense of experience reduces amount of new information constantly encountered by grouping similar information o Habituation & recovery research shows 6-12 month olds organize objects into meaningful categories Less than 6 months: can group objects based on perceptual categorizations (all things red, all things round, etc.) Older than 6 months: can group objects based on conceptual categorizations (all things in the kitchen, all furniture, etc.) Analogical problem solving:

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Analogical problem solving

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applying a solution from one problem to other relevant problems

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• Evaluation of the Sensorimotor Stage

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o How Piaget was right: object search, A-not-B, make-believe-play o How Piaget may have been wrong: Timing of: object permanence, deferred imitation, categorization, problem-solving by analogy; these all happen younger then Piaget thought Piaget assumed motor behaviors were necessary before infants could comprehend, but follow-up research shows their capable; comprehension and motor skills do not go hand-in-hand

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• Preoperational stage

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most obvious change from sensorimotor stage is a BIG increase in mental representation. Language most flexible means; is really true symbolic thought • Characteristics include: o Pretend play o Drawing o Spatial symbols o Language

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• Limitations of Preoperational Thought

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o Piaget described preschool children in terms of what they cannot, rather than can, understand o Cannot perform mental operation

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Operations

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mental representations of actions that obey logical rules; they can think of symbols but can't logically apply those symbols yet

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Egocentric thinking

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failure to distinguish others' symbolic viewpoints from one's own. Assumption that others think, perceive, and feel the way they do

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Animistic thinking

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the belief that inanimate objects have lifelike qualities, such as thoughts, wishes, feelings, and intentions

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Inability to conserve:

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can't understand that certain physical characteristics of objects remain the same, even when their outward appearance changes (ex: conservation-of-liquid; liquid poured from tall, thin glass into short, wide glass - infants will think the amount of liquid has changed). This emphasizes centration (focusing on one aspect of situation, neglecting other important features; their understanding is centered)

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• Irreversibility

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can't reverse mental steps; cannot imagine the water being poured back into its original container

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Lack of hierarchical classification

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• Is the organization of objects into classes and subclasses on the basis of similarities and differences • Class-inclusion problem problem of understanding sub categorization within categorization; if shown 2 groups, 1 group of 12 red flowers, 1 group of 4 blue flowers, they do not understand that these can all be categorized under "flowers" (if asked are there more red flowers or flowers, they will answer red flowers)

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• Concrete operational stage

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: marks major turning point in cognitive development; more logical, flexible and organized in their thinking

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• Accomplishments of concrete operational stage

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o Conservation: ability to pass conservation tasks Decentration can look at all properties of an object; more logical thinking Reversibility they understand A can go to B, and B can go back to A o Classification: more aware of classification hierarchies; can pass class-inclusion problem, o Seriation: ability to order items along a qualitative dimension, such as length or weight. Transitive inference seriate mentally; they can think in their head what a meter stick actually looks like o Spatial Reasoning: understanding directions and maps; mental rotations, cognitive maps (representations of familiar large-scale places, such as their school or neighborhood), improved directions

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• Limitations of concrete operational stage

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o Operations work best with concrete objects - problems with abstract thinking o Continuum of Acquisition - through development they get better and better at logical thinking; mastery of logical thinking is gradual (conservation of numbers understood first, then liquid and mass, then weight) o Culture & schooling: different cognitive operations among different cultures; tribal and village societies have delayed understanding

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• Formal operational stage

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capacity for abstract, systematic, scientific thinking o Hypothetico-deductive reasoning o Propositional thought

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o Hypothetico-deductive reasoning

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when faced with a problem, they start with a hypothesis, from which they figure out logical, testable inferences. Then they experiment to see which of these inferences are confirmed in the real world Possibility reality; not as limited Pendulum problem: given weights/strings of different sizes, if asked which combination would make the pendulum faster, they experiment with each combination until they come up with the correct solution

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o Propositional thought

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adolescents' ability to evaluate the logic of propositions (verbal statements) without referring to real-world circumstances; if told something, their ability to decipher and understand it. Young children struggle with this

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how does the violation of expectation method works

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carrot picture: Expected event: short carrot will go underneath window without being seen, until it is past the wall. Unexpected event: tall carrot should be able to be seen through window, but isn't, causing "surprise"

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• Vygotsky's Sociocultural Theory

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o Socially mediated process o Emphasizes effect of social & cultural contexts on children's thinking Helps us understand the wide cultural variation in cognitive skills Shows vital role of teaching in cognitive development Little emphasis placed on biological contributions to child's cognition o Language foundation of cognitive processes; rapid growth of language leads to profound changes in thinking

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• Private speech

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children's self-directed speech is now called this instead of egocentric speech o Children use it more when tasks are difficult, after they make errors, or when they are confused about how to proceed o Children with learning/behavioral problems use longer

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• Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)

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): a range of tasks too difficult for the child to do alone but possible with the help of adults and more skilled peers o Move through ZPD via intersubjectivity (differentiation), scaffolding, guided participation o Scaffolding - adjusting the support offered during a teaching session to fit the child's current level of performance; as child's competence of the task increases, effective scaffolders withdraw support, turning responsibility to the child

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• Importance of make-believe-play

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o Seen as major source of cognitive development o Creates a zone of proximal development - children advance themselves as they try out a wide variety of challenging skills o Thinking vs. objects children continually use one object to stand for another (a stick is used as a horse, etc.) and in the process, change the object's usual meaning. They then realize thinking (or meaning of words) is separate from objects and that ideas can be used to guide behavior o Rules & thinking before acting strengthens children's capacity to think before they act; they follow the rules of the play scene. Ex: a child pretending to go to sleep obeys the rules of bedtime behavior o Through make believe play, children can learn about important activities in their culture. Toddlers need encouragement (more elaborate with older people); mothers/siblings play an important role in modeling

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difference between encoding, recoding and decoding

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• Encoding: taken in by system and retained in symbolic form • Recoding: revising this symbol into more efficient version; a more effective representation • Decoding: interpreting its meaning by comparing and combining it with other information in the system

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• Store model

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information-processing system that assumes that we hold, or store, information in 3 parts of the mental system for processing o Sensory register: o Working/short term memory o Long term memory • As we flow through the system, we use mental strategies (increases chances we will retain information, use it efficiently, and think flexibly, adapting the information to changing circumstances) to operate on and transform

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o Sensory register:

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where information first enters; sights and sounds are represented directly and stored briefly. An image of what you saw persists for a few seconds, and then decays or disappears unless you use mental strategies to preserve it.

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o Working/short term memory

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actively apply mental strategies as we "work" on a limited amount of information; capacity of working memory is more restricted than sensory register, so we must use mental strategies to connect pieces of information into a single representation, to make room in working memory for more

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o Long term memory

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our permanent knowledge base - unlimited

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• Developments in Information Processing

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o Increases in Capacity Memory span: information your working memory can hold, increases with age Processing speed: how efficient you are with that information

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• Attention

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o Sustained attention: o Selective attention o Adaptive attention

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o Sustained attention:

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focus on complex stimuli, display slowing of heart rate while engaged; intentional, goal-directed behavior, ability to concentrate Increases sharply between 2 ½ - 3 years Frontal lobe growth, more complex play goals, adult scaffolding

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o Selective attention

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as sustained attention increases, children become better at focusing on only those aspects of a situation that are relevant to their goals (selectivity)

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o Adaptive attention

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children able to flexibly adapt their attention to task requirements

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Inhibition

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the ability to control internal and external distracting stimuli; improves from infancy on gains on complex tasks from middle childhood to adolescence

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Attentional strategies

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emerge and are refined during 4 phases • Production deficiency • Control deficiency • Utilization deficiency • Effective strategy use

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• Production deficiency

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: preschoolers fail to produce strategies when they could be helpful; rarely engage in attentional strategies

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• Control deficiency

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slightly older children sometimes produce strategies, but not consistently. They fail to control, or execute, strategies effectively.

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• Utilization deficiency

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young elementary school children execute strategies consistently, but their performance either does not improve or improves less than that of older children

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• Effective strategy use

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by the mid-elementary school years, children use strategies consistently, and performance improves

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• Planning

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involves thinking out a sequence of acts ahead of time and allocating attention accordingly to reach a goal o Begins in infancy; improves with age (preschoolers sometimes generate and follow simple rules, school-age children are better planners however) o Tools, teaching, practice help children learn to plan

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• Memory

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o Rehearsal o Organization o Elaboration

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o Rehearsal

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repeating information to yourself

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o Organization

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grouping related items (ex: grouping all cities in same part of country)

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o Elaboration

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: creating a relationship, or shared meaning, between two or more pieces of information that do not belong in the same category (ex: to learn the words "fish" and "pipe" you may generate the verbal statement "the fish is smoking the pipe"

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o Culture, schooling, and memory strategies

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Every day use of grouping may help to remember objects Western schooling gives little practice in spatial location techniques

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o Retrieving information

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Recognition Recall Reconstruction

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Recognition

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- noticing that a stimulus is identical or similar to one previously experienced. Simplest form of retrieval. Easier than recall.

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Recall

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generating a mental representation of an absent stimulus. More difficult than recognition

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Reconstruction

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recoding it while it is in the system or being retrieved. Constructive processing. (ex: while telling his grandpa a story, a child selects and interprets events and details, engaging reconstruction); can happen deliberately or due to "fuzzy trace" (first encode info; memorizing a vague version, called a gist, which preserves the essential meaning without details)

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o Types of memories

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Semantic and Episodic (autobiographical)

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Semantic

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vast, organized and hierarchically structured general knowledge system; grows from episodic memory, repeated events form scripts • Scripts: general descriptions of what occurs and when it occurs in a particular situation

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Episodic (autobiographical)

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- memory for many personally experienced events; long-lasting representations of one-time events • Develop basis after age 2 are able to have a sufficiently clear self-image to serve as an anchor for personally significant events (able to encode events as "something happened to me") • Must be able to organize events into meaningful, time-organized life story

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• Parents help develop narrative by conversing with their children

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o Elaborative: follow children's lead, discussing topics of interest to the child, asking varied questions, adding information to the child's statements, etc. Children who experience this elaborative style recall more information o Repetitive: repeating same questions "did you remember the zoo? What did we do at the zoo? What did we do there?", providing little additional information & disregards child's interest

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o Differences in parents helping in narrative

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Chinese mothers: emphasize collectivistic orientation (why did you misbehave, etc.) highlight roles of others, discourage talking about yourself American mothers: emphasize individualistic orientation; highlight roles of individual

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o Infantile amnesia

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Lack of memory for experiences before 3 years old Language is integral for memory; so it makes it hard to find memories from pre-language stage - memory is typically based on sensory information before age 3

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Know the terms in metacognition

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• Metacognition • Theory of mind • Cognitive self-regulation

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• Metacognition

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- awareness and understanding of various aspects of thought o Influences how well children remember and solve problems

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• Theory of mind

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a coherent understanding of people as mental beings, which they revise as they encounter new evidence

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• Cognitive self-regulation

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- the process of continually monitoring progress toward a goal, checking outcomes, and redirecting unsuccessful efforts o Evident when child does homework assignment reread complex material and relate new information to existing knowledge

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• Definitions of Intelligence

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o Psychometric approach o Alfred Binet & Theodore Simon o Factor Analysts o Louis Thurstone

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o Psychometric approach

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Process focused Vygotsky focused on the process of learning Product focused concerned with outcomes and results; example is the SAT

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o Alfred Binet & Theodore Simon

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beginning of public education First successful intelligence test; identify children who need special classes Included verbal/non-verbal items First test to match items of difficulty with chronological age (believed in different difficulty for different ages)

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o Factor Analysts

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Factor analysis - identifies sets of test items that cluster together, meaning the test takers who do well on one item in a cluster tend to do well on others. Distinct clusters are called factors. Charles Spearman found that all test items correlated with one another • G intelligence "g": a common underlying general intelligence that influences test items; "g" = abstract reasoning capacity • Binet originally thought there was an underlying intelligence, but Spearman actually tested for this • Spearman also proposed specific intelligence unique intelligence; anything not due to "g" (intelligence outside of g)

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o Louis Thurstone

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Studied Binet's test with more advanced statistics; saw individual skills within test in general, there's a combination of both (hierarchal models), there is such thing as "g" and "g" is important, but underneath "g" you have different and important skills, which can be measured by subtests "g" is at highest level & subtests can measure separate factors Subtests can show individual strengths and weaknesses Subskills are all related to "g" but are independently measured

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Fluid reasoning

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- processing speed; how quickly you process information Quantitative reasoning - math related skills

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Visual-spatial processing

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how you understand maps

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Working memory

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manipulating symbols & keeping them in your active memory system

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o Three-stratum theory of intelligence

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Elaborates models proposed by Spearman, Thurstone & Cattell. Intelligence has 3 tiers "g" at top, broad abilities at 2nd tier, and narrow abilities at 3rd

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o Crystallized vs. Fluid Intelligence;

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proposed by Cattell Crystallized - skills that depend on accumulated knowledge and experience, good judgment, and mastery of social customs; valued by persons culture Fluid - depends more heavily on basic information-processing skills - the ability to detect relationships among stimuli, the speed at which a person can analyze information, and the capacity of working memory; influenced more by brain and less by culture; you're born with your fluid intelligence Crystallized tests - sometimes seen as culturally biased, because many cultures read differently Fluid tests - very culturally biased; based on prior experiences in culture (i.e. identifying a fire hydrant some cultures can, some cultures can't)

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o Componential analyses

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look for relationships between aspects (or components) of information processing and children's intelligence test performance

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o Sternberg's Triarchic Theory

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Made up of 3 broad interacting intelligences; response "g" is too narrow Analytical intelligence: information-processing skills Creative intelligence: ability to generate useful solutions to new problems Practical intelligence: intellectual skills in everyday situations Emphasizes complexity of intelligent behavior and the limitations of current intelligence tests underestimates intelligence of children in tribal societies/minorities

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o Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligences

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Defines intelligence in terms of distinct sets of processing operations that permit individuals to solve problems, create products, and discover new knowledge Proposes at least 8 independent intelligences, unlike other theories

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• Standford-Binet Intelligence Scales

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for individuals from age 2 to adulthood; measures general intelligence "g" and 5 intellectual factors

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• Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children

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- 6-16 year olds; measures general intelligence

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• Aptitude tests

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- assess an individual's potential to learn a specialized activity, can include SAT and ACT

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• Achievement tests

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aim to assess no potential to learn but actual knowledge and skill attainment classroom tests, can also include SAT and ACT o Aptitude & Achievement are subcategories of Intelligence tests; Achievement is subcategory of Aptitude tests

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• Bayley tests

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measures intelligence in infants; early language, cognition and social behavior o Testing infants is challenging; they can't answer & are sometimes uncooperative o Emphasize perceptual and motor responses because no language o Predict later mental ability; screening used to determine developmental problems o DQ (developmental quotients): rather than IQ's because IQ cannot be measured in infants

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• IQ (intelligence quotient)

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indicates the extent to which raw score (number of items passed) deviates from the typical performance of same-individual tests; (mental age) / (chronological age); 100 = mean

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• Standardization

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giving the test to large, representative sample of individuals, which serves as the standard for interpreting scores; makes IQ tests possible

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• Normal distribution

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most scores cluster around the mean, with progressively fewer falling toward each extreme; represents bell-shaped distributation for IQ tests, mean = 100 with a standard deviation of 15

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o Mean

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mental age divided by chronological age is equal to 1; above 100 your brain ability is higher for you age, below 100 your brain ability is lower for your age

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• Stability of IQ scores

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o Correlational stability o Absolute score stability o IQ as predictor of Academic Achievement o IQ as predictor of Occupational Attainment o IQ as predictor of Psychological Adjustment

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o Correlational stability

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correlate scores obtained at different ages Better correlations when tests taken closer together (i.e. at ages 6 and then 7 as opposed to at age 6 and then at age 9; also better correlations when older at time of first testing At approx. age 6 scores more stable because tests are similar to school activities

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o Absolute score stability

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examine each child's profile of scores over repeated testing's Most children fluctuate; typically 10-20pts during childhood & adolescence Children scores either increase or decrease Environmental cumulative deficit hypothesis - the negative effects of underprivileged rearing conditions increase the longer children remain in them. As a result, early cognitive defects lead to more cognitive defects

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o IQ as predictor of Academic Achievement

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Correlated with: achievement test scores, good grades, and staying in school Age 7 has moderate correlation with adult education Range .40-.80 typically .50-.60

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o IQ as predictor of Occupational Attainment

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Similar correlation to education Correlation with personality & practical intelligence (mental abilities apparent in the real world but not in testing situations)

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o IQ as predictor of Psychological Adjustment

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Moderate correlation of emotional and social adjustment but reason is unclear Low IQ related to school failure, aggression, delinquency No relationship with many psychological disorders

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• Flynn effect

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IQ's have steadily increased from one generation to the next

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• Socioeconomic Status (SES)

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combines 3 interrelated - but not completely overlapping - variables; (1) years of education and (2) the prestige of one's job and the skill is requires, both of which measure social status; and (3) income, which measures economic status

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o Ethnicity and SES account for variations in IQ

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some claim heredity causes IQ differences between minorities; consequence of minorities is low SES status o Heredity explains some general differences in IQ

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Kinship studies

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compare the characteristics of family members

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o IQ similarity among relatives

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the greater genetic similarity between family members, the more they resemble one another in IQ

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Heredity

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Correlation for identical twins reared apart is much higher than for fraternal twins reared together

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Environment

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: relatives reared together more similar than relatives reared apart

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IQ correlations for twins

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fraternal twins decrease correlation with age; identical twins increase (slightly) correlation with age

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Niche-picking

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identical twins pick similar environments

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o Heritability explanations in Ethnic and SES variation in IQ

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Heritability of IQ higher for high SES then low SES rearing conditions; there is more environmental variability in low SES Richard Lewontin's Example More variability within ethnicity than between ethnicities racial distribution more attributable to environment then genetics

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Richard Lewontin's Example

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different seeds in different soil; seeds in pot with fertilizer (high SES) vs. seeds in pot with no fertilizer (low SES)

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o Adoption studies

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children adopted into caring, stimulating homes IQ's rise substantially compared to non-adopted children who remain in economically deprived families

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• Environmental Cumulative Deficit Hypothesis

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children in poverty show test declines; negative effects increase the longer it lasts; early cognitive deficits lead to more deficits; it becomes harder and harder to overcome

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• Cultural Bias in Testing

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2 views (tests aren't biased vs. tests are biased)

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o Tests are not biased

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they represent success in the common culture - they think this represents what intelligence should be (some cultures more successful than others)

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o Cultural factors can hurt test performance such as

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Communication style Culture-specific content Stereotypes

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Communication style

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- ethnic minority families often foster unique language skills that do not match expectations of most testing situations

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Culture-specific content

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fluid vs. crystallized; IQ scores affected by specific information acquired as part of minority-culture upbringing

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Stereotypes

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- stereotype threat (the fear of being judged on the basis of a negative stereotype) can trigger anxiety that interferes with performance

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o Reducing cultural bias in testing

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dynamic assessment - the adult introduces purposeful teaching into the testing situation to find out what the child can attain with emotional support

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o Shared environmental influences

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pervade the general atmosphere of the home, and therefore, similarly affect siblings living in it; ex: availability of stimulating toys/books.

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o Nonshared environmental influences

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make siblings different from one another; ex: unique treatment by parents, birth order and spacing, and special events that affect one sibling and not the other

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o Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment (HOME)

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a checklist for gathering information about the quality of children's home lives through observation and parental interview

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• Gifted children

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those who display exceptional talent and have diverse characteristics

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• Creativity

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the ability to produce work that is original yet appropriate - something that others have not thought of but that is useful in some way

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o Psychometric approach

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divergent thinking - generation of multiple and unusual possibilities when faced with a task or problem thinking of more ways to answer one problem. This contrasts with convergent thinking - arriving at a single correct answer and is emphasized on intelligence tests

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o Investment theory

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to be creative, one must produce original, appropriate work; but this takes time and motivation individuals are more creative when they are willing to invest the time and effort

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o Multifaceted view

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many elements must converge for creativity to occur cognitive resources (knowledge), personality resources (innovativeness, tolerance), motivational resources (goal-focused, rewards can increase this), and environmental resources (child-focused family, school support)

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• High stakes testing

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U.S. no child left behind act promotes one-size fits all education, insensitive to student diversity (neglects gifted and talented children), promotes fear

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• Language

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a form of communication based on a system of symbols; spoken, written or signed. Consists of words used by a community, and rules for varying & combining words

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• Components of language

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o Phonology o Semantics o Grammar o Pragmatics

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o Phonology

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: rules governing the structure and sequence of speech sounds; smallest sounds of language that we have cat has 3 phonemes: cah-ah-tuh; sub-word level

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o Semantics

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: vocabulary - the way underlying concepts are expressed in words and word combinations; consists of elaborate networks of related terms

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o Grammar

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2 pain parts Syntax - rules for word arrangement (sentences) Morphology - use of grammatical markers indicating number, tense, case, person, gender, active or passive voice, and other meanings (ex: adding -ed to the end of a sentence makes it past tense; adding -s makes it plural, etc.)

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o Pragmatics

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appropriate and effective communication; how you say it, you would speak differently based on situation (speak differently towards friends than towards teacher) ex: "no, there's nothing wrong" a good sense of pragmatics would probably sense that there is something wrong by the tone of voice, facial expression, etc.

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• Behaviorist perspective

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Skinner o Emphasize nurture (environment): language is acquired through operant conditioning o Language learned through imitation (watching others) and reinforcement (praise after child says something you asked them to say correctly); emphasized importance of parent in language development o BUT Brown & Hanlon study looked at how parents corrected their children; so if child said "I goed to the park" parents should correct them and say "No, we WENT to the park" but instead, the study found that parents would only correct the situation, not the correct tense of the word i.e. child says "I goed to the park" parents would respond back "No, we goed to the zoo"

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• Nativist perspective

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Chomsky o Emphasizes biology and genetics that there is a universal grammar (built-in storehouse of rules that apply to all human languages) o Language Acquisition Device (LAD): innate system that permits them, once they have acquired sufficient vocabulary, to combine words into grammatically correct consistent, novel utterances and to understand the meaning of the sentences they hear; states that there is an unknown brain center that houses all of our information to learn language and that we are born with this brain region o Minimal input from environment is necessary to learn primarily biologically driven

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• Interactionist perspective

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TODAY o States that children may have innate biases but social context and environmental input is also important o Information-processing theories: children make sense of their complex language environments by applying powerful, analytic cognitive capacities of a general kind rather than capacities especially tuned to language o Social Interactionist theories: state that native capacity, a strong desire to communicate, and a rich language environment combine to help discover the functions and regularities of language

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• Support for Nativist Perspective

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o Animal "language" even the most intelligent animal species, other than humans, have yet to show that they have richer aspects of language; language seems uniquely human o Brain structures: regions predisposed to language processing Broca's area in left frontal lobe; supports grammar and communication production (damage to this area = can communicate and put together words, but have trouble understanding words spoken to them) Wernicke's area in left temporal lobe; plays a role in comprehending word meaning (damage to this area = problem understanding words, but no problems communicating them) o Sensitive period: coincides with brain lateralization, but is not a end-all-be-all (there is somewhat of a sensitive period, but if it is missed language development can still occur

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• Newborns are sensitive to speech

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o Especially mother's voice; newborns hear ALL phonemes from all languages preps children to learn language

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o Phonemes are not the same across languages; for example

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"ra" and "la" are distinct sounds to English speakers but sound different to Japanese

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Categorical speech perception

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ability to distinguish ONLY phonemes of a certain language being learned; as infants develop, they start to only hear phonemes from their native language As they grow, infants hear 1 language in particular, so although they are capable of hearing all phonemes, they start to lean towards not hearing phonemes outside of that particular (native) language

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McGurk effect

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multimodal perception: senses such as vision and hearing work together to help us perceive our world. Things sound or look different if one of the senses is turned off i.e. if we close our eyes & only listen, or if we close our ears and only see

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• Statistical analysis

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o Infants born with it; your brain separates what somebody is saying into words, and to detect each word separately Learn which syllables co-occur (part of same word) vs. not (word boundary; new word begins) o Used to locate words in speech, and then later used to detect syllable stress (syllable stress = accents of different languages)

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• Child directed speech (CDS) i.e. "Parentese"

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a form of communication made up of short sentences with high-pitched, exaggerated expression, clear pronunciation, distinct pauses between speech segments, clear gestures to support verbal meaning, and repetition of new words in a variety of contexts. Adults in many countries speak to infants/toddlers this way. o We do this to animals as well, and older children will do it to younger children

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Why do we talk in Parentese?

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Babies like the sound of parentese, a lot of learning occurs with it Fernald & Simon Plays a role in language acquisition Conveys emotion

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Fernald & Simon

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experiment; babies could control what they hear either by looking towards speaker speaking parentese or speaker speaking regular adult language - babies preferred to listen to speaker speaking parentese

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language acquisition

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- helps children learn language by annunciation of words; taking long pauses between words helps children to differentiate them

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emotion

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approval vs. prohibition studies children would play will ball with high-tone associated with it more, even if what the voice was saying was negative (i.e. "bad boy! (prohibition)" in high-pitched tone ball was played with more than "good boy! (approval)" in lower tone); the lower tone expressions steered the children AWAY from playing with the ball. Proved pitch matters.

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• First speech sounds

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o At birth, babies exhibit reflexive sounds (crying and gurgling) o At approx. age 1, babies begin making real vowel sounds; first sounds you make - uhh, ehh, ahh, etc. Vowel sounds are easiest to make because they do not involve the tongue. o At approx. 4 months, babbling occurs Determined by growth of vocal tract Universal timing fairly same timing for all children Range expands type of babbling differs as they grow

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• 4-6 mnths

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early babbling - start to be able to control pitch/volume. Series of growls

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• 7-8 mnths

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canonical babbling - constant vowel combinations (ga ga ga, ba ba ba); shift towards using more consonants

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• 10-12 mnths

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: jargon babbling - pre-linguistic; use of stress and intonation; attempt at saying full sentences

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o Deaf infants

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babble in sign; no matter what language, vocal or sign, babbling is important for development

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o Joint attention

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child attends to same object or event as the caregiver; adult follows baby's line of vision while reading to the baby & comments on what the baby sees sees child looking at elephant say "that's an elephant" etc.

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o Protodeclarative gesture

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- baby points to, touches, or holds up an object while looking at others to make sure they notice

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o Protoimperative gesture

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- baby gets another person to do something by reaching, pointing, and often making sounds at the same time

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• The early phase

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o First words - can only pronounce a few sounds; experiment with different phonemes simple phonemes o Related to semantic development a larger vocabulary allows them to pronounce more sounds o They understand more than they can say

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Simple phonemes

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phonemes in each language (mama, dada in English); all of our languages have co-evolved to include simple phonemes that are easier to understand for infants and easier to pronounce

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• Phonological progress

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happens because of a maturation of vocal cords; babies evolve through these steps because their vocal cords are developing 1) Minimal words: "mama" and "dada" focus on the stressed syllable 2) Adding ending consonants: "jus" instead of "ju" (i.e. Juice) 3) Adjust vowel length: "beee" for "pleeeaseee" 4) Add unstressed syllables: "mae-do" for "tomato" 5) Produce full word, correct stress pattern a. They still may need to refine sounds: for example they say "pagetti" instead of "spaghetti"

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• Comprehension

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language they understand

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• Production

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language they use o Comprehension comes before production o 5 month lag time between what kids can comprehend and what they can say; i.e. they understand a word about 5 months before they can say it o At about 13 months they have a 50 word vocabulary o Object words learned before action words "ball" before "walk" etc.

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• Early semantic development

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o First words/word combinations 12 mnths Holophrases o Characteristics o Underextensions: o Overextensions Picture-pointing study o Normal insight o Fast mapping o Referential style: o Expressive style o Disparities in vocabulary

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Holophrases

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another term for first words; they only have 1 word and use it in place of an entire sentence pointing to "sock" and saying "sock"

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o Characteristics

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names (ball), action words (allgone), social words (bye-bye), routine words (lunch), modifiers (hot)

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o Underextensions:

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using a general word to mean 1 very specific thing when they say "ball" they're only referring to THEIR ball, not all the other balls in the world

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o Overextensions

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using specific word in numerous situations i.e. using the word "dog" to describe every animal

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Picture-pointing study

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shown a line-up of animals, kids still able to pick out the dog; this means that children want to understand and communicate, they just don't have the vocabulary to do so yet

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o Normal insight

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discovering there is a unique word for every situation; finally understanding

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o Fast mapping

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*will be on test* the idea that children can connect a new word with its concept after only a brief encounter/after only hearing it once. This is why they learn vocabulary so quickly at this stage

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o Referential style

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vocabulary consisting mainly of words that refer to objects

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o Expressive style

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compared with referential children, they produce many more social formulas and pronouns

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o Disparities in vocabulary

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Hart & Riesley study: research shows that between welfare, working-class, and professional class families, ALL parenting is similar, HOWEVER; in welfare families, variety of words and vocabulary is smaller than in working class and professional families i.e. children learn most words in professional families (because of a large vocabulary), although parenting style is still similar between all

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• Later semantic development

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o Big vocab increase due to going to school, around more children, etc. Reading contributes A LOT because books introduce words not used in everyday life o Use words precisely, understand multiple meanings i.e. "neat" can mean organized or interesting o Phonological store: o Mutual exclusivity bias o Shape bias o Syntactic bootstrapping

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o Phonological store

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a special part of working memory; permits us to retain speech-based information Due to cognitive processing: brain is very important in memory system Phonological memory skill predicts vocab size and growth Frees up working memory for comprehension and vocab building Adult feedback also plays a role in semantic development o Emergentist coalition model

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o Mutual exclusivity bias

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the assumption that words refer to entirely separate (non-overlapping) categories;

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o Shape bias

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: previous learning of nouns based on shape heightens attention to the shape properties of additional objects. As a result, toddlers readily master more names for objects distinguished by shape, and vocabulary accelerates

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o Syntactic bootstrapping

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preschoolers discover many word meanings by observing how words are used in syntax, or the structure of sentences

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o Emergentist coalition model

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proposes that word-learning strategies emerge out of children's efforts to decipher language

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• Telegraphic speech

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2-word utterances o Around 2 years old "mommy throw" "ball red" etc. o Use of content words, not function words! No use of "the" etc.

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• Simple sentences:

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-word utterances o Around 3 years old subject, verb, object sentences o Piecemeal rules - applied to only one or a few verbs

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• Environmental support is important

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adult reformulations - correction of grammar indirectly o Asking child for clarification o Recasts o Expansions

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o Recasts

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restructure inaccurate speech; parent repeats back correct version of sentence; i.e. if child says "mommy park go" mother would say "mommy go to the park"

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o Expansions

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elaborate, increase in complexity; if child says "mommy park go" mother says back "you want to go to the park?" etc.

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• Grammatical morphemes

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small markers that change the meaning of sentences o "-ing" "-ed" "-s" endings o Overregularization: applying morphological rules to words that are exceptions; i.e. "by car breaked" "I falled" etc. o Overregularization is VERY rare! Children usually use correct form >90% of the time

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• Wug experiment

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children understand and produce correct grammatical words pretty early; "this is a wug, now there is another one, there are two of them, there are two ___" children will fill in blank with "wugs" o They are able to produce correct grammatical words with novel (nonword) words; wug is not a real word, but children are still able to correctly add on the "-s" to make it plural

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• Semantic bootstrapping

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use word meanings to figure out sentence structure; children might begin grouping together words that cause actions as subjects and words with action qualities as verbs then they figure out how these are used in sentences

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Pragmatic development:

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• 2 year olds can have effective conversations • Early childhood o Turnabout • Middle childhood o Shading o Illocutionary intent

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o Turnabout

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- the speaker not only comments on what has just been said, but also adds a request to get the partner to respond again

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o Shading

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speaker initiates change of topic gradually by modifying the focus of discussion

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o Illocutionary intent

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- what a speaker means to say, even if the form of the utterance is not perfectly consistent with it; they begin to understand that "I need water" can actually mean "I'm thirsty"

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• Referential communication skills:

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production of clear verbal messages and recognition when messages we receive are unclear so we can ask for more information

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• Speech registers

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language adaption's to social expectations; i.e. saying please and thank you o Sensitive at 4-7 years old; follow social routines, polite language, and dramatic gains in adolescence

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• Bilingualism

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o Code switching o When learning 2 languages at once: children experience no problems in language development and are generally good at both by preschool o When learning one then the other: takes 3-5 yrs to be as good as same-age native speakers of second language they're trying to learn o Children who become fluent in 2 languages are actually advanced in cognitive development selective attention, analytical reasoning, concept formation, and cognitive flexibility gains o They are also better at detecting errors in grammar and meaning

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o Code switching

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producing an utterance in one language that contains one or more "guest words" from the other - "rojo car", just basically mixing up 2 languages This happens because: they might not have the correct vocabulary in one language, they learned from their parents, the word is a better expression for the meaning their trying to get across (i.e. cultural identity or word doesn't exist in other language)

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