Cognitive Development of

Childhood
Report by Jeremiah Barriga
Early Childhood Cognitive Development
 Piagetian: Preoperational Stage
● the stage of cognitive development, in which symbolic thought expands but
children cannot yet use logic effectively.
● understanding of space,causality, identities, categorization, and number also
grow.
Piagetian: Preoperational Stage

Use of Symbols Understanding Understanding Ability to Classify

of Identities Cause & Effect

Understanding
Empathy Theory of Mind
of Numbers
Piagetian: Preoperational Immature Aspects

Centration: Inability Irreversibility Focus on States rather

Transductive
than Transformations
to Decenter Reasoning

Inability to Distinguish
Egocentrism Animism Appearance from
Reality
 Symbolic Function

● ability to use mental representations

(words, numbers, or images) to which a
child has attached meaning.
● Pretend Play: also called fantasy play,
dramatic play, or imaginative play.
● Deferred imitation, in which children
imitate an action at some point after
having observed it,
 Understanding Causality

● Transduction: linking to events to

be related to each other, especially
events close in time.
● Understanding Cause & Effect is
developing in this stage.
Information-Processing Approach:
Memory
● Take Note: Encoding > Storage >
Retrieval
● 3 Types of Storage:
● Sensory Memory: brief storage of
sensory information
● Working Memory: short-term
storage of information being
processed
● Long-term Memory: unlimited
capacity, hold information for long
time
 Information-Processing Approach:
Memory
★ Working memory is limit in capacity.
○ In a research finding:
■ A child at 4 yrs old: remembers
2 digits.
■ 12 yr old children: remembers
6 digits on average
○ Working memory starts to develop
at 6 yrs old and steadily develops
until 14-15 yrs old.
 Information-Processing Approach:
Memory
★ Working memory growth develops the
executive function:
○ Conscious control of thoughts, actions &
emotions to achieve goals and solve problems
○ It helps child focus on something and override
inappropriate responses
○ This function develops at the end of a child’s
1st year and steadily develop as the child
grows.
○ Another research shows that executive function
∝ IQ and Academic performance
 Recognition and Recall

● Children is better at recognition than

recall but it improves in age.
● They fail to have effective recall
strategies and needs to be reminded.
Forming and Retaining Childhood Memories
● Memories who are rare, has emotional impact.
● Generic Memory: Memory that produces scripts of familiar
routines to guide behavior.
○ Scripts: General remembered outline of a familiar, repeated event,
used to guide behavior.
● Episodic Memory: Long-term memory of specific experiences
or events, linked to time and place.
● Autobiographical Memory: Memory of specific events in
one’s life.
● Influences of Memory and Retention
○ Social Interaction Model: Model, based on Vygotsky’s sociocultural
theory, that proposes children construct autobiographical memories
through conversation with adults about shared events.
Intelligence: Psychometric & Vygotskian
Models
Traditional Psychometric Measures

● Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scales are used for ages 2 and up and

take 45 to 60 minutes.
○ is supposed to measure fluid reasoning (the ability to solve abstract or novel
problems), knowledge, quantitative reasoning, visual-spatial processing, and
working memory
● Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence, Revised
(WPPSI-IV) is an individual test taking 30 to 60 minutes.
○ It has separate levels for ages 21⁄2 to 4 and 4 to 7 and yields verbal, performance,
and combined scores.
 Language
Development
● Vocabulary: 3 years olds knows 900-1000 words on average; at 6 yrs old: 2600 words.
○ Rapid mapping: learning the meaning of the word through hearing it once/twice in
a conversation
● Grammar & Syntax:
○ At age 3, children typically begin to use plurals, possessives, and past tense and
know the difference between I, you, and we.
○ They can ask—and answer—what and where questions in simple, short and
declarative sentence.
○ aAt ages 4 and 5, it becomes more complex and can make bit longer sentences.
● Social Speech: able to speak to be understood by the listener.
○ Pragmatics: The practical knowledge needed to use language for communicative
purposes.
● Private Speech: talk to oneself without the intent to communicate to others/ thinking
out loud
TESTING AND TEACHING BASED ON
VYGOTSKY’S THEORY
● Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD): the imaginary
psychological space between what children can do or know by
themselves and what they could do or know with help.
○ Scaffolding: Temporary support to help a child master a task.
Emergent
Literacy

● Preschoolers’
development of
skills, knowledge,
and attitudes that
underlie reading
and writing.
 A Possible
Challenge During
Early Childhood
Childhood-Onset Fluency
Disorder (Stuttering)

● Stuttering is inappropriate with individuals age and language skills. It is

persistent and frequently has one of the ff:
○ Sound/Syllable repetitions
○ Prolonged sound of vowels/ consonants
○ Broken words (pause between words)
○ Audible/ silent blocking
○ Substitutes problematic words
○ Spoken words with excess physical tension
○ Monosyllabic whole-word repetitions
● Causes anxiety to speak, hinders effective communication/ social
participation, academic performance, either individually or in combination.
Childhood-Onset Fluency
Disorder (Stuttering)

● Onset at early developmental period.

● It should not be attributable to speech-motor/ sensory deficit, dysfluency due to
neurological conditions ( stroke, trauma, tumor, etc.) or other medical conditions.
Development:
● 80-90% of individuals acquire this condition at 6 years old, average onset is 2-7 yrs
old
● Starts gradually, without the child being aware of it.
● As child becomes aware of it, it cause self-consciousness resulting to avoiding
activities like speaking in public or short and simple utterance
Childhood-Onset Fluency
Disorder (Stuttering)

● It could be genetic/physiological: having a 1st degree relative with stuttering has three
times the risk of having it.
● Stress and anxiety makes he condition worse; Impairment in social functioning may result
for the anxiety.
Treatment
● Speech therapy can be used to encourage the individual to speak more slowly and effectively.
Cognitive behavioural therapy can also be used to identify thoughts processes that worsen
stuttering, and to identify coping strategies related to stress from stuttering.
● Electronic delayed auditory feedback tools can also be used to help individuals to slow down
their speech
Middle/Late Childhood Cognitive Aspects
Piagetian: Concrete Operational Child
● Third stage of Piagetian cognitive development
(approximately ages 7 to 12), during which
children develop logical but not abstract
thinking.
● They can use mental operations, such as
reasoning, to solve concrete problems.
● Thinking is still limited to real situations in the
here and now.
Advances in Selected Cognitive Abilities during Middle
Childhood

Spatial Thinking Cause & Effect Categorization with

Seriation

Inductive/Deductive Conservation Number &

Reasoning Mathematics
Categorization
● Seriation: ability to order items along dimension.

● Transitive Inferences: Understanding the

relationship between two objects by knowing the
relationship of each to a third object.

● Class Inclusion: Understanding of the

relationship between a whole and its parts.
Inductive Deductive Reasoning
Inductive Reasoning (Specific to General) Deductive Reasoning (General to Specific)

● A logical reasoning that moves from ● A logical reasoning that moves from a
particular observations about members of general premise about a class to a
a class to a general conclusion about that conclusion about a particular member or
class. members of the class.
Information-Processing Approach: Planning, Attention, and
Memory
● As children move through the school years, they make steady progress in the
abilities to regulate and sustain attention, process and retain information, and
plan and monitor their behavior.
● Executive function, Working Memory & Selective Attention becomes
more sophisticated.
● Thus, school-aged children understand memory more, learns and create
effective strategies for retention.
 THE DEVELOPMENT OF MEMORY STRATEGIES
(A.K.A. Mnemonic Devices)

External Memory
Aids Rehearsal Organization

Elaboration Metamemory
 Psychometric Approach:
Assessment of Intelligence
● Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC-IV): test for ages 6 through
16 measures verbal and performance abilities, yielding separate scores for
each as well as a total score. The separate subtest scores pinpoint a child’s
strengths and help diagnose specific problems.

● Otis-Lennon School Ability Test (OLSAT 8): for kindergarten through 12th
grade. Determines scores for verbal comprehension, verbal reasoning,
pictorial reasoning, figural reasoning, and quantitative reasoning can identify
specific strengths and weaknesses.
Influence of Intelligence
● Genetics: Intelligence is highly heritable, and one mechanism of genetic
action may be via brain development and structure.
○ One study found that the amount of gray matter in the frontal cortex is largely inherited, varies
widely among individuals, and is linked with differences in IQ (Thompson et al., 2001).
● Schooling increases tested intelligence (Adey, Csapó, Demetriou,
Hautamäki, & Shayer, 2007). IQ scores drop during summer vacation and rise
again during the academic year (Ceci & Williams, 1997; Huttenlocher, Levine,
& Vevea, 1998).
● Race/Ethnicity: Asian American children’s strong scholastic achievement
seems to be best explained by their culture’s emphasis on obedience and
respect for elders, the importance Asian American parents place on education
as a route to upward mobility, and the devotion of Asian American students to
homework and study (Nisbett et al., 2012).
Different Perspectives about Intelligence

● Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences

Different Perspectives about Intelligence

● Sternberg’s Triarchic Theory of Intelligence:

focuses on the processes involved in intelligent
behavior.
● Tacit knowledge Sternberg’s term for
information that is not formally taught or openly
expressed but is necessary to get ahead.
Language and Literacy
● VOCABULARY, GRAMMAR, AND SYNTAX: understands that a word can
have different meanings depending on the context.
○ Understand figures of speech
○ Less likely to use passive voice.
○ Syntax becomes more sophisticated by age
● PRAGMATICS: continues to develop during this stage.
● SECOND-LANGUAGE LEARNING
○ English-immersion approach
○ bilingual education
○ In some schools, two-way (dual-language) learning.
Childhood-Onset Fluency
Disorder (Stuttering)
during SCHOOL AGE
Common difficulties often (but not always) experienced by the child with a
stutter:

● Stuttering ranges from mild to severe, it’s impact is highly individualized.

● May avoid situations in which the stutter is worse or hide their stuttering by
substitution.
● May rearrange their words and sentences to avoid a stutter. Sometimes they
will pretend they have forgotten what to say or remain quiet.
● School age children will often report feeling embarrassed when they have to
read out aloud or talk in front of the class.
● Language delay or disorder.
Researches about Stuttering

● In a meta analysis by Fradelos and colleagues (2015), Children with

stuttering have poorer psychosocial development , low self esteem and self-
concept and reduced targets, than children without stuttering.
● Affects the child’s daily life and future, and difficulties in studying and
learning, which causes failure at school.
● the child’s fear and anxiety of stuttering can cause it to continue and even
worsen.
● However, early diagnosis and comprehensive treatment can prevent further
problems and its development.

Source: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/268806066_CHILDREN_WITH_STUTTERING_AT_SCHOOL
Dissociations among linguistic, cognitive, and auditory-motor neuroanatomical domains in
children who stutter

● Choo et al (2016).
● aim of this study was to replicate and expand previous findings by testing whether
Children Who Stutters (CWS) exhibit dissociated development across
speech-language, cognitive, and motor domains that are also reflected in measures of
neuroanatomical development.
● Participants: 66 CWS (23 females), & 53 CWNS (26 females); age range: 3-10 tears
old.
● Method: standardized speech, language, cognitive, and motor skills measures + brain
imaging equipments
Results
● CWS has consistent low scores on speech, language, cognitive and motor measures,
and exhibited dissociated development involving these same measures but white
matter neuroanatomical indices relative to CWNS.
● Stuttering boys exhibited more “dissociations” compared to girls of CWS
● Results suggest a subgroup of CWS may have incongruent development across
multiple domains, and the resolution of this imbalance may be a factor in recovery
from stuttering.

Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4880500/