(Review of) Cognitive Development

Perspectives of development

Piaget and intellectual development

Vygotsky and sociocultural theory

Information processing

Cognitive development and the Web
Perspectives

Origins of development
o

Sequence of development
o

Continuous-discontinuous?
Similarity of development
o

Nature-nurture?
Normative-individual differences?
Universality of development
o
Universal-context/cultural effects?
Piagetian theory

Biological theory of intellectual development
o

Description of stages of development
o
o
o
o

Intelligence is ability of organism to adapt to its environment
Sensorymotor
Preoperational
Concrete operational
Formal operational
Methods of inquiry
o
o
Observation
Clinical interview
Theory of Development
Through the process of adaptation,
behavioral/cognitive schema get (re)organized.
Equilibrium
Assimilation
Accommodation
Stages of Development

Sensorimotor (0-2 years of age)
o
o

Coordination of sensory and motor systems
Transition from reflexive to reflective behaviour
Preoperational (2-7 years of age)
o
o
o
Development of representation
Development of symbolic thought
Preconceptual substage (2-4)
precausal
egocentric
appearance/
reality
Stages of Development

Preoperational continued…
o
Intuitive substage (4-7)
Centered on one perceptual property or another
Leads to
conservation failures
irreversible thought
inability to categorize hierarchically
Stages of Development

Concrete Operational (7-11 years of age)
o
Concrete operations allow child to think logically about
real objects/events
Focus on multiple properties
Reversible thought
Categorization
Concrete
Stages of Development

Formal Operational (11-15 years of age)
o
Hypothetico-deductive reasoning allows adolescent to
think rationally and systematically about abstract
concepts
Abstract representation
Abstract reasoning
Adolescent egocentrism (imaginary audience)
Piagetian Theory and the Web

What can 6-9 year olds do/not do on the Web?
preop - con op

What can 10-12 year olds do/not do on the Web?
con op - formal op

What can 13-16 year olds do/not do on the Web?
formal op
Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Perspective

Learning and development are interrelated

Biological maturation

Learning in a sociocultural context

Development lags behind learning

Zone of proximal development

Scaffolding
Vygotsky and the Web

What can 6-9 year olds do/not do on the Web?
context
scaffolding

What can 10-12 year olds do/not do on the Web?
context
scaffolding

What can 13-16 year olds do/not do on the Web?
context
scaffolding
Information Processing

Emphasis on the cognitive system:
o
o
What develops?
What does the system look like at different points in
time?
Large
Capacity
Holds info
.5 - 2 s
Limited capacity (7 +- 2
chunks)
Holds info 15-20 s
Maintenance rehearsal
Elaborative Rehearsal
Short Term
(Working) Memory
Long Term
Memory
Unlimited
capacity
Retrieval
Sensory input
Sensory
Memory
Unlimited
duration
What develops?

Attention

Maintenance rehearsal

Chunking

Elaborative rehearsal

Contents of LTM

Retrieval
Information Processing and the Web

What can 6-9 year olds do/not do on the Web?

What can 10-12 year olds do/not do on the Web?

What can 13-16 year olds do/not do on the Web?