Early Childhood Thought:
Islands of Competence
The Development of Children (5th ed.)
Cole, Cole & Lightfoot
Chapter 9
Early Childhood (age 2-6)
Typical pattern of thinking
in preschool years
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Mixture of sound logic and
magical thinking
Insight and ignorance
The reasoned and
the unreasonable
A patchwork of competence
and incompetence
Early Childhood (age 2-6)
Crucial questions
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Are young children
simply inconsistent?
Or do their thought
processes vary from one
task to the next because
they are more familiar
with some than others?
Or might it be that their
abilities vary because
the parts of their brain
that govern these
abilities mature at
different rates?
Overview of the Journey
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Bio-Behavioral
Foundations
Focusing on General
Processes of Cognitive
Change
Focusing on DomainSpecific Approaches to
Cognitive Change
Development of Drawing:
A Case in Point
Bio-Behavioral
Foundations
Physiological Growth
Brain Maturation
Physiological Growth
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After third birthday, rate of growth slows to
about 2½ to 3 inches per year
Walking is distinctly adult like with their
hands at their sides
Improvement in fine motor skills
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More agile in controlling their eating utensils
Can unbutton (but not button) their jacket
Better control of crayons
Can pour water more or less reliably
Brain Maturation
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Age 2  50% adult weight;
Age 6  90% weight
Results from increasing
myelination (low level in
hippocampus may account
for short-term working memory
deficiencies, in frontal cortex may explain
failures to consider someone else’s point of view)
Rapid increase in frequency & size of brain waves
when children are engaged in cognitive tasks
Focusing on
General Processes
of Cognitive Change
Piaget’s Account of
Early Childhood Thinking
The Problem of Uneven
Levels of Performance
Information-Processing
Approaches
Piaget’s Stages of Thinking
Infancy (Birth-2): Sensorimotor

Thinking based on overtly physical acts
Early childhood (2-6): Preoperational
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Overcoming limitations to logical thinking
Due to one-sidedness (i.e., the inability to keep two aspects
of a problem in mind), as seen in the beaker and wooden
beads experiments
Middle childhood (6-12): Concrete Operational

Manipulation of symbols and internalized mental operations
that combine, separate, and transform information logically
Adolescence (12-19): Formal Operational

Thinking systematically about all logical relations within a
problem; keen interest in abstract ideas and thinking itself
Preoperational Limitations
1.
Egocentrism
2.
Confusion of
appearance
and reality
3.
Precausal
reasoning
Limitation 1: Egocentrism

Tendency to consider the world entirely in
terms of one’s own point of view
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Preschoolers cannot “decenter”
(i.e., see things from another’s
perspective)
Illustrated in
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Lack of spatial perspective
taking…
Egocentric speech…
Failure to understand other
minds…
Lack of Spatial Perspective Taking
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Allowed to view diorama
(3 mountain experiment)
from all sides
Seated on one side; doll
on opposite side
Shown pictures from
various perspectives and
asked to identify how
things would look to doll
Almost always chose
view corresponding to
their own point of view
Egocentric Speech
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Tendency to engage in “collective monologues”
Speaker gave too little information
(e.g.,
“Take
this one”)
Listener
asked
too few
questions
Failure to Understand Other Minds
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Inability to engage in mental perspective taking
(i.e., think about other people’s mental states –
“theory of mind”)
Think others will not have a false belief because
they no longer do
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Discover that a box with the
picture of candy on the outside
has only a pencil inside
Believe that a friend who has
not yet seen what is in closed
box will think that it has a pencil
Form of moral reasoning that
does not take intentions into account
Limitation 2: Confusing
Appearance and Reality

Tendency to focus exclusively
on the most striking aspects of
an object (i.e., surface
appearance)
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Believe the stick has actually
changed
Become frightened when
someone puts on a mask
Believe that a cat with a dog
mask actually turns into a dog…
Limitation 2: Confusing
Appearance and Reality
Limitation 3: Precausal Reasoning

Instead of reasoning from general premises to
particular cases (deduction) or from specific
cases to a more general premise (induction),
preschoolers tend to think
transductively (i.e., from
one particular to another)
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“I haven’t had a nap, so it
isn’t afternoon.”
Since graveyards are places
where dead people are found,
graveyards must be the cause of death
Problem of Uneven
Performance

Under some circumstances,
children show signs of
having certain cognitive
abilities earlier than Piaget
suggested

Horizontal décalage:
Variations in performance from
one version of a problem to
another…
Problem of Uneven Performance

Example:
Understanding Other
Minds
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When child’s role
changed in false-belief
task from that of the
deceived to that of the
deceiver, even 3-yearolds exhibit some
understanding of other
people’s thought
processes
Problem of Uneven Performance
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Example: Spatial Perspectives

Can take
another’s
spatial
perspective
when task
involves
familiar, easily
differentiated
objects (e.g.,
farm, Grover)
Problem of Uneven Performance

Example: Distinguishing Appearance/Reality
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When the child is enlisted in trying to fool another
adult with a fake object (e.g., a “sponge rock”), 3year-old child could answer correctly what the
object really is, what it looks like, and what the
absent adult will think it is
Thus children seem to have a conceptual grasp of
the difference between reality and appearance,
but to be able to use it, they must be primed by
making the knowledge part of an ongoing
activity that the child understands
Problem of Uneven Performance

Example: Causal Reasoning
How a bicycle works
5-year-old
(typically developed)
9-year-old
8-year-old
(developmentally
delayed)
(typically
developed)
Problem of Uneven Performance

Example: Causal Reasoning
3-year-olds
usually said the
first ball caused
Snoopy to jump
up, but 5-yearolds could give
at least a partial
explanation that
cause must
precede effect
Neo-Piagetian Theories
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Retain the idea that acquisition of knowledge
passes through stages, but believe that it
occurs at different rates in different
domains
The information processing
account is one of these
alternative explanations…
Information-Processing Account

Computer analogy
Hardware (e.g., myelination
of a particular brain region),
Software (e.g., acquisition
of a new strategy for
remembering)
Information-Processing Account
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Children display greater competence when
they have deep experience in
a given domain
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Results in a rich knowledge
base, which leads in turn to
easier recall and more
powerful ability to reason
Yields “islands of
expertise”
Siegler’s “Overlapping Wave”
Model of Developmental Change
Siegler’s model shows
changes as slow and even,
depending upon the
strategies used by the child
Stage models, in contrast,
see development as divided
into discontinuous stages
Focusing on DomainSpecific Approaches to
Cognitive Change
Privileged Domains
Explaining Domain-Specific
Development
Privileged Domain: Physics
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“Even quite young children know that larger objects are
composed of smaller pieces and these pieces, even if
invisible, have enduring physical existence and
properties.” (Wellman & Gelman, 1998)
Between the ages of 2 and 6, children display increasing
understanding of inertia and gravity
Kim & Spelke, 1999
Privileged Domain: Psychology
Developing Theory of Mind
Age
Evidence
End of
Children possess at least an intuitive
first year understanding that other people’s actions are
caused by their goals and intentions.
18–24
months
Children engage in pretend play, indicating onset
of symbolic capacity needed to understand
mental states of others.
3 years
Children generally distinguish mental and
physical states, perceptions and desires.
4–5
years
Children are able to think about the relation
between their own beliefs and those of others.
Privileged Domain: Biology

Findings: 3- to 4-year-olds can make correct
generalizations concerning animate
and inanimate things
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Can make the distinction
between self-initiated
and externally initiated
movements
A know that living objects
grow and change their
appearance in contrast to artifacts, which may be
scuffed up or broken but do not grow
Explanation:
Biological Account
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Option 1: Mental modules (modularity theory)
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Cognitive processes consist of separate biological
subsystems, hardwired at birth and that do not
need special tutoring in order to develop
Prodigies: Islands of brilliance in an overall normal
level of development (e.g., Mozart)
Option 2: Skeletal principles
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Provide domain-specific support for development
Get a cognitive process started and provide some
initial direction, but subsequent experience is
needed to realize the potential
Explanation:
Cultural-Context Account
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Developmental niches: Contexts in which society
makes available essential cultural resources
for development (e.g., language)
Scripts: Event schemas (e.g., taking a
bath, going to a restaurant ) that function
as guides to action and specify:
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Who participates in an event
What social roles they play
What objects they are to use during the event
The sequence of actions that make up an event
Serve to coordinate actions with others and
abstract concepts that apply to many kinds of events
Explanation:
Cultural-Context Account
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Culture influences developmental unevenness
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Arranging occurrence and frequency of activities
Relating various activities in patterns
Regulating child’s role in the activity
Guided participation  zone
of proximal development
(Vygotsky)
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Example: Sociodramatic
play (pretend play in
which 2+ participants
enact a variety of social roles)
Development
of Drawing
Stages of Drawing
Information-Processing Account
Drawing as a Mental Module
Cultural-Context Account
Stages of Drawing: Human Figure
Tadpole
figures
Figures with
separate body
Stages of Drawing
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Early childhood:
Draw what they know
about an object rather
than what they see
 6-year-old’s
drawing of a cup:
Handle is included
although the child
was shown the cup
without the handle
being visible
Between ages 6-12
they draw what they
actually see and with
perspective
Carrie: Age 2½
Lines of different colors
Carrie: Age 3½
Global representations of a person
Carrie: Age 5
Set main figures in a scene
Carrie: Age 7½
Motion, rhythm, and greater realism
Carrie: Age 12
Cartoon of a realistic scene
Information-Processing Account
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Increasing sophistication of children’s drawings
arises from a combination of
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Improved motor skills
Increased knowledge of rules and conventions of drawing
Increased ability to keep in mind several aspects of task
Drawing as a
Mental Module
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Cases of children whose
language ability/general mental
functioning are quite low, but
whose ability to create graphic
images is exceptionally high
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Nadia, an autistic preschooler
with only minimal exposure to
models, displays an uncanny
ability to capture form and
movement in her drawings
Cultural-Context Account
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Adult interactions
facilitate drawing
development (i.e., scripted statements
and guided participation)
“What are you drawing?”
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“Tell me about your picture.”
Affirmation that they can see
an object in the drawing that
the child has mentioned
The ways in which adults organize instruction
provide essential opportunities for modular potential
to be triggered and stages constructed
Applying the Theories…
Using different theories of
learning how to draw as a
foundation, how would you
design an instructional
program to teach drawing?