Chapter 9: Cognitive and Language Development in Early Childhood Cognitive Development ● Piaget believed that logical errors reflect the flow and difficult challenge for preschool children as they gradually learn to think symbolically. PREOPERATIONAL STAGE ● Ages 3­6 ● “Operational” refers to the logical systems of thought, which emerge in middle childhood. Symbolic Function ​
(2 year old) ● Symbolic function: the ability to use symbols to represent or stand for perceived objects and events. ● Deferred imitation: o Children observe the behavior of a model and imitate that behavior when the model is no longer present. (helps children solve everyday problems) ▪ Ex: kid watches parent use a fork for months, then kid tries fork ● Symbolic/pretend play: o Children pretend that an object is something other than what it really is ▪ Ex: an 18­mo­old lifts an empty cup to his face, tips it to drink, licks his lips, and smiles at his mom with a grin that indicates he knows he did not really drink it. ▪ Ex: pretending a doll is real ● Shifting context​
: (2/3 year old). Need support from the play setting to initiate their play. o Ex: more likely to play eat in the kitchen instead of the garage. ● Substituting objects​
: children substitute one object or another in their pretend play. ● Substituting other agents for oneself:​
by the beginning of year 3, objects are their own instead of only using themselves. o Ex: they now pretend that the doll talks back ● Sequencing and Socialization of Pretend Episodes:​
children coordinate single acts into sequences of increasing length and complexity through preschool years. o Children also begin to incorporate behavior patterns for agents which reflect conventional roles ● Mental images​
: internal representations of external objects or events (another way symbolic function is expressed as) o For the first time, the child can integrate experiences from the past into the present to plan for the future ● 3 forms of symbolic function: o Deferred imitation, pretend play, and images The Advent of Preconceptions ● Centration:​
process when preschool­aged children focus their attention on minute and often inconsequential aspects of their experience. o Ex: 3 year old might remember nothing about his babysitter other than her bright­colored earrings. ● Preconcepts:​
collections of images derived from centrated perception that are organized and illogical representations of a child’s experience. Transductive Reasoning: Thinking with Preconcepts ● Induction:​
deriving general principles from particular examples o Ex: an 8­year­old boy who observes that teachers have favored girls in each of his classes, might induce the general principle that girls are teacher’s pets. ● Deduction​
: using general principles to predict particular outcomes o Ex: the same boy enters his next grade and will use his general principle to deduce that his new teacher will be likely to favor girls ● Piaget believed that preoperational children are incapable of thinking inductively or deductively. But they think by transduction. ● Transduction:​
reasoning within the unsystematic collections of images, which constitute their preconcepts. Egocentrism ● Egocentrism:​
child’s inability to conceptualize the perspective of other individuals. o According to Piaget, its one of the major limitations of preoperational thought ● Three­mountain problem:​
Piaget’s experiment to determine the effects of egocentrism on perception and cognition o Children between ages of 4­12 were shown a 3­D model of a mountain scene. Each mountain had a unique color, size, and shape and a unique object (cross, snowcap, or a tiny house) on the peak of each. o The children were asked to examine the model from different visual perspectives. o He then moved the doll to various vantage points around the model, and asked the child to select a picture that represented the doll’s point of view at each location.