Chapter 2
Cognitive
and Motor
Development
Domains of Human Development
© 2007 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved.
Cognitive
Development
Motor
Development
© 2007 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved.
1
There is a strong relationship
between human intellectual
function and movement:
Any intellectual change is
also accompanied by a
change
in motor function.
Objectives
• Describe Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive
Development.
–
–
–
–
–
Sensorimotor
Preoperations
Concrete Operations
Formal Operations
Postformal Operations
• Explain two general theories of intellectual
development in adulthood.
• Discuss intellectual decline in older adulthood.
• Describe the link between knowledge
development and sport performance.
© 2007 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved.
Jean Piaget (1896 – 1980)
• Swiss psychologist,
developmental theorist,
and philosopher
• Interested in the process
of thinking
1896-1980
• Established the clinical
method of research
– Collected data during
question-and-answer
sessions
2
Four Stages of Piaget’s Theory
Stage
Sensorimotor
Age/Period of
Occurrence
Birth to 2 years
Preoperational
2 to 7 years
Concrete operational 7 to 11 years
Formal operational
Early to mid-adolescence
11 to 12 years
Piaget’s Theory
• Adaptation
– Cognitive development occurs thorugh
this process
– Adjusting to the demands of the
environment and intellectualizing those
adjustments
– Two facets of adaptation
• Assimilation
• Accommodation
Piaget’s Theory
• Assimilation
– Children interpret new experiences
based upon their present interpretation
of the world.
– Child assimilates past experience
•Past experience tells child to use one
hand to grab large ball because it
worked with rattles and smaller
objects.
3
Piaget’s Theory
• Accommodation
– Adjustments or modifications in the thinking
process that will become a part of a child’s
new cognitive repetoire.
– Child accommodates new information
•Child is unable to grasp the ball with one
hand.
•He accommodates by using two hands or
adapting the one-handed grasp.
Adaption = Assimilation + Accommodation
Criticisms of Piaget’s Theory
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Theory lacks scientific control.
Piaget used his own children to study.
Subjects were not studied across the lifespan.
Piaget may have underestimated a child’s
capabilities.
Theory does not discern between
competency and performance.
Theory does not account for the influence of
motivation and emotion.
Stages of developoment were too broad.
Developoment is described, but never
explained.
4
Infancy ~ Sensorimotor Stage
Substage
Age of Occurrence
1.
Exercise of reflexes
Birth to 1 month
2.
Primary circular reactions
1 to 4 months
3.
Secondary circular reactions
4 to 8 months
4.
Secondary schemata
8 to 12 months
5.
Tertiary circular reactions
12 to 18 months
6.
Invention of new means
through mental combinations
18 to 24 months
Infancy ~ Sensorimotor Stage
EXERCISE OF REFLEXES
• Birth through 1 month
• Repetition of reflexes helps child to form
the foundation for cognitive
understanding
– Reflexive movements are innate
– Reflexive movements lead to new behaviors
Infancy ~ Sensorimotor Stage
PRIMARY CIRCULAR REACTIONS
• End of month 1- month 4
• Increased voluntary movement
• Primary reactions because always
occur in close proximity to the infant
• Circular reactions because conscious
effort to repeat movements
5
Infancy ~ Sensorimotor Stage
SECONDARY CIRCULAR REACTIONS
• 4 months - 8 months
• Continuation of primary circular reactions but
incorporation of more enduring behaviors
– Example: Banging pots and pans
• Integration of vision, hearing, grasping and
movement behaviors
– Example: See rattle. Reach rattle. Shake rattle.
• Imitation behaviors
• No permanence
– Example: Remove object. Object is gone.
Object Permanence
• http://hk.youtube.com/watch?v=BFUIn
SY2CeY&feature=related
© 2007 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved.
Infancy ~ Sensorimotor Stage
SECONDARY SCHEMATA
• 8 months to 1 year
• New behaviors facilitated by increasing
movement capabilities
– Example: Crawling and creeping
• Repetition of experimentation and trial-and-error
exploration continue
• Prediction of some actions and situations
– Example: Parent rolls ball to child. Child roles it
back. Child anticipates parent rolling the ball
to him again.
6
Infancy ~ Sensorimotor Stage
TERTIARY CIRCULAR REACTIONS
• 1 year -11/2 years
• Active experimentation to acheive results / learn
• First level of visualizing an object beyond its
immediate use
– Example: Child sees the ball and knows she can have
fun, but also realizes she does not have to play with it
right now – it will be there later.
• Can distinguish self from others
– Example: Child seeks help from immediate family
members.
Infancy ~ Sensorimotor Stage
INVENTION OF NEW MEANS THROUGH MENTAL
COMBINATIONS
• 11/2 years - 2 years
• Recognition of objects and others as
independent from self
• Understanding of properties of an object
– Examples: Size, shape, color, texture, weight, use
• Semimental functioning: “Thinking with the body”
is replaced with “thinking with the mind”
– Example: Child can recall an event without a physical
reanctment of what happened.
Summary: Infancy ~ Sensorimotor Stage
• Increasing awareness of the difference
between the self and others.
• Recognition that objects continue to
exist even though they are no longer in
view.
• Production of the mental images that
allow the contemplation of the past,
present, and future.
7
What Sensorimotor Substage is pictured here?
dynamicgraphics/Jupiterimages
What Sensorimotor Substage is pictured here?
What Sensorimotor Substage is pictured here?
(c) Brand X Pictures/PunchStock
8
What Sensorimotor Substage is pictured here?
(c) Photodisc
Early Childhood ~ Preoperational Stage
• 2-7 years
• Most significant development:
– Verbal communication and language
development linked to improved motor
abilities
• Most significant limitation:
– Children are unable to think logically
Early Childhood ~
Preoperational Stage
Substage
Age of Occurrence
1. Preconceptual
2 to 4 years
2. Intuitive
4 to 7 years
© 2007 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved.
9
Early Childhood ~ Preoperational Stage
PRECONCEPTUAL
• 2-4 years
• Use of symbols to represent someone/thing
– Example: A rock represents a turtle
• Pretend play common
– Example: Reading to Baby. Putting Baby to sleep.
• Egocentrism a serious deficiency of this stage
– Socializing somewhat reducing egocentrism.
• Flawed thinking
– Example: Drooping flower is “sad” – unrealistic.
• Transductive reasoning
– Example: Missed breakfast, so it can’t be morning.
Early Childhood ~ Preoperational Stage
• 4-7 years
INTUITIVE
• Reduced egocentrism
– Example: Better at sharing
• Improvement in the use of symbols
– Example: Use of symbols in mathematics
• Incapable of “conservation”
– Example: When ball of clay transformed into
elongated sausage – child believes it’s bigger
• Cannot consider multiple aspects of a
problem at one time
– Example: Bumblebee phenomenon in soccer
Why is the activity pictured here an
example of Preconceptual Substage?
(c) Royalty Free/CORBIS
10
Conservation
• http://hk.youtube.com/watch?v=YtLE
WVu815o&feature=related
© 2007 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved.
Later Childhood ~
Concrete Operational Stage
• 7-11 years
– Begins when child gains ability to conserve
• Improved ability to focus on more than one
variable in problem solving situations
– Example: Develop strategies in game situations
• Can only focus on objects, events or situations
that are real or based on experience
– Example: Unable to examine hypothetical or
abstract situations mentally
Later Childhood ~
Concrete Operational Stage
• Reversibility
Reversibility
– Ability to mentally modify, organize, or even
reverse thought processes
– Example: Can reverse the order of the ball as
they go through the tube
11
Later Childhood ~
Concrete Operational Stage
• Seriation
– Ability to arrange a set of variables by a
certain characteristic
– Example: Recognize height can determine
position in a game of basketball
• Learning is enhanced through
movement
– Example: Piaget suggests teaching space
or distance by having child move through
space or distance
Later Childhood ~
Formal Operational Stage
• Begins at 11-12 years
• Able to consider ideas that are not based
on observable objects or experiences
• Abstract ideas are possible
• Never achieved by many individuals
Formal Operations
• http://hk.youtube.com/watch?v=lw36
PpYPPZM&feature=related
© 2007 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved.
12
Later Childhood ~
Formal Operational Stage
• Interpropositional thought
– Allows child to relate one or more parts of a
proposition or situation to another part to
arrive at a solution to a problem.
– Applicable to complex movement
– Example: Position of two players represents
onset of a particular play. Ability to ‘read’
interrelationship (i.e., possible movement
pattern) facilitates better counter play.
Later Childhood ~
Formal Operational Stage
• Hypothetical-deductive reasoning
– A problem-solving style that allows child to
choose between possible solutions and
then pick the best one
– Aids in emotional development and
emerging values
– Example: Child ponders, “Do I follow the
crowd or do I want to fit in?”
Adulthood ~ Postformal Operations
• Adulthood not considered by Piaget
– Others (Arlin,1975; Rybash et al., 1986)
proposed a 5th stage to Piaget’s Theory
• Discovery of new questions
– Logical thinking about abstract ideas
– Detect inconsistencies in ideas and attempt
to reconcile them
• Exists in a minority of people
– Highly educated
– Culture that encourages new ideas and
freethinking
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Adulthood ~ Theories of
Intellectual Development
• Intellectual decline occur with age.
– When, how much, why, what???
• Growing field of study as baby
boomers become ‘seniors’.
• Currently, two main theories
– Total Intellectual Decline
– Partial Intellectual Decline
© 2007 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved.
Adulthood ~ Theories of
Intellectual Development
TOTAL INTELLECTUAL DECLINE
• Traditional view of aging
• Gradual, consistent, pervasive decline in
overall intellectual ability throughout
adult years
• Lacks strong scientific support today
• Studies partially backing this theory
– Studies using Welchsler Adult Intelligence
Scale (WAIS)
– Seattle Longitudinal Study
Adulthood ~ Theories ~
Intellectual Development
• WAIS – Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale
– 11 components of intellectual ability
• 6 verbal, 5 performance
– Found declines in intellect
– Limitations
• Test designed to assess psychopathological
behaviors – not intellect
• Reliability issues
• Dated research
© 2007 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved.
14
Adulthood ~ Theories ~
Intellectual Development
• Seattle Longitudinal Study (1956-)
– Participants: 5000+ participants aged 25 to 88
– Measurement: 6 primary mental abilities
meaningful in daily work and life
– Results:
• Performance increased until late 30s or early 40s
• Performance plateaued by mid 50s to early 60s
• Declines began in late 60s
• More decline when process was less central part of life
• By age 88, all participants showed decline in at least one
intelligence ability, but none showed in all abilities
– Conclusion: Few subjects showed global decline in
intelligence.
Adulthood ~ Theories ~
Intellectual Development
PARTIAL INTELLECTUAL DECLINE
• Widely accepted theory
• Intellectual decline occurs in some
areas and not others
• Much research support
Adulthood ~ Theories ~
Intellectual Development
• Contextual perspective
– Learning and memory depend on a large number
of non-cognitive and situational factors
• Culture
– Seniors in China are highly respected. Intellectual
decline in China is substantially less than in NA.
• Self-fulfilling prophesy
– Individuals who think negatively decline more
quickly.
• Knowledge base
– Greater base of information may helps offset losses
in processing efficiency.
• Other factors
– One’s goals, motivation, social activities, daily
routines, changes in emotion
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Adulthood ~ Theories ~
Intellectual Development
• Biological changes influence decline
– Neural activation slows
• Less efficient circulatory system
– Brain decreases in size (variable)
• Neuronal losses are very gradual
Adulthood ~ Theories ~
Intellectual Development
• Type of memory influences decline
• Implicit memory
– Unintentional, automatic, without awareness
– Tested without adult being aware of being tested
– Develops until adulthood and shows no decline
• Explicit memory
– Deliberate and effortful
– Tested by traditional tests of recall or recognition
– Develops until adulthood but then shows decline
Adulthood ~ Theories ~
Intellectual Development
• Time of learning influences memory
decline
– Information learned early in life is easier to
retrieve
– Information learned in later life more
susceptible to age-related decline
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Adulthood ~ Theories ~
Intellectual Development
• Time parameters influence decline
• Decreased performance in timed tasks
– Older adults respond more slowly
– Decline in speed of processing information
is well-documented
Adulthood ~ Theories ~
Intellectual Development
“there are no simple rules about
when age differences in
memory will and will not occur,
and if they do, whether
differences will be small,
modest, or large”
(Zacks et al., 2000)
© 2007 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved.
Adulthood ~ Theories ~ Intellectual Development
RECOMMENDATIONS
• Practicing cognitive abilities will delay
or avoid decline.
• A lifestyle that involves movement can
limit the decline of intellect.
17
Knowledge Development
and Sport Performance
How do children become experts athletes?
Knowledge Development
and Sport Performance
• Two types of knowledge
– Declarative knowledge
• Factual information
• What to do
• Found in a novice performer
– Procedural knowledge
• Production system
• How to do something
• Found in an expert performer
© 2007 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved.
Knowledge Development
and Sport Performance
• French & Thomas, 1987
– Purpose: Examine relationship between knowledge
development, skill development, and expertise.
– Method: 8-12 year old basketball players of varied skills;
multiple instruments
– Conclusion: Children learn “what to do” (i.e.
declarative knowledge) before they acquire the
physical skills to carry out their strategic plan
successfully (i.e. “how to do it” – procedural
knowledge).
– Ongoing Research: Best combination of motor and
cognitive instruction at what stages.
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