Cognitive Development and Language

1. Cognitive Development and Language

2. Major Questions in Human Development • Continuous or discontinuous development? • Nature or nurture? • Is there one course of development or many?

3. Piaget’s Assumptions • Child as scientific problem solver • Child ACTIVELY constructs meaning from environment • Stage theory • Changes are invariant and universal

4. Developmental Processes • Schemes Mental structures for organizing and interpreting information • Adaptation • Assimilation Use current schemes to interpret the external world. • Accommodation Creating new schemes or adjusting old ones.

5. Equilibrium Process

6. Piaget’s Stage Theory • Sensorimotor stage • Preoperational stage • Concrete operational stage • Formal operational stage

7. Sensorimotor Stage: 0-2 yrs • Infants use senses to explore • Object permanence • Goal directed actions

8. Preoperational Stage: 2-7 yrs • Operations • Semiotic function including language • One-way logic • Difficulty with centering & conservation • Egocentrism

9. Concrete Operational Stage: 7-11 yrs • “Hands on” thinking • Conservation, identity, compensation • Reversibility • Classification • Seriation

10. Formal Operational Stage: 11-adult • Mental operations can now grasp the abstract • Scientific thinking • Hypothetical-deductive reasoning • Logical • Consequences adolescent egocentrism

11. Implications of Piaget’s Theory for Teachers • Understanding students’ thinking • “Match” teaching to cognitive stage • Individuals “construct” knowledge • Use disequilibrium to motivate

12. Limitations of Piaget’s Theory • Not necessarily a qualitative change • Not universal • Difficult to test developmental processes • Overlooks cultural basis of cognitive development

13. Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory • Cognitive development is inherently both a socialand cultural process • Knowledge is co-constructed • Interpsychological and Intrapsychological • Role of cultural tools • Role of language & private speech • Role of adults and peers

14. Zone of Proximal Development • Gap between what person can do alone and what they are capable of doing if guided by more experience other

15. Scaffolding • Assistance provided in the zone of proximal development • Should gradually decrease as children become more competent at a task

16. Implications of Vygotsky’s Theory for Teachers • Assisted learning • Scaffolding • Zone of proximal development • Collaborative learning • Alternative assessment

17. Piaget vs. Vygotsky • Egocentric vs. private speech • Implications for education

18. Implications for Education