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Early Childhood:

Cognitive Development

Piaget & Vygotsky

Children’s Theories

Language

Early Childhood Education

Essential Questions: What

do we need to learn? • How do children learn during this time of life?

• What theories frame what we know about

cognitive development in preschoolers?

• How does language continue to develop?

• What impact does early childhood education

have on preschoolers?

Piaget & Vygotsky • Mostly compatible theories

• Piaget viewed ages 2-6 as Preoperational Intelligence stage

• Goes beyond integration of sensory and motor skills, but still egocentric

• Some magical thinking, but symbolic thinking, too

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Obstacles to logical

operations

• Piaget identified 4 characteristics of

thinking in preschoolers:

• Centration

• Focus on Appearance

• Static Reasoning

• Irreversibility

Centration: • A characteristic of preoperational

thought in which a young child focuses

(centers) on one idea, excluding all

others

• For example, a preschooler might insist

that Daddy is a father, but cannot be a

brother or a son, because s/he centers

on what Daddy’s role is to her/him

Centration:

• Also illustrates egocentrism, the

tendency for preschoolers to think

about the world entirely from their own

perspective

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But, egocentrism isn’t

selfishness…

• Piaget did not equate egocentrism with selfishness

• Used this example: a 3 year old boy chose to buy a model car for his mother’s birthday gift, absolutely convinced she would love it; lovingly wrapped the car, and gave it to her with the expectation that she would be delighted

Next: focus on appearance • A characteristic of preoperational

thought in which a young child ignores all attributes that are not apparent

• Example: a girl, given a short haircut, might worry that she has been turned into a boy

• A thing is whatever it appears

Third: Static reasoning

• In this, a young child thinks that nothing

changes and whatever is now will

always be

• Some children believe that if they turn

the TV off before they leave the room,

the show will pick up again when they

turn it back on (obviously, this was

before TiVo

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4th: Irreversibility

• In this, a young child thinks that nothing can be undone--a thing cannot be restored to the way it was before a change occurred

Irreversibility:

• A preschooler in the “just right” line of thought might cry because her mom put lettuce on her hamburger, unaware that it can easily be removed without changing the burger, and probably reject it after the greens are gone

Conservation and Logic:

• Conservation is the principle

that the amount of a substance

remains the same (is

conserved) when its

appearance is changed

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Conservation and Logic:

• This is the famous tall and short

glasses of identical amounts of liquid

demonstration--a preschooler will insist

that the taller glass has more liquid,

even if identical amounts are poured

from identical measuring cups

The glass demonstration

shows:

• All 4 characteristics of preoperational

thought--young children fail to

understand because:

– They focus on appearance & centrate

– They notice only the immediate (static)

condition

– They cannot reverse the operation and

recreate what they saw (liquid pouring)

Limits of Piaget’s

Research:

• His conservation/reversibility tests can

be passed by younger children if they

don’t depend on words, but actions

• Young children also can demonstrate

conservation and logical thought in

game-like conditions, if not in Piaget’s

tests

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Limits, continued:

• And preschoolers actually

classify objects and living

things better than Piaget gave

them credit for

One last look at Piaget: • Piaget noticed preschool-aged

children exhibit animism, the belief that natural objects and phenomena are alive

• They see the rest of the world as similar to themselves

Piaget:

• They might believe their dog listens to them, that there is magic (wishing on a star comes true) and that dead things will return to life

• Difficult to measure this type of thought, though, and culture matters

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Vygotsky: Social Learning • Emphasized the social aspect of early

childhood learning

• Believed children were able to be sensitive to the needs & wishes of others

• Social aspect contrasts with Piaget’s individual aspect

Children as apprentices: • Vygotsky believed every aspect of

children’s cognitive development was

embedded in social context

• Children are curious, observant, and

will ask questions in the belief that we

do know all the answers

• Vygotsky termed this being an

“apprentice in thinking”

Apprentice in Thinking: • Because a child’s intellectual growth is

stimulated and directed by older and more skilled members of society

• Parents, older children do this best when they

– Present challenges

– Offer assistance (but do not take over)

– Provide instruction

– Encourage motivation

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Guided participation:

• The process by which people learn

from others who guide their

experiences and explorations

• For children, these are social

experiences and explorations of their

universe with both mentor and child

talking as well as acting

Children find imitation

flattering

• Unlike adults, who generally don’t like

to be copied, children aren’t resentful,

but like the recognition this brings

• And children are really ready to learn,

to remember what they experience

• This is evidence of cognition

Scaffolding:

• Temporary support that is tailored to a learner’s needs and abilities and aimed at helping the learner master the next task in a given learning process

• Examples?

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Scaffolding:

• Vygotsky believed each developing individual has a Zone of Proximal Development, including cognitive and physical skills, for things that cannot be performed independently--yet

Good caregivers do this: • They are aware of what is developing

• They help just enough, not taking over

• They provide support that can be removed as the child becomes independent

• Example: adults provide scaffolding for a 3-year-old, explaining, pointing, listening, within the child’s ZPD in response to the child’s needs, and answer his questions, not shush him

Questions & Answers

Teach

• Try not to give a simple answer, but use your own verbal skills to expand a child’s vocabulary and understanding

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Example • : A child asks “What is that?” don’t just

say, “A truck” but encourage the child to finish what you start, saying “That is a tr-r-r…” and after the child says “truck” expand: ask, “what does it have inside?” What is the color? Who drives trucks?” Possibilities are almost endless!

Don’t forget older siblings • They can be excellent mentors

• And by helping younger siblings, they learn how children think and improve their own cognitive skills

• Vygotsky’s social learning is applicable to all cultures, emphasizing that cultures is transmitted via scaffolding

Language as a tool: • Vygotsky believed that words are

important scaffolds, building cognition

• As a builder needs boards to make a house, we need words to build cognition

• Talking, listening, reading and writing are tools to advance thought

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Language advances

thinking in two ways:

• First--Private Speech: the internal dialogue that occurs when people talk to themselves (either silently or out loud)

• Young children use private speech often, even if they aren’t aware they do

Language:

• They talk aloud to review, decide, explain events, to themselves or anyone around

• Older preschoolers use private speech more selectively and effectively, sometimes without sound

Secondly, language

advances thinking by:

• Social Mediation: human interaction

that expands and advances

understanding, often through words that

one person uses to explain something

to another

• Can be seen in formal and informal

instruction, as well as casual

conversation

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How this helps: • Children are guided by mentors when

they:

• Count objects with one number per item

• Remember accurately

• Verbalize standard experiences (scripts)

• Growth in brain structures is evidenced by growth in vocabulary and speech

Summary: • Cognition develops rapidly from 2 to 6

• Piaget recognized children as active but limited learners (centric, single-focused, focused on appearance, and unable to conserve) in preoperational stage, also animist

• Vygotsky emphasized social learning, importance of mentoring, and that language is used for private speech and social mediation

Children’s Theories:

• Both Piaget and Vygotsky realized that

children try to make sense of their

world

• They have lots of ideas of why people

act as they do

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Theory-Theory: • The idea that children attempt to

explain everything they see and hear by constructing theories

• A cognitive psychology theory

• Children seem to seek a cause and effect relationship in what they see, and they try really hard to understand the world

Theory-Theory:

• We seem to have an inborn need to

explain

• We look for deeper explanations and

for more reliable predictions

• Example: a whole turkey:

A whole turkey • 1 big bag full of turkey

(without feathers, not the kind the Pilgrims ate)

• A giant lump of stuffin’

• 1 squash pie

• 1 mint pie

• 1 dish of sour berries

• 1 fancy dish of vegetable mix

• 20 dishes of different candies (chocolate balls, cherry balls, good-n-plenties, and peanuts

• Get up when the alarm says and get busy fast. Unfold the turkey and open up the holes. Push in the stuffin’ for a couple of hours. I think you get it from the farm that makes it. You have to pin it in the turkey and it takes long pins. Get the kitchen real hot. Sometimes call the turkey a bird, but it’s not. Then get the vegetables in the cooker, and put 2 red things of salt in them and cook them til warm. Put the candies out and when company comes, put on an apron.

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What did this recipe tell

you about thinking in a

preschooler?

• Literal interpretation of words

• Uncertain idea of time

• Uncertain idea of quantity

• But really pretty funny!

A study of Mexican-

American mothers • Mothers kept a diary of every question their 3

to 5 year old asked and how they responded

• Most questions were about human behavior

and characteristics (47%)

• Next biology (31%), objects (9%), nonliving

natural things (9%), and other items (4%)

• Generally, younger children asked more

questions than older ones, and more

educated mothers recorded more questions

Underlying the questions: Adults often misinterpret questions from

children

When a child asks “Why?” it might not mean, “What causes X to happen?” but “I want to learn more about X.”

This means, keep explanations simple, don’t go into cause and effect unless the child really wants to know.

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Theory of Mind:

• A person’s theory of what other people

might be thinking.

• In order to have a theory of mind,

children must realize that other people

are not necessarily thinking the same

thoughts that they themselves are.

• The realization is seldom possible

before age 4.

Theories of Mind: • Can be thought of as “folk psychology”

• Theories of mind appear quite suddenly, around 4 years of age

• Important: adults use these to ponder why people fall in love, etc.

• Children use these to explain all sorts of behavior in their experiences--why playmates fight, why their aunt gives them weird presents, etc.

Belief and Reality:

understanding the difference

• Theory of mind include many concepts, some

of which are difficult even for older children

• But at about age 4, children seem to leap to

an understanding that thoughts might not

reflect reality

• They realize that people can be deliberately

fooled, and that they themselves have been

deceived

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Classic experiment in

deception: • An adult shows a 3-year-old a candy box and

asks what is in it

• The 3-year-old eagerly says “Candy!”

• But upon opening, it is found to contain pencils

• When asked what another child will think is in it, the 3-year-old will say, “Pencils.”

• The 3-year-old will think others will think the same as he/she does, too egocentric to do otherwise

Because of this

egocentrism: • Young children are notoriously easy to

deceive

• They hide in the same place when playing hide-and-seek

• They betray themselves when they try to fib

• Magical thinking and static reasoning also affect the ability to lie

• But they get better at it as they age

Contextual influences:

• Researchers have been trying to figure out if theory of mind is more influenced by nature or nurture

• Neurological maturation is a plausible explanation, that prefrontal maturation is more important than context

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Contextual Influences:

• But language matters: children with greater fluency of speech are more likely to have a theory of mind

• And having SIBLINGS increases the probability of having a theory of mind by a year

Cultural influences:

• A study comparing theory of mind of 5

year olds in Canada, India, Peru,

Samoa and Thailand indicated the

Canadians were slightly ahead

• Researchers based this on brain

maturation after taking other factors into

account

Comparison of English

and Korean children: • 3 year old Korean children passed tests that

almost no English children passed before age 5

• Again, the only significant factor was brain maturation

• Confirmed in studies of Chinese and North American children--cultural factors can slow progress, but brain maturation is most important

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To sum up:

• Scholars have noted that children develop theories to explain what they observe

• These theories don’t necessarily come from explanations given by adults

• Children are more interested in the grand scheme of things, adults in the immediate details

And…

• Neurological maturation matters in understanding that other people have thoughts that are different than the child’s own thoughts, as does language, family, context and culture

Language: • Essential to cognition in early childhood

• Thought is language-dependent: language leads to cognitive development

• Brain maturation, myelinization, social interaction make this age possibly the best for language acquisition

• But not the critical period (only time that is important) that psychologists once thought

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Language:

• However, it is a sensitive time for

learning language

• Important for mastering vocabulary,

grammar, and pronunciation

• Children are “language sponges” and

pick language up very fast

Language: • Some researchers still hold that brain

maturation slows language acquisition down after early childhood

• One thing is certain, preschool-aged children talk--A LOT and with everyone

• Even their toys!

• This promotes fluency

Language in Early

Childhood: • Approximate age: 2 years

• Characteristics/Achievements:

• Vocabulary: 100-2,000 words

• Sentence length: 2-6 words

• Grammar: plurals, pronouns, many nouns,

verbs, adjectives

• Questions: Many “What’s that?” questions

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Language in Early

Childhood • Approximate age: 3 years

• Characteristics/Achievements:

• Vocabulary: 1,000-5,000 words

• Sentence length: 3-8 words

• Grammar: conjunctions, adverbs, articles

• Questions: Many “Why?” questions

Language in Early

Childhood • Approximate age: 4 years

• Characteristics/Achievements:

• Vocabulary: 3,000-10,000 words

• Sentence length: 5-20 words

• Grammar: dependent clauses, tags at ends of sentences

• Questions: Peak of “Why?”questions, but also many “How?” and “When?” questions

Language in Early

Childhood • Approximate age: 5 years

• Characteristics/Achievements:

• Vocabulary: 5,000-20,000 words

• Sentence length: some seem unending (and…who…and…that..and…)

• Grammar: complex, sometimes using passive voice

• Questions: includes some about differences (male/female, rich/poor, old/young)

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The vocabulary explosion: • Average child knows about 500 words at age

2, more than 10,000 by age 6

• Naming explosion becomes more general

• Verbs, adjectives, adverbs & conjunctions are added

• Precise estimates of vocabulary are difficult because language is context dependent

• Language potential is greater than spoken language

Fast-mapping: • The speedy and sometimes imprecise

way in which children learn new words by tentatively placing them in mental categories according to their perceived meaning

• Allows children to relate new words by linking them or differentiating them from what they already know

Example of fast-mapping: • A preschool teacher taught a new word by

asking the class to “Bring me a chromium tray, not a red one.”

• Children who knew the color red grasped what she meant and remembered the color a week later

• Children who didn’t know color words couldn’t remember the color a week later because they couldn’t map the word

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Benefits of fast-mapping: • Allows fast acquisition of number words

• If you know nine, nineteen is easier to learn

• Linguistic clues allow children to gain vocabulary faster

• To increase vocabulary, parents should talk with their preschooler often

• But watch what you say--they will learn words you’d rather not have them use!

Words and the limits of

logic: • Closely related to fast-mapping is logical

extension

• After learning a word, children will use it to describe other things in the same category

• Example: the child on a field trip to a farm talks of the “Dalmatian” cows because he learned about Dalmatian (spotted) dogs the previous week

• Children try to use logic to figure out the world

Helping logical extension: • Children learn words better if an adult

uses the word and links it as a possessive

• Example: “See this butterfly? Look at this butterfly’s thorax.”

• How a new word is presented affects its retention and future use

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More on logical extension:

• Young children have difficulty with comparison words because they don’t understand context

• Words like tall, short, near, far, high, low, deep, shallow

Logical extension:

• If you teach a child to stay away from the deep end of the swimming pool, then describe a puddle as deep, you might end up with a child splashing through every puddle because it isn’t really deep!

Other problem areas: • Words expressing relationships of time and

place

• Here, there, yesterday, tomorrow

• Like the child who wakes up on Christmas morning and asks if it is tomorrow yet

• Children might not “stay there” or “come here” because they find these terms confusing

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Acquiring Basic Grammar

• Word order, word repetition, intonation, prefixes, suffixes, emphasis: everything that conveys meaning

• By age 3, English speaking children understand many aspects of grammar

Basic grammar:

• They know word order, plurals, tenses, nominative, objective, and possessive pronouns, and may even use articles correctly

This is actually related to

brain myelinization: • It follows a set pattern and rate

• Genes are influential for expressive language

more so than receptive language

• How much a child talks is strongly influenced

by genes, but experience influences which

words and grammatical constructs a child

understands

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Leading to Over-regulation

• Overregulation is the application of the rules of grammar even when exceptions occur, making the language seem more “regular” than it actually is

Over-regulation: • Like the 2-year-old, who after asking for

two cookies, mentions he has new tooths

• Because not all English words are made plural by the addition of an “s”

• The same thing will be seen in the “ed” suffix

Learning two languages:

• Many children from minority language

families grow up bilingual to

accommodate the dominant language

(English)

• Some nations have more than one

official language, so it might be an

advantage to raise children to be

bilingual

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More on bilingualism:

• Should all young children learn two

languages

• Some say yes, because early childhood

is such a receptive time for language

acquisition

• Some say no, because becoming

proficient in the dominant language

should be the main focus

What do you think?

• If you had the opportunity to raise your

child to be bilingual, would you do so?

• What would be the benefits?

• What are the drawbacks?

• Which languages would you want your

preschooler to speak?

More on bilingualism: • More research supports learning two

languages than only one

• Many children are able to master not one, but two languages words and grammar during the language explosion

• It permits fluency at all ages

• In contrast, adults who learn a new language often do not achieve fluency or correct pronunciation

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What promotes learning a

second language?

• Hearing it all the time--bathed in

language

• Even though young children may have

pronunciation difficulties, this is true for

all languages, even their main one

• And it doesn’t slow down acquisition

Bilingualism, Cognition

and Culture

• Language is integral to culture

• For minority language children to learn

English, the result is less egocentric

understanding of language

• But it can slow down acquisition of

either language slightly

And it may affect reading

• Thus the burden is on the preschool

teacher to ensure that minority

language children have ample

exposure to a word-rich English

environment to keep their dominant

language development on target

• Stressing verbal expression is key

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And in other countries:

• The dominant language is stressed in schools

• Minority language parents may fear a language shift, where their child prefers the dominant language to their own

• But most children do well at speaking the language of whomever they are with

Balanced bilingualism:

• A person who is fluent in two languages

and doesn’t favor one over the other

• The goal of bilingual education

Constant change:

• Languages are changing constantly

• Children learn language by scaffolding

(building on what they already know)

• And they generally will keep up with all

the changes in language they

encounter

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To sum up--Language: • Children aged 2 to 6 have impressive

linguistic talents

• They undergo an explosion of speech

• They use sophisticated acquistion forms like fast-mapping and grammar

• But sometimes these backfire

• No other time of life is as sensitive for language acquisition

• Children can often learn two languages simultaneously

Early Childhood Education

• A century ago, children did not have formal education until first grade

• That is why it’s called “first”

• But now we start children in “preschool”

• This is not only due to family work patterns, but because of the understanding of how rapidly preschoolers can learn

Examining preschools:

• Three general categories:

• Child-centered programs (Montessori,

Reggio-Emilia)

• Teacher-directed programs

• Intervention programs

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Child-centered programs: • Developmental or child-centered

• Emphasize a child’s need to follow her/his

own interests

• Piaget-inspired, utilize peak creativity

• Most encourage artistic expression

• Also influenced by Vygotsky, children

influence other children in such programs

Montessori:

• 100+ years ago, Maria Montessori (Italy)

• Nursery schools to help poor children in Rome

• Structured, individualized projects to give children a sense of accomplishment

• Recognition that children learn differently than adults

• Now is a pre-K to high school program, all emphasizing individuals and engagement in learning

Reggio-Emilia Approach:

preschoolers are the master

• A different environment that affords more experiences than are available at home

• No large-group instruction, focus is on individual child’s creative potential--no academics are taught

• Small group engagement in projects of their own selection

• Teacher planning time to ensure optimal programming and tailoring to children’s needs

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Teacher-directed programs:

• Teach academics, via one adult to the whole class

• Curriculum includes colors, shapes, numbers, letters

• The serious work of schooling is different than at home

• Cooperation and learning are rewarded, time-outs are used for misbehavior

• Contrast with child-centered programs also evident in dependence upon teacher to resolve conflicts

Intervention programs: • Includes Head Start and other programs

• Created in response to variances in 5 year olds--enriched environments seemed to be the major difference in skills

• Head Start began in 1965, offered to low-income families, federally funded, quality varies from place to place

• Generally provides half-day education programs to 3 to 5 year olds, some offer 6 hour day programming

Head Start, continued: • Evaluation of effects have been problematic

• Some programs are child-centered, some teacher-directed

• Program evaluation and curriculum wasn’t standardized in early years

• Goals have been diffuse--politicians involved

• Parents have not always been cooperative with programs and evaluations

• But benefits have been seen in improved dental care, better immunizations, and kindergarten readiness

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But: • Other nations provide preschool programs

for all children, not only low income or

minority children

• Countries as diverse as France, Italy,

Sweden and even China

• And some states do the same (like

Oklahoma, which has full-day kindergarten

and preschool for all children

Costs and benefits: • Costs vary: child centered programs

are very expensive, tend to exist where the community supports them

• Most parents in the US have to pay for early childhood education

• Research indicates that specific curriculum matters less than teachers who are sensitive and respond to the needs of the children

Characteristics of good

preschools: • Same as for day care centers

• Also, parents should look for continuity of staff, curriculum (especially as children turn 5) that includes language enrichment, and an emphasis on learning

• Children should have opportunities for refinement of fine and gross motor skills, as well as plenty of time for social interaction

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Summing up:

• High quality preschool programs benefit low-income, minority children, as well as all children

• Results in improved language and social skills

• Different programs (child-centered, teacher directed) have different goals, with the former emphasizing creativity, the latter academic readiness

• Quality of programs vary with respect to teacher training, curriculum, and results