Cognitive and language development

Dr. LIN Dan

Piagets theory of cognitive development

What is intelligence?
A basic life function that helps an organism
adapt to the environment
Cognitive equilibrium balance between
thought processes and the environment
Constructivist approach child constructs
knowledge
 Gaining Knowledge: Schemes and Processes
Schemes: mental patterns (thought/action)
Organization combine existing
schemes into new/complex schemes
Adaptation adjustment to environment
Assimilation new information into
existing schemes
Accommodation modify existing
schemes for new information
 Table 7.1 A Small Sample of Cognitive Growth from Piagets Perspective
 Piagets stages of cognitive
development
Invariant developmental sequence
Sequencing fixed
Individual differences entering/emerging
stages
The Sensorimotor Stage (Birth to 2 years)

Coordinate sensory inputs and motor skills

Transition from being reflexive to reflective
Six substages

Object permanence
Objects continue to exist when they are
no longer visible/detectable
Appears by 8-12 months of age
Complete by 18-24 months
 Table 7.2 Summary of Piagets Account of Sensorimotor Development
The Sensorimotor Stage (Birth to 2 years)
----Challenges

Challenges to Piaget Account??

 The Preoperational Stage (2-7 years)

Major achievement, in symbolic function /

representational insights
One thing represents another
Language
Pretend (symbolic) play
developmentally a positive activity
 Major limitations in preoperational thinking
Animism: attribute life/life like qualities to
inanimate objects
Egocentrism: view world from own
perspective, trouble recognizing others
point of view
Appearance/reality distinction
Dual encoding
 Lack of conservation( ) do not
realize properties of objects do not change
just because appearance does
Lack of decentration concentrate on
more than one aspect of a problem at
the same time
Lack of reversibility mentally undo an
action
 Figure 7.3 Piagets three-mountain problem. Young preoperational children are egocentric. They
cannot easily assume another persons perspective and often say that another child viewing the
mountain from a different vantage point sees exactly what they see from their own location.
 Figure 7.4 Maynard the cat, without and with a dog mask. Three-year-olds who met Maynard
before his change in appearance nonetheless believed that he had become a dog.
 The Preoperational Stage (2-7 years)
----Challenges

Did Piaget Underestimate the Preoperational

Child?
New evidence on egocentrism
Piagets tasks were too complex
Another look at childrens reasoning
Animism not routine among 3-year-olds
Can preoperational children conserve?
Can be trained at 4 years (identity
training)
The Concrete Operational Stage (7-11 years)

Internal mental activity to modify

symbols to reach a logical conclusion
Conservation
Relational logic, such as mental
seriation
Limited to real or tangible aspects of
experience
 Table 7.3 A Comparison of Preoperational and Concrete-operational Thought
 Figure 7.7 Childrens performance on a simple seriation task. If asked to arrange a series of sticks
from shortest to longest, preoperational children often line up one end of the sticks and create an
incomplete ordering (a) or order them so the top of each successive stick extends higher than the
The Formal Operational Stage (11-12 +)

Hypothetico-deductive reasoning
Ability to generate hypotheses and
use deductive reasoning (general to
specific)
Inductive reasoning
Going from specific observations
to generalizations
 Personal and Social Implications of
Formal Thought
Thinking about what is possible in life
Stable identity
Understanding of others perspectives
Questioning others
Thinking of how the world ought to
be
 An Evaluation of Piagets Theory

Piagets Contributions
Founded cognitive development
Stated children construct their knowledge
First attempt to explain development
Reasonably accurate overview of how
children of different ages think
Major influence in social and emotional
development, and education
Influenced future research
 Challenges to Piaget
Does cognitive development really occur in
stages?
Little evidence of broad stages
Piaget failed to distinguish competence
from performance
Does Piaget explain cognitive
development? more of an description
Little attention to social/cultural influences
Factors influencing language and
literacy development
Factors influencing language and
literacy development

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Family influences on language and
literacy development

Family education resources

Parent-child shared reading activity
Parent-child shared writing activity

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Family Education Recourses
Numbers of books at home is positively
associated with childrens better language
and literacy skills.

For unto every one that hath shall be given,

and he shall have abundance: but from him
that hath not shall be taken even that which he
hath . Matthew 25:29, King James Version.


Matthew effect: The rich get richer and the
poor get poorer.
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Parent-child shared reading
activity
Dialogical reading strategies

http://www.readingrockets.org/article/40
0/
http://ww3.psy.cuhk.edu.hk/~qefproject/

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 Mother-child writing activity in
Chinese studies
Mothers less advanced strategies (e.g., copying)
were negatively associated with childrens
reading skills

mothers more advanced strategies (e.g.,

morphological focus) were positively associated
with childrens reading skills

Implication: more analytic approach to Chinese

character writing may be helpful for literacy
development, even among very young children.

(Lin, et al., 2009; Lin, et al., 2012, JEP)

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Metalinguistic awareness/cognitive
skills and language and literacy
development

Phonological awareness
Orthographic awareness
Morphological awareness
Speech-print mapping awareness
Pinyin in Chinese reading

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 Pinyin in Chinese reading
Pinyin was found to be effective in promoting
Chinese reading development (Lin, et al., 2010).

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 Bilingualism: Challenges and
Consequences of Learning Two
Languages

Exposure to two languages prior to

age 3, proficient in both
Preschool children, often learn second
language to proficiency in one year
Cognitive advantages
Score higher on IQ tests, metalinguistic
awareness, better selective attention
(research by Bialystok and colleagues)

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 Bilingualism: Challenges and
Consequences of Learning Two
Languages

Two-way bilingual education

Half day in English, half in second
language
Beneficial for both students with
limited English proficiency and
students fluent in English

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 Dyslexia
What it isnt?
NOT a visual or hearing problem
NOT a lack of intelligence
NOT due to a lack of effort
NOT uncommon 5-17.5% of population

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 Dyslexia
What it is?

dys = Trouble
lexia = Words
Touble with words

Neurologic in origin ----genetic

Lifelong ---- environment may alter course
accompaning challenges (50%)
ADHD
sensory motor difficulties
behavioral problems
challenging to remediate

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The core deficit in English

Phonological awareness

36


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 (All Symptoms Do Not Occur With Everyone)

STRENGTHS

LEADERSHIP SKILLS THINKING OUT OF THE BOX

TH
(PH OMA
TED TURNER O
CHURCHILL JFK NO S ED
GR ISO
AP N
SCIENTISTS
TON

POLITICAL
ENTREPRENEURS
& H)
PAT

& INVENTORS
MILITARY
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 (All Symptoms Do Not Occur With Everyone)

STRENGTHS

CREATIVITY

WRITERS ARTISTS MUSICIANS ACTORS / DIRECTORS

HANS CHRISTIAN LEONARDO 39 MOZART HARRISON FORD &

ANDERSEN Da VINCI STEVEN SPEILBERG
 (All Symptoms Do Not Occur With Everyone)

STRENGTHS

VISUOSPATIAL / MOTOR SKILLS

SURGEONS ATHLETES

NEUROSURGERY 40 MOHAMMAD ALI NOLAN RYAN

 References
2002 30 1 31-40
5 1 2002 11
http://www.fed.cuhk.edu.hk/~hkier/jecc/jecc0211/jecc021105.ht
m

http://memo.cgu.edu.tw/yun-
ju/CGUWeb/SciEdu/Piaget/Piaget03Experiment.htm
2003

e-learning
(2000) e-
learning
 References
Textbook chapter 10.
Lin, D., McBride-Chang, C., Aram, D., Levin, I., Cheung, Y.M., Chow, Y.Y., &
Tolchinsky, L. (2009). Maternal mediation of writing in Chinese children.
Language and Cognitive Processes, 24, 1286-1311.
Lin, D., McBride-Chang, C., Shu, H., Zhang, Y.P., Li, H., Zhang, J., Aram, D., &
Levin, I. (2010). Small wins big: Analytic Pinyin skills promote Chinese word
reading. Psychological Science, 21, 1117-1122.
Lin, D., McBride-Chang, C., Aram, D., Shu, H., Levin, I., & Cho, J.-R. (2012)
Maternal mediation of writing and kindergarteners literacy: A comparison
between Hong Kong and Beijing. Journal of Educational Psychology, 104, 121-
137.
(2002).
(2005). :

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