Chap 2 Cognitive and Linguistic Development

8/11/2019 Chap 2 Cognitive and Linguistic Development

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PPGS6111 EDUCATIONALPSYCHOLOGY

Prof. Dr Ananda Kumar PalaniappanRoom ED115, Block D, Faculty of

[email protected]


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Introduction - Issues

What are the major problems / issues facingteachers today?What are the major problems/issues facingstudents today?What factors affect students academicachievement? Categorize these factors.What factors affect teachers efficiency in theclassroom?What factors contribute to the disciplineproblems in the classroom?

http://apa.org/ed/schools/cpse/activities/class-management.aspx


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CHAP 2: COGNITIVE ANDLINGUISTIC DEVELOPMENT


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CHAP 2: COGNITIVE AND

LINGUISTIC DEVELOPMENTQUESTIONS:- What are the principles of human development?- What principles and theories help us adaptinstruction to students cognitive and languageabilities to promote further cognitive development?- How do students language abilities change withage, and what are the implications for classroom

teaching?- How do students differ from one another in theircognitive and linguistic development and how canaccommodate such differences?


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2.1 Basic Principles of Human

Developmenta) Development proceeds in a somewhatorderly and predicable pattern -Developmental milestones e.g. children learnto walk only after learning how to sit up andcrawl. - these are universals in developmentb) Different children develop at different ratesc) Periods of relatively rapid growth (spurts)may appear between periods of slowergrowth (plateaus) - children gain 2 or 3inches in height per year but at adolescents 5inches per year


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Development (contd)c) Periods of relatively rapid growth(spurts) may appear between periods ofslower growth (plateaus) - children gain2 or 3 inches in height per year but atadolescents 5 inches per year

d) Development is continually affectedby both nature (heredity) and nurture(environment)


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Development (contd)Maturation an unfolding ofgenetically controlled changes aschildren develop e.g. motor skills forwalking, running develop as a result ofneurological development, increased

strength all controlled by heredity


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2.2 Role of Brain in Cognitive

Development- Brains works through neurons brain cellsthat specialize in receiving and transmitting

information-The interconnections between neurons called synapses provide means throughwhich people think, learn and remember-A single neuron may form more than athousand synapses with other neurons, toenable communication and coordination


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2.2 Role of Brain in Cognitive

Development (contd)- Most synapses form within the first 10years of life

- Synapses that are frequently usedremain intact and those not used alleventually disappear

- Maximize childrens educationalexperiences specifically during the first10 years


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2.3 Piagets Basic Assumptions

1) Children are active and motivatedlearners - e.g. like insects or lizards2) Children construct knowledge fromtheir experiences - e.g. developunderstanding about insects


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(contd)4) Interaction with ones physical andsocial environment is essential forcognitive development e.g. playing withsand and water measuring things,practicing football


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(contd)5) The process of equilibration promotesprogression toward more complex levels of

thoughtwhen children encounter events they cannotadequately explain, disequilibrium a mentaldiscomfort occursEquilibration - the movement fromequilibrium to disequilibrium and back toequilibrium again


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(contd)6) Cognitive development can proceedonly after certain genetically controlledneurological changes occur (Maturation)Children cannot think like adults nomatter what adults do to encourage

adult-like thinking because childrenchildren are neurologically immature


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2.4 Piagets Stages of CognitiveDevelopment

4 stages of logical reasoning capabilities:1) Sensorimotor stage (birth until 2 years)

2) Preoperational stage (2 6 or 7 years)3) Concrete operational stage ( 6 or 7 - 11or 12 years)

4) Formal operations stage ( 11 or 12 yearsthrough adulthood)

(see Fig 2.1 (p26), Table 2.1 (p27), Table 2.2 (p22)


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2.5 Current perspectives onPiagets Theory

a) Capabilities of Infants and Preschoolchildren- infants and preschoolers show morecompetency than Piagets descriptions ofsensorimotor and preoperational stages E.g.infants show preliminary signs of objectpermanence as early as 4 months;

- 3 and 4 year olds are less egocentric thanwhat Piaget proposed- Children as young as 4 sometimes showconservation


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2.5 Current perspectives on PiagetsTheory (contd.)

b) Capabilities of Elementary SchoolChildren- many elementary students occasionallyshow evidence of abstract and hypotheticalthoughtc) Capabilities of Adolescents- For most college students formaloperational thought processes probablyappear later and more gradually than Piagetoriginally proposed


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2.5 Current perspectives on PiagetsTheory (contd.)

d) Effects of Prior Knowledge andExperience

- the ability to think logically about a situationor topic depends greatly on a studentsknowledge and background experiences(Preschoolers are less likely to havetransductive reasoning when they haveaccurate information about cause and effectrelationship)


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2.6 VYGOTSKYS THEORY OFCOGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT

Vygotsky conducted studies onchildrens thinking from 1920s untildeath at the age of 38 fromtuberculosis.Work only recognized after 50 years.


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Vygotskys Basic Assumptions

(Piagets views cognitive development is largely anindividual enterprise growing children do most of

the mental work themselves) Vygotsky believes that adults in a society fosterchildrens development in an intentional andsomewhat systematic manner continually engage inmeaningful and challenging activities and help themperform those activities successfully- emphasized importance of society and culture inpromoting cognitive growth socioculturalperspective


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Major assumptions:

i) Complex mental processes begin as socialactivities; as children develop, they gradually

internatize these processes and begin to use themindependentlyii) Thought and language become increasinglyinterdependent in the first few years of life.iii) Through both informal conversations and formalschooling, adults convey to children the ways inwhich their culture interprets the world.


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iv) Children can perform morechallenging tasks when assisted bymore advanced and competentindividuals.v) Challenging tasks promote maximum

cognitive growth.


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Strength of his theory:a) Guided Participation - assisting students to do adult-like tasks likewriting to government officials, conduct research andtest hypothesis.b) Scaffolding - providing guidance or structure that enableschildren to perform tasks in their zone of proximal

development. E.g. working with students to developa plan for dealing with a new task. Or demonstratethe proper performance of the task in a way thatstudents can easily imitate.


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Strength of his theory: (contd.)

c) Apprenticeships - learner works intensively with anexpert to accomplish complex tasks thathe or she cannot do independently.Expert provides structure and guidance,

gradually removing scaffolding andgives learner more responsibility


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Apprenticeships has the followingfeatures:

i) Modeling teacher carries out task,simultaneously thinking aloud about theprocess while the students observes andlistens.ii) Coaching as student performs the task,teacher gives frequent suggestions, hints and

feedbackiii) Scaffolding teacher provides variousforms of support like simplifying tasks.


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Apprenticeships has the followingfeatures: (contd)

iv) Articulation students explains whathe or she is doing and why allowingthe teacher to examine the studentsknowledge, reasoning and problem-solving strategies.

v) Reflection teacher asks students tocompare his or her performance withthat of experts


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Apprenticeships has the followingfeatures: (contd)

vi) Increasing complexity and diversity oftasks student gains greater proficiency the

teacher presents more complex, challengingand varied tasks to completevii)Exploration teacher encourages studentsto frame questions and problems on his orher own and refine acquired skills


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d) Peer Interaction - students can oftenaccomplish more difficult tasks whenthey work together rather than alone. -students provide scaffolding for oneanother promotes cognitive

development and academicachievement.


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Factors that affect childrensability to learn:

a) Attention & Intention to learn2 trends in cognitive development relate tochildrens attention and its impact onlearning:i) Children become less distractible over time- become more focused and able to ignorebackground noise

ii) How and what children learn dependsincreasingly on what they actually intend tolearn


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b) Learning Strategies - as childrengrow older they develop a number oflearning strategies:


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i) Rehearsal increases during the elementary schoolyears but rare in kindergarten childrenii) Organization improves throughout the elementary

and secondary gradesEg. Read the following words below one time only.Then without looking at it, write down in the orderthey come to your mind. daisy apple dandelion

hammer pear wrench tulip pliers peach banana rose screwdriver


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In what order did you remember thewords? Did you recall them in theoriginal order or did you organizesomehow?- Organized information is learned more

easily and remembered morecompletely than unorganizedinformation


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iii) Elaboration emerges around pubertyand increases throughout adolescence

Elaboration is using what you alreadyknow to expand on new informationWe learn and remember better if we

elaborate eg by giving examples ordiscussing the characteristics ofsomething we wish to remember


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iv) Learning strategies becomeincreasingly efficient and effective

With time and practice, childrenbecome increasingly adept at applyingtheir strategies quickly, efficiently and

flexibly


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c) Knowledge - childrens knowledge base change inat least 2 ways:i) the amount of knowledge that children have

increases over timeii) childrens knowledge base becomes increasinglyintegratedolder children are more likely to:1) organize information as they learn it

2) make connections between new information andthe things they already know - knowledge becomemore integrated and connected


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d) Metacognition - refers to both the knowledgepeople have about their own cognitiveprocesses and to their intentional use ofcertain cognitive processes to facilitate

learning and memory.


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As children develop, their metacognitive knowledgeand skills improve in the following ways:i) Children become more aware of the limitations oftheir memories. In an experiment, older childrenwere found to predict more accurately how muchthey can remember compared to younger childrenii) Children become better able to identify the thingsthey do and do not knowiii) Children become more knowledgeable abouteffective learning strategies like rehearsal,organization and elaboration


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2.8 LINGUISTIC DEVELOPMENT

Teachers need to know what linguisticknowledge and skills of students of

different ages are likely to have so thatthey can form realistic expectations fortheir performance.


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2.81 Theoretical perspectives oflanguage development

Human beings are born with a predisposition to learnlanguageWe inherit some constraints regarding the form ourlanguage must take most languages share somecommon characteristics e.g. similar rules for formingnegatives and asking questions

All members of a particular society acquire the samelanguage despite widely differing early childhoodexperiences and general lack of systematicinstruction in appropriate language use.


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2.81 Theoretical perspectives oflanguage development (contd.)

There may be sensitive periods in someaspects of language development.Children learn more about a language whenexposed to it when they are young -immersed in it within the first 5 to 10 years oflifeEnvironment also important for language dev.

(children learn only when people aroundthem use the language)Children use that language to construct theirown understanding.


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2.82 Trends in Languagedevelopment

- Age 1 year children begin usingrecognizable words

- Age 2 years put works together- Preschool years able to form longerand more complex sentences- Age 5 or 6 years able to uselanguage sometimes like adults


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Dev. of Vocabulary

children learn words through directvocabulary instruction at school

learn more by inferring meaning from thecontexts in which they hear or read the wordsChildrens early understanding of words isusually vague and fuzzy. Through repeatedencounters in different context and directfeedback, they refined their understanding


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Or overregularization use syntactical(grammatical ) rules in situations in which the

rules do not apply e.g. addition of - ed forpast tense, some children say the past tensefor go is goed. Children in early grades may have difficultyinterpreting passive sentences and sentenceswith two or more clauses.


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Development of ListeningComprehension

ability to comprehend what children hear willbe influenced by their knowledge ofvocabulary and syntax.Children is elementary grades take the wordsthey hear at face value. E.g. when we saysomeone is tied up

Childrens ability to draw generalizations fromproverbs like Look before you leapcontinue to develop even in upper secondarylevel.


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Development of Oral CommunicationSkills

preschool and early elementary,children have difficulty pronouncing

some sounds in English Language e.g.words with r, th, dr, but would havemastered by age 8 or 9.

Young children say things withoutconsidering the listeners perspective(Piaget called this egocentric speech)


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Development of Oral CommunicationSkills (contd.)

Children continue to refine theirknowledge of pragmatics ( the social

conventions governing appropriateverbal interactions with others e.g.taking turns to speak, saying goodbye

when leaving, strategies for beginningand ending conversations, changingsubjects etc).


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Development of Metalinguistic Awareness

Metalinguistic Awareness is the ability to thinkabout the nature of languageElementary years student gradually becomecapable of determining when sentences aregrammatically acceptableUpper elementary - begin to understandvarious functions of words in the sentence (

e.g. verbs, etc)Secondary able to consider wordsfiguratively the nonliteral meaning ofproverbs, symbolism in poems etc


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Learning a second Language

the sensitive period for learninglanguage is the first few years.

Early instruction in second language isimportant for mastering correctpronounciation


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Learning second languagefacilitates:

i) achievement ii) sensitizes children to international and

multicultural nature of the world. iii) better performance on complex tasks iv) greater metalinguistic awareness v) student interaction vi) greater self-esteem vii) better attitude toward school viii) better cognitive and linguistic dev


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Diversity in Cognitive and LanguisticDevelopment

i) From the perspective of Piagettheory: Children may show both

preoperational and concrete operationalthinking at primary and concrete anformal at lower and upper secondary

ii) From the perspective of Vygotskystheory: students will in different zonesof proximal development


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Diversity in Cognitive and LanguisticDevelopment (contd.)

iii) From the Information ProcessingTheory: students use a diverse learning

strategies in using backgroundknowledge and experiences tounderstand and elaborate new

information


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Culture influence cognitive dev. somelogical reasoning abilities (Piaget) andlearning strategies (e.g. rehearsal ofInformation Processing theorist) may appearearlier in Western Culture than in childrenfrom dev countries.Different cognitive abilities are valueddifferently in different cultures e.g. ability to

judge the correct amount of clay for makingpots or locate food in deserts)


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Accomodating students with Specialneeds

See Table 2.3 (p. 56)

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Chap 2 Cognitive and Linguistic Development