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COGNITIVE STRATEGIES and: MEDIATIONAL, PRODUCTION and UTILIZATION DEFICIENCIES Meaning of Cognitive Strategies in Child Development:  Cognitive strategies involve mental operations consciously employed to achieve specific goals.  While some argue that strategies can be automatic, all agree on their goal-directed nature.  Most studies focus on strategies in memory, particularly in encoding and retrieval processes.  Children discover strategies spontaneously, but explicit teaching can be beneficial when developmentally ready. Developmental Progression and Deficiencies:  Research explores how children gain conscious control over cognitive processes.  Three deficiencies: Mediational, Production, and Utilization, highlight limitations in strategy development.  Strategy development goes through stages: Mediational deficiency, Production deficiency, Utilization deficiency, and eventual mature functioning. Origins of Research on Strategies:  Research began in the 1960s, driven by the cognitive revolution.  John Flavell's study on rehearsal as a memory strategy was pivotal.  Other identified strategies include Organization, Elaboration, Selective attention, and Retrieval techniques. Current Status and Changes in Perspective:  Recent findings challenge the notion that children lack strategic ability in early years.  Even 2-year-olds exhibit simple retrieval cues, and verbal techniques appear earlier in familiar contexts.  Siegler's strategy-choice model suggests children have multiple competing strategies at any time.  Metacognition, the ability to think about and regulate thought processes, influences strategy selection.  Longitudinal studies reveal uneven development, challenging the previously held view of a linear progression. Development of cognitive capacities in preschool age. Child Development and Capacities  Cultural-Historical Theory:  Child development involves mastering cultural tools.  Tools modify relations with the world and provide means to act on the self.  Signs are universal cultural tools, but vary with age.  Capacities (lasting meanings) are crucial for life.  Types of Capacities:  Identifying Qualities:  Children use sign tools and modeling.  Expressing Attitudes:

 Children use symbolic tools like painting and stories.  Regulation of Actions:  Involves sign and symbolic tools.  Leads to normative, symbolic, and transformational capacities.  Childhood Activities:  Provide a special space for capacity development.  Two types of situations for capacity development: observation and experimentation (sign tools), and symbolic tools (painting, dancing).  Coaching and Normative Capacities:  Coaching before school entry results in normative capacities dominating. Human Development and Psychological Theories  Cultural-Historical Theory (Vygotskij):  Human consciousness develops through cultural tools.  Tools mediate relationships with the world.  Activity Approach (Leont'ev):  Development driven by children's play and productive activities.  Preschool Age and Figurative Tools:  Preschool age is crucial for figurative tools' development.  Figurative tools include sensory standards, perceptual models, and plans.  Two Types of Capacities (Modeling and Symbolisation):  Modeling: Identifying and defining structures in reality.  Symbolisation: Expressing attitudes to reality in a symbolic way.  Regulating Child Behavior:  Three ways: normative (sign tools), expressing attitudes (symbolic tools), and transforming reality (both tools).  Results in normative, symbolic, and transformative capacities. Normative Situations and Giftedness  Normative Situations:  Introduced as standard situations of social and cultural cooperation.  Includes prohibiting, positively rule-governed, and initiative-encouraging situations.  Culture is a system of normative situations.  Giftedness and Capacities:  Giftedness relates to the high level of development of capacities.  Preschool age is crucial for developing figurative tools.  Differentiates intellectual and creative giftedness.  Promoting Giftedness:  Giftedness development in concrete childhood activities.  Three-part model: motivation, capacities, realization of achievements.  Study on Gifted Children:  Study using the "Gifted Child" program.  Results show progress in intellectually gifted preschoolers.  Conclusion:  Development of capacities depends on normative situations in preschool.

 Stage One: Reflexive Action (Birth through 1st month):  Description: Active learning through automatic movements and reflexes.  Example: Sucking on a ball touching the infant's cheek.  Stage Two: First Adaptations to the Environment (1st through 4th month):  Transition: Discrimination between objects, replacing reflexes with voluntary movements.  Example: Accidental behaviors become interesting, motivating the infant to learn new behaviors.  Stage Three: Repetition (4th through 8th months):  Development: Increased engagement with the outside world, delight in causing repeated motions.  Example: Banging two lids together from the cupboard.  Stage Four: New Adaptations and Goal-Directed Behavior (8th through 12th months):  Capability: Behaviors anticipating events, thought-out goal-directed activities.  Example: Seeking a toy that has rolled under the couch, demonstrating object permanence.  Stage Five: Active Experimentation of Little Scientists (12th through 18th months):  Exploration: Infants actively experiment to learn about the physical world.  Example: Learning gravity by pouring water from a cup or pushing bowls from high chairs.  Stage Six: Mental Representations (18th month to 2 years of age):  Advancement: Problem-solving using mental strategies, remembering past experiences.  Example: Child using a learned mental strategy to knock on a closed door with a safety device on the doorknob.  Transition to Preoperational Intelligence:  Significance: Marks the shift from a hands-on approach to a more mental world.  Involvement: Learning to use language as part of the transition to preoperational intelligence. Lifespan Development Module 5: Early Childhood Cognitive Development in Early Childhood  Introduction:  Early childhood characterized by pretending, language development, and blending fact and fiction.  Challenges in understanding concepts like tomorrow, time, size, and distance.  Preoperational Intelligence (Piaget):  Definition: Coincides with early childhood, marked by symbolic thinking and language use.  Exploration of Piaget's assertions about cognitive abilities in early childhood.  Pretend Play:  Description: Pretending as a significant activity aiding cognitive development.  Example: Toys used to represent characters or objects beyond their intended function.

 Egocentrism:  Concept: Tendency to believe others see things the same way as the child.  Example: Classic experiment involving a 3D model of a mountain and different perspectives.  Syncretism:  Definition: Attribution of causation between two simultaneous events.  Example: Child associating putting on a bathing suit with the arrival of summer.  Animism:  Explanation: Attributing life-like qualities to inanimate objects.  Example: Objects like cups and chairs perceived as alive or having emotions by young children.  Classification Errors:  Challenge: Difficulty understanding that an object can belong to multiple categories.  Example: Child struggling with classifying buttons based on color.  Conservation Errors:  Definition: Difficulty recognizing that rearranging matter doesn't change quantity.  Example: Misunderstanding quantity changes when items are rearranged.  Theory of Mind:  Definition: Understanding that the mind can hold inaccurate ideas.  Example: Child's response based on personal knowledge rather than considering others' perspectives.  Language Development:  Vocabulary Growth:  Age Range: Vocabulary expansion from 200 to over 10,000 words between ages 2 to 6.  Process: Fast-mapping, connecting new words to existing concepts.  Literal Meanings:  Challenge: Children may repeat phrases without understanding figurative meanings.  Example: Taking expressions like "Prince Phillip lost his head" literally.  Overregularization:  Learning Process: Application of grammar rules, occasionally leading to errors.  Example: Using "ed" for past tense, as in "I goed there."  Impact of Training:  Significance: Assistance in language learning through attentive listening, modeling, and encouragement.  Process: Scaffolding - providing needed assistance as the child learns new language skills.  Private Speech:  Purpose: Talking to oneself for problem-solving or clarifying thoughts.  Development: Evolving from egocentric speech to inner speech as thinking becomes more internalized.

 Experiences: More experiences contribute to efficient information processing.  Metacognition: Developing the ability to understand the best way to solve a problem.  Language Development:  Vocabulary Growth:  Age: By 5th grade, vocabulary reaches 40,000 words.  Rate: Grows at a rate of 20 words per day, exceeding preschoolers.  New Understanding:  Cognitive Shift: Thinking of objects in less literal ways.  Example: Associating pizza with the category "food" rather than a specific action.  Grammar and Flexibility:  Learning Rules: School-aged children learn new grammar rules with more flexibility.  Example: Transition from saying "I goed there" to correct grammar.  Second Language Acquisition:  Suggested Time: Preschool for understanding and speaking, school years for learning grammar rules. Learning and Intelligence Schools and Testing  Standardized Tests:  Children's academic performance is often measured through standardized tests.  Achievement tests assess what a child has already learned.  Aptitude tests measure a student's ability to learn or potential in a particular program.  Controversy Over Testing:  No Child Left Behind Act mandates schools to administer achievement tests.  Criticisms include an overemphasis on testing and neglect of other performance indicators. Theories of Intelligence  Traditional Criticisms:  Intelligence tests criticized for bias and inadequacy in measuring non-academic intelligence.  Intelligence changes with experience, and scores may not reflect adaptability.  Multiple Intelligences (Gardner):  Nine domains of intelligence, including logical-mathematical, linguistic, and spatial.  Six additional intelligences like musical, bodily-kinesthetic, and existential.  Challenge the notion that a high IQ guarantees success.  Triarchic Theory of Intelligence (Sternberg):

 Academic Intelligence: Problem-solving, verbal comprehension, vocabulary, spatial abilities.  Creative Intelligence: Application of skills to novel situations.  Practical Intelligence: Common sense, contextual understanding. The World of School  Parental Involvement:  Varies among parents, with teachers often favoring certain types of involvement.  Social factors influence the effectiveness of parental involvement.  Student Perspectives:  Student day characterized by constrictive rituals and states (student, street corner, home, sanctity).  Stress in school attributed to factors like testing, grades, and lack of creativity.  Cultural Influences:  Hidden curriculum includes values on patriotism, gender roles, occupational rankings.  Kindergarten viewed as an "academic boot camp" preparing students for a compliant role.  Concerns about stress, homework, and lack of creativity in the education system. Lifespan Cognitive Development Module 7: Adolescence  Increased Thinking Abilities:  Adolescence marks the emergence of more complex thinking abilities.  Some researchers attribute this to improved processing speed and efficiency rather than an increase in mental capacity.  Transition to Abstract Thought:  Teenagers move beyond concrete thinking and attain the capacity for abstract thought.  Piaget terms this stage as formal operational thought.  Characteristics of Teen Thinking:  Ability to consider multiple points of view.  Imagination of hypothetical situations.  Engagement in debates on various topics (e.g., politics, religion, justice).  Formation of new ideas.  Questioning authority and challenging societal norms are common.  Brain Development and Behavior:  Changes in the dopaminergic system contribute to increased sensation-seeking and reward motivation early in adolescence.  Prefrontal cortex development later in adolescence enhances self-regulation and future orientation.  Risk-Taking Behavior:  Adolescents may engage in risky behaviors (e.g., reckless driving, smoking, drinking) due to an imbalance between thrill-seeking motivation and cognitive control.  Risk-taking is more prevalent in middle adolescence.  Cognitive Empathy (Theory-of-Mind):

 Increased accuracy in recognizing play extends its identification to unexpected species.  Object play observed in mollusks, non-conceptive sexual play in spiders, and dominance- assessment play in wasps.  Play likely evolved repeatedly across the animal kingdom, with unclear phylogenetic patterns. Adaptive Functions  Play's adaptive functions have been challenging to identify.  Proposed functions include motor training, training for the unexpected, practice, and social benefits.  Play incurs costs, such as injury risk, but offers benefits like confidence, resilience, and environmental familiarity. Conclusions  Play is a heterogeneous behavior studied across disciplines.  Advances in biology, neuroscience, and child developmental psychology contribute to a new appreciation of play.  Ongoing research in non-mammalian taxa holds promise for further insights into play and its evolutionary origins. Systems and Cascades in Cognitive Development and Academic Achievement. Developmental Cascade Study  Objective:  Investigate developmental cascades in a longitudinal study spanning 14 years.  Participants:  552 infants from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children.  Eliminated for various reasons (e.g., failure to habituate, errors, fussiness).  Variables and Measures: a. Habituation (4 months): i. Efficiency measured in seconds. ii. Indicator of infant information processing. b. Temperament (6 months): i. Assessed using the Infant Temperament Questionnaire. c. Enriched Parenting (6 months): i. Assessed through maternal reports on parenting practices. d. Home Environment (6 months): i. Measured using modified forms of the Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment. e. General Mental Development (18 months): i. Assessed using the Griffiths Mental Development Scales. f. Behavior Difficulties (36 months): i. Assessed using the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire. g. Psychometric Intelligence (8 years): i. Measured using the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC). h. Academic Achievement (14 years): i. Based on standardized tests in English, mathematics, and science. i. Maternal Education: i. Educational qualifications of mothers.

 Analytic Approach:  Used structural equation modeling to assess relations among variables.  Cascading effects examined from early life to adolescence.  Findings:  Developmental cascade showed the influence of early factors on academic achievement.  Efficient habituation and high Griffiths scores at early stages related to higher IQ and academic achievement.  Behavior difficulties at 3 years negatively impacted IQ and academic achievement.  Maternal education had positive effects on Griffiths, IQ, and academic achievement.  IQ at 8 years strongly predicted academic achievement at 14 years.  Implications:  Stability in information processing observed from infancy to adolescence.  Multiple factors contribute to cognitive development and academic achievement.  Study informs understanding of intelligence, cognition, and academic success.  Potential implications for early identification and intervention in at-risk ZONE OF PROXIMAL DEVELOPMENT and: CULTURAL TOOLS SCAFFOLDING GUIDED PARTICIPATION MEANING  Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD):  Definition: The region between what children already know and what they are capable of learning under guidance.  Importance: It is where children are most receptive to new learning and engage in joint activities with more knowledgeable adults.  Function: Facilitates cognitive development by allowing children to gradually assume responsibility for tasks beyond their current understanding.  Social Context of Cognitive Development:  Vygotsky's Proposition: Cognitive development is not spontaneous; it is a result of interaction with a social context.  Role of Adults: Adults act as tutors, children as apprentices, in a dynamic, mutually adjustive interaction.  Transition: Development progresses from intermental to intramental, from joint regulation to self-regulation.  ZPD in Intelligence Assessment:  Vygotsky's View: Children's potential is best demonstrated when working with a more competent person.  Diagnostic Value: The ZPD reveals the 'buds of development' and is more informative than isolated problem-solving efforts.  Origins and Cultural Tools:  Vygotsky's Background: Influenced by Marxian theory, childhood seen as a time for passing on accumulated wisdom.  Cultural Tools: Psychological (language, writing) and technological (books, clocks) devices shaping societal understanding.  Language's Role: Language, a crucial cultural tool, evolves from social use to internalized thought.