CHAPTER 5
COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT IN INFANCY
RESOURCES-AT-A-GLANCE
Detailed Outline
Learning
Objectives
Instructor’s Resources
Test Bank
MyPsychLab Connections
Chapter Introduction pp. 105-106
PowerPoint Slides
1-4
Sketchnote Video
Infancy
PowerPoint Slides
Cognitive Changes pp. 106–111
Lecture Enhancer
5-19
MC 1-20
Watch
Power Point Slides
Learning, Categorizing,
Lecture Enhancer
20–25
MC 21-28
The Beginnings of Language
pp. 114-122
Power Point Slides
26–45
MC 29-69
FI 83–89
Watch
Child-Directed Speech, p. 116
Measuring Intelligence in Infancy
Learning Enhancer
MC 70-75
CHAPTER OVERVIEW
Cognitive development in infancy includes thinking changes, learning and remembering, and the
emergence of language skills. Measuring intelligence in infancy is also discussed.
In Piaget’s sensorimotor stage, infants begin with schemes they are born with and accommodate them to
their experiences. The development of object permanence is the most important cognitive milestone.
Behaviorists claim that babies learn language by being reinforced for making word-like sounds.
Nativists, on the other hand, argue that children’s comprehension and production of language is innate.
Interactionists say that language development is a sub-process of cognitive development.
Developmentalists better understand how the environment affects language development. Babies’ earliest
sounds are cries, followed by cooing, then by babbling. At 9 months, babies typically use meaningful
LEARNING OBJECTIVE QUESTIONS
After completing Chapter 5, students should be able to answer the following questions:
5.1 What are the milestones of Piaget’s sensorimotor stage?
5.2 How have other theorists challenged Piaget’s explanation of infant cognitive development?
5.3 What does research tell us about infants’ understanding of objects?
5.4 What kinds of learning are infants capable of?
5.5 How does categorical understanding change over the first 2 years?
5.6 How does memory function in the first 2 years?
5.10 What are the characteristics of toddlers’ first words?
5.11 What kinds of sentences do children produce between 18 and 24 months of age?
KEY TERMS
means–end behavior (p. 106)
naming explosion (p. 119)
object concept (p. 110)
object permanence (p. 108)
primary circular reaction (p. 106)
receptive language (p. 118)
schematic learning (p. 112)
secondary circular reaction (p. 106)
sensorimotor stage (p. 106)
telegraphic speech (p. 120)
tertiary circular reaction (p.107)
violation-of-expectations method (p. 110)
INTEGRATED CHAPTER TEACHING NOTES
COGNITIVE CHANGES (pp. 106-111)
MyPsychLab Connections
Watch: The Sensorimotor Stage, p. 106
Watch: Infancy: Object Permanence across Cultures, p. 108
Piaget’s View of the First 2 Years
LO 5.1 What are the milestones of Piaget’s sensorimotor stage?
Piaget assumes that the baby assimilates incoming information to the limited array of schemes she is born
Sensorimotor Stage
▪ In Piaget’s view, the newborn who is in substage 1 of the sensorimotor stage is entirely tied to the
▪ Substage 2 (from roughly 1 to 4 months) marks the beginning of the coordination between looking
and listening, reaching and looking, and reaching and sucking. The term primary circular reactions
refers to the many simple repetitive actions we see at this stage, each organized around the infant’s
own body.
▪ Secondary circular reactions in substage 3 (from about 4 to 8 months) differ only in that the baby is
now repeating some action in order to trigger a reaction outside her own body. These connections are
mostly automatic in substage 3.
Discussion Launcher (Learning Objective 5.1, pp. 106-108)
Ask the class to give examples of babies’ behaviors at each of the six substages.
Object Permanence
Piaget described object permanence as the ability to understand that objects still exist even when we
cannot see them. At about 2 months of age (in substage 2), babies react with surprise when they are
shown a toy that had been previously removed. There seems to be a rudimentary schema or expectation
about the permanence of the object. They show no signs, however, of searching for the toy.
Discussion Launcher (Learning Objective 5.1, p. 108)
How would the game of “peek-a-boo” differ in each of these stages?
Imitation
Piaget believes that as early as the first few months after birth, infants could imitate actions they could see
Discussion Launcher (Learning Objective 5.1 p. 108)
Ask the class to list examples of deferred imitation.
Challenges to Piaget’s View
LO 5.2 How have other theorists challenged Piaget’s explanation of infant cognitive development?
Many studies since Piaget’s time have suggested that he underestimated the cognitive capacity of infants.
Younger infants better understand object movements than Piaget suggested. Imitation appears at younger
ages than Piaget’s research implied.
Object Permanence
In Piaget’s studies of object permanence, infants were judged as having object permanence if they moved
a blanket to retrieve a hidden object. Because infants cannot grasp and move objects in this way until
they are 7 to 8 months old, Piaget’s model made it impossible to tell whether younger infants failed to
exhibit object permanence because they were physically unable to perform the task of moving the blanket.
Imitation
With respect to imitation, Piaget’s proposed sequence has been supported, but deferred imitation seems to
occur earlier than Piaget proposed. There are two important exceptions to this general confirmation of
Piaget’s theory:
▪ Infants imitate some facial gestures in the first weeks of life.
▪ Deferred imitation seems to occur earlier than Piaget proposed.
These findings are significant for several reasons:
▪ They make it clear that children of this age can and do learn specific behaviors through modeling,
Alternative Approaches
LO 5.3 What does research tell us about infants’ understanding of objects?
Elizabeth Spelke investigated object permanence within the more general context of infants’
understanding of what objects are and how they behave. The term object concept refers to this
understanding. Spelke believes that babies are born with certain built-in assumptions that guide their
interactions with objects. One assumption is that when two surfaces are connected to each other, they
belong to the same object. She calls this the connected surface principle.
Spelke later used the violation-of-expectations method, a research strategy in which an infant is
habituated to a display that depicts the movement of an object and then is shown another display in which
Discussion Launcher (Learning Objective 5.3, pp. 110-111)
Ask the class to share their experience with infants that support one of the theories.
Critical Thinking Question (Learning Objectives 5.1-5.3, pp. 106-111)
How would you explain an infant’s habit of throwing things out of her crib to a parent’s who viewed it as
misbehavior that needed to be corrected?
LEARNING, CATEGORIZING, AND REMEMBERING (pp. 112-114)
Generally, the term learning is used to denote permanent changes in behavior that result from experience.
From the first moments following birth, infants exhibit evidence of learning—that is, environmental
forces change their behaviors. Babies also actively organize their interactions with these forces, however.
Conditioning and Modeling
LO 5.4 What kinds of learning are infants capable of?
Learning of emotional responses through classical conditioning processes may begin to develop as early
as the first week after birth.
Discussion Launcher (Learning Objective 5.4, p. 112)
Can you think of other examples of classically conditioned emotional responses that might develop in
early infancy?
Newborns also clearly learn by operant conditioning. Both the sucking response and head turning have
been successfully increased by the use of reinforcements, such as sweet-tasting liquids or the sound of the
Discussion Launcher (Learning Objective 5.4, p. 112)
What might be the significance of the fact that the mother’s voice is an effective reinforcer for virtually
all babies?
Schematic Learning
LO 5.5 How does categorical understanding change over the first 2 years?
Schematic learning is the organizing of experiences into expectancies, or “known” combinations. These
expectancies, often called schemas, are built up over many exposures to particular experiences. Once
formed, they help the baby to distinguish between the familiar and the unfamiliar.
One kind of schematic learning involves categories. By 7 months of age, and perhaps earlier, infants
actively use categories to process information. Infants build and use categories as they take in
concept that smaller categories are nested within larger ones, or hierarchical categorization, is
Discussion Launcher (Learning Objective 5.5, pp. 112-113)
Ask the class to give examples of schematic learning.
Memory
LO 5.6 How does memory function in the first 2 years?
Carolyn Rovee-Collier and her colleagues have used an ingenious variation of an operant conditioning
procedure to demonstrate that babies as young as 3 months of age can remember specific objects, and
their own actions with those objects, over periods of as long as a week. A researcher first hangs an
attractive mobile over the baby’s crib and watches to see how the baby responds and notes how often the
baby kicks his legs while looking at the mobile. After three minutes of “baseline” observation, a string is
Such findings demonstrate that the young infant is more cognitively sophisticated than we (and Piaget)
had supposed. They also support Piaget’s view that infants show systematic gains in the ability to
remember over the months of infancy. Early infant memories, however, are strongly tied to the specific
Critical Thinking Question (Learning Objectives 5.4-5.6, pp. 112-114)
In what ways do conditioning, modeling, categorical learning, and memory contribute to the development
of social relationships between infants and their caregivers?
THE BEGINNINGS OF LANGUAGE (pp. 114-122)
MyPsychLab Connections
Watch: Child-Directed Speech, p. 166
Watch: Toddlerhood: Language Development, p. 117
Theoretical Perspectives
LO 5.7 What are the behaviorist, nativist, and interactionist explanations of language development?
The nature-nurture debate is alive and well in discussions of language development. The child’s amazing
The Behaviorist View
In the late 1950s, B. F. Skinner, author of operant conditioning theory, suggested a behaviorist
explanation of language development. He claimed that language development begins with babbling.
While babbling, babies accidentally make sounds that somewhat resemble real words in the language
spoken by their parents. Parents hear the word-like sounds and respond to them with praise and
The Nativist View
Almost all 3-year-old English-speaking children overregularized the past tense of verbs by adding –ed.
Linguist Noam Chomsky used examples of overregularization to refute Skinner’s theory. He argued that
the only possible explanation for such errors was that children actively reconstruct the grammar of their
first language, and, in the process, acquire rules before they master the exceptions to them. Chomsky
The Interactionist View
Some theorists argue that language development is part of the broader process of cognitive development
and is influenced by both internal and external factors. These theorists are known as interactionists.
There are two common threads that run through the interactionists’ theories:
▪ Infants are born with some kind of biological preparedness to pay more attention to language than to
From the beginning of language, the child’s intent is to communicate, to share the ideas and concepts in
his head. He does this as best he can with the gestures or words he knows, and he learns new words when
children begin to combine several gestures into a sequence in their pretend play.
Discussion Launcher (Learning Objective 5.7, pp. 114-116)
Which perspective do you believe is most accurate? Support your answer with examples.
Influences on Language Development
LO 5.8 What are some environmental influences on language development?
Developmentalists better understand how the environment influences language development than they did
when Skinner and Chomsky began their historic debate in the 1950s. Moreover, the increasing emphasis
on the interactionist approach has led researchers to examine the kinds of environmental influences to
which children are exposed during different phases of language development. Adults and older children
speak differently to infants than they do to preschoolers, a way of speaking that researchers call infant-
directed speech (IDS).
▪ It is characterized by a higher pitch than that which is exhibited by adults and children when they are
not speaking to an infant.
▪ Adults speaking to infants and young children also repeat a lot, introducing minor variations. They
may repeat the child’s own sentences but in a slightly longer, more grammatically correct forms—a
Children whose parents talk to them often, read to them regularly, and use a wide range of words in their
speech differ from children whose parents do not. The sheer quantity of language a child hears is a
significant factor. Children reared in poverty use shorter and less complex sentences than do their better–
Discussion Launcher (Learning Objective 5.8, pp. 116-117)
Why does it matter that children hear a large quantity of language from their caregivers—why isn’t
watching TV good enough?
Feature Box Activity (Learning Objective 5.8, p. 117)
Developmental Science in the Classroom: The Importance of Reading to Toddlers
Practice dialogic reading in groups.
Early Milestones of Language Development
LO 5.9 How do infants’ sounds, gestures, and understanding of words change in the early months of life?
From birth to about one month, the most common sound an infant makes is a cry, although you can also
hear other fussing, gurgling, and satisfied sounds. Over the next few months, the number of ways in
which a baby can express herself expands tremendously.
First Sounds and Gestures
At about 1 or 2 months, we begin to hear some laughing and cooing vowel sounds, like
“oooooooooooooo,” which usually signals pleasure. Consonant sounds appear at about 6 or 7 months,
frequently in combination with vowel sounds to make a kind of syllable such as babababababa or
Discussion Launcher (Learning Objective 5.9, pp. 117-118)
Why do you suppose babies babble? Do you think it is just the vocal equivalent of rhythmic foot
kicking, or can you think of some other purpose it might serve?
Word Recognition
Recent research has shown that babies are beginning to store individual words in their memories at
around 8 months of age. By 9 to 10 months, most can understand the meaning of 20 to 30 words, an
ability linguists refer to as receptive language. In the next few months, the numbers of words infants
understand increases dramatically.
Discussion Launcher (Learning Objective 5.9, pp 118-119)
Does this information “fit” your experience in learning a second language? Could you understand many
more words than you could speak? Give examples.
How do babies separate a single word from the constant flow of speech to which they are exposed? Many
linguists have proposed that a child can cope with the monumentally complex task of word learning only
because he applies some built-in biases or constraints, such as the assumption that words refer to objects
or actions but not both. Learning a language’s pattern of word stress may also help babies identify words.
Infants discriminate between stressed and unstressed syllables fairly early and use syllable stress as a cue
to identify single words.
A whole series of changes seem to converge by 9 or 10 months:
▪ The beginning of meaningful gestures
Feature Box Activity (Learning Objective 5.9, p. 118)
Research Report: Early Gestural Language in the Children of Deaf Parents
The First Words
LO 5.10 What are the characteristics of toddlers’ first words?
Expressive language, the ability to produce as well as respond to words, typically appears at about 12 or
Discussion Launcher (Learning Objective 5.10, p. 119)
It seems reasonable to guess that referential- and expressive-style babies would differ from each other in
other ways as well. Can you make any guesses about just what those differences might be?
Often a child’s earliest words are used only in one or two specific situations, and in the presence of many
cues. Apparently the toddler has not grasped the notion that words are symbolic, that they refer to objects
Somewhere between 16 and 24 months, after the early period of very slow word learning, most children
begin to add new words rapidly, as if they had figured out that “things have names.” Developmentalists
Discussion Launcher (Learning Objective 5.10, pp. 119-120)
What would be some advantages to a child who acquires a large vocabulary early in life? What might be
some nature and some nurture factors that would increase a baby’s vocabulary?
Most of the new words in this period are names for objects or people. Verb-like words tend to develop
Discussion Launcher (Learning Objective 5.10, pp. 119-120)
Think of contrasting “nature” and “nurture” explanations for expressive and referential styles.
The First Sentences
LO 5.11 What kinds of sentences do children produce between 18 and 24 months of age?
Research suggests that sentences appear when a child has reached a threshold vocabulary of around 100
to 200 words, at about 18 to 24 months. The first sentences have several distinguishing features.
▪ They are short, generally two or three words, and they are simple. Telegraphic speech refers to this
pattern.
Discussion Launcher (Learning Objective 5.11, p. 120)
Give examples of telegraphic speech and inflections.
Individual Differences in Language Development
LO 5.12 What kinds of individual differences are evident in language development?
The sequences of development of language are accurate on the average, but the speed with which children
acquire language skill varies widely.
Feature Box Activity (Learning Objective 5.11, p. 121)
No Easy Answers: One Language or Two?
If it was up to you, would you choose to grow up bilingual? Why or why not? Would you want your
children to grow up bilingual? Why or why not?
Differences in Rate
The normal variation in average sentence construction is referred to by linguists as the mean length of
utterance (MLU). More than half the children who talk late eventually catch up. The subset who do not
Language Development across Cultures
LO 5.13 How does language development vary across culture?
Cross-cultural studies of children’s early language have revealed important similarities in language
development.
▪ Babies the world over coo before they babble.
▪ All babies understand language before they can speak it.
▪ Babies in all cultures begin to use their first words at about 12 months.
▪ Holophrases appear to precede telegraphic speech in every language.
Critical Thinking Question (Learning Objectives 5.7-5.13, pp. 117-126)
What would you say to someone who claimed that speaking to infants in “babytalk” interfered with their
language development?
MEASURING INTELLIGENCE IN INFANCY (pp. 122-123)
LO 5.14 How is intelligence measured in infancy?
Scientists have designed many instruments that measure in children and adults intelligence, an
individual’s ability to take in information and use it to adapt to the environment. Tests that measure
Discussion Launcher (Learning Objective 5.14, pp. 122-123)
Why might it be important to predict infants’ later intelligence test scores?
Critical Thinking Question (Learning Objective 5.14, pp. 122-123
LECTURE ENHANCERS
A Sensorimotor View of the World
What was Piaget suggesting about an infant’s cognitive abilities when he labeled those fledgling abilities
sensorimotor? It is obvious to most any observer that the newborn and young infants are extremely
limited in how they can approach and respond to the environment. At first, the infant is forced to adopt a
sort of, “wait for the environment to come to me technique.” If she wants or needs something, she can
cry, and her parent will respond. She cannot, however, tell the parent what her needs are, ask questions,
make requests, or register complaints in the strictest sense. The differences between a baby’s various
forms of cries may suggest an attempt to communicate different needs.
The young infant is able to experience the world and begin to categorize it (to begin developing schemas).
Almost any person older than a child himself knows that the first thing a young infant will do upon
encountering a new object is to place it in his mouth. The question, of course, is “why?” The answer
Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary Circular Reactions
The sensorimotor child begins to understand coordinations (or relationships), and understanding these
relationships will begin to move the child out of experiencing the world only as the “here and now” into a
more expansive understanding of the environment. The first pattern of coordination that the child learns
is referred to as primary circular reactions. These are simple repetitive actions that teach the child about
his or her body and some of the things that it can do.
The child ranging in age from 1 month to 4 months, for example, might accidentally put its thumb in its
mouth. This stimulation, of course, will initiate the sucking reflex. To the extent that the child finds this
Harry Stack Sullivan (1953) suggested that the beginning of self-awareness requires the child to have an
understanding of what is called self-efficacy, an awareness that we are an entity capable of action and that
those actions have predictable consequences. As the child initiates externally oriented actions, which
result in predictable environmental consequences, he begins to build more sophisticated schemas about
himself and the world.
The Child’s Attempt to Categorize the World
As children learn more and more about the world, they try to make sense of it by categorizing it. This is a
major component of Piaget’s theory of cognitive development. Piaget suggested that children attempt to
categorize by the simplest method possible. For example, a child might see a cat, and ask, “What is it?”
You, of course, answer that it is a cat. The next day the child sees a puppy for the first time. The natural
response for the child, at this point, is to assume that this small furry critter is also a cat. Imagine his
Studying Memory in Infants
There are several ways to study memory in an infant. We could utilize the concepts of habituation and
dishabituation, for example. If we have exposed an infant to a stimulus repeatedly until the child
demonstrates habituation, then change the stimulus, we should observe an increased response. This could
be measured by an increase in how long the child looks at the new object, or whether the child registers a
heart rate increase (taken as a signal of increased interest). If we then show the previously habituated
object again, and the infant has some level of memory, what would we predict about her response to that
Thinking Frames
There are multiple ways to view intelligence. Educational psychologist, David Perkins, suggests that
schools should utilize what we know about intelligence to help students become better thinkers.
According to Perkins, there are three different theories of intelligence:
▪ The first theory suggests that intelligence is based on power. This approach assumes that intelligence
is either something that you have or do not have. It all depends on the built-in power of one’s brain.
In addition to this conceptualization, Perkins offers guidance on how to help students develop this more
sophisticated kind of intelligence. According to Perkins, the trick for enhancing intelligence is providing
students with frames for their thinking. A frame in Perkins theory is defined as a guide for supporting,
organizing, and activating one’s intelligence. Perkins suggests that students develop thinking frames in a
three-step process:
▪ First is acquisition. During this step, the student encounters new information and must organize that
How does all of this relate to the perceptual and cognitive development of the infant? The primary task of
the child, at this point, is to begin to organize his or her perceptual world. This is only possible to the
INSTRUCTOR RESOURCES
Media
▪ MyPsychLab—MyPsychLab contains a variety of engaging activities and assessments that aid in
teaching and learning, including the following tools:
o Writing Space. A single place to create, track, and grade writing assignments, provide writing
resources, and exchange meaningful, personalized feedback with students quickly and easily. For