w4 notes

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.

Domain Specificity in Social Interactions, Social Thought, and Social Development. Introduction  Grusec and Davidov propose a domain-specific view of parent-child interactions.  Commentary supports domain specificity in parenting analyses.  Calls for inclusion of definitions and criteria for domain-specific interactions. Complexity of Studying Parenting and Development  Studying family influences on child development is challenging due to various factors.  Parental practices are often characterized globally, simplifying complex family life.  Early formulations focused on general mechanisms of learning and global styles of parenting. Global or Domain Specific?  Existing global characterizations of parenting have limitations.  Grusec and Davidov's domain-specific approach corrects issues with global accounts.  Five domains of social interactions proposed by Grusec and Davidov. Five Domains of Social Interactions: A Good Plan  Grusec and Davidov's proposal integrates fragmented approaches and provides a framework.  Initial evidence supports domain differences, but more research is needed.  Need for systematic definitions and criteria for each domain. Bidirectionality, Reciprocity, and Development  Grusec and Davidov emphasize bidirectionality but focus on socialization outcomes.  Developmental analysis should include the formation of thought beyond compliance.  Children's domains of thought and social interactions need to be connected in research. Social Harmony and Social Conflict  Socialization perspectives emphasize compliance, accommodation, and adaptation.  Conflict is a fact of social life, and social conflicts occur within families.  Opposition, resistance, and conflicts coexist with harmony and cooperation in parent- child relationships. Concluding Remarks  Domain-specific propositions capture the complexities of parent-child relationships.  Calls for more precise definitions and criteria for each domain.  Bidirectional, reciprocal processes in parent-child interactions should consider children's perspectives and development. Lifespan Development Module 4: Infancy Cognitive Development: Piaget and Sensorimotor Intelligence  Overview:  Piaget's perspective on intelligence during infancy as sensorimotor, based on direct physical contact.  Exploration of the transition from reflexive responses to problem-solving using mental strategies.

 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.