Cognitive changes

Cognitive changesPhysical and Cognitive Development in Middle Childhood

LanguageBy ages 5 or 6: All children have mastered the basic grammar and pronounciation of their first languageMost children understand various ways of saying something about the past, such as I went, I was going, I have gone, I had been going, and so on

Language6-12 years : children continue to add new vocabulary from 5,000 to 10,000 words per year.

Language8 9 years: figure out relationships between whole categories of words

happy and happilyhappy & happinesssad and sadlysad & sadnessADJECTIVES & ADVERBSADJECTIVE & NOUN

9 years: most children are fully capable of engaging in fluent conversation with speaker of any age, and their speech rates approach those of adults

Piagets concrete operational stageConcrete Operational Stage this stage is devoted to the constructionof schemes that enable children to think logically about objects and events in the real world. This is Piagets third cognitive development.

Ages 6 12

Piagets concrete operational stageDecentration: the child now takes into account multiple aspects of a problem to solve it.

For example, the child will no longer perceive an exceptionally wide but short cup to contain less than a normally wide, taller cup.

They are equalPiagets concrete operational stageAnother example of decentering: In diagram A, both lines of candy have the same number and length.In diagram B, the first line is spread out, making it look longer than the 2nd line of candies, but still have the same amount.Q: In line B, which had more candy?A: Both have the same amount of candy.

Piagets concrete operational stageReversibility: the child now understands that numbers or objects can be changed and then returned to their original state.

For example, child realizes that a ball of clay, once flattened, can be made into a ball of clay again.

Piagets concrete operational stageInductive Logic -she can go from her own experience to a general principleFor example, when one toy is added to a set of toys, it has one more than it did before

Adding always makes morePiagets concrete operational stageNot yet good at Deductive LogicDeductive Logic based on hypothetical premises, which requires starting with a general principle and then predicting some outcome or observation like going from a theory to a hypothesisMust imagine things they have not experiencePiagets concrete operational stageExample of Deductive Logic:When asked why are the leaves green?Children from middlechildhood are unable to use theories to formulate their own hypothesis.Instead of answering that leaves are green because of the chlorophyll that produces pigments, they respond based on what she can only see in the world and not based on scientific explanations.Direct tests of piagets viewHorizontal Decalage refers to fact that once a child learns a certain function, he or she does not have the capability to immediately apply the learned function to all problems.

Direct tests of piagets viewConcrete operational thinkingAre rules for problem solving according to Robert SieglerProblem solving rules emerge from experience from repeated trial and error and experimentation.

Siegler used a balance scale to test his theory.

Direct tests of piagets viewThe child is asked to predict which way the balance will fall.

A complete solution requires the child to take into account both the number of disks on each sideand the specific location of the disks.

Direct tests of piagets viewRule 1: number of weights. The side with more disks will go down.Rule 2: distance. The child takes distance from the fulcrum into accountRule 3:Takes both weight and distance into account simultaneously.Rule 4: Understanding the actual formula for calculating the combined effect of weight and distance for each side of the balance.