Everyone is born differently, and not everyone has the same opportunity as others. People around the world are born with disabilities and different disorders that can lead to serious conditions. When a baby is born it is mandatory in the U.S. that your health provider takes a newborn screening detecting for a disease, what if it was missed by the examination? Would something bad happen? This could cause mental disorders or slow development to the kid. That is why detecting this disease as a newborn is so important. This rare genetic disorder is called phenylketonuria which can cause damage in the body if not treated. This happens to babies when their parents pass down a total of two bad copies causing their body to not be able to metabolize the protein phenylalanine. This disorder would need a lifelong treatment to live normal lives just like everyone else. If the newborn screening failed to detect the disease phenylketonuria, then later in life if the child shows symptoms of slow development then a new screening would be taken. A true story of a young girl born with this rare genetic disease shares her story but Katy was not given that opportunity”. But what really is phenylketonuria? How are you treated? What if there was never a newborn screening?And what happens to the body? What if newborn screening was not required depending on where you live? Is what should be asked? Katy had to struggle but her parents.
Description / causes of Disease
Phenylketonuria also called PKU is an inherited disorder in which the amino acid phenylalanine cannot be broken down by the body. The enzyme, phenylalanine hydroxylase (PAH) may build up in the bloodstream and other tissues and as an effect, it can cause brain damage. If PKU is not treated early, it can increase the levels of phenylalanine causing severe brain damage and intellectual disabilities (Genetics Home Reference Feb.11, 2020). Phenylalanine is used by your body to generate proteins and typically comes from all various types of foods. Pregnant women with PKU are more likely to have more elevated levels of phenylalanine and can be a risk to their upcoming newborn babies causing them to have mental retardation, developmental delay, heart issues and more. PKU can sometimes be missed after birth because the symptoms are rarely identified. To detect PKU in babies, they would need to undergo a newborn screening which was created in the 1960s (National Human Genome Research Institute, Aug.21, 2014).
Symptoms
The symptoms for PKU vary from moderate also called mild to severe also called classic PKU. The first few months infants may not be detected with symptoms of PKU. Without treatment, it can lead to mental retardation, seizures, developmental delay, and autism. The infant may have eczema of the skin, lighter skin, and hair than their family members. A Specific diet that contains low protein in foods or no phenylalanine will need to be followed (National Human Genome Research Institute, Aug.21, 2014).
Incidence
The United States varies from one in 10,000 to 15,000 babies diagnosed with phenylketonuria and it is rare. It also depends on ethnic groups and geographic regions worldwide. Phenylketonuria can happen to both genders, boys and girls. This disease is identified since the day you were born by receiving a newborn screening. A specific diet will need to be followed if diagnosed with PKU. Women that have phenylketonuria need to maintain a PKU diet before getting pregnant (Mayo Clinic, n.d.).
Inheritance
Phenylketonuria is an autosomal recessive meaning that the baby is born with two imperfect copies causing him or her to have the disease (National Library Of Medicine, Feb.11, 2020). Each parent is a carrier possessing one bad copy of the disease. The parents pass down a total of two mutated genes to the baby having phenylketonuria. The parents may never show symptoms of PKU because they carry one bad copy and one good copy also called heterozygous. Toxic levels of the enzyme phenylalanine hydroxylase (PAH) can build up in the bloodstream and the body causing brain damage. This would need to be treated immediately with a diet treatment recommended by a healthcare provider 2(National Human Genome Research Institute, Aug.21, 2014).
Diagnosis
Phenylketonuria is diagnosed through newborn screening (National Human Genome Research Institute, Aug.21, 2014). First, a doctor will need to clean the baby’s heel with alcohol and poke the heel with a needle to collect a few drops of blood to run tests. To be accurate or have no phenylketonuria complications the newborn screening is done twenty-four to seventy-four hours after birth. The baby is able to drink formula that does not contain the protein phenylalanine. The baby would need to follow a lifetime diet that contains low-protein (Medicine Plus, Feb.4, 2014).
Treatment
If the baby is diagnosed with PKU a diet treatment needs to be followed. It would be important to limit the amount of protein you intake that contains phenylalanine. A PKU diet would be followed by low-protein foods and taking special vitamins and minerals. It is important for pregnant women to follow the PKU diet to maintain average levels of phenylalanine (National Health Genome Research Institute, Aug.21, 2014). When following this diet, it is important to intake fruits, cereals, or items with low or no phenylalanine and avoid high-protein foods like fish, eggs and dairy (Medicine Plus, Feb.4, 2014).
Discovery/Current Research
PKU was discovered in 1934 by Dr. Ivar Asbjorn. The story was about a mother who gave birth to two kids who later showed symptoms of mental retardation and reached out for help. Doctors weren’t familiar with the disease so the mother was neglected several times. Until she found someone who was willing to help. Dr. Asbjorn ran a urine test and as a result it showed no protein or glucose. Since then in 1934 it was discovered that an amino acid was not produced by the body which can cause mental retardation. Or in other words “On excretion of phenylpyruvic acid in the urine as an anomaly in metabolism in connection with mental retardation”, said by Dr. Asbjorn (Messner, May 16, 2012). “National PKU Alliance” is an organization that is located around the united states, doing current research and advocating for patients with phenylketonuria. Their current research involves finding a cure for PKU and working together to improve the lives of current patients (National PKU Alliance, n.d.).
Support and Promotion
An organization that is trying to advocate and stand up for PKU in the united states is “National PKU Alliance” or NPKUA. “The NPKUA mission is to improve the lives of individuals with PKU and pursue a cure”. This organization is a vital voice for people with phenylketonuria around the community. Their main goal is to research, support, educate, and advocate. This organization was formed in 2008 with the help of parents, grandparents, and individuals across the country. The nearest clinic in or place to help treat someone with PKU is located in “KU wichita pediatrics” (National PKU Alliance, n.d.). People around the the country are supporters of PKU but Brianna Bliss is a great role model advocating for phenylketonuria. She is a 17 years old from Norman OK, named as Oklahoma’s 2006 “Champion child” for the child’s medical network. Once she had a meeting with president Bush and took part in a national telethon in Orlando, Florida. She has visited many groups, businesses, and also PKU support groups of “what it is like to grow up with PKU” (National PKU News, n.d.).
Conclusion
As it was mentioned in the beginning phenylketonuria is a genetic disease passed down from parents to the kid. This disorder has to be treated with a lifelong diet, by only eating low-protein or not having the protein phenylalanine in the food because the ability of the body of not being able to break down that protein properly. It is diagnosed with a newborn screening but not everyone has the same opportunities as others, as it was said at the beginning. The story of a seven year old was shared to help advocate for those who are born different. Katy was born without undergoing a newborn screening, which impacted her life growing up. Katy was born in Mexico and at the time it was not required to have newborn screening. Months later, Katy’s parents noticed that she was “experiencing problems” and searched for answers. Thirteen months later Katy was finally diagnosed with PKU but not getting treatment this long affected the way she spoke. Later on she showed symptoms of developmental delay and is unable to share her story, that is why her parents speak up for her. It was important for her parents to share her story, and “promote newborn screening across the world” (Global Genes, Jan.9, 2015).Today newborn screening is required everywhere around the world which can cause major differences and help a baby later in life. The most important thing about phenylketonuria would be to detect it first than treat it to live a healthy life. Not everyone has the same chances as others that’s why it is important to speak up and help others for the world to be a better place for you and them.
There are many reasons why a student can demonstrate their understanding to core related content. External factors in a child life, such as reading or exposure to technology can expand the student’s prior knowledge to assist them in learning core-related material. As well as internal factors, such as the student’s mental capability of understanding content. These are a few explanations to support the theory of a student’s ability to grasp materials in a classroom. However, students can also show their connection to the knowledge of moral reasoning within a classroom setting. The ethical reasonings that students express can occur from external and internal factors as well. Students can base their exterior environment to validate their responses to moral reasoning. They can also use internal thinking to conclude their responses with moral reasoning. The way that students learn and base their moral judgments can be further explained by the theories of cognitive development and moral reasoning. The two theories are based on stages that increase as a child becomes more experienced, connected, and knowledgeable with the world around them. As a child grows, their cognitive development grows, and they are able to progress within each step of the stages. The external factors in a student’s life are intertwined with the instruction they receive in school. The instruction can benefit and assist a student to increase their knowledge and expose students to new perspectives in moral reasoning. There is a connection between Piaget’s cognitive development theory and Kohlberg’s moral development. The two theories are based on stages, expansion in reasoning and intelligence, and moral reasoning increases as a student’s cognitive development increases. The link between these two theories can be further explained by exploring Piaget’s theory, relating that to Kohlberg’s theory, and showing how the use of instruction can relate to both of these theories.
Key points in Cognitive and Moral Development
The psychologist Jean Piaget created the theory of cognitive development. This theory focuses on four stages that begin with birth and increase until adolescences. The first stage is the sensorimotor stage in which “the notion of object, that of space, that of time, in the form of temporal sequences, the notion of causality, the important notions later to be used by thought and which are developed and used by material action as early as its sensorimotor level”(Piagaet, 1973). The second stage is the preoperational stage that shows the child’s “capacity to represent something with something else, which is known as symbolic function” (Piaget,1973). The third stage is concrete operational in which a child “becomes capable of coordinating operations in the sense of reversibility, and total system” (Piagaet, 1973). The final stage is formal operational in which a child “becomes capable of reasoning and of deducting on manipulate objects, and capable of logic and of deductive reasoning on theories and propositions” (Piagaet, 1973).
Lawrence Kohlberg became interested in Piaget’s theory and expanded that into his own research called the theory of moral development. The theory consists of six stages that explain the morality of thinking based on three levels which include, preconventional morality, conventical morality and post conventical morality. The first level contains the first two stages; obedience and punishment orientation, and individualism and exchange. Although different reasoning occurs, these two stages base their reasonings on punishment and provide no relation to “the values of the family or community” (Kohlberg, 1985). The second level includes the third and fourth stage; good interpersonal relationships and maintaining the social order. These two stages carry a “relativistic outlook and to a concern for good motives and conception of the function of laws for society as a whole” (Kohlberg, 1985). The last level involves the fifth and sixth stage; social construct and individual rights, and universal principles. During stage five, “people are making more of an independent effort to think out what any society ought to value” (Kohlberg, 1985), and at stage six people are putting action towards this thought. The idea for Piaget’s theory is the process of growth and stages through cognition, and Kohlberg’s theory is connected to cognitive functioning to allow for a broader moral reasoning. I will now address the implications of Piaget’s theory to connection of cognitive functioning.
Piaget’s Theory
To understand the connection between Piaget’s theory and cognition is, to define the meaning of cognition. Cognition can simply be defined as thinking or the process of obtaining knowledge through the use of thought, practices, environment, and senses. This is how development of the mind increases and expands through higher-order thinking, experience to external factors, and our primary senses. Piaget’s theory elaborates on cognition through “structuralism and related it to cognitive growth”. It is through the steps provided in Piaget’s theory that allows cognition to increase by mastering and understanding each step in the hierarchy that eventually leads to the highest order of thinking. This theory is solely based on the individual’s capabilities of increasing cognitive functioning without the support of another individual. Moreover, children are basing their knowledge on their environment and the experiences that occur. This can be seen in all of stages, that the children are using prior knowledge and experiences from previous stages to grow their cognitive functioning. The first stage in the theory is understanding the object permeance, which means to acknowledge the presents of an object without it being present. This enables prior experiences of observing the environment and external factors to form the understanding of object permeance. For example, a baby that is 12 months old can distinguish an object’s presence such as a toy, even if that toy is hidden or covered up. The second stage represents a child’s egocentrism and the ability to comprehend symbolic form. The child has a hard time incorporating another’s view into their thinking, but they can attribute meaning to objects through speech, which allows them to have deeper cognitive functioning by viewing the world symbolically. An example would be a child using a banana (as a phone) to pretend they are calling someone. The third stage demonstrates the child’s ability to solve and understand problems by viewing symbols in a more logical sense. Children are able to grasp the meaning of conservation and reversibility, which leads to “the logic of classifications, relations and numbers, and not yet a logic of propositions” (Piaget, 1973). This can be seen as a child being able to understand that a cat and a dog are different species, but they are both considered animals. The last stage in the theory is the highest order of thinking, which allows the individual to base their prior knowledge and experiences “to logically form reasoning on theories and propositions” (Piaget, 1973). This form of cognitive functioning permits the form of scientific reasoning to help justify and solve problems. The individual forms and understands their own identity and connects that to their concerns with society. All of these stages are divided into hierarchy categories to represent the child’s individual growth of cognitive development. The next section will represent the connection between the cognitive functioning of an individual and its relation to moral reasoning.
Kohlberg’s Moral Reasoning in relation to cognitive functioning
Kohlberg’s theory is explained by different stages to which an individual expresses their moral reasoning in social issues. This connects to cognitive functioning because the knowledge and experiences that are represented in thought, allow for a broader and deeper understanding of moral reasoning. Each stage in cognitive development provides a higher thinking process, which permits to a higher moral reasoning. This relation can be seen in Kohlberg’s theory, and I will use the first and fifth stage to show this connection. The first stage of moral reasoning relates to the second stage in Piaget’s theory. The children are basing their moral reasoning on their logical sense of egocentrism. The children are “seeing morality as something external to themselves, as that which the big people say they must do” (Kohlberg, 1985). Since the children have not acquired the logical reasoning to think past an egocentric view, they base their moral reasoning on this logic. The fifth stage represents the use of logic distinguished by cognitive functioning to explain their moral reasoning. In Piaget’s final stage, individuals become concerned with identify and society, which alludes to the fifth stage of Kohlberg’s theory that individuals “determine logically what a society ought to be like” (Kohlberg, 1985). The logical reasoning that is present in Piaget’s theory allows for a moral reasoning based on logic. The development of these moral stages comes “from our own thinking about moral problems, by stimulating our mental process” (Kohlberg, 1985). This expansion of moral reasoning is based on the individuals own thinking but is influenced by the level of logical processes experienced by that individual. For example, a child might be able to signify moral reasoning in stage 2, but not increase to stage 3 because “they lack intellectual stimulation” (Kohlberg, 1985). The child will not be able to apply moral reasoning in a broader context due to the absence of a higher level of cognitive functioning. The stages are presented in a hierarchical order, only acknowledging experiences from the prior stages but never implementing them into a justification of moral reasoning. Once a person has reached stage 4 of moral reasoning, they will not use logic from stage 2 to answer problems for moral issues. This also occurs in Piaget’s stages in which prior knowledge and experiences from earlier stages will only connect to higher logic, but not used once mastery of higher stages has been completed. Finally, the stages in moral reasoning relate to “the stages of logical and social thought which contain similar insights and advances in moral thinking may rest upon prior achievements in these other realms” (Kohlberg, 1985). This relates to the cognitive functioning because individuals need to express their moral reasoning’s based on the level of cognitive development. The moral reasoning must fit the level of cognitive functioning because children can only advance to the next stage “only after they have made equivalent progress in their logical and social thought” (Kohlberg, 1985). The level of cognitive functioning has a role into determining the level of moral reasoning that can be expressed by an individual. Both of these theories can be represented in a classroom setting and through instruction of the teacher. In the last section I will explain how these theories can be implemented into the classrooms, and the benefits it can have for students.
Instruction of Cognitive development and Moral Reasoning
These theories are heavily based on individual’s demonstration of applying and mastering the stages. Although these are influenced by the individual, instruction can promote further learning or understanding of cognitive development and moral reasoning. There are many ways in which Piagets stages can be used in instruction, but I will only focus on the preoperational and concrete operational stages. The first implication relates to the preoperational stage and that is to let the students learn by trial and error. This can be done by having students match colors to a corresponding picture. The students can learn from experimenting and use their prior experiences/knowledge of the colors to help them match it to the picture without the teacher’s assistant. This will benefit the student because they will be able to try and solve the problem on their own which will allow them to generate different directions towards solving the problem. The next implication focuses on instruction within the concrete operational stage. This can be shown through the students being involved in a science experiment relating to making a miniature volcano. The students will be able to manipulate and test different objects to make their volcano erupt. The teacher’s involvement in this form of instruction would only be to provide the materials, and the students will be able to either work together or individually to use their logic to build the volcano. In both scenarios’ students are able to use their prior experiences and knowledge to solve problems without the assistance of the teacher.
Instruction in the classroom can also be used for moral reasoning to expose students to different perspectives of their classmates. For example, once a week the teacher can give the students a scenario regarding a moral issue. The students will then take turns discussing as a class their personal insights on how to best explore or solve the scenario by using their moral reasoning. The students will each be given a chance to explain and justify their reasoning and why it would be the best solution for the scenario. The different viewpoints of all of the students can “create cognitive conflict which is motivated to think about the matter more fully” (Kohlberg, 1985). The students can benefit from these discussions because they can practice their justification for moral reasoning and learn new perspectives from their classmates that can reflect in “broader viewpoints that can lead to new stages” (Kohlberg, 1985). These theories can be incorporated into a classroom instruction to allow students to prove individual learning and understand new perspectives that increase one’s own thinking.
Conclusion
By focusing and understanding the meaning of cognition and how that relates to cognitive development and moral reasoning can provide insight towards students’ demonstration in core related content. Students can perceive moral reasoning on a higher level as their cognitive functioning increases. To dismiss moral reasoning as purely individual thought would not help to understand the rationale behind each stage of moral judgement. In order to relate these two theories, there needs to be prior knowledge of Piagets cognitive development. The stages in Piaget’s theory determine the level of cognitive function that each age range experiences. It is through the breakdown of these stages that establish the different levels of cognitive thinking and how that is demonstrated in learning, solving problems, and connection to society. The cognitive functioning is translated towards the stages of moral reasoning. Each of the stages in moral reasoning are connected to an increase of logical thinking that enables new perspective and insights towards a superior moral reasoning. An individual need’s to be able to fully grasp the logic that will transmit to the level of moral reasoning. Both of these theories share a similar aspect towards the concerns of society. As knowledge and experience of the world increases the moral judgements veer towards basing “principles and values that make for a good society” (Kohlberg, 1985). The theories are both directed towards individual learning, which can be added in instruction to give students a chance to practice and increase their cognitive development, and moral reasoning. Overall, the use of understanding cognitive development can distinguish the differences of moral reasoning and how it connects to logical thinking. By using these theories in instruction, students can develop a stronger cognitive function and broaden their perspectives on moral reasoning.
In the late 50’s and early 60’s, the information processing theory was crafted and its proponents continued to develop it throughout the years.
In the early 1990s, many scholars of developmental psychology fell into the disenchantment of the antimentalistic and biased of behavioral psychology and shortcoming of Piaget’s theory, and thus they shifted to cognitive psychology and computer science to seek new thoughts and insights about children’s thinking.
Computer systems that rely on mathematically programmed operations to offer solutions enabled these researchers to formulate a framework for information processing perspective that could explain cognitive development (Shaffer and Kipp 58). Early theorists attempted to make connections between how people think and how computers operate.
According to the information processing theory, the human mind is like computer storage on which information is stored, operated on, and converted to answer and solutions to problems.
Using the computer analogy, the proponents of this theory assert that the human mind is a hardware comprising of the brain and nerves as peripherals and that the mental processes are software. The software exhibits itself in the form of attention, memory, perception, problem-solving, and critical thinking strategies (Shaffer and Kipp 58).
The information processing theory justifies psychological advancement with regard to maturation alterations in fundamental essentials of the brain of a student. The theory is founded on the concept that individuals act on the knowledge they acquire, instead of only reacting to stimuli.
This standpoint likens the brain of a person to a computer that is liable of assessing knowledge. This paper discusses cognitive development with respect to the information processing theory.
Nature or Nurture: Biological and socio-cultural influences on cognitive development
The information processing theory suggests a connection between biological and cognitive development. Unlike Piaget’s theory, which was vague about this link, the information processing theory contends that brain maturation and the nervous systems allow children and adolescents to process information quickly (Shaffer and Kipp 58).
Therefore, developing children are capable of sustaining attention, recognizing and storing relevant information, and executing mental programs that enable them to process what has been stored to provide solutions to problems.
Information theorists are alive to the fact that strategies that children develop for processing information are significantly influenced by the experiences presented to them; that is, they are influenced by the nature of problems presented to them coupled with instructions and cultures-specific information that they get (Shaffer and Kipp 58).
To what extent is the development of children’s thinking regulated (a) internally according to biologically specified systems, and/or (b) externally according to culturally established systems such as language?
The theory of information processing, like Piaget’s theory, construes that children’s thinking is controlled by internal (biological) systems, as well as culturally-specific information. However, the proponents of this theory suggest that external elements are more influential as compared to internal systems (Seigler, DeLoache, and Eisenberg 265).
They contend that biological systems are essential information processing systems that depend on external forces, which are instructions and information obtained or gathered from culturally oriented learning environments (Taylor 89).
For these reasons, these theorists believe that natural or biological components, which consist of the brain and the nervous systems, should be secure and functional to gather, store, and operate on information and produce the desired outcomes.
As learners progress from childhood, they portray the development of thinking that is controlled internally in accordance with biologically specified systems. Several of the augmented pace and effectiveness is certainly due to the genetically (biologically) propelled neurons shaping intelligence. Nevertheless, experience and learning also play a significant role.
Through practicing some psychological and physical activities regularly, learners in any grade build up automatization for these activities (McDevitt and Ormrod146-148). This insight suggests that learners eventually are in a position to carry out these activities quickly and even without conscious attempt.
Learning disabilities affect the academic grades to the extent that some learners have to go through a special education system. The majority of the learning disabilities seem to bear a biological explanation. Several learners having learning disabilities could effortlessly acquire expertise in mathematics and encounter incomparable problems with reading.
On the other hand, learners could portray the development of thinking controlled externally in accordance with culturally instituted systems like language. For instance, according to the western civilization, the attainment of knowledge is mostly for individual advantage; that is, individuals go through school in a bid to comprehend the universe and gain new expertise and capabilities.
Nevertheless, for the majority of the Chinese, education bears moral as well as social inclinations. Learning is believed to allow a person to gain reputation and participate to the betterment of the community in a considerable manner (McDevitt and Ormrod 149-150). According to a custom in East Asia, real education does not denote a fast and simple progression.
Instead, learning materializes with great attentiveness, focus, and determination. Cultural variations have as well been evident in the readiness of learners to assess critically the information and convictions that the grown-ups convey to them.
Different cultures set high regard on esteeming the elders or some spiritual teachings. In this regard, they could promote the epistemic conviction that reality in particular fields is an issue of belief and excellently obtained from esteemed figures of supremacy. Additionally, cultural prominence on sustaining group accord could discourage kids from talking about and analyzing different viewpoints on a contentious subject.
In agreement with a conviction that education necessitates attentiveness as well as determination, the majority of parents and educators in East Asia support regular application of rehearsal and committal to memory as studying techniques. Rehearsal and committal to memory are as well widely used in cultures that treasure dedicating oral accounts or passages of spiritual texts to remembrance (Taylor 82).
On the contrary, different schools in the typical western cultures require learners to concentrate on obtaining sense from the stuff presented in the classroom instead of trying to recall it through memorization. Irrespective of this aspect, schools in the western societies characteristically maintain that children must learn some things (like spelling) by memorization.
Stages or continuous development: Continuity and discontinuity of cognitive development
The theory of information process asserts that cognitive development is a continuous process and it is not stage-like. Ideally, the theory postulates that the strategies adopted to collect, store, and operate on information are evolutionary.
They change over the course of childhood and adolescence (Taylor 89). As a result, information-processing theorizers hold that cognitive ontogeny is gradual quantitative changes rather than large qualitative changes.
The theory construes cognitive development as constructive waves that overlap, as opposed to a sequence of distinct stages of development. Children’s thinking is a process that incorporates progressive changes in learning strategies.
For example, children learning mathematics use strategies such as finger counting, Min counting strategy, and oral counting. They move from these stages easier; that is, from less efficient approaches to complex, but efficient approaches (Taylor 89).
The theory suggests that children’s thinking is marked by a slow quantitative change in cognitive development, which means that children’s cognitive development grows from one stage to the other in a uniform manner.
As a result, information-processing theorists assert that this process is continuous rather than dramatic shifts. The process does not happen or occur in a bang, but children’s comprehension of the environment follows a sequence of events, including growth of biological components and experiences presented.
To what extent is the development of children’s thinking marked by (a) abrupt changes between distinct stages of development, and/or (b) gradual and continuous growth without stage shifts?
With respect to information processing view, many developmental changes take place in psychological activities. Notion increasingly utilizes symbols. According to cognitive development in Piaget’s theory, the substance of the ideas of infants is primarily sensorimotor, which means that it is founded on opinions and conducts.
Close to the end of the sensorimotor phase (around one and a half years), children start thinking in the form of symbols and psychological units (like words) that do not firmly reveal the perceptual characteristics of the items or occasions they stand for (for instance, a ball could be referred by unlike names in various languages).
The symbolic notions permit children to deduce qualities that they have not directly studied (Seigler, DeLoache, and Eisenberg 263). In case of a child aged 3 years, and has a good knowledge of domestic pets, takes notice of his dad mentioning the name “cat”, he would simply envisage a small mammal that possesses sharp ears, walks on fours, and meows.
Piaget was perhaps right in considering that sensorimonitor depictions of items and occasions lead symbolic depictions. Nevertheless, the move is steady than perceived. Prior to kids attaining school attending age, they start utilizing representations like expressions, numbers, images, and tiny simulations to symbolize and consider actual-existence items and occasions.
Nevertheless, while children start obtaining elementary education, they could originally have just restricted success in tackling the extensive diversity of representations they stumble upon in life. Educators frequently employ concrete items to symbolize numerals or mathematical functions. Nonetheless, not every child makes out the link between these items in addition to their associated impressions.
Maps are as well largely representational in character and kids in the early levels frequently construe them factually, possibly having a view that a ground that appears red on a map is in reality red in color (Seigler, DeLoache, and Eisenberg 264).
With the kids turning out to be of age, their application of representations to deliberate, recall, and resolve difficulties develops in rate and complexity. Finally, their representational capacities permit them to rise above daily actualities, reflect concerning what may take place in the future, and establish theoretical comprehensions concerning their physical and cognitive globes.
Logical thinking capacities advance with age. The original sign of irrational thinking show in infancy and is associated with views of physical episodes. Way before the first birthday, kids can identify a cause and effect affiliation in a series of occasions.
If a 6-months old views an item as it strikes a different item and the second one instantly gains motion after being struck, the kid comprehends that the initial item has fundamentally “started” the second one. Even before attaining school-going age, kids can illustrate logical conclusions from language-anchored knowledge.
For example, they illustrate logical inferences concerning occasions portrayed in the stories of kids (Seigler, DeLoache, and Eisenberg 266). Nevertheless, kids that have not attained school-going age, as well as those in the first grade at times, fail to illustrate the right conclusions, and they encounter hardships differentiating between what has to be right against what may be right given the proof ahead of them.
The capacity to reason irrationally is boosted in infancy and in teenage years. However, even at this age, reasoning capacities differ extensively from one child to a different one and it is normally controlled by individual motivations and prejudices.
At times, gesticulations predict the materialization of deliberations that are more complicated and interpretations, possibly concerning ancient Piagetian functions or mathematical difficulties. They frequently demonstrate such interpretation in their gesticulations prior to their exhibiting it in their speech.
A 5-years child was trying to justify his conviction that the volume of juice changed after being transferred from a tall thin glass to a broad and short glass (Seigler, DeLoache, and Eisenberg 267). With his hand shaped like a “C” the child explained that the difference in volume occurred for the level of juice in one glass was higher than in the other.
Gesticulations, such as the C-shaped hand, seem to illustrate a manner in which kids carry out their experimentation (cognitively). Gesticulations could as well ease the stress on functioning memory as kids initially start to fight with more intricate manner of judgment.
Children are capable of recalling several occurrences, but not the entire information they come across every day. As they advance in the schooling levels, it turns out vital for kids to distinguish major points and maintain critical notions in manners that enhance later remembrance. Kids less than 2 years seldom exhibit conscious endeavors to recall things.
If requested to recall the position that a doll was hidden, children could gaze or point towards the position that they witnessed it being placed until they succeed in getting it. Nonetheless, very young kids seldom make efforts in an attempt to learn and recall things (Seigler, DeLoache, and Eisenberg 268).
In reality, children aged four to five years can recall a number of items more effectively by playing with the items as compared to deliberately attempting to recall them.
During their course through primary and secondary school levels, children and adolescents build up an augmenting quantity of learning policies and methods that they deliberately employ to learn things, which assist them to recall information more efficiently (without stage shifts). Three aspects that emerge in the course of schooling years encompass preparation, formation, and explanation.
One mind or many: Specificity and/or generality of cognitive abilities
According to this theory, cognitive abilities of children are task-specific rather than general. Like computers, children’s mind is in a position to process information based on specific instructions, which provide outputs (memory, attention, problem-solving skills) that are specific.
Unlike Piaget’s theory, information-processing theory contends that where vague instructions are provided, no accurate solutions can be arrived at (Shaffer and Kipp 59). Developmental psychologists that approve the information processing theory justify psychological advancement with respect to maturation adjustments in fundamental constituents of the brain of a learner.
The theory is anchored in the notion that individuals process the knowledge that they acquire, instead of only reacting to stimuli. This viewpoint likens the brain of an individual to a computer that is accountable for assessing knowledge.
In accordance to the normal knowledge-processing pattern for psychological advancement, the machinery of the brain encompasses concentration mechanisms for conveying information and functioning of memory for dynamically manipulating knowledge.
This theory tackles the way kids grow and the way their brains mature, thus bringing about developments in their capacity to work and react to the knowledge they obtain via their intelligences. This assertion stresses on a constant model of advancement, unlike the Piaget’s theory (Shaffer and Kipp 60).
When an individual is carrying out an activity, the functioning memory is ratified. Like the central processing unit (CPU) of a computer, data is coded, accorded significance, and integrated with information already kept to ratify the task.
Knowledge is stored in the brain of a human being from where it could be obtained if required, which is comparable to storing data in the hard disk of a computer where one could later retrieve the data for a particular need.
To what extent is children’s thinking (a) specially-organized for each domain such as math or language, and/or (b) organized with a single all-purpose cognitive system that works in all domains?
Children’s thinking is governed by several domains that are in a position to gather, store, operate on, and process information. However, the theory acknowledges that no single domain works in isolation, but as an organized system of dependent variables.
Instructions should be such that they address specific cognitive skills (McDevitt and Ormrod 145). For example, instructions given for mathematical additions cannot be similar to those provided for language skills. Individualized domains are capable of processing incoming information to yield solutions to problems presented to children (Taylor 89).
What should teachers do? Educational Implications of the information processing theory on education
The theory has a huge bearing on how educationists should proceed to formulate school or learning and teaching curricula to match the needs of different children. Since the theory suggests that information processing is a domain-specific process, educators should design curriculum instructions that are specific, rather than general (Seigler, DeLoache, and Eisenberg 265).
In addition, instructions should be given continuously to enable learners to make sense of the problems that are presented in their daily lives. The curriculum should also begin with simple, yet inefficient methods and proceed to complex and efficient strategies that build upon each other.
This observation means that learning strategies should not be discrete, but rather continuous to help learners to relate complex problems with simple problems (Shaffer and Kipp 58). The information process theory has had a significant impact on how educators and psychologists view the thinking process in children.
This theory supports rigorous research methods, which have helped teachers to understand how children approach various challenges and reasons why they may make errors as they search for solutions (Taylor 26). Since teachers are aware of how and why children are unable to solve mathematical problems, they are capable of developing alternative strategies that can improve the performance of children.
Significance is among the most vital constituents of the information processing theory. Studies have revealed that when substance is made significant, it is learnt more swiftly and preserved for a long time instead of using classroom notes.
Significance comes about when learners are capable of taking hold of generalizations, directives, associations connecting facts, and values for which they observe some application, while they can link the latest information with their past information and encounters (Shaffer and Kipp 61), which is done with the consideration of the extent of understanding of the student.
Some of the activities that teachers can do to boost significance include demonstrating to the learners the way new information is associated with different stuff they have previously learnt. Secondly, teachers can offer learners multiple instances for every fresh concept that illustrates both comprehensive and limited qualities.
Thirdly, teachers can provide sketches, images, analogies, instances, and illustrations to help in ensuring the associations involving fresh and old knowledge remains vivid. Fourthly, teachers can help learners in creating a relationship between new stuff and their level of capability.
Fifthly, teacher can give learners assessments that necessitate them to incorporate fresh information with old knowledge (Shaffer and Kipp 63). Additionally, for learners in higher levels (such as secondary school level), teachers can ask them to create examples that necessitate the creation of fresh relations.
Moreover, significance could be enhanced by demonstrating suitable uses of stuff, particularly uses that are applicable to the lives of the learners. In this regard, teachers could evaluate the significance by presenting questions that demand learners to generalize stuff to fresh circumstances. Lastly, teachers can sensitize students to rephrase information in different words, but with the same meaning.
The common aspect of these implications is that fresh material will be studied and maintained in an excellent way when students are necessitated to actively build up information and come up with significant relations as compared to when they only attempt to remember it word for word (Shaffer and Kipp 56).
The studying of fresh material is enhanced when students already have a network of connected notions with which they can connect the fresh stuff.
How should curriculum, instruction, and assessment in today’s classrooms proceed? What should teachers do more and what should they do less?
Curriculum, instruction, and assessment in the contemporary classrooms could employ Piaget’s theory in determining things to purchase in a bid to enhance the learning of the children. Teachers could employ Piaget’s theory more in their operations; for example, in explaining if the curriculum subjects are appropriate for the level of learners or not (Seigler, DeLoache, and Eisenberg 260).
For instance, recent researches have indicated that kids in a similar level and in a given age bracket act in different ways on assignments gauging basic inclusion and removal glibness. Kids in the pre-functional and actual functional phases of cognitive improvement carry out joint arithmetic functions (subtraction and addition) with the same level of accuracy.
Nevertheless, kids in the actual functional phases of cognitive improvement have been capable of carrying out both subtraction and addition difficulties with entire higher glibness. The capacity to carry out mathematical functions confidently shows a degree of expertise mastery and inclination to study complex mathematical operations.
Educators who function with kids in both the pre-functional and the actual functional levels of cognitive improvement ought to take up appropriate intellectual anticipations with respect to the cognitive improvement capacities of their students. The necessity for teachers to personalize and take up suitable academic anticipations seems to be most applicable for kids at grade 1.
Studies have revealed that learners study best if they are actively engaged in the studying progression. Comical rephrasing of an old saying: “You can lead a horse to the water, but the only water that gets into his stomach is what he drinks”, epitomizes the worth that the information processing theory bestows on a student, as an active instead of passive partaker in the education progression.
In a bid to boost active contribution by learners, educators must talk less and allocate more time for discourse, group work, and personal activities as well as assessments in the classroom. The increased activity alone is not sufficient to boost learning. Cognitive endeavor has to be applied for the classroom learning to be valuable and thus, learners can be kept active at the course of the teaching session (Seigler, DeLoache, and Eisenberg 262).
Teachers could as well pose questions that necessitate learners to go past remembrance classroom notes in a bid to create active discourse and this aspect translates to enhanced cognitive endeavor.
A different manner of boosting the application of cognitive effort is the rating of assignments. It is evident that most of the learners cannot devote psychological effort in an undertaking unless they are aware that it will be considered in the grading.
Information that is not concentrated on fails to satisfy the information processing system. Devoid of the concentration of learners to the present activity, there cannot be effective learning. Therefore, concentration is a vital sign of effective learning.
In a bid to draw the concentration of learners on the study undertakings, both efficient inspirational and classroom administration expertise are vital, which implies that teachers must produce some methods to draw and sustain the concentration of learners (Seigler, DeLoache, and Eisenberg 263-264). Some of the proposed ways of boosting the concentration of learners include the following.
Application of uniqueness while presenting substance: An innovative method turns out to be routine when applied persistently.
As much as achievable, eradicate all unwarranted distractions emanating from such things as noise and comfortless school desks.
Assist the learners in concentrating mostly on vital knowledge via voice variations, evaluating, pauses, and writing on the blackboard with the involvement of learners.
Ensure to capture the concentration of learners before presenting the materials.
Move about the classroom, apply gesticulations, and shun from the utilization of monotone.
Present questions to learners in a random way. This move boosts the possibility that every one of the learners will concentrate.
Prompt learners to some questions they will be asked to repeat later by requesting them to sum up the significant points in a lesson.
Conclusion
Early theorists endeavored to make links between the way people think and the way computers work. The information processing theory validates psychological progression with regard to maturation alterations in basic essentials of understanding of a student. While children start acquiring elementary learning, they could initially have just limited success in handling the extensive assortment of representations they bump into.
Educators normally employ concrete items to represent numerals or mathematical tasks. Although theorists of information processing differ with other theories such as Piagetian thinking, they contend that intellectual development of the human mind is influenced by nurture (experiences that children interact with in the environment) and nature (biological factors such as maturation).
This theory has been criticized with critics contending that the framework undermines the diversity and richness of human cognition. Notwithstanding its criticisms, the information-processing theory can be used to shape the perception of educators and aid in developing relevant curriculum instructions.
Works Cited
McDevitt, Teresa, and Jeanne Ormrod. Child Development and Education, Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2012. Print.
Seigler, Robert, Judy DeLoache, and Nancy Eisenberg. How Children Develop, New York: Worth Publishers, 2010. Print.
Shaffer, David, and Katherine Kipp. Developmental Psychology: Childhood and Adolescence, Belmont, CA: Cengage Learning, 2010. Print.
When a child is born, the assumption is always that he doesn’t know anything about what goes on in his environment. It then puzzles us that when the mother intends breastfeed the child, even as young as one day old, he automatically ends up sucking the mother‘s breast and hence drinks the milk.
This is testimony that the when children are born, they are not as green as is perceived of them, instead they are born with some degree of knowledge about what happens around them (Cocking, 2007). The knowledge and skills are categorized according to how they will help the child in solving issues in his life. The skills they have around and during this time vary in different stages and ages of child development.
This variance comes to play for instance in a one year old child when he learns to sit and walk and in a five year old child when he learns to count numbers. The same factors held constant, when a two year old is in the process of acquainting himself with the surrounding with which he is being brought up in, the five year old is busy in school learning. This process through which the child learns and adapts the life skills through given time spans or periods is referred to as Child development.
Child development is divided into two categories, cognitive development and moral development. Cognitive development refers to a child’s ability to learn and provide solutions to issues that affect their lives.
Other aspects of development include social and emotional development which dictates the level of the child’s interaction with others and also determines how much control the child has over himself (self-control). As the child grows from infantry, he also develops the ability to understand and make use of language, to make meaning out of elements of communication like gesture and words, also referred to as ‘speech and language development’.
Other abilities include fine motor skills, which refers to his ability to execute movements through the use of his muscles, especially at the hands and fingers. His ability to develop and use his large muscles to move himself or parts of his body, also referred to as gross motor skills are also key factors in the growth of the child (Cocking, 2007).
Through infancy, the child (At around two years) develops the ability to be observant to other people’s emotions. They are keen about the reactions to their actions on other people. Through this they are able to know what is expected of them, and what their parents and guardians recommend of them when it comes to their behavior, as a result they end up conforming to the norms that define their society or the environment with which they are brought up in.
Several theories help us understand what affects the quality of morals that a child may adapt in his or her life, but in this case we shall dwell on the cognitive developmental theory, which was put forward by a Swiss psychologist, Jean Piaget. This theory states that, ‘children actively construct their own cognitive worlds; information is not just poured into their minds from their environment’ (Cocking, 2007).
According to Piaget’s theory, the process of learning in a small child is simply an update to what they already know; they have an idea of what happens around them.
Piaget’s school of thought is built on the idea that assimilation (a persons inclusion or addition of new data into their store of knowledge) and accommodation (defined as the ability of a person to adjust and relate to new ideas or data around him) are present in small children; when children are born, they automatically suck anything that comes to contact with their lips (assimilation) but with time and the experience they gain through exposure, they gain insights and deepen their understanding of things.
As such, they end up choosing what to lick and what to discard, for example they will lick fingers and their mother’s nipples, but they won’t lick things like towels and mattresses. This is referred to as accommodation (Cocking, 2007).
Piaget went further to say that there are four stages that one went through to comprehend the world, all the stages are related to age and in each stage a person exhibits totally different perspectives of thought. The piagetian stages are as follows;
From birth to about two years of age (sensorimoter stage), at this stage the children comprehend the scope of things in their environment through synchronizing the experiences of their senses (I.e. sight and hearing) with concrete motor actions.
The preliminary of this stage is characterized by limited reflexive patterns within which the infants operate in. By the end of the stage, at about two years of age the infants have developed sophisticated sensorimotor movements and though young, they are almost always able to operate or communicate in symbols.
From between two to seven years of age (the preoperational stage). This is the second of the four Piagetian stages of development and the children begin to make use of words, pictures and diagrams to represent their sentiments.
Their thoughts go past their links that sensed information then and now, it also goes beyond their physical actions, and they bring out their sentiments through the use of these symbols. Piaget asserts that although children in this age bracket can use symbols to communicate, they lack the ability to integrate and perform activities physically. They instead internalize psychologically the operations they do physically.
At around seven to eleven years of age (the concrete operational stage), the child goes through the third Piagetian stage. The children can transform their thoughts into action through conducting operations that translate into corresponding acts. In the stage, they reason logically as opposed to the intuitive thought in the previous stage.
However, their thinking and reasoning can only be applied to certain physical operations, for instance it’s hard for them to comprehend the process of solving an algebraic equation, because they cannot decipher the complexity of the sums. The last stage in the Piagetian circle involves children around eleven to fifteen years of age. This stage is also referred to as the formal operating stage (Klausmeier, 2001).
One main trait the members of this stage exhibit are their ability of the children to think well past their physical experiences and reason theoretically, and make sense in their reasoning. The child at this stage is an adolescent, and they conceptualize their thoughts, creating images in real life scenarios.
For instance, they may set standards over what an ideal best friend is like, and make comparison of their thought to their real friends. They are able to think about their future and imagine what they can be; they wallow in the fascination and excitement that these thoughts create. They are more orderly and efficient in getting solutions to problems around them, formulating theories about issues around them and working around to get them solved (Klausmeier, 2001).
Methodology
Before Piaget came about with his principles and circles about a child’s cognitive abilities and development, he had conducted extensive researches before he laid bare the result of his findings. The method he used was called hypothitico-deductive method, in which he laid emphasis on logic. He formed many theories about a given issue on child development, and then eliminated them one by one in order to draw a conclusion about the issue he was experimenting on. His observations were as follows;
From the time a child is born, the children make attempts to suckle, sometimes even when they don’t have something to suck. Lip movements correlate with how the tongue moves and at the same time the arms move irregularly in a manner that seems rhythmic. During this time their heads move laterally, and upon brushing of their lips, albeit accidentally, they tend to act as though they are sucking.
Piaget repeated this experiment (the sucking reflex) again with his second child for proof of permanence. In one of the experiments, he hid a child’s hand from her sight and placed a wrist watch on it. The child could not identify the watch as alien to her body when they showed the child the hand with the watch.
From this experiment Piaget deduced that the child did not feel the hand as a part of her own body. The first experiment proved that at that given stage of their lives, infants understand the scope of things by synchronizing the experiences of their senses such as the sense of sight and hearing with concrete motor actions. The sucking reflex is attained when other senses such as touch (touching their lips) is aroused. (Cocking, 2007)
In the same manner, we shall conduct experiments about the several piagetian tests on children of different ages to see their reactions in relation to the principles that Piaget put across.
The methodology will be the same to what Piaget had used, the hypothitico-deductive method, in which he forms hypotheses about why the child reacts in the given manner, and uses logic to eliminate them before coming up with a concrete solution. I will conduct this experiment on two children of varied ages, that is, they are living through different piagetian stages of development.
The two children are eight ears old and eleven years old (the preoperational stage and the concrete operational stage). Both of the children are familiar with me since I happen to be their father, but as required of me explain to them what I am up to. In order to get their honest thoughts and opinions, I tried to put them at ease by telling them that all their honest answers are correct, and they should not be jittery about giving varied opinions.
Experiment one (Clay task)
In this experiment, I get some mound of clay and divide it into two equal balls. I proceed to ask one of the children, the eight year old, whether the size of the first ball is equivalent to that of the second ball. I ask him pointing to both balls one at a time. The child agrees that they have the same size.
I then ask the child to flatten out one of the balls and then repeat the experiment, the child gives me a different answer. He claims that the flat ball is smaller than the round ball, the reason he gives out is that the round ball is taller than the flat ball, and for this reason it is bigger.
A repeat of the experiment with the eleven year old yielded the same results on the two round balls, in that they are equal in size. When instructed to flatten out one of the balls and then probed on their sizes, the eleven year old still insisted that they were the same.
The reason he gave out was that though they were different in shape, one flat and the other one round, the same amount of clay had been used to flatten the round clay. He was implying that when it came to the quantity of the clay that had been used, the same amount had been used up in both cases.
Experiment two (The coin task)
In this experiment, we make use of identical objects such as coins, buttons or candy. In my experiment with the children I used coins. I made two equal rows of the coins, on in front of me and the other row in front of the child. I asked the eight year old child if we had the same number of coins.
He took his time to compare the two lines before concluding that they were the same in number. I told him that I was going to spread my row out, and he had no objections to that, I spread the row of coins in front of me making the row appear longer than the one with the child.
While pointing to his row, I asked him whether the number of coins in his row had been altered, or increased, to which he objected. I asked him the same question about my row, and his response was that I had increased the number of coins in my row, that was why my row appeared longer than his.
I proceeded to the eleven year old and asked the same questions I did with the eight year old. He agreed straight away that the number of coins in the rows was the same. When it came to the second question, where after spreading out one of the rows and enquired about the number of coins in the rows, he again took some time to think about it before telling me that the number of coins was the same.
His reasoning was that when the coins are spread out they took more space, therefore the coins were the same in number, but once spread out they took up more space. He emphasized that to be the reason why the row of the spread out coins appeared longer.
Conclusion
From the two experiments conducted above, it is evident that the children relate differently to their world. The difference in age groups and the varied opinions played a factor to distinguish the variance in the two Piagetian stages of development. According to Piaget, the eight year old (at the preoperational stage) has the ability to use symbols and distinguish features, they still are deficient in their ability to integrate and perform activities physically.
That is why the eight year old could tell that the clay and coins were the same amount, but could not figure out that they were still identical after one clay ball had been pressed together and one row of coins had been spread out to look longer.
On the other hand, the eleven year old, at the concrete operational stage reasons logically, opposite to his younger sibling’s intuitive thought (Klausmeier, 2001). He is able to apply his thinking and reasoning some physical operations, and they are able to translate their thoughts to actions. That was the case in the two experiments in which he appeared to provide more logical answers to queries.
This research, however in-depth in its revelations had some weaknesses. I used children from the same family (my family), this on its own is questionable in that doubts may be placed on the reactions of the children. One may question whether if the research was conducted on children from different families the results would still stand to be the same.
The point of argument here is that the children however small or young, are genetically related, this may influence their reactions towards different stimuli. Their reactions may be the same because of their relationships.
The other factor that I did not consider is the fact that in order for me to carry out such a comprehensive research, I could have included children from different social classes. This inability to include the children from the diverse classes that define society provides a weakness in the experiment. Questions abound as to how children from a rich family would react to the same stimuli as a child from a poor social class. The results would almost be different given the difference in the environment they are brought up in (Klausmeier, 2001).
In a nutshell, a child’s development differs over time. His ability to assimilate, accommodate and integrate data strengthens with his level of growth, measured through the number of years as the child s growing. All normal children, all factors held constant, go through this life processes, eventually developing the ability to decipher, and provide solutions to what they face daily in their lives.
References
Cocking, Rodney R., Sigel, Irving E. (2007). Cognitive Development from Childhood to adolescence: A Constructivist Perspective. New York: New York publishers.
Klausmeier, Herbert J. (2001). Cognitive Learning and Development: Information-Processing and the Piagetian Perspectives. Cambridge, MA: Ballinger Publishing Company.
Cognitive development theory elucidates how cognitive processes change with age as one grows and adopts varied experiences of life. Two prominent theorists, Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky, have contributed significantly to the cognitive development theory, and this contribution forms the basis of teaching and learning in classrooms.
The premises of cognitive development indicate that, cognitive abilities emanate from innate characteristics that a child modifies with time under the influence of physical, psychosocial, and cognitive factors. According to Slavin (2006), the debate still rages as to whether innate factors or experiences significantly determine the rate and extent of cognitive development in an individual (p.32).
However, many psychologists perceive cognitive development as subject to a combination of nature and nurture that people experience throughout their lifetime. Moreover, psychologists still debate whether cognitive development is a continuous process or occurs in stages. Therefore, to explore cognitive development theory, this essay seeks to compare and contrast views of two theorists, Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky.
Compare and Contrast Theorists’ Views
Cognitive Development
Theories of cognitive development by Piaget and Vygotsky are similar because they both hold that cognitive abilities originate from innate characteristics that one acquires from birth. The innate characteristics form the basis of cognitive development since social, psychological and physical factors modify these characteristics during growth. Simatwa (2010) argues that, according to Piaget, cognitive development is a continuation of innate biological attributes called schemes (p.366).
The schemes provide a framework that enables children to undergo the process of cognitive development: organization, adaptation and equilibration. Likewise, according to Vygotsky, cognitive development originates from innate characteristics that subsequently undergo modification due to influence of social and cultural factors in the society. Another similarity is that both Piaget and Vygotsky are constructivists for they believe that children construct their knowledge from the environment in which they live.
The difference between the views of two theorists, Piaget and Vygotsky, lies in the perspective of viewing cognitive development in children. According to Oakley (2004), Piaget views cognitive development from structural developmental perspective, while Vygotsky views it from a socio-historical perspective (p.29). Another difference is that Piaget holds that, cognitive development and acquisition of intelligence are a consequence of repetitive activities that children do.
He postulates that imitations, perceptions, and actions are precursors of language and thinking, which play an integral role in cognitive development. In contrast, Vygotsky views that social and historical factors significantly shape cognitive development in children. He holds that language is an element of culture that has historical experience and thus an essential element in cognitive development.
Stages of Development
Both theorists, Piaget and Vygotsky agree that, developmental stages in cognitive development occur sequentially and cumulatively. According to Simatwa (2010), Piaget views that sequential development provides a framework for preceding stages, hence forming the basis of progressive organization, adaptation and equilibration of schemes leading to cognitive development (367). Hence, Piaget formed four sequential stages of development that are crucial in ensuring comprehensive cognitive development in children.
Another similarity is that while Piaget believes that effective learning occurs when learning activities suite particular stages of student development, Vygotsky holds that effective learning occurs when teachers support students in doing complex tasks that are in the zone of proximal development, which children cannot perform without assistance. Thus, Piaget and Vygotsky agree that cognitive development is a process that occurs in several consecutive stages and social processes mediate cognitive development.
While Piaget asserts that cognitive development occurs in four stages that are decidedly distinct, Vygotsky views that cognitive development is a continuous process that has no distinct stages. According to Piaget, the four stages begin from childhood through into adolescent in a successive manner.
In contrast, according to Oakley (2004), Vygotsky argues that one cannot adequately define cognitive development using stages because it is a complex process, which is under the influence of social and cultural factors in an environment (p.36). Hence, Vygotsky did not provide distinct stages of cognitive development, unlike Piaget. Another difference is that while Piaget believes that learning is in tandem with stages of development, Vygotsky perceives that learning precedes cognitive development.
Applications of Theorists’ Views
Cognitive development views of Piaget and Vygotsky are similar in that, they both believe that teaching style and environment play an integral role in shaping innate schemes that children have from birth. It, therefore, means that teachers should consider employing effective teaching styles and creating learner friendly environment as an application of cognitive development theory in enhancing learning in children.
Slavin (2006) argues that, for effective learning to occur in the classroom, teachers need to ensure that education curriculum, learning environment, teaching materials and instructions meet social, physical, emotional and cognitive needs of students at various ages (p.41). Even though children go through the same developmental stages, cognitive development occurs at different rates among students, hence need consideration.
Although Piaget and Vygotsky views of cognitive development are applicable in teaching and learning, they have contrasting application in the classroom. Simatwa (2010) argues that, Piaget views require that teaching methodology, learning activities and materials should suit specific cognitive developmental stages of students (370).
Thus, contrasting application of cognitive development theory is that, Piaget views are applicable in designing and customizing teaching curricula that fits various stages of learning, while Vygotsky views are applicable in creating a social and cultural environment that promotes teaching and learning in children.
Unlike Piaget views of cognitive development, according to Slavin (2006), Vygotsky concepts of zone of proximal development and scaffolding require teachers to aid children in learning complex tasks (p.47). Thus, teachers need to give out complex tasks and aid students by giving hints to enable them learn effectively.
Conclusion
Cognitive development theory has not only contributed to understanding of cognitive development in children, but has also led to promotion of teaching and learning in the classroom. Piaget and Vygotsky are two theorists who have elucidated cognitive development from structural and socio-historical perspectives respectively.
Despite their contrast in the elucidation of cognitive development, the views of both theorists are helpful in designing and customizing teaching curricula as well as creating appropriate learning environment that enhances performance of students.
References
Oakley, L. (2004) Cognitive Development. London: Routledge.
Simatwa, E. (2010). Piaget’s Theory of Intellectual Development and Its Implication for Instructional Management of Pre-Secondary School Level. Educational Research and Reviews, 5(5), 366-371.
Slavin, R. (2006). Educational Psychology: Theory and Practice (8th Edition). Boston, MA: Pearson.
While debate is still ongoing about how children acquires language, with naturists arguing that individuals are born with biological inclination for language, and behaviorists projecting that children develop language by emulating the sounds heard within the immediate environment (Maitland 135), consensus seems to have been reached among the two groups on the major steps involved in the development of language in children. This section aims to elucidate the steps involved.
There exists broad consensus that humans can communicate from birth, as can be demonstrated by the newborn’s cry alerts when faced with a distressing situation such as pain or wetness.
However, it is only after the fourth month from birth that the infant is able to turn these cry alerts, coos, and gurgles into some form of bubbling, explained as the generation of phonemes which are not in any way related or limited to the child’s exposure to the immediate environment. After the lapse of ten months from birth, the baby is able to narrow down these phonemes to those of the language or languages spoken in the immediate environment (Maitland 134).
At the turn of their first birthday, most toddlers progress from bubbling into the use of a holophrase, which can be explained as the usage of one word to communicate meaning. For instance, the baby may point indoors and say, “Go!” At the turn of their second birthday, most children are able to put together two-word sentences known as telegraphic speech.
Available literature demonstrates that this speech is mostly typified by the use of a verb and noun, such as “go toilet” or “eat bread” (Maitland 134). Language development theorists are in agreement that it is between two and three years of age that the child is not only able to expand the vocabulary exponentially, but the sentences generated increase in length and intricacy.
By their third birthday, the young children begin to follow the rules of grammar without necessarily sticking to any conventions of instruction. For instance, a 3-year-old child may say, “I goed to the shop.” Such sentence construction, although coming from a 3-year-old child, indicates the use of the general rule, also called overgeneralization or over-regularization, that we form the past tense by adding (-ed) to the word or phrase.
The ‘overgeneralization’ or ‘over-regularization’ of language witnessed among the 3-year-olds demonstrates that children apply grammatical rules without necessarily making any appropriate exceptions (Maitland 134). However, as time goes and language development becomes further entrenched, young children achieve the capability to express more abstract notions, concepts and ideas that goes beyond the physical realm around them, not mentioning that they also attain the capability to express their own feelings.
Applying Piaget’s & Vygotsky’s Theoretical Concepts to Classroom Experiences
Both Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky can be termed as the leading lights in the psychology of cognitive development due their classical works, which have been well documented in literature. It is indeed true that their theoretical concepts can be, and continues to be, used in modern classroom settings. This section aims to discuss five concepts from the theories of both Piaget and Vygotsky, and illuminate how these concepts can be applied to classroom experiences.
Jean Piaget was a prominent psychologist of the 20th century mainly interested in aspects of developmental psychology, particularly in respect to how individuals acquire, retain, and develop knowledge (Wittrock 41).
Today, his concepts and theories are used by teachers across the world to enhance students’ learning experiences. In his theory of cognitive development, Piaget came up with the concept of assimilation and accommodation to denote two corresponding processes of adaptation through which awareness of the external world is internalized in the individual.
In assimilation, what an individual perceives in the external world is incorporated into the internal world without necessarily changing the structure of the internal world, while in accommodation; the internal world is obliged to accommodate itself to the evidence and facts with which it is confronted, thus triggering an adaptation (Wittrock 43).
This concept can be applied in modern classroom experiences by encouraging teachers to take an active, mentoring role towards students so as to enable them share in their learning experiences instead of pushing information to passive and sometimes uninterested students.
By observing children to have a comprehensive understanding on their growth and developmental patterns, Piaget came up with the concept of maturation to imply the children’s mounting capability to understand their world and those around them (McInerney 587).
This concept further implies that children cannot comprehend or perform certain activities or duties until they are psychologically mature enough to be able to engage in those activities. This assertion has been overwhelmingly used by contemporary educators to form the basis for scheduling the school curriculum with a view to making sure that only those activities or learning tasks that children within a specific age-group can understand are indeed included in the curriculum.
In his theory of cognitive development, Lev Vygotsky came up with the concept of the zone of proximal development, which was aimed at explaining the idea that development should be defined both by what a child can be able to achieve independently and what the child can be able to achieve when he or she receives assistance from either an adult or a more competent peer (Slavin 47).
This concept, along with the two levels of development, is useful for teachers in modern classroom settings to the extent that they can use it to objectively evaluate where the child is at a given moment in terms of learning outcomes, as well as where the child ought to be.
In the context of curriculum development, educators and teachers can employ Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development concept to design a developmentally suitable curriculum, where learning activities are designed on not only what the learners are capable of doing on their own volition, but also on what they are capable of learning with other peers who are more proficient (Slavin 47; McInerney 590).
Vygotsky’s concept of proximal development further suggests that educators in modern classroom settings must make sure to expose the children to instruction and activities that fall inside the zone of proximal development if effective learning is to take place (Woolfolk 156). For example, if a child is unable to recognize the sounds in a word or phrase even after been exposed to repeated prompts, the child may not be able to take advantage of the instruction in this type of skill.
Additionally, extant literature demonstrates that instructors can employ this concept to, among other things, design instruction in such a way that it is capable of providing practice in the zone of proximal development for individual learners as well as for groups of learners (Woolfolk 159). For example, instructors can employ suggestions, clues and prompts that in the past assisted children during evaluation to form the basis for instructional activities.
Vygotsky’s concept of cooperative learning can be used in the modern classroom setting to plan learning activities by bringing together children who are at different learning levels to assist each other to learn. What’s more, Vygotsky’s concept was later developed in 1976 by Wood, Bruner & Ross to operationalize the concept of scaffolding.
In its most basic form, the scaffolding concept represents the supportive interactions that take place between an adult and a child with the view to assist the child to accomplish an activity that is beyond his or her independent efforts (Slavin 88). In the modern classroom setting, the concept of scaffolding has been used by teachers to assist learners graduate from assisted to unassisted success at various learning tasks.
In a school biology class, for example, the instructor might utilize scaffolding by first providing learners with exhaustive guidelines that are needed to perform an experiment on osmosis, and afterwards provide them with concise outlines that they can use to structure further osmosis experiments. With time, the teacher might request the learners to perform the experiments exclusively on their own.
Works Cited
Maitland, Laura Lincoln. 5 Steps to a 5AP Psychology, 2010-2011 Edition. New York, NY: McGraw Hill, 2010. Print.
McInerney, Dennis M. “Educational Psychology – Theory, Research, and Teaching: A 25 –Year Retrospective.” Educational Psychology 25.6 (2005): 585-599. Web.
Slavin, Robert E. Educational Psychology: Theory & Practice. 8th ed. Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon, Inc., 2005. Print.
Wittrock, Mike C. “Learning as a Generative Process.” Educational Psychologist 45.1 (2010): 40-45. Web.
Cognitive development in children has been related to good and appropriate nutrition in children. Postnatal development is a very important aspect in life. It is at the postnatal stage that most development in human beings takes place maximally. Many studies have justified the effects of nutrition in most of the development.
The main organ in the body that has been emphasized in these studies is the brain. For proper development of the cognitive features, it is important that a child eats the right food. The neural system requires certain nutrient that helps in informational transfer hence the cognitive aspect of a human being.
Socio-economic status of a people, community, region or country may contribute to the different cognitive development of children or pre-school kids. Inability to provide the essential needs such as the social status, education, wealth and health may affect the development of kid’s brain. Social factor is essential for a people’s bargaining power. Purchasing of goods and services depends on the socio-economic status.
Another study involved the learning of a second language by children. This was done among the Spanish kids whose first language was Latin while the second was English. Most studies show that kids developed stronger base for one language than the other. For instance, if a child knew more of English, then the kid will have fewer skills for Latin. However, those kids with strong affiliation for both languages were very intelligent. These studies also suggest that learning in English was a prudent step in the development of language in Children.
Supplements have also tremendous effects on kid’s cognitive development. It has been noted form the studies that there are certain components of essential body nutrients that lack in mother’s milk in the period after six months of breast feeding.
Cognitive Development
This form of development is a branch of studies in neural science. It focuses majorly on language learning, perceptual skills, conceptual resources, processing of information and also other forms of development connected to the brain. Most of the studies here have touched on nutrition and supplements. Among the supplements discussed are the iron, folic acid and zinc (Siegel et al., 2011).
The deficiencies of these nutrients have been related to neuro-cognitive defects. Studies were done on children from Nepal. Cluster randomization and controlled placebo trials were done using daily supplementation of 5mg zinc, 25 microgram folic acid and 6.25mg of iron. An alternative study included placebo and folic acid-zinc-iron supplements. The number of infants under study was 367. The indicators under study were:
Deterioration performance
Fixation duration
Accelerated performance
Preference for novelty
A not B error
Several weeks at 32 and 52 weeks the results were found and 213 students made a test attempt. The results of the five indicators were modeled on logistic and linear regression. This study did not show much significance effect.
Theoretical studies show that iron and zinc are very important in neurological development. Iron is a cofactor for most transmission in neurons. In the study, it was found that the Nepal infants had iron deficiency anemia which was observed in their serum. On the other hand, zinc which was also deficient in the serum is important in development of brain cells. These deficiencies were the main reason for the study that included the supplements.
Plant related nutrients such as iron and zinc are not absorbed efficiently by children under the age of 2 years. Therefore, the studies included supplementation of the micronutrients. Cognitive development depends on the sufficiency of the named micronutrients. Other studies have indicated that poor performance in cognition is depicted by children with iron deficiency.
Nutrition is central to determining every aspect of development of the body of a human being. Cognitive development and nutrition are two inseparable aspects (Fransisco, Steven and Reznick, 2009). Genetic makeup is also associated with nutrition. However, the amount of nutrient that can affect a certain behavior change in human beings has not been studied yet. Therefore, studies are still projected on the importance of other micronutrients and nutrition as a whole.
Social Status, Socio-economic status and Cognitive and behavior Development
Social status and economic status are interrelated. The economic status can describe the bargaining power of people in any community or place. Most of the studies in nutrition and cognition are related with socio-economic status. Most children that lack basic nutrition come from developing countries.
Having some of the basic components of balanced nutrition is a challenge to these children. Therefore, these countries acted as perfect site for the studies on the relationship between nutrition, behavior and cognitive factors (Wong et al., 2010). Economic status means the standard of wealth and hence financial status too for obtaining the basic nutritional needs.
The studies were done in Hong Kong and the basic lines of study included poverty, social class and government intervention. The studies show that the government has had little effect into solving needs as expected by the public. Although, effects on the welfare of the old and healthcare have improved, they are quite minimal
Language Development
This study was done for students with specific language impairment needs. It therefore factored the issue of clinical implications. There are different rates of growth in language development across nations. This has been pointed out to depend on the languages learnt (Vera et al., 2012).
It is indicated that those children who had strong affiliation for their mother tongue had difficulty in mastering the second language especially when mother tongue is the language used in learning. However, it is noted that not all children with specific language impairment had these difficulties. Therefore, it is important that clinical matters be considered when defining a child’s affiliation language wise.
Study Methods and Results
In the study of the relationship of cognition and supplementation of micronutrients, it was found that placebo clinical trials that are controlled and randomized trials were good test trials for justifying the study. In addition to these studies was the specific information processing tests which brought strength to the studies. In the past, sensor motor test were done to monitor child development. This was not very efficient.
On the other hand, language development studies were also performed using statistical procedures. Growth longitudinal models were used evaluate English vocabulary, English proficiency, and Spanish language skills. SAS Proc models were used in multilevel leveling. This also indicated the efficiency of using information processing systems. These were tested through longitudinal models. However, there was need for conduction of other studies that involved detailed non-instructional and instructional interactions in classrooms.
The studies of nutritional effects of brain and behavior development were not 100% perfect because of the issue of window period. This is the period when the nutrients cannot be noticed since they are not there and need not to be. Therefore, it is important to consider exposure time so as to develop perfect studies and results for the case studies.
Conclusion
A child’s cognitive and behavior development is related with several factors such as nutrition, social aspects and economic aspects. Though studies have proved these effects, they are only to a smaller degree. It is therefore important to conduct refined studies. On the other hand, language development should be based on clinical aspects especially for those with specific language impairment.
Reference List
Fransisco, J.R., Steven, R. and Steven, H., Z. (2009).Role of Nutrition in Brain and Behavior Development of Toddlers and Preschool Children: Addressing and Identifying Methodological methods. Nutritional Neuroscience, 12(5), 190-200.
Siegel, E., Kataryzna, K., Rebbecca, J., Joanne, K., Subarna, K., Steven, C. and James, M. (2011). Inconsistency: Effects of Micronutrients on Cognitive Development of Infants. Health Population and Nutrition, 29(6), 596-601.
Vera, G., Gabriela, S., and Monica, S. (2012).Second Language Predictors in Latino Children: Specific Language Impairment. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 21(1), 64-77.
Wong, T., K., Po-san, W., and Kenneth, W. (2010). Perceptions and the conditions of Welfare Groups in Hong Kong. Social Policy and Administration, 44(5), 620-640.
Adolescence is the development of a child from childhood to adulthood. Changes are noted as the child grows, such as sexual characteristics. Girls start to grow breasts, public and armpit hair, and menstrual periods; the full development is attained at the age of 18.
Boys’ testicles and scrotum enlarges and the penis enlarges in size, and the full development of boys’ reproductive parts is attained at the age of 16 to 17 years. These developments are influenced by environmental and genetic factors.
Physical Development
According to Smith & Cowie (2005), environmental factors such as nutrition can determine how the child will grow. Adolescents should be given a balanced diet because their rapid growth makes them crave for calories, but if calories intake is exceeded, they are likely to develop weight problems.
For example, identical twins with same genes growing in different environments are likely to have different heights or physical appearance. According to the University of United Nations, this may be due to nutrition which affects the growth of bones, the body size, and can also delay the body growth.
Regular exercises are essential in youngster’s development. Those who spend their time playing or engaging in vigorous activities are likely to have stronger bones than those who spend their time watching televisions, thus their bone growth is likely to be impaired. Likewise, chronic illness also affects the child’s growth.
Childs genetics influences how he/she will grow physically. Genetics have a big effect on the growth rate and the size of body parts. For instance, Doctor Stefan Czerwinski did a study for genetics for 30 years and concluded that when both height and weight of a child’s parents is measured, it is easy to approximate the child’s height and weight at the age of thirty.
If a child’s parents are short, he/she is likely to grow short even if the age mates look taller. Other factors include the body mass, percentage of body fat and body muscles. Physical characteristics such as facial and body developments are likely to cause different reactions from people.
Additionally, healthy and attractive children are more likely to be favored than the less attractive ones with slim bodies. Furthermore, a youngster who comes from a family with a history of schizophrenia is likely to develop the hereditary disease, especially if the environment in which he/she lives is easy to contaminate (Bronfen, 2000).
Cognitive Development
Bronfen (2000) argues that physical activity helps the brain to function properly. Exercises can help improve cognition and academic performance. The effects of the physical activity on cognition and brain function have been shown at the molecular, cellular, organ system, and behavior levels, which points out that exercises may lead to increase in both physical and mental health during child development.
Exercise helps adolescents to improve their memory, neuroprotection and lessen chances of depression. They support neurogenesis, metabolism, and vascular functions. It also alleviates diabetes, hypertension, and cardiovascular disease, which may lead to inflammation of the brain which can impair its growth.
Eyes development is another factor because it depends on which environment the child grows. A youngster with teary eyes, maybe due to dietary deficiency causes the child to strain and is not able to learn more as compared to his age mates. This may be due to spending a lot of time on computers, which may lead to eye fatigue and as they play, foreign objects such as dirt and bacteria may impair their vision.
Genders roles in the society also determine the youngsters learning capabilities. Girls tend to be interested in learning female related activities such as soft labor – for example, baby care. Boys learn activities that are related to hard labor. However, girls and boys who have been taught to do both male and female tasks, normally called the androgynous, are able to do hard labor, with the girls being able to fix cars and boys able to do home chores.
Adolescents who are brought up in wealthy and loving families are likely to be mentally stable and are able to develop good domestic and learning skills. These children regard ability as an acquirable skill and hence, they are capable of increasing it by gaining more knowledge. They regard error as natural and are able to learn through mistakes. They are capable of handling difficulties and do not compare their personal achievements with others.
Youngsters who go through tough experiences, for example, orphans have poor mental development. The issue of their parent’s death can lead to unhealthy mental development. Such children have negative attitude about life and are not focused on their studies.
Similarly, the training and experience to which an adolescent is exposed determines who he/she will become. A delay in cognitive development of a youngster becomes problematic especially in societies that value cognitive skills for work and self-determined life. In essence, culture and environmental factors are the results of differences in cognitive achievements (Smith & Cowie, 2005).
Social, Moral, and Personality Development
There are many behaviors that cause differences between people. These behaviors include emotions and thoughts and are sometimes caused by environmental and heredity factors. Environmental factors are helpful in formation of characters attitudes.
Adolescents show different attitudes in same conditions and this depends on the learning environment where the child was brought up. The family where the child grew is an important factor in formation of a personality. Children who come from a family of independent parents are likely to grow with the same independence, self trust, and self control, and with a lot of creativity (Berk, 2004).
Adolescents who come from a family where parents are authoritative are likely to be shy and anxious. These youngsters also become dependent and with little or no self control. More so, an adolescent who have been brought up in a family with a single parent is affected because in case of the absence of a mother, the child is likely to be shy and dependent.
The father’s absence differs in both boys and girls. Girls are likely to be more dependent, but with an aggressive personality, especially when dealing with boys. In case of parents divorce, adolescent girls become anxious about their relationship with boys.
Moreover, birth order affects the development of an adolescent because elder children have good leadership characteristics and tend to be successful. Middle children are likely to be rebellious whereas lastborns are likely to be spoilt, and experience insufficient emotions.
Berk (2004) affirms that social developments are affected by the culture from which an adolescent come from. People from different cultures have their own believes, merits, morals, and attitudes. The first source of socialization for adolescents is parents. If the youngster’s parents had unsocial behavior, they are likely to behave the same, especially in groups.
In this regard, Freud’s Theory about personality is divided into three. The first is the topographic theory, which divides the psychological structure into consciousness, pre-consciousness, and unconsciousness. They express how much the individuals are aware of mental activities that they do.
Second, in structural theory, personality is formed by the primitive personality of birth, ego which is a sensibility for logic, behaviors and controlling consciousness. Third, Superego is the ethnical and personality judgment which depends on the rules of the family and society.
According to Treyt Moral theory, each person has an ethical judgment on good or evil. These judgments determine an individual’s self behaviors and acts. These morals are determined by the environmental and society where an individual has been brought up. In order for a person to live peacefully, he/she must adopt and follow the rules which he/she esteemed.
In Carl Jung’s Social theory, individual’s personalities, such as being an extrovert and introvert shows individuals interest of self and others. According to Jung, introverts are shy and find it hard to make friends, while extroverts are confident and hence get friends easily (Bronfen, 2000). Thus, these three theories help explain the mentioned moral, social, and personality factors.
In conclusion, adolescence is a stage of remarkable physical changes and cognitive development; adolescents’ bodies establish and mature sexually, together with their minds engaging in advanced thinking, which include metacognition, speculative, and intense introspection.
These changes affect social and psychological development. Parents, teachers and the whole society should be ready to accommodate adolescents and teach them because it is a temporary stage with many changes, especially in cases where these youngsters feel they are special and above the laws.
This might lead to risky behaviors, such as drug abuse and having unprotected sex while they try to engage into intimate relationships with the push to discover who they are in the society and in the world. Therefore, the society must educate and protect adolescent because it has a greater influence on adolescents’ physical and cognitive development.
References
Berk, L. E. (2004). Infants, Children, Adolescents Development Theories. Harvard University Press, Cambridge.
Bronfen, B. (2000). The Ecology of Human Development: Experiments by nature and Design. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Smith P.K. & Cowie, H. (2005). Understanding Adolescents Development, Basic Psychology (4th ed.). New York: McGraw Hill.
Personality is what makes an individual unique. Personality as well as human development has been a major topic of interest to many people the world over. This has therefore led to the development of various theories by a good number of scholars interested in human development.
So how exactly or rather what are the stages we go through to become what we are today? This question has been answered through a case study carried out in an old suburban neighborhood. The main focus in this study is the cognitive, psychosocial, psychosexual and moral development in children as well as toddlers.
The best time for a toddler’s toilet training
To begin with, toddlers are classified as children between the ages of 1and a half years to three. Freud, a theorist centered on the psychosexual development in children also mentioned that this particular stage can be referred to as the anal stage. According to him, toddlers in this specific age set have an interest in the anus as the source of the pleasurable sensations amongst other body parts.
He therefore advises that it is at this stage that toilet training can be most effective. Therefore, baby sitters as well as the parents should take the initiative of training their children to visit the bathrooms whenever they have a nature call ( Blewitt & Bloderick, 2010, p.38).
In addition to this, Erikson a psychosocial theorist classified this stage as that of autonomy versus doubt and shame stage. This, he goes ahead to explain that it is at this very stage that children learn to be self sufficient in terms of taking themselves to the bathroom, feeding and even walking. In other instances, they may however doubt their capabilities to take part in these activities hence parents need to reassure them.
Early childhood sleeplessness
In matters regarding sleepless children of below 2 years of age, Piaget whose theory centers on the cognitive development of an infant seems to be the most helpful. This is because the child will always respond to the actions of the parent. For instance when being rocked, it will understand that it is required to go to sleep. Therefore, whenever the baby is fed or rocked, it will always go to sleep.
More so, it is more likely that at this stage in its life the baby goes ahead to acknowledge the external environment. Therefore, it is advisable that the parents ensure that the child’s bedroom is properly set as a sleeping area. For instance, there should be dim lighting, soothing toy music and a rocking bed among others (Austin Community College 2010, P1).
The development of Sibling jealousy
For a child to get jealous, this is normal according to Piaget’s cognitive theory. This happens mostly at the toddler stage, which is approximately between one and a half years to three years. It is in this phase that children tend to be preconception which means that they get to ask very many questions and tend to develop language very fast.
Most importantly, quite a good number of them are likely to be self-centered. This clearly explains why they tend to get jealous when there is another newborn. As the newborn gets a good portion of parental care and attention, they will do anything to get the same amount of attention.
However, this mostly leads to getting involved in notorious behavior, which Kohlberg looks at in the early child hood behavior as the first stage of moral development ( Blewitt & Bloderick, 2010, p. 110).
References
Austin Community College.(2010). Comparison of Freud, Erikson, Piaget, Kohlberg Theories. Web.
Blewitt, P. & Broderick, P. (2010). The life span: Human development for helping Professionals (3rd Ed). Pearson: New Jersey
Why is it that some children at a particular age are able to build simplistic structures with blocks, cry when they are upset or use rudimentary language skills when trying to communicate while others of the same age are not only able to perform difficult piano concertos but are also able to grasp and apply complex mathematical theorems?
It is interesting to note that all humans are born with the same combination of 46 chromosomes which creates the genetic basis for subsequent growth and development yet if this was so why is it that not all young children develop the exceptional skills noted in the given examples?
As such it is questionable as to what skills and abilities within each individual is innate or what is a direct result of “special characteristics” acquired from unique interactions within a particular environment that facilitated the development of advanced skills at early ages (Steen, 2001).
This is but one aspect of the multifaceted debate that is nature versus nurture which has in fact been going on for hundreds of years with varying accounts and experts indicating their support for one particular view over another.
For example, we have the idea of “tabula rasa” (blank slate) developed by John Locke which states that all individuals are born as blank slates and as such the development of their minds will come about as a direct result of unique sensory experiences resulting in different mental capabilities depending on the degree of sensory exposure within a particular environment (Plomin & Asbury. 2005).
On the other end of the spectrum comes the view of modern biological determinism which ascribes to the ideology that all behaviors and abilities are innate and as such comes about as a direct result of genetic potential (Plomin & Asbury. 2005). While both points of view are extreme they are somewhat accurate representations of the current debate regarding inherent over acquired skill sets.
Of particular interest are the views of the debate regarding language acquisition and how much of it does the average individual acquire through environmental stimulus or through inherent genetic capability. What must be understood is that language is not completely genetic in that the process of acquiring a language like English for instance is not something that is inherently part of a person genetic makeup.
For example, the study of Soderman (2010) has shown that a certain degree of critical exposure is needed in order for a child to acquire a language however Soderman (2010) also notes that in various case studies examining how language was acquired it was seen that there were many universal similarities in how children from different races and cultures acquired their respective language (Soderman, 2010).
From this particular perspective it can thus be stated that language acquisition more likely exists in some middle ground of nurture and nature and not exclusively inclines towards a particular aspect of the debate.
Understanding the Acquisition of Language: Theories of Language Acquisition
The Learning Theory
The learning theory developed by researchers Skinner and Bandura, states that language develops through learning and as such ascribes to the nature theory of the debate. In their examination of language acquisition processes it was noted that “infants learned languages through reinforcement, imitation, operant conditioning and observational learning” (Craighead & Nemeroff, 2001).
From the perspective of Skiner and Bandura, continuous exposure to a language rich learning environment is a precondition towards being able to acquire the initial specifics of a language from which its application in daily conversation originates from (Craighead & Nemeroff, 2001).
Without a sufficient learning environment in place Skiner and Bandura state that language acquisition becomes difficult if not impossible due to insufficient input from which an individual can derive the complex vocabulary necessary to create understandable statements and phrases.
On the other hand critiques of this particular theory state that the reinforcement principle which is at the basis of the Skiner and Bandura examination is not actually a necessary element in being able to acquire a language (Morin, 2010).
They point to the fact that children are in effect inherently capable of stating a sentence without hearing it in the past through an inherent means of sentence manipulation.
For example, a parent may say “I dropped the ball on the floor” to indicate the action of dropping a ball on the floor while a child on the other hand is able to take this particular sentence and modify it to match a given situation such as by stating “I dropped the plate down the stairs”. In this example the child never really heard the statement before however was able to learn how to modify it in order to express a given observation.
The Nativist Theory
In the debate of nature versus nurture another interesting point of view is that of the nativist theory which deals with the assumption that language development is an innate feature that develops within individuals (Pellegrini & Bjorklund, 1998).
From the perspective of the proponents of this way of thinking infants are not the blank slates that John Locke leads us to believe rather all individuals come with the innate ability to understand and develop languages on one’s own.
This particular theory is grounded in the fields of genetics and psychology wherein it is stated that all individuals are “genetically programmed” from birth so to speak in order for particular processes and ways of thinking to arise in their minds (Pellegrini & Bjorklund, 1998).
Language from their perspective is thus an innate capacity of human intellectual development and as such comes about through a natural means of acquisition and is not dependent on rote learning or subsequent repetition as seen from the perspective of learning theorists.
Evidence of this can be seen in various instances wherein despite the fact that children were only exposed to the superficial aspects of a language and were not taught the specifics of proper grammar they were still inherently able to rapidly develop the ability to speak grammatically correct sentences (Shanker, 2001).
Such an act is explained by the studies of Noam Chomsky in which he explains that all languages are founded upon universal rules on grammatical structure which correspond to an innate capacity of the human brain to understand them (Shanker, 2001).
This means that all languages have developed along similar lines that the brain can instinctively understand and as such this facilitates an individual’s inherent capacity to learn a language. The inherent problem with this particular theory is that it neglects to take into account principles related to environmental exposure which many psychologists indicate is a prerequisite in order for languages to be properly acquired.
While the theory is sound in principle it lacks sufficient evidence regarding language acquisition being more inclined towards inherent genetic predilections when experience has been shown to be necessary in order for the development of a sufficiently broad vocabulary.
In fact critics of this theory state that while people may have an inherent genetic inclination towards learning a language there are only so many stages an infant can progress in learning a language through genetic capacity alone.
What is needed they say is sufficient experience in order to broaden the amount of information the brain is exposed to thus resulting in the development of a far broader base of words, phrases and experiences which can thus be developed into an individual’s ability to speak a particular language.
Interactionist Theory
One of the best theories that attempts to explain language development is the interactionist theory which specifically states that it is a combination between biological and environmental influences that enable the development of language within individuals at an early age.
What must be understood is that while it may be true that humans have developed the evolutionary capacity to easily acquire a language at an early age this is still dependent on the amount of exposure they have to language itself (Turner, 2000).
For example, the study of Klass (2011) examined different instances in which language was acquired by infants of different ages and as such was able to show that the amount of exposure to a particular language innately affected the rate in which they individuals examined were able to apply the language as well as the extent of their application (Klass, 2011).
It was shown that infants that were exposed to far more language experiences at an early age were not only able to speak earlier but were also able have a far more diversified vocabulary as compared to children of the same age (Klass, 2011).
It was also noted by other studies that such children were also more intellectually proficient and imaginative in terms of their application of skills and speaking ability and as such shows how exposure is an integral aspect to learning (Sethi, 2011).
In the Klass (2011) study fewer exposure rates did not hamper the development of language acquisition skills rather subjects in those particular groups were still able to develop language skills normally which is indicative of an inherent ability to develop language on one’s own so long as proper levels of exposure were implemented.
Evidence of this can be seen in the case examples of Genie and Victor, who are two rather unfortunate examples of what can happen should no language exposure be implemented. Genie was locked away in her room for the first 13 years of her life with no language exposure whatsoever while Victor on the other hand was found in forest at age 12.
Both individuals were found to lack even the basic means of language communication and in fact were unable to be taught even the rudimentary basics of verbal communication due to both individuals being well past the critical stage of language acquisition which is from infancy to puberty. As such the case example of Genie and Victor shows the necessity of language exposure as a means of enabling the learning process to begin.
It is actually advocated by studies such as those by Justice (2008) that parents should implement greater degrees of language exposure and learning to children at earlier stages of development so as to ensure a steady rate of intellectual growth (Justice, 2008).
Not only is this beneficial towards developing a child’s intellectual capacity but it also helps to determine whether a child suffers from any form of learning disability brought about by some form aberrant problem in their brain such as autism or ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder).
Computer Generated Speech
The traditional process of human communication has always involved a certain degree of direct personal interaction between individuals yet with the introduction of new technology preferred methods of communication have become more impersonal resulting in an increasingly isolationist society.
As technology improves methods of communication have steadily become more convenient wherein people are no longer limited in their ability to contact one another but rather can choose from a plethora of choices (Johri, 2012). The creation of mobile phone technology has enabled people to be contacted at anywhere at any time through either a direct phone conversation or a more discreet text message.
Online methods of communication such as email, chat messengers or even online video conferencing services such as those on Skype have made it so that global methods of communication have become far easier and affordable compared to the situation two decades ago where international communication was an arduous affair often involving significant delays, costs or even an inability to be contacted due to ones location (Johri, 2012).
It was through the greater interconnectivity of countries through globalization that communication similarly became more globalized thus making it more convenient for the average user.
It is in this realm of ever evolving methods of communication that the development of computer generated speech in which computers communicate with one another orally presents itself as rather interesting factor in the nature versus nurture debate on human language development.
What must be understood is that in the case of computer generated speech all information and speech generated by the computers communicating with each other is something which is preprogrammed and made to create a method of communication along specific lines.
While this is no different from the means in which the human mind is predisposed towards a particular method of oral communication in the case of computers what must be understood is that there is a distinct lack of “imagination” in the responses.
While a computers program is able to mix together different words and create specific phrases and this in turn is responded to in a specific way by another computer what must be understood is that the computers that are communicating with one another are inherently limited by the specifics of their program and as such cannot go beyond that.
For example, the type of information inputted into a computer is the same type of information that it releases with various programs creating a certain degree of variability but the information is still the same.
When comparing this to the process of human language learning wherein a child is able to create grammatically correct sentences from snippets of information acquired and without having been taught how grammar works in a specific way shows a level of learning that goes “beyond input” so to speak.
Human language development it seems is not limited by the type of input received rather what seems to occur is that there is an inherent predilection in language development wherein proper grammar and sentence creation is almost instinctual in the sense that the brain has a distinct predilection towards forming words and sentences in a particular way.
As mentioned earlier the human language has seemingly developed along a particular course that has been dictated by the way in which the brain constructs sentence patterns and as such shows how language is in part influenced by genetics.
On the other hand as it can be seen in the case of computer generated speech all sentences, phrases and methods of communication are all limited by the input placed into the computer program itself.
Without this input there would be no method of communication at all, it is from this particular example that it can be seen that language development and communication itself is inherently dependent on the amount of “input” one receives and as such computer generated speech does not answer the debate regarding nature versus nurture but rather adds “fuel to the fire” so to speak in promoting even more arguments in the debate.
Reference List
Craighead, W., & Nemeroff, C. B. (2001). Corsini Encyclopedia of Psychology and Behavioral Science. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (US).
Johri, A. (2012). Capable and convivial design (CCD): a framework for designing information and communication technologies for human development. Information Technology For Development, 18(1), 61.
Justice, L. (2008). Experimental Evaluation of a Preschool Language Curriculum: Influence on Children’s Expressive Language Skills. Journal Of Speech, Language & Hearing Research, 51(4), 983.
Klass, P. (2011). Hearing Bilingual: How Babies Sort Out Language. New York Times. p. 5.
Morin, J. J. (2010). Why Do Some Children Have Difficulty Learning Mathematics? Looking at Language for Answers. Preventing School Failure, 54(2), 111.
Pellegrini, A. D., & Bjorklund, D. F. (1998). Applied Child Study : A Developmental Approach. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
Plomin, R., & Asbury, K. (2005). Nature and Nurture: Genetic and Environmental Influences on Behavior. Annals Of The American Academy Of Political & Social Science, 600.86-98.
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