This chapter will discuss the intellectual development of children from birth to age 2. Infant cognition differs markedly from that of older children or adults.

1. Piaget's View of Infant Intelligence

1. Jean Piaget refers to the developmental period between birth and age 2 as the sensorimotor stage.
2. Thinking at this age involves getting things done physically by using the senses
3. Babies' cognition is in sharp contrast to the internal, reflective thought processes of adults
4. Adults contemplate, analyze, infer, or imagine, babies just act
5. Piaget's substages:

1. Substage 1

1. In the first substage, from birth to 1 month, babies have a very limited repertoire; they do little more than wiggle reflexively

2. Substage 2

1. During the second substage, between 1 and 4 months, babies begin to engage in primary circular reactions
2. These are actions involving babies' own bodies which are performed by accident but then repeated because they produce interesting sensations
3. These are called circular reactions because the infant as yet has no clear understanding of what causes what

3. Substage 3

1. In substage 3, between 4 and 8 months, babies engage in secondary circular reactions.
2. These are actions that involve other objects: toys, clothing, even parents
3. For example, a baby might grasp a rattle, wiggle it by accident, notice the interesting noise it makes, and keep wiggling

4. Substage 4

1. In substage 4, between 8 and 12 months, significant advancements occur
2. A new kind of action emerges at this substage-the coordination of secondary circular reactions
3. They may reach out, grasp a rattle, shake it, then bang it against a table
4. Babies of this period are, for the first time, able to understand that certain actions cause certain consequences
5. Another kind of thinking that emerges in substage 4 is object permanence-an understanding that objects exist even if they cannot be seen or heard

5. Substage 5

1. Substage 5, from 12 to 18 months, is characterized by increasingly novel actions
2. Infants at this age not only combine previously mastered strategies, but try new ones to achieve their goals
3. Children of substage 5 make further progress in casual thinking and object permanence
4. Although they become more and more competent at distinguishing between actions and consequences or determining what causes what, they still experience confusion

6. Substage 6

1. Substage 6, from 18 to 24 months, is characterized by internalized thought
2. The older toddler can, for the first time, solve problems by thinking them through using mental images
3. At this substage a child studies a problem before acting, and engages in less physical trial and error
4. By substage 6, babies can find objects that were hidden hours or even days earlier
5. One characteristic that persists into toddlerhood is egocentrism
6. This is a type of thinking in which children are unable to understand that there are other viewpoints in the world besides their own
7. Babies view the entire world as being simply a part of themselves
8. It is important for parents and child care providers to understand such limitations in toddlers' thinking
9. Adults need to be very explicit in discussing causes and effects
10. Simply saying "No!" when a child touches something dangerous for example, may not clarify which action caused the reprimand

2. A Multicultural Critique of Piaget's Theory

1. Piaget's descriptions of infant development have been found to be quite accurate
2. The primary challenge to Piaget's work has come from researchers who note that infants have greater cognitive competence than he suggested
3. One reason for Piaget's underestimation of babies' cognitive abilities may be the lack of sophisticated research technology available when he was formulating his theory
4. The most important part of his theory-his descriptions of how and in what order cognitive skills emerge-has held up extremely well over time
5. Piaget's descriptions of infant cognitive development is accurate for babies of any cultural group

3. Other Cognitive Skills in Infancy

1. Memory

1. Babies can remember persons, actions, and objects at a very early age
2. In one study, 8-week-olds were found to remember a learned behavior for up to 2 weeks
3. At periods beyond 2 weeks babies no longer repeated the behavior
4. This suggests that young babies may not remember specific events
5. Instead, they may recollect whole situations, or "spatiotemporal maps"
6. In many studies, babies have been found to acquire impressive visual memory skills by the age of 6 or 7 months
7. Visual memory is an ability to recognize objects that were seen at an earlier time
8. By age 13 months, children have been found to recall complex actions after significant delays
9. In one study, children of this age could reproduce a series of actions (making a track and rolling a toy car down it) even a week after they had observed these actions performed by an adult
10. Adult verbal cues increased the accuracy of infant memory
11. Early experiences appear to stay in children's memories a long time
12. These findings reaffirm the importance of providing positive home and classroom environments for babies
13. These authors suggest that infant memory tasks are a better way to predict later cognitive functioning than traditional infant intelligence tests

2. Infant Pretend Play and Cognitive Development

1. Play is a common activity in infancy
2. One sophisticated form of playing-pretend play-is particularly useful in enhancing intellectual abilities before age 3
3. Play has been defined as any behavior that is nonliteral, intrinsically motivated, self-chosen, and pleasurable
4. These activities make childhood fun, but they are also critical for cognitive development
5. All of the noisemaking and pounding, laughter and surprise, wiggling and bouncing that characterize early social motor play provide unique opportunities for babies to construct their understanding of the world
6. Pretend play is a very useful form of play that emerges in later infancy
7. In this activity, babies transform themselves into make-believe people, animals, or objects
8. Vygotsky argued that this kind of play is practice at symbolizing
9. Symbolizing is a mental activity in which an abstract symbol is used to stand for an idea or an object that is not present
10. Early pretend play is important practice at using symbolic thought
11. Pretend play emerges as early as age 1 and becomes more complex and frequent through toddlerhood
12. Objects are being used to play out events that are not really occurring
13. The objects and actions are symbols, not unlike words and text
14. In the second year, play takes a significant leap forward
15. For the first time, children use objects in their play to represent things that are completely different
16. A wooden rod might be used as a spoon, or a cylinder-shaped block as a cup

4. Variations in Infant Cognitive Development

1. Cognitive development varies among individual infants
2. This variation arises from numerous sources
3. Some children may simply have unique developmental time clocks that cause them to follow their own idiosyncratic paths toward healthy, typical childhood
4. Others have family or community experiences that lead to unique patterns of intellectual growth
5. Some suffer debilitating conditions, such as illness, genetic disorder, or poverty, that influence their cognitive development
6. A group o infants in any given child care setting will likely represent a rich diversity of cognitive styles and abilities
7. Culture and Infant Cognition:

1. Cultural experience can influence cognition in infancy
2. The pace at which babies acquire cognitive skills sometimes varies across cultures
3. It may be that some cultural traditions or socialization practices lead to advancement in certain intellectual abilities
4. The point of cross-cultural research is not to identify successful practices from one culture in order transfer them to another, but rather to gain an understanding and appreciation of rich cultural variation in cognition among babies
5. In some research, problems in the way cognition is tested cause babies of one culture to be found less competent than those of another
6. Findings of cultural differences may be explained by poor estimates of age in some communities
7. Within many cultures, birth dates and precise ages are not considered important
8. Some cultural differences in infant cognition may result from babies' unfamiliarity with the toys or objects used in studies

8. Poverty

1. Poverty is one of the most debilitating conditions for children
2. Infants from impoverished homes are more likely to suffer delays in cognitive development and language
3. The longer babies live in poverty, the more severe these delays
4. Babies of low-income families who live in safer and less crowded homes are more likely to acquire typical cognitive and language competence

9. Nutritional Deficiency

1. Poor nutrition is common among low-income families
2. Babies suffering these conditions perform poorly on measures of infant cognitive development
3. During the crucial period when babies are experiencing rapid brain growth, a lack of nutrients can seriously inhibit neurological development

10. Parenting

1. Parents who are suffering either chronic poverty or sudden economic decline become increasingly punitive and coercive and less supportive and warm over time in interactions with their children
2. Babies whose parents are more positive survive experiences of poverty with little cognitive delay

11. Challenging Conditions and Infant Cognition

1. Other sources of variation in infant cognitive development include illness, injury, genetic disorder, and other challenging conditions
2. The degree to which the disorder affects cognitive growth in infancy is related, to parenting
3. Babies who receive significant social, intellectual, and motor stimulation from parents or other adults will show substantially more advanced cognitive development than babies who do not receive this care
4. Challenging conditions are also caused by problems during birth
5. Babies who suffered oxygen deprivation or hemorrhaging at birth have been found to perform less well on learning tasks at 13 months of age
6. Low birth weight can also affect cognitive development in infancy
7. Home environment and health care greatly influence the outcomes for low-birth-weight babies
8. Medical and social support before, during, and after pregnancy can greatly reduce the negative effects of low birth weight on infant cognition

12. Families, Culture, and Infants with Special Needs

1. Families of infants with special needs can suffer great stress
2. Mothers more often suffer global stressors such as depression, anxiety about day-to-day parenting, or feelings of incompetence
3. Fathers are more narrowly concerned about poor attachment; they are most likely to worry that they will not come to love or bond with their child because of challenging conditions
4. A number of factors have been found to reduce stress in families of infants with special needs
5. Extensive child and family services, including early educational intervention, home visitation by professionals, and parent support groups, can reduce parent anxiety
6. Informal social support from relatives and friends is also related to family adjustment; parents who are aided by grandparents or caring neighbors will cope more successfully
7. Families of infants with milder conditions will experience less stress

13. Early Intervention

1. The negative influence of some of the factors we have described may be reduced through early intervention
2. Nutritional Intervention:

1. A number of studies have shown that the negative effects of poverty, malnutrition, and low birth weight are significantly reduced by providing nutritional guidance and resources to mothers during pregnancy and food supplements to their infants after they are born
2. In a study in the US, prenatal nutrition and health care were found to reduce preterm deliveries and low birth weight, as well as the cognitive difficulties associated with these conditions

3. Family and Parent Interventions

1. Effective parent interactions are associated with positive infant cognitive development, especially among babies with special needs
2. Parent education programs must recognize that there are many ways to show warmth, provide stimulation, and respond to babies' needs, and must appreciate the wide rage of approaches to caregiving found across cultural groups

4. Educational Interventions

1. Infant education programs have been found to be especially effective for at-risk children
2. These programs have been found to produce long-term positive results for children with Down syndrome or other genetically derived challenging conditions
3. One source of variation in infant cognitive development, then, is the availability of nutritional, family, and educational services