Lesson 9: Early Cognitive Development: Information Processing


Attention

(Well, you wouldn't imagine that I would use a picture of a computer that was NOT an Apple?!)

The Information Processing (IP) perspective actually arose our of our development of computer technology. Deep thinkers in the field began to speculate if our CREATION (computers) was actually a fairly good representation of the CREATOR (us).

The analogies of memory, processing speed, input, output, overload, capacity, etc are all terms related to both comptuers and to the Information Processing perspective.


Learning Outcomes

Upon completion of this lesson's material, students will be able to:

  • Identify the four major processes associated with the IP perspective
  • Compare and contrast the IP perspective with Piaget's Genetic Epistemology

Teaching

Information Processing

The IP perspective examines the development of specific cognive qualities. Concepts related to an understanding of development from this perspective include:

  • Attention
  • Learning (Classical Conditioning, Operant Conditioning, and imitation)
  • Memory (including Autobiographical Memory)
  • Learning Numbers and Language

The Information Processing model is another way of examining and understanding how children develop cognitively. This model, developed in the 1960's and 1970's, conceptualizes children's mental processes through the metaphor of a computer processing, encoding, storing, and decoding data.

By ages 2 to 5 years, most children have developed the skills to focus attention for extended periods, recognize previously encountered information, recall old information, and reconstruct it in the present. For example, a 4-year-old can remember what she did at Christmas and tell her friend about it when she returns to preschool after the holiday. Between the ages of 2 and 5, long-term memory also begins to form, which is why most people cannot remember anything in their childhood prior to age 2 or 3.

Part of long-term memory involves storing information about the sequence of events during familiar situations as "scripts". Scripts help children understand, interpret, and predict what will happen in future scenarios. For example, children understand that a visit to the grocery store involves a specific sequences of steps: Dad walks into the store, gets a grocery cart, selects items from the shelves, waits in the check-out line, pays for the groceries, and then loads them into the car.

Children ages 2 through 5 also start to recognize that are often multiple ways to solve a problem and can brainstorm different (though sometimes primitive) solutions.

Between the ages of 5 and 7, children learn how to focus and use their cognitive abilities for specific purposes. For example, children can learn to pay attention to and memorize lists of words or facts. This skill is obviously crucial for children starting school who need to learn new information, retain it and produce it for tests and other academic activities. Children this age have also developed a larger overall capacity to process information. This expanding information processing capacity allows young children to make connections between old and new information. For example, children can use their knowledge of the alphabet and letter sounds (phonics) to start sounding out and reading words. During this age, children's knowledge base also continues to grow and become better organized.

Metacognition is "the ability to think about thinking", is another important cognitive skill that develops during early childhood. Between ages 2 and 5 years, young children realize that they use their brains to think. However, their understanding of how a brain works is rather simplistic; a brain is a simply a container (much like a toy box) where thoughts and memories are stored. By ages 5 to 7 years, children realize they can actively control their brains, and influence their ability to process and to accomplish mental tasks. As a result, school-age children start to develop and choose specific strategies for approaching a given learning task, monitor their comprehension of information, and evaluate their progress toward completing a learning task. For example, first graders learn to use a number line (or counting on their fingers) when they realize that they forgot the answer to an addition or subtraction problem. Similarly, children who are learning to read can start to identify words (i.e., "sight words") that cannot be sounded out using phonics (e.g, connecting sounds with letters), and must be memorized.

(taken from www.mentalhelp.net)

Language Development

Click HERE to download a great document on the expected milestones of Early Language Development.

Early Cognitive Development

Click HERE to review a recent article in the New York Times about early childhood cognitive development. (HERE is a link to the same article on the web)

Click HERE to view a video related to this article.


Assessment

Lesson 9 Quiz

The major difference between Piaget's theory and the notions in Information Processing is that one (Piaget) describes QUALITATIVE changes in a person's thinking while the other (Information Processing) describes QUANTITATIVE changes in a person's thinking. Think back to your early years of school and describe two learning activities that you believe were created to develop your thinking. One should clearly be designed to develop the QUALITY of your thinking (along the lines of Piaget) while the other should be clearly designed to develop the QUANTITY of your thinking. Be sure to explain each one clearly.

  1. Example of an activity that develops the QUALITY of your thinking.
  2. Example of an activity that develops the QUANTITY of your thinking.