Computational Models and Theories of Development - Essay Example

COMPUTATIONAL MODELS AND CONSTRUCTIVIST THEORIES Cognitive development refers to the development and growth of human intelligence and mental capabilities that support him performing the obligations and solving the problems of intellectual concern. Cognitive development, Marcy Driscoll (1994) views, is the transformation of a child’s undifferentiated, unspecialized cognitive abilities into the adult’s conceptual competence and problem solving skill. (Quoted in Pam Silverthorn, 1999) Theorists vary in opinion in respect of cognitive development process in humans. Some of them are of the view that an individual’s innate abilities help him, under the natural process, in respect of his physical and mental growth. On the other hand, few theorists declare it the outcome of child’s interaction with his environment, from where he learns how to act, react and behave at some specific situation. Several theories have been articulated on cognitive development, and researches have been made on different aspects of development in children; four of which have most significant influence on the language skill as well as kindergarten learning process during the initial years of children. These theories include Nativist, Maturationist, Environmentalist and Constructivists ones. Since the study of personality development is an exceedingly complex phenomenon, several theories have been articulated on the question of how a personality passes through different phases of growth from childhood to adolescence, and what are the components which determine transformations in a child from premature years to maturity. In addition, theorists analyse whether the behaviour in people is a learned one or man’s behaviours are due to uncontrollable genetic impulses. Also, variation in intensity of aggression and violence among people is due to difference in their hormones. “The only influence”, Cervone views, “which parents would have on their children’s personality is a biological one. They pass their genes on to their children. According to the trait theories, parents’ interpersonal interactions with their children would exert little effect on the child’s personality development.”(2001) Various cognitive theories have been articulated in order to examine the role of nature vs. nurture in the development of a personality. All the cognitive schools of thoughts have different views and ideas on child development process, though constructivist theory won imperative popularity and wonderful applause more than the comparatives theories. Piaget and Vygotsky are the pioneers and representatives of the Constructivist school of thought. Both of them have similarities and dissimilarities in their views. Before discussing divergent aspects of child development, it is necessary to define cognitive psychology. “Cognitive psychology”, Anderson views, “attempts to understand the nature of human intelligence and how people think. The study of cognitive psychology is motivated by scientific curiosity, by the desire for practical applications, and by the need to provide a foundation for other fields of social science.” (1990:2) Language is stated as one of the most significant methods of communication as well as displaying one’s conveying abilities, and exchanging and expressing one’s views. “The significance of language”, Nietzsche opines, “for the evolution of culture lies in this, that mankind sets up in language a separate world beside the other world, a place it took to be so firmly set that, standing upon it, it could lift the rest of the world off its hinges and make itself master of it.” (Quoted in wordspy.com) The development of language, grammar, spellings and sequence of acquisition among children and adolescents has been the subject of vital interest among researchers and theorists. Brown (1973) conducted a comprehensive research on language acquisition and identified five stages of language development. The first stage, according to him, is generally characterised by two-word utterances in the form of telegraphic speech. In the same way, a child learns more words and small and simple phrases as he imitated by hearing from others during the second stage of language acquisition. “English speaking children”, Marcus views, “use past tense constructions such as goes instead of went, breaked, in place of broke, seed instead of saw and like.” (1992: 57) Children learn to alter uncomplicated sentences at the third stage of language learning, and learn how to use negative as well as interrogative forms while making a speech. Similarly, a child learns to use more skilled and complicated terms in speaking language during fourth and fifth stages of learning. The second part of Piaget’s articulation consists of development theory that is in support of his statement that a child can learn many things including arithmetic and alphabets etc because of his innate abilities, and it is not possible to teach and give him information, which he absorbs and acquires naturally. On the contrary, Vygotsky is of the opinion that cognitive development is dependent of culture rather nature; and it is culture from where an individual seeks development of mind and behaves out of the learned behaviour from society. Vygotsky lays stress upon the significant role of culture and society n respect of mental development. He opines that a child’s intellect grows due to his interaction with culture and society. All the thinking and knowledge child obtains is acquired while interactions with his surroundings. Researchers strongly believe in the fact that use of some specific words and terms by the children are an outcome of their imitation of the same words used by their parents while interacting with them. “The child’s language”, Schacter & Strage state, “develops most from everyday communication with adults who seek to communicate—that is to understand and to be understood.” (1982: 67) Man generally takes after his parents in physical features and inner qualities. These traits can be observed even at the time when a child is in the cradle. Innate characteristics play dominant part in the development of a personality. A child does not learn how to cry and how to demand for food. Most of the habits and features in man’s nature are involuntary which can hardly be evaded. The Natural Theory of Development states that people behave under the commands of instinct as they are mere animals. All their actions and reactions are made because of their inborn qualities against which they should not be taken to account. “Concrete behavioural traits”, Pinker observes, “reflect the underlying talents and temperaments—how proficient with language a person is, how religious, how liberal or conservative—are partially heritable.” (2004). On the contrary, the Nurturists emphasise on environment and social interaction as the basic source leading towards personality development. The Natural theory is articulated by Descartes, French theorist in 17th century which holds that innate qualities in individuals help them in assessing and estimating the world. He emphatically lays stress on natural characteristics that make a personality. Hobbes, belonging to Nurturist school of thought, conversely focuses on individual experiences that grow a personality. The researchers maintain divergent opinions in this regard. Throughout early childhood, Craig & Baucum argue, children rapidly expand their vocabularies, their use of grammatical forms, and their understanding of language as a socio-cultural activity. (2002: 261) The Nativists emphatically lay stress on the natural propensity of children regarding learning of language, alphabets, arithmetic and relevant knowledge. Both the Nativists and Maturationist theorists believe that the cognitive development is a biological process, and all the healthy (normal) children get it as long as they grow physically. The theorists including Arnold Gessel and others believe that the cognitive development occur naturally and automatically. “School readiness, according to maturationists, DeCos quotes, is a state at which all healthy young children arrive when they can perform tasks such as reciting the alphabet and counting; these tasks are required for learning more complex tasks such as reading and arithmetic. (1997) On the other hand, constructivists are of the view that development in children is not the outcome of biological process only; rather it is their interaction with the other members of society which play the vital role in the learning process. Parents, teachers and peer groups help the children in learning language, counting and seeking basic knowledge and information about the things in their surroundings. The anthropological researches prove the very fact that it is environment that teaches humans to behave like animals as well as speak as he observes others during speech. A true story of twentieth century reveals the life of two savage sisters named Kamala and Amala, aged eight and one and half years respectively, who where discovered by A. L. Singh in India in 1920. Singh had found a she-wolf with her cubs, among which two of them were come out to be human girls. Both the girls were taken to an orphanage in Mindapore and were observed eating raw meat, licking the liquid and walking on the four instead of walking erect like normal human beings. They contained all the characteristics a wolf possesses and were very fast like squirrels in mobility. They could not speak even a single word, but only could howl and growl like wolves. lThey tried to attack the humans as soon as they found them and displayed all the methods prone to a wolf. They could not survive among humans and the younger died very soon within one year, though the elder lived for more years. (Quoted in Audiblox.com) American Philosopher and Psychologist George Herbert Mead had articulated his synthesis of "Mind, Self and Society". According to Meads synthesis human mind, social synthesis and structure of society work in combination to develop human behavior. The theory submits that it is the individuals biological needs that support him making adjustments in an environment how much unsuitable they look in the beginning. Secondly, the desire to survive forces individuals co-operate with the other objects of his environment. "Human mind", mead states, "has capacity to use symbols in order to designate objects in the environment as well as to rehearse covertly alternative lines of action towards these objects; similarly, his mind inhibits inappropriate lines of action and select a proper course of overt action. The Swiss biologist Jean Piaget and Russian psychologist Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky were the theorists to advance the constructivist theory of Cognitive development in children. According to which the cognitive development starts in children with their interaction with the environment and people around them. It is necessary for a child’s development, according to them, that he must interact with other individuals of society. The theory is different from the Maturationist school of thought. Constructivists’ views are also different from the views of Environmentalist perspective. Environmentalists believe that it is the environment that forms and develops the behaviours of human beings. All the learning process is dependent of environment and surroundings of children. And learning is, according to them, a reaction to the environment. Many environmentalist-influenced educators and parents believe that young children learn best by rote activities, such as reciting the alphabet over and over, copying letters, and tracing numbers. (Quoted in learningandteaching.com) Piaget is one of the greatest researchers who worked on cognitive development. His research was based on the innate ability of learning in humans. He views that the ability of doing abstract symbolic reasoning distinguishes humans from animals. Human have the abilities to symbolize the abstract things around them, which animal are unable to do. Piaget was also keen to observe how a child’s mind perceive and learn from the outer world. During his researches on children, he came to know that young children’s reply vary to that of the older ones. He conducted researches on child psychology and defined the stages of development in children. According to him, there are four stages in children for the development of the basic cognitive competencies. These stages include: i) sensory motor stage, (from birth to 2 years) ii) preoperational stage, (from 2 years to 6/7 years), iii) concrete operational stage, (from 6/7 t0 11/12 years of age) and iv) formal operational stage (from 11/12 years to adulthood). He further describes that major intellectual changes during childhood. In his words: “There are two basic classes of explanation for why children perform better on various intellectual tasks as they get order: One is that they think better and the other is that they know better.”(Piaget: 1952, quoted in Anderson, 1990:412) Piaget has also clarified his point of view by using the terms adaptation, assimilation and accommodation. Adaptation refers to the moulding oneself to the world by assimilation and accommodation. Assimilation is said to be the way of absorbing material from one’s environment, while accommodation is the difference made to ones mind or concepts by the process of assimilation.   According to him, child not only learns from the outer world, but also he has natural mental capabilities to behave on specific occasions. As Vygotsky also belongs to the constructivist school of thought so, his ideas are often compared with those of Piaget. He differs to some extent from Piaget in respect of cognitive theory and states that it is social interaction that influences cognitive development in children and biological developments can be made only by interacting with the individuals. Vygotsky has articulated his famous concept of Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) in which he emphatically declares that a child imitates his elders in early childhood, and on the basis of this imitation and learning process, can perform an obligation without the support of the elders. He further elaborates the difference between the ability and disability of performing something without help and guidance and calls this difference the zone of proximal development. Interaction of a child with other individuals both at home and at school helps him learn the way of communication within the framework of the model he has developed while doing something. His concept got worthwhile acknowledgement in the field of education, and his methodology has been exercised in classrooms all over the globe. Vygotsky is of the view that there is a range of tasks which can be performed by students independently; and after this they need the help of others to perform his obligation. In his words: “What children can do with the assistance of others is even more indicative of their mental development than what they can do alone.” (1978:85). In other words, mental growth cannot obtain development in isolation as much it obtained while interacting with the other members of society. For Vygotsky the ‘zone of proximal development’ was related to the process of interaction between scientific and everyday subjects, however, more recent scholars have focused their attention on the establishment of a shared world, or the inter subjectivity between a learner and an instructor through the process of negotiation of meanings (Wertsch 1985:158–66.Quoted in Gluck & Draism, 1997). A child learns language and counting at school and tries to follow the instructions of teacher and instructor. It sometimes happens that the question is beyond his mental capability. But the presence of instructor and his classmates helps him solve even a difficult question too. His teacher and peers control his learning activity, and provides him with a proper guideline to evade errors and mistakes. According to the ZPD theory, it is instructor who takes the initiative and guides the student how to solve the question. As soon as the instructor feels that the student is able enough to solve it independently, he gives him some other questions a bit difficult from the previous one, where the student applies mind and solves it correctly by following the patterns of his instructor. The children use the words in speaking which they listen from others in their environment. “This social use of language”, Goodman (1990) states, “forms the basis for literacy.” The language used by a child represents his environment and culture under which he is completing his socialization and learning process. Famous cultural theorist Newman is of the view that the activities included in the ZPD reflect the cultural background of the learner. (1989). Man is always undergoing the learning process from birth till death. This learning process is reciprocal. When a child interacts with other members of society, he learns from their behaviour and mutual sets of attitude develop. Interference theory is also related to the cognitive behaviour and learning process of individuals and has an important place in the subject of memory. The theory elaborates the basic causes of forgetfulness of ideas, events and material from the mind. According to the theory, forgetting in respect of one matter takes place due to the fact that individuals remind and recall the other things in their mind that pushes the thing one has neglected under the pile of forgetfulness. There are many kinds of interference theory including proactive, retroactive and output interference. There are two categories of people: one those who are forward-looking and remain in the future by making plans of the coming days; and the others who are retrospective and spend most of their time remembering their past days of life. Proactive interference is related to retrospection, where the past memories overcome the new learning process and individual feels it quite hard to learn and memorise new phenomenon. On the other hand, retroactive interference takes place where new learning makes the individual forgetful of all which he had learnt in past. Retroactive interference plays an important role in developing or mitigating false memory as well. Since false memory is based on an event of learning which has been taken place in the past life of the individual, retroactive interference may be supportive in wiping it out it significantly. Nevertheless, it is impossible for a person to forget his past memories altogether. "It is fact beyond doubt that we never do really lose our memories—that forgotten memories are still there but are too weak to be revived." (Anderson, 1990:175) Relatively modern research on interference theory has focused primarily on retroactive interference effects. “After receipt of new information that is misleading in some way, people make errors when they report what they saw. The new, post-event information often becomes incorporated into the recollection, supplementing or altering it, sometimes in dramatic ways. New information invades us, like a Trojan horse, precisely because we do not detect its influence. Understanding how we become tricked by revised data about a witnessed event is a central goal of this research. (Loftus EF, 1985: 7) BIBLIOGRAPHY Anderson, J. R. (1990) Cognitive Psychology And Its Implications. Third Edition, W.H. Freeman & Company, New York. Cervone, Dr. (2001). Parental Influences on Personality: A Comparison of Trait and Phenomenological Theories. An unpublished Thesis submitted to the Department of Psychology. Craig, Grace J. & Baucum, Don. (2002) Human Development. Ninth Edition Prentice Hall Upper Saddle River New Jersey DeCos, (1997). Quoted in www.pathways Home.com. Eysenck, Hans. (2004). Biological Components of Personality. Quoted in www.AllPsych.com Knezek, Malia. (1997).Nature vs. Nurture: The Miracle of Language, Exploring the Mind, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina http://www.duke.edu/~pk10/EM.htm Loftus EF. Eyewitness Testimony. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1979.; McCloskey M, Zaragoza M. Misleading postevent information and memory for events: Arguments and evidence against memory impairment hypotheses. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 114, 1-16, 1985. Marcus, G. F., Pinker, S., Ullman, M., Hollander, M., Rosen, T. J. & Ku Fei, T. J. (1992) Overregularisation in Language Acquisition Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development Piaget, J (1952) The Origin of Intelligence in Children, International University Press, NY. Pinker, S. (2004) Why nature & nurture wont go away. Roberts B.W, and Helson, R. March, 1997. Changes in culture, changes in personality: the influence of individualism in a longitudinal study of women. Department of Psychology, University of Tulsa, Oklahoma 74104-3189, USA. Sutherland, Edwin H. 1976. Criminology. International University Press, NY. Schacter, F. & Strage, A. (1982) Adult’s Talk and Children’s Language Development Volume 3 Schmidt, Thomas E. (1995). The Great Nature-Nurture Debate. Zaidi, Mujtaba Haider. (1999). Biological and Sociological Causes of Perversion. An article published in psychological review, University of the Punjab, Lahore. http://www.age-of-the sage.org/psychology/nature_nurture.html http://www.audiblox2000.com/learning_disabilities/feral.htm Read More