Cognitive Development in Early Childhood Learning - Coursework Example

Developmental Psychology Developmental Psychology Limitations of Piaget’s Developmental Theory, Latest Research on Cognitive Development in Early Childhood Learning and Its Implications For Educators Feb. 28, 2009 Limitations of Piaget’s Developmental Theory, Latest Research on Cognitive Development in Early Childhood Learning and Its Implications For Educators Summary Constructivist pedagogy is traditionally based on Piaget’s developmental theory because he played a large role in shaping our understanding of children’s cognition. Piaget’s main idea is that “children are able to solve certain problems only at certain stages and that these problems can be organized into a developmental sequence that defines discrete stages of cognitive development” (Genovese, 2003). Consequently, many constructivists assumed that intrinsic motivation can be applied to any kind of academic task. However, new perspectives and research have challenged these understandings. Also, Insight into how the brain develops and responds to early life experiences and how neural networks are formed and molded by learning processes is of particular interest to early childhood educators. Attempts at ‘deconstructing’ traditional developmental theories have now created a gap between developmental psychology and early education. The fundamental deficiency of the former is that it holds a very narrow perspective of children’s cognitive development because it does not take into account the socio-cultural context. It is also seen to be limited to western and masculine ways of reasoning. In some situations, children’s learning may not be influenced so much by the socio-cultural context, but on the other it may very well be, in which case the learning is given meaning within the context. As for Piaget’s alleged preoccupation with masculine forms of reasoning, it could also be argued that he was actually biased against boys due to his emphasis on verbal rather than spatial explanations for example. Thus it is important to avoid misconstruing the original theories and inadvertently replacing limited assumptions with new biases. Developmental research has now delved deeper into understanding cognition and gone further into providing insights into how the human brain and the content and context of experience are closely related in early development. This has eroded the old dualistic debates between nature and nurture, biology and culture, and self and others. Instead, we now appreciate the unified view of brain biology and environmental experience. The theory of cognitive developmental Psychology has also evolved from a ‘stage’ description of growth of children to one that incorporates the context of their knowledge, interest and learning. As a result, Piaget’s perspective has become simply one of many perspectives applicable in the diverse world we live in. Early childhood educators are now more aware of the wider reality although some even choose to reject developmental research altogether, especially the quantitative methodology. But in fact, any model of cognitive development is unlikely to become fixed because new data and approaches are always ongoing. The research does however provide a medium for the evolution of developmental theories. Actually, developmental psychology tends to pursue “more naturalistic investigations of early development (using both quantitative and qualitative measures)” (Catherwood, 2000) from which we have acquired useful understanding. The development of new methodologies for studying cognitive responses in children, procedures of observing brain activity during cognitive activity and learning, and computer assisted models for trying to understand how the brain develops information networks during early learning experiences, have all enhanced our understanding and perspectives on early cognition. They all address the basic question of how humans develop, particularly with respect to our early stages of conceptualising and verbalising during cognitive development. The technique of habituation and familiarization are very helpful for exploring cognitive processing and abilities during the first year of life, and understanding how the initial capacity develops and matures based on learning and experience. Babies prefer to gaze at something that is not so familiar, and this can be used as a basis for exploring initial cognitive capacities. The criticism however is that the procedure does not take into account the social context. It could be that the child only exhibits a response if sufficiently motivated by conditions outside the experimental context. Nonetheless, although the surrounding environment does have an influence, the experience is that infants tend to display strong cognitive abilities even with little stimulus. In exploring memory using the same technique, even from birth infants show the same inclination towards new and more interesting things. This shows that the familiar item has been memorized. This makes it possible to vary the factors than could affect this response. In exploring the origins of concepts and categories too, infant show greater interest in newer category items whatever they may be. This suggests that the process of identifying categorical similarities begins at the onset of life. These aforementioned experimental methods have contributed immensely to our understanding of early cognitive development, as well as pointing out that Piaget underestimated the cognitive competence of infants. Technology has also greatly assisted us in observing the brain during cognitive processing. This has largely involved the use of EEG, PET, CAT, CT, and MRI etc. These have made it possible to obtain very rich pictures of the brain, and gain a deeper insight into its growth. The use of these technologies with animals has yielded similar information that parallels human development. Whether the findings of research on animals can be generalized for humans has always been questionable but it can still provide useful insight. The realms of psychology, neurophysiology and computer science have created a new discipline of cognitive science. Computer programs can be used to replicate human behavior and development. In this way, they can ‘learn’, and gain ‘experience’ by means of changing their routines to produce new structures and more organized patterns. These experiments with technology also offer insight into the patterns of cognitive learning in children. All of these developments have enabled mankind to make huge advances in understanding how the brain evolves in response to learning and experience. As early childhood educators are involved with supporting this learning and experience, it is important for them to know about these latest findings. As we grow, the neurons in our brain develop branches that spread and connect with other branches. The physical response of the growing brain to learning and experience is understood to be the formation and strengthening of the synaptic links along particular neural paths so that nerve impulses can travel along them more easily. When activation patterns make permanent impressions they become part of our memory and learning. Many functions cause several areas of the brain to activate together. During the child’s first year, the brain makes a great number of neural connections but later on only a proportion of these remain probably because they correspond to the neural pathways used most often. Learning then involves certain nerve connections to be favored over others. And new learning takes place as long as there are ‘spare’ synapses. However, this does not mean that the brain ‘consumes’ its potential for learning early on because there is an enormous amount of synapses in the brain and they are continually reused in various networks to produce more learning. Thus, external stimulation causes learning through either maintaining existing networks or creating new ones. It appears that this is the basic mechanism by which cognition develops. This finding inextricably links the inner workings of the brain to the external content surrounding it. How this knowledge translates in the context of learning is for example, if an existing neural network is aroused by new information it can be incorporated more easily than if the brain needs to make entirely new ones. It is an ongoing research to study specific aspects of cognitive growth and patterns of neural changes. Reaction The traditional developmental-constructivist theories are based on the works of Piaget. However, his ideas have failed to withstand empirical scrutiny. In particular, he wrongly suggested that the formal operational stage began in adolescence. Moreover, adolescents and adults do not exhibit the type of reasoning he described. And, as we have seen, he grossly underestimated the cognitive capacity of infants. A distinction between biologically primary and biologically secondary abilities can serve to better relate Piaget’s ‘conservation tasks’ to the former and ‘combinatorial tasks’ to the latter. So whilst constructivist theorists have given some useful ideas especially on stages of development, their failure to make the above distinction means that they also fail to see situations in which instructional techniques are limiting, and consequently they have a lack of understanding of the real development of cognitive skills. One of the issues raised is the value of applicability of quantitative research. Information obtained from qualitative research is generally regarded as more rich and informative whereas quantitative methods are considered to be limiting. The qualitative research methodology may therefore be more naturalistic in its approach but there are certain situations and conditions that can only be satisfactorily dealt with in a systematic and experimental manner by quantitative techniques. Moreover, the converse could also be the case. For example, we know that Piaget early on made observations of children in specific contexts but these cannot be extrapolated to be equally valid for other contexts. So an experimental approach is more suitable in order to obtain a perspective of children’s learning that is more widely applicable. In other words, as long as the quantitative methodology is used to its full potential in exploring the various factors that can affect learning and development, it can also provide very detailed information. As mentioned in the summary, many research findings obtained by experimental methods have provided us with a greater understanding of early cognitive development. Research on animals and using computer simulation models can be interesting and informative but animals and computers do differ in their natures from humans. The usefulness of such research in applying the findings to humans therefore must take into account their limitations and the methodology must be directed appropriately keeping in mind the purpose of the inquiry. Current research in developmental psychology, especially that related to the learning of children and the how the brain grows during learning, is profoundly informative for educators. The use of detection and imaging technologies is particularly fascinating and supports the quantitative research methodology. We still do not fully know specific correspondences and even small tasks can involve the activation of vast neural networks in diverse areas of the brain. But from what we do know about the latest research and given the educational responsibilities of early childhood teachers, this area of psychology justifies its own continued development. Knowing for example that even babies are able to respond to external stimulus in way that enables it to learn, we could pay greater attention to the design of the environments in which they are placed, and take greater care in offering them suitable sensory stimuli. However, in this case, the infant should also be allowed to explore him/herself according to its own liking. It should also be pointed out though, that the cognitive networks are also closely linked to the affective ones for instance. So emotional well-being also has an important role in cognitive learning. The gist of our aim in educating therefore is to maximize the opportunities for the strengthening of neural pathways in the brains of learners. References Catherwood, Di. (2000) New Views on the Young Brain: offerings from developmental psychology to early childhood education, Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood. Vol. 1(1), pp. 23-35. Genovese, Jeremy E. C. (2003) Piaget, Pedagogy, and Evolutionary Psychology. Evolutionary Psychology, Vol.1, pp. 127-137. Read More