COGNITIVE AND LANGUAGEDEVELOPMENT

COGNITIVE AND LANGUAGEDEVELOPMENT

1. what is development?

   • The pattern of biological, cognitive, and socioemotional processes that begins at conception and continues through the life span. Most development involves growth, although it also eventually involves decay (dying).
     • Cognitive processes involve changes in the child’s thinking, intelligence, and language.
     • Socioemotional processes involve changes in the child’s relationships with other people, changes in emotion, and changes in personality.
     • Biological processes produce changes in the child’s body and underlie brain development, height and weight gains, motor skills, and puberty’s hormonal changes. Genetic inheritance plays a large part.

2. Developmental cognitive neuroscience

   • Explores links between development, cognitive processes, and the brain

3. Developmental social neuroscience

   • Examines connections between socioemotional processes, development, and the brain

4. DEVELOPMENTAL ISSUES

   • nature-nurture issue
     • Nature refers to an organism’s biological inheritance, nurture to environmental influences. The “nature” proponents claim biological inheritance is the most important influence on development; the “nurture” proponents claim environmental experiences are the most important
   • continuity-discontinuity issue
     • The issue regarding whether development involves gradual, cumulative change (continuity) or distinct stages (discontinuity).
   • early-later experience issue
     • The issue of the degree to which early experiences (especially infancy) or later experiences are the key determinants of the child’s development.

5. Splintered development

   • The circumstances in which development is uneven across domains
     • By example
       • One student may have excellent math skills but poor writing skills. Within the area of language, another student may have excellent verbal language skills but not have good reading and writing skills. Yet another student may do well in science but lack social skills.