Child Development 137 (1):

Cognitive Development

Fall 2001

Dr. Weissman

Group Discussion: What have we learned?

Your Name:

Group members:

____________________________________________________________________________________________________

On pages 21-22 of Children’s Thinking, Siegler presented 8 themes of children’s thinking that you were to keep in mind as you were reading through the text and participating in class. These themes were again reviewed in Chapter 10 of the text. Work with your group to come up with one or two sentences that summarize what we have learned about each of the themes. Bring this completed sheet to class next Thursday, it will count for a total of 16 points of Exam 3!

1.   The major themes of development are “What develops?” and “How does development occur?”

2.   4 change processes that play a role in cognitive development are automatization, encoding, generalization, and strategy construction.

3.   Infants are cognitively competent—even if they don’t look to be.

4.   Differences tend to be of degree rather than kind. Infants are more competent than we give them credit for, and sometimes adults are less competent than we give credit for.

5.   Thinking does not occur independently of everything else. Their previous knowledge and impressions influences both how and what they learn.

6.   Intelligence (cognition) results from changes in brain structure and changes in use of cognitive resources.

7.   The social world plays a role in cognitive development. 

8.   Understanding children’s thinking advances theory and practice.