Cognitive Development and Language Development

cognitive Development and diction DevelopmentWhat berths do record and kick upstairs present in youngsterrens actors line culture?Within this essay I am going to be looking at whether I have in mind, nature or promote has the greatest impact on human forgement, referring to cognitive development and language development. By looking at what different theorizers from the human development field have disc all overed, I depart sire to the conclusion whether nature or nurture wins this manage. I bequeath start finish up by explaining some of the key terms that I will be using, making it easier for myself to reference back to when needed. I will so move onto my first argona of human development, which is cognitive development, and discuss the nature/nativist theories and the nurture/empiricist theories. By talk of the town about a few different key issues, I will because focus on wholeness main(prenominal) theorist for each. Then, moving on to the second ara of huma n development language development, I will do the same thing again. By starting off looking at the different nativist theories, and then focusing on one main theorist, and then looking into the empiricist theories, and focusing on one main theorist. After having looked at all the different views I will be adequate to conclude on whether I think nature or nurture has the greatest impact on human development.Some of the key terms which will assist me in this essay are acquaintance is basically the kind activities that are associated with thinking, knowing and remembering any ideas and horizons that a person has, or memories that are stored are all different types of cognitive processes. Reading and learning is alike a type of cognition.Development burn down either be qualitative or quantitative. It can be qualitative in the sense that you cant invoice the change, but the change is still notice equal. You can develop quantitatively by an increase in height or weight etc. Patter ns of change over time which begin at conception and continue throughout the life span (Keenan, 2006).Cognitive Developmental system, which consists of many different theories, but I will start off by referring to Piagets Cognitive Development Theory. In Piagets theory of cognitive development, is a award theory which consists of different stages of development. Within each stage of development, kidren are put before challenging occurrences which they must then deal with and overcome through their own abilities. After completing the challenge the child is then able to move on to the next stage of cognitive development.Learningis when there is a change in deportment or friendship which has demonstrable from anterior experiences or training. The learning process could be innate, meaning that we are born with the knowledge, or it has been obtained through daily life. Hence, any knowledge or behaviour that we are now in hold of that we were not born with, was somehow learned. Th is has been studied by psychologists in many demeanors, Pavlov with his associative learning he examined the salivation of dogs in reception to meat powder to Skinner with his living theory, that a learner will only repeat the desired behaviour if the behaviour is followed by positive reinforcement rats press a lever in the quest of gaining some kind of reward.Language is something that we use in everyday lives. Theoretically, language is a formal schema of communication which involves a combination of words and/or symbols, whether written or spoken. It is not necessary for another organism to comprehend the language, for it to actually be a language just that it meets the description given.Language Development is a process which starts early in human life, that begins when a person starts to pay back language by learning as it is spoken or by mimicking the person. By four months of age, babies are able to read lips and distinguish between different speech sounds. Language usua lly starts off as meaningless words by simply recalling what others are saying, but as a child grows, the words begin to acquire meaning creating connections between words being formed. As a person gets older, new meanings and new associations are created and vocabulary increases as more words are learned.Nature is the genetics you receive, its something you have ever since you were born, e.g. eye colour. It is something that cannot be influenced by others.Nurture is the effect that the people in your life have on you, and the milieu you are in. It is things that have influenced you whilst growing up, e.g. the media or values taught by your parents.Nature-Nurture is cognise to be one of the longest running debates whether its or genes (nature) or our experiences (nurture) that make us who we are? E.g. If a person commits a violent crime, did they do so because of their genetic makeup (they are genetically pre-wired to be violent) or because of their experiences (e.g., growing up i n an impoverished area, not getting a good education, no parental guidance or some other experience)? This is the nature-nurture debate.Child development is a discipline which aims to identify, to describe and to predict patterns in childrens growth where growth includes intellectual (or cognitive), linguistic, physical, favorable, behavioural and emotional development. (Smidt, 2006), (ARU, 2009)The key theories that are mainly acknowledged within cognitive development include The Stage Theory, carried out by Piaget (nativist), and Scaffolding by Bruner (empiricist). Piaget (1896-1980) researched into childrens learning and conceived that they go through stages and learn in sequences when growing up. He thought that children were active learners and that they used their past experiences as their knowledge for the world and how to deal with previously experienced situations. Piagets theory was first published in 1952, which came from his observation of children, including his own, whom he observed in a natural environment. He imagined that a childs knowledge was composed of schemas knowledge which is used to organise previous experiences, which is referred back to when seek to comprehend new ones. Piagets theory states that cognitive development occurs in four stages, in which when they begin to take place, they follow the same order you are only able to move onto the next stage once the previous stage has been completed. The four stages areResearchers have found that the advanced memory skills in children, mainly in the Formal Operational Stage, are due to memorisation techniques, such as repeating things in hope of memorising them, or categorising them, making it easier to pick out the entropy in future. Vygotsky (1978) states Every function in the childs cultural development appears twice first, on the social level, and later, on the individual level first, between people (interpsychological) and then inside the child (intrapsychological). This applie s equally to voluntary attention, to logical memory, and to the formation of concepts. All the higher(prenominal) functions originate as actual relationships between individuals. His theories were a mix of some(prenominal) nativist and empiricist views. One of Vygotskys central ideas was the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD), which is the difference between the level of potential development and the actual development in a child. He emphasised how social interaction was vital for development from the beginning of their lives. He declared that before enough internal, a function must go through a social stage when developing. Therefore, it is initially social, and then becomes an internal function which is known as internalisation (Vygotsky, 1962).The empiricist views would include Vygotskys theory on the component of culture and social interaction. He stated that socio-cultural environment was important for cognitive development. Being able to experience different contexts create s different forms of development cognitive processes such as thoughts and your imagination develop through social interaction. The matter of social interaction relates back to ZPD, as communicating with other people develops your knowledge further. Bruner (1915- ) developed further on Vygotskys early work, and came up with Scaffolding, which was outlining how an adult assists a child in learning. Adults can aid children to move from where they are, to where they want to go. This is only possible if the child is interested in the situation initially, then they are able to be supported by the adult to further their learning. This is demonstrated in 5 stages, shown in the table below (ARU, 2009)When an adult is assisting a child they are using previous experiences as their knowledge to do so. This is known as the Socio-Cognitive Stage Theory, in which recall is processed in 3 ways. The Enactive Mode, is when things are represented by doing them, the process used to get to the end produ ct. The Iconic Mode is when children are further to record their experiences, therefore making them more memorable. Lastly, the Symbolic Mode, which is where children use symbols and codes to represent and specify the meaning of what they are trying to represent. E.g. writing the number 5 sooner of writing five its a symbol representing the number. Skinner (1905-1990) is another example, who has practiced the importance of empirical learning in development. According to him, learning is characterised by the way a person processes their behaviour, which is then shaped into an experience. He doesnt completely eliminate the role of innate factors, but does argue that the external environment has a higher influence on development. Skinner suggested that if a person is positively reinforced (rewarded) for carrying out a certain action, they are more likely to repeat it again and recall it as a good experience. If a child was to be negatively reinforced (punished) they are highly likely not to repeat the behaviour again as they dont want to be punished, therefore remembering it as a bad experience.I deliberate that a person has to experience an answer physically for them to be able to remember it better and recall it. Therefore, the environment plays a crucial role in cognitive development as it gives you knowledge of whether something is right or wrong, and then this experience is moved into the innate as a memory. Like Skinner suggested, before carrying out an action the child will remember the last time they carried it out, how they had approached the task set ahead of them then, what they have learnt since then, and how they can improve on it now with their recent learning hence the social interaction has led the child to think back using their innate memory. Cognitive development requires some(prenominal) nativist and empiricist approaches to help a child develop their learning.The key theories that are mainly acknowledged within language development inclu de Chomskys Language Acquisition Device, Skinners backing and Banduras Social Learning Theory (SLT). The nativist theory deals with language being an innate feature of a child. Chomsky (1928- ) promotes this theory and came up with his own Language Acquisition Device (LAD). He declared that the top executive to learn language is inborn, suggesting that nature is more important than nurture. His work contributed to the thought that childrens language development is more complex than what is declared by behaviourists, who believe that children can learn language by being rewarded for imitating. However, Chomskys theory does not take into account the influence that cognition and language have on each others development. Nativists believe that if children surrounded by poverty, and brought up in a poverty constricted environment, children are still learning to speak due to their language acquisition device. This leads them to believe that the study of learning focuses on events that c an be observed and measured.Empiricist views of Skinner and Watson, shows that they believed that children come into this world as a blank slate. Therefore, meaning that when a child is born, they have no knowledge at all, and are incapable of doing or knowing anything. They believe that this theory applies to all species. Behaviourist views like this suggest that the role of the environment is vital, and that the process of learning is only successful if there has been a change in behaviour. Moving onto Banduras (1924- ) Social Learning Theory, which suggests people learn from one another by observing their actions and imitating them. This theory is known to be a link between nativist and empiricist views as nativist learning is needed when trying to memorise what you are seeing and embarking on motivation. Most human behaviour is learned observationally through modelling from observing others, one forms an idea of how new behaviours are performed, and on later occasions this coded information serves as a guide for action (Bandura). The conditions which are necessary for this model to take place include, Attention, there are various points which will either increase or decrease the amount of attention you are paying to a situation. This could relate back to Skinner and his reinforcing stimulus theory. Retention, being the second condition, is remembering what you were paying attention to. This can be remembered in different ways such as, images, symbols, coding, or just rehearsing. Reproduction, is being able to reproduce the image, which then leads to Motivation, which occurs when you have a good reason to imitate the previous sequence. Other reasons for this motivation may be incentives, or the speculation compel by the reinforcement theory. Skinner suggested that the associations between a stimuli and the response could explain the behaviour and interaction of a being. He tried to apply his Operant teach to the way language is learnt. The probability of a verbal response was contingent on four things reinforcement, stimulus control, deprivation, and aversive stimulation. The interaction of these things in a childs environment would lead to particular associations, the basis of all language (Skinner 1957).I believe that nurture, is a more effective form of language development. This is because language is a inert process you need to go through various stages of development until you are at a level of individual learning. By watching what an adult is doing, at a young age you observe them and imitate them. Its like watching a carer and a baby having a conversation CARER Hello, what are you doing?BABY (babbles)When talking to the baby, theyll try and converse back, and as they grow older they learn words and their meanings and are able to create sentences. This all comes from some form of social interaction. The nature side of things is important in this matter too as once a child has learnt a word, it needs to be stored and recalle d again when needed to. Therefore, both nature and nurture work together in an effort to create language development.To conclude overall, I believe that both nature and nurture play a vital role in the development of cognitive and language development. The nurture may come first at times to experience the situation or process, which you then will remember and will store it, and then when needed to use again the experience becomes innate and is remembered through the cognition of your brain, becoming your nature. There are many studies that have been carried out to prove that nurture is more vital in the development of these processes, but from my point of view, I dont think there is as much information available on the nature side of things as there is on nurture. There are well known nature theorists out known, taking Piaget for example, but nature theories need to be backed up more strongly with more research being carried out. Reinforcement plays a big role in no matter what you do, if you are negatively reinforced towards a situation, you are likely to not want to go through it again and put that experience at the back of your mind but still have it in your memory for you to be reminded to not act as the scenario. The nature-nurture debate has been studied over for many years, and will probably continue to be for many more years to come but this is strong debate which I believe works together as a pair, and the one needs the other for it to be able to function appropriately.REFERENCEShttp//www.alleydog.com/glossary/definition.phpwww.learning-theories.com/classical-conditioning-pavlov.htmlhttp//www.brookes.ac.uk/services/ocsd/2_learntch/theories.htmlhttp//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_development(2009). Theory of Cognitive Development. 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