Cognitive and Language Development

Part 1: what is cognitive development?; intelligence and cognitive development - nature versus nurture, nature and nurture; the case of language. Part 2 Jean Piaget (1896-1980): Piaget's theory - the cognitive developmental approach; changing and developing - the adaptation model - assimilation and accommodation; Piaget's method; stages of intellectual development - sensorimotor period, preoperational stage, concrete operational stage, formal operational stage; so why is Piaget's theory still important?. Part 2 Social constructivist theory: Lev Vygotsky (1896-1934); Vygotsky's approach to cognitive development; instruction and intelligence; the zone of proximal development; language and thought - speech and thinking - egocentric speech - Piaget's view, inner speech - Vygotsky's view; language and the zone of proximal development; concept development. Part 4 Bruner's contribution to cognitive development: Bruner's theory of representation; perception, language, instruction and evolution; Piaget, Vygotsky and Bruner - comparisons and contrasts. Part 5 Information processing theory: processing capacity and memory; processing strategies and memory; processing strategies and recall; rule-based strategies; the information-processing approach - summary and conclusion. Part 6 Some issues in cognitive development: thinking about objects and thinking about people; the role of context; adults know best; metacognitive growth - knowing what we know; the child's theory of mind. Part 7 Language development: a brief historical background to the study of language acquisition; the course of language acquisition - the prelinguistic phase, the growth of vocabulary, words and meanings, development of grammar; explanations of language development - the role of learning, information processing; nature versus nurture in language development; the relationship between input and output; are there critical periods for language learning. Part 8 Applications of theories of cognitive development: the impact of Piaget's theory; applications of Vygotsky's theory; the role of language and literacy - classroom communication, reading and writing; applications from an information processing perspective - basic developments in number, language and mathematics.