Cognitive and Motor Development

There is a strong relationship

between human intellectual function and movement: Any intellectual change is

also accompanied by a change

in motor function

Four Domains

• Affective• Cognitive• Motor• Physical

Why organize into domains?

Interaction

CognitiveDevelopment

Motor Development

The mind (psych) and human movement (motor) are related

Psychomotor or Motor?

• Motor– Refers to any form of human movement

behavior• Reflex movement• Psychomotor

• Psychomotor– Movements initiated by an electrical

impulse from higher brain centers

How does our gradually changing motor ability affect our cognitive development?

How does our evolving cognitive development affect our motor development?

Cognitive Development

• Jean Piaget– Swiss psychologist– Interested in the

process of thinking– Established the

clinical method of research

• Collected data during question-and-answer sessions

"Piaget, Jean," Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia 2001

http://encarta.msn.com © 1997-2001 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

1896-1980

Cognitive Development

• Piaget’s Theory– Four major stages of cognitive development

• Sensorimotor • Preoperational • Concrete operational • Formal operational

• Interaction of cognitive and motor development is found in Piaget’s Theory

Stages of Piaget’s Theory

Stage Age/Period of Occurrence

Sensorimotor Birth to 2 years

Preoperational 2 to 7 years

Concrete operational

7 to 11 years

Formal operational Early to mid-adolescence

11 to 12 years

Piaget’s Theory

• Adaptation– Cognitive development occurs thorugh

this process– Adjusting to the demands of the

envirnoment and intellectualizing those adjustments

– Two facets of adaptation• Assimilation• Accommodation

Piaget’s Theory

• Assimilation– Process by which children attempt to

interpret new experiences based upon their present interpretation of the world

Piaget’s Theory

• Assimilation – Child tries to grab a large ball with one

hand– His experiences of the past tell him that

he can use one hand to grab hold of an object because it worked with rattles and smaller objects

– The child assimilates his past experiences

Piaget’s Theory

• Accommodation– Adjustments or modifications in the

thinking process which will become a part of a child’s new cognitive repetoire

– Using the same example, when the child is unable to grasp the ball, he may try to adjust or accommodate by using two hands or even adapting the one-handed grasp

Criticisms of Piaget’s Theory

• Theory lacks scientific control

• Piaget used his own children to study

• Subjects were not studied across the lifespan

• Piaget may have underestimated a child’s capabilities

• Theory does not discern between competency and performance

• Theory does not account for the influence of motivation and emotion

• Stages of developoment were too broad

• Developoment is described, but never explained

Criticisms of Piaget’s Theory

• Most criticized aspect of the theory is that formal operational thought can be achieved as early as 11 years of age– Did not account for adult development in his

theory

• Now known that cognitive development continues throughout adulthood

Criticisms of Piaget’s Theory

• Lack of motivation• Verbal ability• Memory• Lack of familiarity with

task• Peer pressure

• Social influences– Peers– Teachers– Siblings

• Child’s emotional state

If a child performed poorly on a task, Piaget attributed this to a lack of intellectual competency

However, there are a other reasons for not performing a task well:

Infancy ~ Sensorimotor Stage

• Intelligence develops as a result of movement actions and their consequences

• Movement is critical to thought processes

• Six substages

Infancy ~ Sensorimotor Stage

Substage Age of Occurrence1. Exercise of reflexes Birth to 1 month

2. Primary circular reactions 1 to 4 months

3. Secondary circular reactions 4 to 8 months

4. Secondary schemata 8 to 12 months

5. Tertiary circular reactions 12 to 18 months

6. Invention of new means through mental combinations

18 to 24 months

Infancy ~ Sensorimotor Stage

Exercise of Reflexes Substage– Birth through 1 month– Repetition of reflexes helps child to

form the foundation for cognitive understanding

Reflexive movements are innate and lead to new behaviors

Infancy ~ Sensorimotor Stage

Primary Circular Reactions Substage– Onset of increased voluntary movement– End of month 1-month 4

Called circular and primary because movements always occur in close proximity to the infant– Conscious effort to repeat movements

Infancy ~ Sensorimotor Stage

Secondary Circular Reactions Substage– 4 month - 8 months– Continuation of primary circular reactions

• The infant’s interaction with the environment expands

• Child begins to integrate vision, hearing, grasping and movement behaviors

• Can imitate behaviors• No permanence – remove object – object is gone

Infancy ~ Sensorimotor Stage

Secondary schemata substage– 8 months to 1 year– Past movement actions applied to new

situations – New behaviors emerge

New behaviors are facilitated by increasing movement capabilities such as crawling and creeping which allow exploration of the environment

Infancy ~ Sensorimotor Stage

Secondary schemata substage– Repetition of experimentation and trial-

and-error exploration continue– Child can predict some actions and

situations– Roll ball to child – he crudely roles it

back – he anticipates you rolling the ball to him again

– The ability to predict (Piaget) is the onset of intellectual reasoning

Infancy ~ Sensorimotor Stage

Tertiary circular reactions substage– 1 year -11/2 years– Use of active experimentation to learn– Child realizes that discovery of an object

and use of the object are separate entities

– First level of visualizing an object beyond its immediate use

Infancy ~ Sensorimotor Stage

Tertiary circular reactions substage– Child sees the ball and knows she can

have fun, but also realizes she does not have to play with it right now – it will be there later

– Can distinguish self from others

– Seeks immediate family members for help• Social and emotional development

Infancy ~ Sensorimotor Stage

Invention of new means through mental combinations substage– 11/2 years - 2 years– Child recognizes objects and others as

independent from himslef– Child is beggining to understand

properties of objects• Size, shape, color, texture, weight, use, etc.

Infancy ~ Sensorimotor Stage

Invention of new means through mental combinations substage– Semimental functioning

• “thinking with the body” is replaced with “thinking with the mind”

– Child reflects

Summary: Infancy ~ Sensorimotor Stage

• Increasing awareness of the difference between the self and others

• Recognition that objects continue to exist even though they are no longer in view

• Production of the mental images that allow the contemplation of the past, present, and future

Childhood ~ Preoperational Stage (2-7 years)

– Verbal communication begins to emerge

– Language development is the most important aspect of Preoperational Stage

– Linked to motor abilities

– Children are unable to think logically

Preconceptual substage (2-4 years)– Ability to use symbols to represent someone or

something in the child’s life

– Pretend play common• Role play

– Egocentrism• A serious deficiency in the Preconceptual

substage Play helps child to socialize and work with others

Childhood ~

Preoperational Stage (2-7 years)

Preconceptual substage (2-4 years)– Flawed thinking

• Drooping flower is sad – unrealistic – flawed thinking

– Transductive reasoning• A form of flawed thinking• Incorrect assumptions• Missed breakfast, so it can’t be morning

Childhood ~

Preoperational Stage (2-7 years)

Intuitive substage (4-7 years)– Reduced egocentrism– Improvement in the use of symbols– Child is incapable of “conservation”

• Ability to realize that certain properties of a substance remain unchanged when the appearance is rearranged

Child cannot consider multiple aspects of a problem

Childhood ~

Preoperational Stage (2-7 years)

Later Childhood ~ Concrete Operational Stage (7-11 years)

– Must gain ability to conserve first

– Enhanced ability to decenter attention from one variable in a problem solving situation

– Reversibility ~ Able to mentally modify, organize, or even reverse thought processes

– Children in the concrete operation stage can reverse the order of the ball as they go through the tube

– Preoperational stage children will see no difference in ball order

Rev

ersi

bili

tyLater Childhood ~ Concrete Operational Stage (7-11 years)

• Seriation– Ability to arrange a set of variables by a

certain characteristic• Child’s height can determine position in a

game of basketball

• Piaget emphasized that learning can be enhanced through movement

Later Childhood ~ Concrete Operational Stage (7-11 years)

Later Childhood ~ Formal Operational Stage (11-12 years)

• Ability to consider ideas that are not based on observable objects or experiences

• Abstract ideas are possible

• Interpropositional thought– Applicable to complex movement– A logical relationship exists between two

propositions

• Enhanced level of cognitive ability – Allows child to relate one or more parts

of a proposition or situation to another part to arrive at a solution to a problem

Later Childhood ~ Formal Operational Stage (11-12 years)

• Hypothetical-deductive reasoning– A problem-solving style that allows child

to choose between possible solutions and then pick the best one

– Aids in emotional development and emerging values

• Child ponders – “do I follow the crowd; do I want to be fit in”

Later Childhood ~ Formal Operational Stage (11-12 years)

Adulthood ~ Postformal Operations

– Answers become more relative and less absolute

– Thrive on detecting inconsistencies in ideas and attempt to reconcile them

– Advanced thinking exists in a minority of people who are also highly educated and live in a culture that encourages new ideas and freethinking

– New questions are discovered

Adulthood ~ Theories ~ Intellectual Development• A lifestyle that involves movement can

play an important role in the effort to allay the decline of intellect

• Physical activity increases motor neuron size and decreases neural synapse density

• Reaction time and cognitive performance improve in those who exercise

Declarative knowledge– Factual information– What to do– Found in a novice performer

Procedural knowledge– Production system– How to do something– Found in an expert performer

Knowledge Development and Sport Performance

Knowledge Development and Sport Performance

“development of sport-specific declarative knowledge is related to the development of cognitive decision-making skills or procedural knowledge, whereas development of shooting skill and dribbling skill are related to the motor execution components of control and execution”

(French & Thomas, 1987)

In other words - children learn “what to do” in a given situation before they acquire the physical skills (how to do) to carry out their strategic plan successfully

Knowledge Development and Sport Performance