The Child as Thinker: The Development and Acquisition of Cognition in Childhood

484 Pages·1993·2.39 MB·English

by  Sara Meadows

The child as thinker
The study of children’s thinking is an extremely lively area. An enormous number
of studies are being produced, and new ways of understanding the findings are
proliferating. The Child as Thinker provides an informed and accessible overview
of this whole area.
After a brief discussion of the nature and subject of cognition, Meadows reviews
children’s thinking in detail. She discusses the ways children remember and organise
information in general, the acquisition of skills such as reading, writing and
arithmetic, and the development of more complex reasoning as children grow to
maturity.
As well as studies that typically describe a generalised child, Meadows also
reviews some of the main areas relevant to individual differences in normal cognitive
development, and examines three major models of cognitive development. In
outlining the work of Piaget, information-processing accounts and neo-Vygotskian
theories, she also evaluates their different explanations of cognitive development
and their implications for education. Finally, the book examines biological and
social factors that may be involved in normal and suboptimal cognitive development.
Meadows provides an important review of the crucial issues involved in
understanding cognitive development and of the new data and models that have
emerged in the last few years. Her book brings together areas and approaches that
have hitherto been independent, and examines their strengths and weaknesses.
The Child as Thinker will be required reading for all students of cognitive
development and psychology.
Sara Meadows is Lecturer in Education at the University of Bristol.

The child as thinker
The development and acquisition of
cognition in childhood
Sara Meadows
London and New York
First published in 1993
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2001.
Routledge is an International Thomson Publishing company
© 1993 Sara Meadows
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any
form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress
ISBN 0–415–01142–6 (hbk) ISBN 0–415–01143–4 (pbk)
ISBN 0-203-13400-1 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-17720-7 (Glassbook Format)
In memory of my father, and with gratitude for
his contributions to the development of
my cognition during my childhood

Contents
List of figures and tables x
1 Introduction 1
2 Descriptive studies of children’s cognitive skills and knowledge 5
Reading 6
Development in reading processes 10
Learning to read in a literate environment 15
Skills and stages in learning to read 17
The teaching of reading 21
Understanding what you read 22
Understanding the structure of a text 24
Writing 27
Maths 35
Memory 49
Introduction 49
Developmental changes in basic memory capacities? 50
Developmental changes in memory strategies? 54
Developments in knowledge about memory: ‘metamemory’? 57
Developmental changes in knowledge? 60
Summary 62
Memory for events in childhood 63
Children’s reasoning 67
Children’s analogical reasoning 69
Children’s use of metaphors 74
Metacognition 78
Transfer 81
Problem-solving 87
Children’s musical cognition 92
Children’s drawings 94
Children’s spatial cognition 97
Children’s use of concepts 101
Children’s concepts of this, that and the other 116
viii The child as thinker
Childhood animism 118
Children’s concepts of bodies 119
Children’s concepts of health and illness 122
Children’s concepts of death 123
Children’s understanding of emotions 125
Children’s concepts of persons 129
Children’s understanding of socio-economic systems 140
Children’s concepts of mind 147
3 Individual differences in cognitive development 157
Intelligence 157
Anderson’s new ideas in intelligence 166
The triarchic theory of intelligence 171
Resumé: so what is ‘intelligence’ anyway? 175
The heritability of intelligence 176
Cognitive style: field independence and reflection–impulsivity 184
Creativity 190
4 Models of cognition in childhood: metaphors, achievements
and problems 197
Piaget’s model of cognitive development 198
Information-processing models of cognitive development 212
Introduction 212
Issues in information-processing 216
Information-processing accounts of ‘what develops’ 219
Vygotsky 235
5 Causes of change and variation in cognitive development 252
Introduction 252
Brains and cognitive development 255
Introduction 255
‘Mind’ and brain 256
Idealism, dualism and materialism 257
How the brain works: fragments of a minimal sketch 263
An introductory description of the brain 264
Brain development and cognitive development 272
How the brain learns and remembers 275
Genes and the physical environment in cognitive development 283
Genetic anomalies and cognitive development 283
Lead pollution and cognitive development 290
Nutrition and cognitive development 293
The social world and cognitive development 302
Family background and children’s cognitive development 304
Family language and children’s cognition 309
Family ‘teaching styles’ and children’s cognition 313
Contents ix
Children whose cognition is not ‘scaffolded’ 319
Cultural similarities and differences in parent–child interaction 323
Cognitive development in the children of depressed mothers 325
The school as a setting for the development and acquisition of
cognition 329
Teaching thinking 333
Social influences on children’s cognitive development:
recapitulation and theoretical discussion 342
6 Questions, problems - and possibilities 345
Problems of diagnosis 346
Patterns of cognitive development 347
Problems of explanation 350
Constraints on cognitive development 353
Cognition and emotion in development 356
Imagination 361
Final section 362
Bibliography 369
Name index 451
Subject index 465