Cognitive And Language Development In Children

Cognitive and Language Development in Children

This is one of a series of four books that forms part of the Open University course on child development. The series provides a detailed and thorough introduction to the central concepts, theories, issues and research evidence in developmental psychology. Cognitive and Language Development in Children gives an up-to-date and accessible account of how thinking and language develop during childhood. The book is innovative in its approach: it starts by considering cognition and language in infants and continues to weave together these two areas in subsequent chapters that cover aspects of their development through childhood. The chapters have been prepared by leading researchers and theorists in collaboration with members of the Open University course team. Building on the themes in The Foundations of Child Development, a previous book within the series, the editors provide a fully up-to-date, broad and engaging overview of the field, ranging from modern understandings of brain architecture and function to the social and cultural contexts of learning. The chapters have many features to assist and facilitate understanding, including defined learning outcomes, research summaries, activities, readings, definitions of key terms and section summaries.

Cognitive and language development in children

Language in Cognitive Development

This book highlights a transition from the study of language and cognition to that of language in cognition. It presents an integrative theory of cognitive development, emphasizing the important role that language plays in taking the two to five year old child to new levels of cognitive operations in memory, forming concepts, categories, processing narratives, and understanding other people's intentions. The author considers biological evolution the source of both language and culture, but she argues that qualitatively different modes of thinking and knowing emerge therefrom.