Memory and Cognitive Development in Children: Strategies and Stages

Memory. It is the cognitive process related to the retention and processing of information. Flavell: Children from infancy do not spontaneously produce effective mnemonic strategies, but they can benefit if trained. Stage: Childhood Memory recognition is improved and perfected at this stage; short-term memory is also better. Types of memory strategies: Repetition (review) and organization. These strategies are carried out with a purpose: memory. Differences by age: 5-6-year-old children do not usually use spontaneous repetition; from age 7, it is used consistently. Studies show that age increases the use of the repetition strategy, which leads to improved recall in tasks. Organization strategies: Only from the age of 10-11 do children spontaneously and consistently use this strategy. Younger children can be trained, making developmental differences disappear. Mixed strategy: Only from adolescence are mixed strategies (repetition and organization) used. From age 13, children can use a flexible strategy appropriate to each task (memorization). Why are younger children worse at memory tasks? They devote little time to observing stimuli, do not highlight relevant stimuli from irrelevant ones, and do not use memory strategies such as repetition, even if they employ simpler strategies like touching objects. Critical: If the information is interesting and meaningful for children, their memory improves. When it is important to memorize target information, it must be clear and motivating. A laboratory setting, compared to a play context, is detrimental to memory. Interest in the task and the child’s motivation to achieve success are essential. Prior knowledge: The content’s importance in memory tasks. Remember that familiar and meaningful material helps eliminate performance differences due to age. Schooling and cultural studies: Show that formal compulsory education in schools is a crucial factor in improving strategic behavior in memory tasks. Troubleshooting: When infants face a problem, their behavior is guided by trial and error. Metacognition: Thinking about thinking. It is the knowledge of one’s cognitive characteristics and limitations and their control or regulation. This knowledge underlies competent performance in different fields. Metacognition is the ability to monitor one’s cognitive processes and reflect on them. It is the ability to access and control one’s thinking. Through metacognition, we evaluate a cognitive task to determine how best to carry out our performance by adjusting and controlling it. Thus, metacognition significantly influences a person’s learning and problem-solving. Development of metacognition: It progresses largely during school years, becoming clearly evident around 8 or 9 years old. Children become aware of the knowledge they possess and can assess their learning progress. They know how to retrieve information easily. Metamemory: This approach involves understanding the effort needed for a particular memory task. It also involves understanding and appreciating the variables or factors that come into play in such tasks, such as:

  • Personal characteristics
  • Characteristics of the task
  • Strategy to implement

Given these factors, one can predict success in a recall task and our execution in it. Self-regulation of knowledge: Self-regulatory behaviors or planning: Projecting an activity or task designed to achieve a goal and self-regulating our behavior. Means-ends analysis or discussion of the goal and subgoals. Children already in infancy show a pattern of planning, but it is only fully developed in older ages. The importance of context in self-regulatory behavior: The child is a social being, and their behavior is consistent with the circumstances surrounding a task. Adult-child social interaction or expert guidance facilitates task success. Language influences behavior regulation or task planning, first expressed as egocentric speech and then becoming internalized speech. Advances in basic cognitive processes at school age: Processes of self-control, planning (achieving a future goal), troubleshooting, attention, and automation. Automation: The process by which the repetition of a series of thoughts and actions makes them routine and does not require conscious thought; it is the “automatic pilot of thought.” Consequences of automation of thought: Increased speed of information processing, leaving spare capacity for other information, and allowing recall of more information.

6.2 and 5.2 Basic Cognitive Processes. Children progress in adapting to their environment. In the second year of life, the symbolic function emerges: transitioning from acting directly on stimuli to operating with mental representations of reality built through experience. What are symbols? Representations are the child’s way of representing their ideas or concepts through actions and language. Forms of production at this stage: Action, games, drawing, images, imitation, words… Children construct mental entities that can be evoked without the direct presence of what they represent. Symbols are used to communicate with others and play a role in communication with oneself. Performances are increasingly decontextualized, independent of the perceptual or sensory characteristics of what they represent. Types of representation according to Bruner: Enactive (through action), Symbolic (writing, music theory, etc.), and Iconic (drawings, maps, models, etc.). Curriculum in early childhood education: Body language, visual representations, playdough, drawing, acquisition of literacy and numeracy. Mental processes according to information processing theory: The mind is composed of sections that allow information manipulation. Information processing focuses on explaining the specific processes mediating performance in Piaget’s tasks: strategies, the influence of prior knowledge, memory, attention, and planning. Schemas of representations of scenes, events, and stories in infancy: Scenes: Knowledge about the physical form of objects and their relationships; objects are usually found with related objects. Events or scripts: Knowledge about what happens in different situations and how people behave in them, including the order of events (temporal sequence). Scripts help predict events and aid memory. A script is the prototypical information held about a particular situation, including temporally sorted items, objects, roles, consequences, and outcomes. Stories: Knowledge about events connected by causal relationships. As a result, children understand narrative pieces, the chronology of facts, and the sequence of a story, thus discovering the plot. Knowledge of children’s categories: Ability to form classification systems. At this stage, the child produces superordinate categories through linguistic breakthroughs, cognitive schemas, scripts, scenes, and stories. Infants also know how to make inferences to identify further examples of the same class of objects. They understand that elements of the same category share similar characteristics. Theory of Mind: Mental representations of entities that are not directly observable or knowledge of the internal states of self and others: thoughts, desires, intentions, feelings… These internal states are not directly visible. Allocating these states to oneself and others has advantages for social and emotional development. Advantages of acquiring the theory of mind: It helps understand the motivations behind individuals’ behavior and predict others’ behavior. Attention in infancy: Attention is a cognitive mechanism guiding the selection of perceptual information. What are the characteristics of childcare at this stage? Attention control is greater, but there are difficulties focusing on important information. There are no attentional strategies; planning is gradually directed toward goals. Control of attention: 3-year-old children’s activities continually change because they cannot maintain attention for an extended period. They are impulsive and show perseverance or a tendency to repeat a thought or action even when it should have been concluded. Impulsivity and perseveration are due to the immaturity of the prefrontal cortex. Attending to relevant information: At this stage, children fix their attention on salient or striking stimuli, even if they are not the most relevant. Attention planning: Children gradually increase their attention planning, taking time out for complex tasks. Planned adult help improves this. Attention in school years: The child becomes able to think before acting (inhibition) and to stop an activity when necessary to start over (no perseveration). Selective attention: The ability to concentrate on one stimulus among many others. 10-year-old children are more reflective and can process multiple external demands, learning to select between them. Conclusion: Attention improves, becoming more controlled, adaptable, and planned.