Observe first-hand the cognitive development of children

The goal of this assignment is to give you the opportunity to observe first-hand the cognitive development of children. Choose and complete ONE of the following application activities with at least TWO different children. Based on your application experience you should submit a 2-4 page report, double-spaced, type-written, and in 12 point font. In your report, be sure you address the following issues:

Observe first-hand the cognitive development of children

The goal of this assignment is to give you the opportunity to observe first-hand the cognitive development of children. Choose and complete ONE of the following application activities with at least TWO different children. Based on your application experience you should submit a 2-4 page report, double-spaced, type-written, and in 12 point font. In your report, be sure you address the following issues:
1. Describe the children who participated in your activity (e.g. age, gender, education, SES, culture, has/hasn’t had nap, etc.). How did you select or recruit your participants and how do you know them? 5 points

2. Describe the environment in which you administered the activity (e.g. time, day of week, who is present, school vs. home, etc.). 5 points

3. Describe in detail your method (the activity you devised and how you administered it). What exactly did you do and say (you can even write this out as a script). Be sure to specifically explain how your activity relates to method(s) you have read about or heard about in class (e.g. “This was similar to the …method because I did…. and it did… but instead of… I used….”). 10 points

4. Describe your findings (what exactly were the children’s behaviors and explanations?

What exactly did the children say and do?). Make sure you provide a detailed account of the children’s words and behavior. 10 points

5. Discuss the conclusions about each child’s cognitive development that can be drawn based on your findings. Make sure to discuss developmental stages and/or cognitive abilities using terminology from our course. How do the responses of the two children compare (similar) and contrast (different) to one another? Were CDEV/PSYC 3140 Esterly the findings expected? Be sure to explain why. Were there any factors that might have impacted your findings (child was tired, parent interrupting, etc) 10 points

6. Discuss how your findings and conclusions relate to what you have read about in our text or what we have discussed in class. You must discuss at least three concepts and/or theories of cognitive development discussed in class or in the text.10 points

Application Activity Choices

Pick one activity below and complete the activity with two different children. Make sure the activity is designed to be appropriate for the ages and personalities of the children participating. You need to make sure to use a similar method for both participants so that you may compare and contrast their development. However, in order to determine the developmental level of each participant, you may need to make the activity increasingly difficult if one participant is doing well and/or make the activity decreasingly difficult if one participant is struggling with the task.

A. Object Permanence (0-3 years): Your task is to examine the object permanence ability of 2 different children. Based on your readings and our class discussions, devise a way to test the object permanence ability of two children at different ages (e.g. 3 washcloths and an object). More than one hiding location is needed to look for the Anot-B error. Invisible displacement is needed to identify full object permanence.

B. False Belief (3-6 years):

Your task is to assess children’s understanding of false belief. Based on your readings and our class discussions, devise a way to test false-belief understanding in two children at different ages (e.g. juice box with ribbons).
CDEV/PSYC 3140 Esterly

C. Conservation (3-10 years): Your task is to examine the conservation abilities of 2 different children. Based on your readings and our class discussions, devise a way to test conservation understanding in two children at different ages (e.g. water/glasses, play dough, pennies, etc). You only need to do one type of conservation task.

D. Class Inclusion (3-10 years): Your task is to assess children’s understanding of class inclusion. Based on your readings and our class discussions, devise a way to test class inclusion understanding in two children at different ages (e.g. green skittles vs. skittles).

E. Seriation (3-12 years): Your task is to examine children’s abilities to seriate objects.

Based on your readings and our class discussions, devise a way to test the seriation abilities of two children at different ages (e.g. pencils of different sizes). You’ll need a physical task (pencils) and an abstract (algebra word problem) task if one of your participants is older than 8.

If possible you should complete the activity yourself with actual children. If you do not know any children you may want to ask to join a classmate who does. By completing this assignment with actual children you can earn up to 5 points extra credit. If you are unable to complete the assignment with actual children, you may choose to find and watch video clips of others completing these tasks online. Also, If you do your observations online, choose wisely. In your paper, make sure to acknowledge your source, and make sure to discuss similarities and differences in how the task was administered to each child and specifically how this may influence the results and conclusions.