Video and Multimedia

Click on the following links. Please note these will open in a new window.

Video 1: What Is It Like to Be a Baby: The Development of Thought
Learning Objective: LO 1,2
Summary: This lecture explores issues and ideas related to the branch of psychology known as cognitive development. It begins with an introduction of Piaget who, interested in the emergence of knowledge in general, studied children and the way they learn about the world in order to formulate his theories of cognitive development. This is followed by an introduction to the modern science of infant cognition. Finally, the question of the relationship between and the existence of different kinds of development is addressed.
 

Video 2: Development (Piaget)
Learning Objective: LO 1,2
Summary: Lecture from UC Berkley on Piaget’s stages of cognitive development.
 

Video 3:  Cognitive Development in Early Childhood (Davidson Films, Inc.)
Learning Objective: LO 1,2
Summary: Nothing in human experience is quite so astonishing as the enormous changes that occur during the five short years that transform the newborn into the actively curious, exploring kindergartner. This film examines the work of Lev Vygotsky and Jean Piaget, illuminating the similarities and differences of their contributions to our understanding of the cognitive development of young children. Dr. Elkind uses their research and his own work to look at three aspects of intellectual growth: reasoning, visual perception, and language use. Children are seen both in interview situations and busily participating in an accredited child care center to illustrate Dr. Elkind's points about their ever-changing intellectual abilities.
 

Audio 1: Playing lots makes for good language skills (Cognitive development series)
Learning Objective: LO 2,3
Summary: National University, Evan Kidd, explaining how children who have imaginary companions have improved language skills, in comparison with children who don't.
 

Audio 2: Jean Piaget – The Three Mountains
Learning Objective: LO 1,2
Summary: Three Mountains - from this experiment Piaget concluded that, because young children could not imagine what someone on the other side of the mountain model from the side they were standing could see, they were incapable of empathy. Subsequent experiments allowing children to imagine different social, rather than spatial, situations have had very different results. Claudia Hammond asks how far we should rely on Piaget's findings today.
 

Audio 3: Annette Karmiloff-Smith on toddlers and TV
Learning Objective: LO 1,2,3
Summary: Annette Karmiloff-Smith, from the Birkbeck Centre for Brain & Cognitive Development in London talks to Jim Al-Khalili about her Life Scientific. Her research has been cited not just by fellow psychologists, but by philosophers, linguists, educationalists, geneticists and neuroscientists. Her controversial response to guidance issued by the American Academy of Paediatrics, that parents should discourage TV viewing in children under two, is that if the subject matter is chosen well, and is scientifically based, a TV screen can be better for a baby than a book.
 

Website 1: Simply Psychology
Learning Objective: LO 1,2
Summary: Piaget's (1936) theory of cognitive development is about how a child constructs a mental model of the world. Piaget was employed at the Binet Institute in the 1920s, where his job was to develop French versions of questions on English intelligence tests.
 

Website 2: The Work of Lev Vygotsky
Learning Objective: LO 1,2
Summary: Psychologist Lev Vygotsky 's theory of cognitive development posits that information from the external world is transformed and internalized through language.  Since language is both a symbolic system of communication and a cultural tool used to transmit culture and history, play is an essential part of both language development and a child's understanding of the external world. 
 

Website 3: Differences between Piaget & Vygotsky's Cognitive Development Theories
Learning Objective: LO 1,3
Summary: Vygotsky and Piaget have similarities between their two theories of cognitive development. There are also several differences.