Piaget's term for the way infants think- by using their senses and motor skills- during the first period of cognitive development.

First of the four stages-birth to 24 months

Infants learn through their senses and motor skills.

• First two involve infants responses to own body
• One, birth to 1 month: reflexes, sucking grasping, staring listening
• Two, 1-4 months: accomodation and coordination of reflexes
• Next two involve infants responses to objects and people
• Three, 4-8 months: An awarness of things: responding to ppl and objects (clapping hands when mother says patty cake).
• Four, 8-12 months: New adaptation and anticipation: becoming more deliberate and purposeful in responding to ppl and objects
• Last two stages are most creative, first with action and then with ideas
• Five, 12-18 months: New means through active experiements (putting a teddy bear in the toilet and flushing it).
• Six, 18-24 months: New means through mental combinations, considering before doing provides new way of reaching goal without trail and error (before flushing the teddy, remembering that the toilet overflowed last time).

new experiences are reinterpreted to fit into, or assimilate with, old ideas

Ex. Your mother says something you never expected her to (such as "I'm going to study ballet"), you will experience cognitive disequilbrium and will need to adapt.  You might assimilate your mother's words by deciding she didn't mean what she said.  Intellecutal growth would occur if, instead, you accomodate by expanding and revising your concept of your mother.

• stages 3 and 4 of the sensorimotor intelligence, involving the baby and a toy or another person (4-12 months)
• now think about a goal and begin to understand how to reach it
• anticipation, goal-directed behavior, purposeful action
• ex. baby sees mother putting on coat to leave, he grabs his coat as well to signal that he wants to go with her

responding to people and objects

ex.  clapping hands when mother says "patty cake"

The realization that objects (including people) still exist when they cannot be seen, touched, or heard. 

emerges at about 8 months

affordance

an opportunity for perception and interaction that is offered by a person, place, or object in the enviornment. 

Which particular affordance is perceived and acted on depends on: sensory awarness, immediate motivation, current development and past experience.

an experimental apparatus that gives and illusion of a sudden drop between one horizontal surface and another.

Even when urged by their mother, they won't cross the line

Depends on experiences if they are fearful or not

• Listening and responding, child-directed speech (baby talk), at 4 months babies squeal, growl, gurgle, and grunt
• Babbling, between 6 and 9 months, repeat certain syllables
• First words, about 12 months (comprehend 10 times as many words as they can speak)
• Naming explosion-sudden increase in infants vocab (nouns) at 18 months
• Holophrase- single word used to express meaningful thought
• Grammar- 2 word combos start at 21 months ("More Juice", instead of in reverse).

The extended repetition of certain syllables, such as ba-ba-ba, that begins between 6 and 9 months.

Also use gestures with babbling

All babies babble, even deaf babies (by signing).

He noticed that babbling in usually reinforced, such as the mother repeating the babbling back as well as showering the baby with attention, praise and perhaps food. 

The baby will make this sound again to recieve praises.

Parents are expert teachers, frequent repetition is instructive, well-taught infants become well-spoken children