Research Proposal on "Cognitive Development in Toddlers Interrelationship Between Motor Skills and Task Performance"

Research Proposal 4 pages (1552 words) Sources: 2

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Cognitive Development in Toddlers

Summary of existing research, including your own.

Cognitive ability in toddlers is far more remarkable than we give them credence for. Building on the previous research of Berger and Adolph (2003), we found that toddlers not only have superior locomotors abilities but also advanced cognitive abilities. Berger and Adolph (2003) conducted research assessing whether or not toddler would cross a bridge. We built on that research using different tools to gauge which one the toddler would use. We found that not only did they carefully select that they thought most appropriate for their use, but also that they measured the width and passibility of the bridge deciding whether or not they should cross it.

Jordan and Morton (2008) also found evidence of superior cognitive skills in toddlers in their study of test cards when test cards were flanked by certain images as compared with other situations when they were not accompanied by those pictures. Importantly, researchers found that the children did not simply match the pictures and the cards, but rather they thought how to do this. The authors' findings support evidence that that 3-year-olds can, under a variety of circumstances, use two pairs of different rules such as response reversal, guided practice, and spatial separation of different stimuli, as well as indicating that 3-years old can formulate and shift to new rules when a change in thinking and direction is required. More so, their shift in direction often involves use of higher-order rules (that demand more abstract and more intelligent thinking) and they do so without prompting and instruction from an adult. A degree of perseverance was found in the card-sorting study, which was matched with toddler trying various strategies in order to match the cards in the way they thought best.

Using a developmental phenomenolgioical model, Bertelson (1999) theorized that the phenomenological skills of toddlers are growing all the time in proportion to experiences encountered in their immediate environment. A fully mature phenomenological perspective (i.e. An understanding of their relationship in the world and a grasp of their environment vis-a-vis the objects and people in their environment) develops through the interaction of toddlers with other people and with other objects in their environment (this aspect was inquired about in our former research: whether toddlers from diverse socio-economic backgrounds with lesser space would act the same way as those do who have more space and are exposed to more people). In support of this, Meltzoff and Markman (2008). found that students are remarkable imitators selecting choosing whom and what to imitate and in which circumstances and to what extent to do so. Their research studies showed that children integrate previous experience with modeling in order to guide and drive their actions in particular circumstances.

Not only is the toddler's cognitive skills more advanced than is generally thought, but it appears that their locomotive skills keep in pace. Rosey and Keller (2008) discovered that children under 5 years were able to hit a moving ball carefully and accurately determining the ball movements and the times when they would hit it. More so, they were able to hit whilst stepping aside, all of which, researchers observe, point to the idea that the motor system unconsciously acts all the time there in the background fulfilling cognitive demands. Toddlers show ability of these fine motor skills at a precocious level. In a similar study (Haga, Peterson, & Sigmundson, 2007) on motor tasks, ninety-one-4-year-old children from 10 nursery schools were tested using eight motor tasks from the Movement Assessment Battery for Children test. The most striking finding was that very low correlations existed between the performance of the different motor tasks showing, in this case, that toddlers were able to distinguish between the various different motor tasks that needed to be performed and applied their skills and level of performance accordingly.

In conclusion, review of these studies show that the toddler's reasoning abilities are not only more superior than we generally think them to be, but also that, therefore, his or her motor skills are too. Being that toddlers show such remarkable coherence of matching their motor tasks to the skill at hand, it is apparent that both reasoning (i.e cognitive ability) and locomotor (i.e. motor performance) are well matched (since both are needed in synthesis for the performance of a task) and that the toddler was able to do both at the same time.

II. Motivation for study (evidence that new research is needed)

All of these studies, however, deal with certain tasks only: crossing of a bridge; dealing cards; general ability of toddlers to navigate their surroundings (but no research study was compared with this; the observations were, merely general); and specific motor tasks.

What would be interesting would be to assess if whether different skills vary under different circumstances. For instance, if children's mathematical skills develop at the same pace at the same age; and if they likewise show superior cognitive ability in these skills. Ramifications here could indicate that difference in mathematical skills is only caused due to environmental and/or school differences (socio economic differences and/or differences in the way that children are taught, their encouragement that they receive in school and so forth amongst toehr factors). It would be also interesting to investigate whether gender differences exist in performance of cognitive tasks in general, and in performance of mathematical skills in particular. These gender-based studies would have ramifications for education in general and for the gender field in particular possibly indicating that it is differences in gender education that cause differences in skills as they're later observed, rather than intrinsic natural abilities.

Skills under subcategories (such as handwriting) also need to be investigated to show whether toddlers show enhanced improvement in these areas too. The social contributions here include the fact that if a child indicates problems with handwriting later on, this was not so much biological problems as something that was incurred form the environment and may, therefore, be more readily and easily addressed. Skills are specific rather than general and so different levels of skill in different tasks can be compared as for instance the level of skill in building Lego and the level of skill in handwritten and comparisons can then be investigated to see whether they exist, and, if so, whether differences can be traced to any specific factors such as socio-economic background. In a similar way, the possibility whether cognitive differences exist in mathematics and reading can be tested too.

III. What you would do if money and time were no object. (procedure) sample questions- focusing on topics such as -- ..(to be more specific and not general)

I would test possible cognitive differences in mathematical skills, and conduct a cross-cultural research study. I would be specific, focusing on the 4-year-old age and sample a mixed socio-economic population from countries that represent a diverse cross-representation of different key cultural characteristics. To elaborate, I would sample 4-year-olds from a central European country, as well as those living in an Oriental country, and from the United Arab Emirate, comparing again with children from an Eastern European locality, and from an Asian and Russian until all the different cultural characteristics are exhausted. I would do this research in the original countries themselves, rather than in targeting a diversity in a country, such as America, since cultural characteristics are superficial in America whereas I would like to see whether actual differences in mathematical abilities at the 4-year-old age exist. I would match for possible confounding factors such as socio-economic background, differences in family and environment, and other confounding factors.

IV. Predicted results

Levine and Huttenlocher (Harms, 1998) recently discovered that Children as young as age 3 exhibit nonverbal math skills, comprehending quantity and performing simple addition and subtraction using groups of objects and that… READ MORE

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