Infant and Early Childhood Cognition

A toddler's hand feels the water and stone floor of a clear stream.

Young children make rich inferences from exploring their surroundings. This course examines how children acquire commonsense knowledge about the world focusing on their understanding of objects, agents, and the relations that bind these together. (Image courtesy of Shane McGraw on Flickr.)

Instructor(s)

MIT Course Number

9.85

As Taught In

Fall 2012

Level

Undergraduate

Cite This Course

Course Description

Course Features

Course Description

This course is an introduction to cognitive development focusing on children's understanding of objects, agents, and causality. It develops a critical understanding of experimental design. The course discusses how developmental research might address philosophical questions about the origins of knowledge, appearance and reality, and the problem of other minds. It provides instruction and practice in written communication as needed for cognitive science research (including critical reviews of journal papers, a literature review and an original research proposal), as well as instruction and practice in oral communication in the form of a poster presentation of a journal paper.

Related Content

Laura Schulz. 9.85 Infant and Early Childhood Cognition. Fall 2012. Massachusetts Institute of Technology: MIT OpenCourseWare, https://ocw.mit.edu. License: Creative Commons BY-NC-SA.


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