• Swiss psychologist who studied cognitive development
• Felt that younger children think differently than older children and adults
• Developed the most influential theory of intellectual development
How do children learn?
• According to Piaget, children actively construct knowledge as they manipulate and explore their world
– Use and form SCHEMAS through a process of Adaptation and Organization
– SCHEMA: an organized way of making sense of experience/ categories or ways of thinking
Adaptation
• Building schemas through direct interaction with environment
• Assimilation: use current schemas to interpret external world
• Accommodation: create new schemas or adjust old ones First try to assimilate, then accommodate
Organization
• Internal way of rearranging schemas and linking them with other schemas
4 Stages of Cognitive Development
• Sensorimotor stage: birth-2yrs.
• Preoperational stage: 2-7 yrs.
• Concrete Operational stage: 7-11 yrs.
• Formal Operational stage: 12- adulthood
Sensorimotor Stage
• Children experience the world through senses and actions
• The child is working on 2 activities:
– Sensation
– Movement
– “Think” with eyes, ears, hands etc.
Infants are working on mastering their bodies and movements. Then they work on goal directed behavior.
Object Permanence
• Objects are not permanent to infants at this stage. Once something is out of vision, it no longer exists.
The Term Paper on Stages Of Social Identity Development
Stages of Social Identity Development In her autobiographical novel Coming of Age in Mississippi, Anne Moody provides us with the insight on the essence of ones identity development, within a context of race. It has been noticed that structural properties of Moody book correspond to the stages of such development, as described by Hardiman and Jackson in their work Conceptual Foundations for Social ...
Stranger anxiety
• At the end of the stage, children begin to represent the world around them with language.
• They also have a sense of self recognition that allows them to begin to imitate and play.
Preoperational Stage
Children represent things with words and images, but lack logical reasoning. Make believe play is a way to practice/strengthen schemas.
Stage is dominated by egocentrism and centration
Egocentrism
• World only exists in term of himself/herself.
• Children are unable to see things from someone else’s point of view.
Egocentrism
• Children also display animistic thinking.
Children do not understand…
• Reversibility: that a relationship that goes in one direction can go in the other direction too.
• Conservation: you can change some of an object’s characteristics while keeping others the same.
• Due to CENTRATION: children focus only on 1 aspect of a situation
• Types: mass, area, length, number, gender, volume
Children do not understand…
• Hierarchical Classification: cannot organize objects into classes and subclasses on the basis of similarities and differences.
Concrete Operational Stage
• Ages 7-11 years
• Children are thinking logically about concrete events and can grasp concrete analogies and perform arithmetical operations.
– However, thinking is extremely concrete and “Black and White.”
– Children are “rule followers” at this stage
Concrete Operational Children are capable of:
• Seeing something from someone else’s point of view.
• Conservation
• Reversibility
• Classification
• Seriation
Formal Operational Stage
• Ages 12 through adulthood
• Children are capable of abstract reasoning and forming a hypothesis.
• Piaget argued that there are varying degrees of this.
Piaget’s Strengths
• Changed early education for children
• Convinced people that children are active learners capable of thought
Piaget’s Limitations
• Underestimated children’s abilities.
• Described children in terms of what they can’t do.
The Term Paper on Stages Of Development Child Stage Young
... have a brother he says No. The Concrete Operational Stage (7-11): - A this stage the child can operate objects and understand them ... the pre-operational stage. This stage derives the title of pre-operational because the child has yet to develop its logical thinking and the ... Freud theory of development is that infants and young children are capable of sexual pleasure and do have sexual experiences, ...
• Tests used items unfamiliar to the children
• Didn’t account for culture and social interactions enough
