Cognitive Developmental Approaches

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Chapter 6

• Cognitive Developmental Approaches Piaget (Last
  three stages)

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The PreOperational Child

• Is age 2-7
• Has achieved object permanence
• Initiates explores
• Uses mental representations symbols (language)
• Is not logical

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During the Preoperational Stage ages 2-7

• The child will
• Gain ability to reconstruct in thought what is
  experienced in behavior
• Gain in ability to use symbols words, drawings,
  images
• Form stable concepts
• By the end of the stage show an emerging capacity
  to reason

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Preoperational Symbolic Function Substage

• Egocentric
• cannot take anothers point of view
• Three-mountains task
• Animistic
• believe inanimate objects have lifelike
  qualities such as wishes, feelings, intentions
• Magical beliefs
• Show in drawings

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Preoperational Intuitive thought Substage

• Cannot answer the question what if?
• Asks the question why? frequently.

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Piagets Preoperational Stage

• Cannot conserve
• Unable to understand that certain physical
  characteristics stay the same even though outward
  appearance changes
• Because of centration
• Unable to classify hierarchically
• Also lack reversibility

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Conservation and Logic, cont.
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Criticisms of Piaget

• They are not egocentric, the 3 mountains task is
  the problem
• Animism is overestimated because Piaget asked
  about objects like the moon with which children
  have little experience
• They see magic as out of the ordinary, but they
  do attribute lifelike qualities to dolls and
  stuffed toys

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Pretend Play- Know they are pretending

• Increasingly detaches from real-life conditions
• Becomes less self-centered with age
• Gradually includes more complex scheme
  combinations
• Sociodramatic play teaches social skills

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Summary Criticism of this Stage

• Logic develops more gradually than Piaget
  believed that it did
• The primary problem of Piagets observations was
  complexity of the task(s)

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Concrete Operational Stage

• Piaget said that thought is more logical,
  flexible and organized at ages 7-11.
• Terms for operations they can perform
• Conservation
• Reversibility
• Classification
• Seriation
• Transitive inference

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Concrete Operational Thought

• Children are logical only when dealing with
  concrete information that they can perceive
  directly.
• Example is a transitivity task.
• Horizonal decalage development within a stage
  (working out the logic of each problem
  separately)

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Piaget Formal Operational Stage

• Starts at age 11 - 15
• Develop the capacity for abstract, scientific
  thinking

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Two Major Features

• Hypothetico-deductive reasoning
• Deduce hypotheses from theory
• Start with possibility and end with reality
• Piagets pendulum problem
• Propositional thought
• Algebra and geometry

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Consequences of Abstract Thought

• Argumentativeness
• Idealism
• Planning and indecision
• Self-consciousness
• Imaginary audience
• Personal fable

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Adolescent Egocentrism

• Imaginary audience
• Personal fable
• uniqueness
• destiny
• invincibility

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Do all adults reach formal operations?

• No, 40-60 of college students fail the formal
  operations problems.
• People are most likely to reach it in subjects
  where they have had experience.
• It may be a culturally transmitted way of
  thinking.

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Piaget Education

• Constructivist approach set up classroom for
  exploration and discovery
• Let learning occur naturally, facilitate
• Consider the childs knowledge level of
  thinking sensitive to readiness, accept
  individual differences
• Use ongoing assessment

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Piaget and Education

• Too time-consuming to implement, requires
  individual portfolios
• Educators have always ignored developmental
  maturation the system makes it difficult to
  deal with individual differences

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Summary Evaluating Piaget

• Still major cognitive theorist
• Criticisms
• Cognitive abilities emerge earlier than he
  thought
• Development more gradual, not as stagelike as he
  thought
• Can train some children to next stage
• He ignored culture education as factors