Cognitive Development

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Cognitive Development

• Jean Piagets Stage Theory

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Jean Piaget

• Swiss psychologist
• Worked under Alfred Binet and became fascinated
  with how children of the same age always chose
  the same wrong answers to intelligence questions
• Began to study cognitive development in children

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Important Terms

• Stage theory - a discontinuous theory of
  development with distinct stages
• VS.

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Important Terms contd

• Scheme an organized pattern of thought or
  action that is used to cope with or explain some
  aspect of experience
• Assimilation use of existing mental patterns in
  new situations
• Disequilibrium contradictions between
  understanding and the facts to be understood
• Accommodation existing ideas are modified to
  fit new requirements

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Sensorimotor Stage (0-2 years)

• Deals with children learning to coordinate
  movements with information from the senses
• Motor development
• Object permanence
• Beginning of language

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Preoperational Stage (2-7)

• Children begin to think symbolically and use
  language
• Thinking is still intuitive (i.e. it is not based
  on reasoning or logic)
• Egocentrism cannot take the viewpoint of
  someone else

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Preoperational Stage contd

• Animism
• Realism
• Conservation
• Age 4 number
• Age 5 mass
• Age 6 weight
• Age 7 - volume

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Concrete Operational Stage (7-11 years)

• Children are able to use concepts of time, space,
  volume and number (conservation), but in concrete
  rather than abstract ways
• Reversibility of thought relationships
  involving equality or identity can be reversed
  (if A B then B A)
• Classification
• Seriation

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Formal Operational Stage (11 years up)

• Thinking becomes abstract, theoretical and
  hypothetical
• Become less egocentric (can take on others
  viewpoints)
• Not everyone reaches formal thinking in every
  aspect of their lives