Dr. Martha Pelaez

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Chapter 7 (Shaffer) Cognitive Development
Piagets Theory and Vygotskys Sociocultural
Viewpoint

• Dr. Martha Pelaez

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PIAGETS THEORY OF COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT

• Genetic epistemology is the experimental study of
  the development of knowledge, developed by Piaget
  
• What is Intelligence?
• According to Piaget, it is a basic life function
  that enables an organism to adapt to its
  environment.
• All intellectual activity is undertaken with one
  goal in mind-cognitive equilibrium
• Piaget described children as constructivist

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Cognitive Schemes the structure of intelligence

• Scheme is a term used by Piaget to describe the
  models, or mental structures, that we create to
  represent ,organize, and interpret our
  experiences.
• There are 3 kinds of intellectual structures
• 1.Behavioral schemes
• First intellectual structures to emerge
• 2.Symbolic schemes
• Appears 2 year of life
• 3.Operational schemes
• 7 years

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How we gain knowledge Piagets Cognitive
Processes

• Organization is the process by which children
  combine existing schemes into new and more
  complex intellectual structures.
• Adaptation is an inborn tendency to adjust to the
  demands of the environment.
• The goal of adaptation is to adjust to the
  environment this occurs through assimilation and
  accommodation.
• Assimilation is the process of interpreting new
  experiences by incorporating them into existing
  schemes.
• Accommodation is the process of modifying
  existing schemes in order to incorporate or adapt
  to new experiences.

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Piagets Stages of Cognitive Development

• According to Piaget, a childs development
  progresses through 4 qualitative stages and an
  invariant developmental sequence-universal
  pattern of development, which are
• The Sensorimotor Stage (Birth to 2 Years)
• The Preoperational Stage (2 to 7 Years)
• The Concrete-Operational Stage (7 to 11 Years)
• The Formal-Operational Stage (11-12 Years and
  Beyond)

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The sensorimotor stage (Birth-2 years)

• The 6 Developmental stages of Problem-Solving
  abilities
• 1. Reflex activity (0-1mon.) exercising and
  accommodation of inborn reflexes
• 2. Primary circular reactions (1-4 mon.)
  repeating acts centered on ones own body
• 3. Secondary circular reactions (4-8 mon.)
  repeating acts toward external objects

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Sensorimotor stage contd

• 4. Coordination of secondary schemes (8-12 mon.)
  combining acts to solve simple problems.
• 5. Tertiary circular reactions (12-18 mon.)
  experimenting to find new ways of to solve
  problems
• 6. Symbolic problem solving (18-24 mon.) inner
  experimentation without relaying on
  trial-and-error experimentation

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Development of imitation

• Deferred imitation (18-24 mo.) is the ability to
  reproduce the behavior of an absent model.
• Development of Object Permanence (8-12 mo) is the
  idea that objects continue to exist when they are
  no longer visible or detectable through the other
  senses.
• A-not-B error tendency of 8-12- month olds to
  search for a hidden object where they previously
  found it even after they have seen it moved to a
  different location.

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Challenges to Piagets account of sensorimotor
development

• Neo-nativism idea that cognitive knowledge is
  innate and subject to biological constraints
• theory theories theories of cognitive
  development that combine neo-nativism and
  constructivism

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Preoperational stage (2-7 yrs)

• There is an increase in their use of mental
  symbols to represent objects and events they
  encounter
• The Preconceptual Period is the early substage of
  preoperations, from age 2 to age 4, characterized
  by the appearance of primitive ideas, concepts,
  and methods of reasoning. Marked by the
  appearance of symbolic function and play.
• The Intuitive Period is the later substage of
  preoperations, from age 4 to age 7, when the
  childs thinking about objects and events is
  dominated by salient perceptual features.

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The Preconceptual Period

• Emergence of Symbolic thought
• Symbolic function
• Ability to use symbols to represent objects or
  experiences
• Symbolic play
• Play where one object, action, or actor
  symbolizes another

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Deficits in preconceptual reasoning

• Animism- attributing lifelike qualities to
  inanimate objects
• Egocentrism- viewing the world from only ones
  perspective
• Appearance/Reality distinction- inability to
  distinguish deceptive appearances from reality

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The intuitive period

• Here cognition is described as
• Centered a tendency to focus on one aspect of a
  situation and not on others due to their
  inability to understand
• Conservation- recognition that the properties of
  an object or substance do not change when its
  appearance is altered in some superficial way.
• Reversibility- ability to reverse or negate an
  action by mentally performing the opposite action
  

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The Concrete-Operational Stage (7 to 11 Years)

• Here children are said to think more logically
  about real objects and experiences
• Some examples of operational thought
• Conservation
• Reversibility
• Logic
• Classification
• ability to create relationships between things.
• Relational Logic
• Mental seriation
• Transitivity
• The sequencing of concrete operations
• Horizontal decalage- different levels of
  understanding conservation tasks that seem to
  require the same mental operations

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The Formal-Operational Stage (11-12 Years and
Beyond)

• Ability to reason logically about hypothetical
  process and events that may have no basis in
  reality
• Hypothetico-Deductive Reasoning
• a formal operational ability to think
  hypothetically.
• Thinking Like a Scientist
• Inductive reasoning- type of thinking where
  hypotheses are generated and then systematically
  tested in experiments.
• Personal and Social Implications
• The formal operation stage paves the way for
• Identity formation
• Richer understanding of other peoples
  psychological perspectives
• The ability to way options in decision making

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An Evaluation of Piagets Theory

• Piagets Contributions
• Founded the discipline we know today as cognitive
  development.
• Convinced us that children are curious, active
  explorers who play an important role in their own
  development.
• His theory was one of the first to explain, and
  not just describe, the process of development.
• His description of broad sequences of
  intellectual development provides a reasonably
  accurate overview of how children of different
  ages think.
• Piagets ideas have had a major influence on
  thinking about social and emotional development
  as well as many practical implications for
  educators.
• Piaget asked important questions and drew
  literally thousands of researchers to the study
  of cognitive development.

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Challenges to Piagets cognitive developmental
theory

• Underestimated developing minds
• Failed to distinguish competence from performance
• It is believed by some that Cognitive development
  does not evolve in a qualitative and stage like
  manner- it tends to develop gradually
• Provides a vague explanation on cognitive
  maturation
• Devoted little attention to social and cultural
  influences

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Vygotskys Sociocultural Perspective

• Sociocultural theory states that
• Cognitive development occurs in a sociocultural
  context that influences the form it takes
• Most of a childs cognitive skills evolve from
  social interactions with parents, teachers, and
  other more competent associates

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The role of culture in intellectual development

• Vygotsky proposed that we should evaluate human
  development from four interrelated perspectives
• Microgenetic-changes that occur over brief
  periods of time-minutes and seconds
• Ontogenetic-development over a lifetime
• Phylogenetic-development over evolutionary time
• Sociohistorical- changes that have occurred in
  one's culture and the values, norms and
  technologies such a history has generated

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Tools of intellectual adaptation

• Vygotsky (1930-1935/1978) proposed that infants
  are born with a few elementary mental functions
  attention, sensation, perception and memory
  that are eventually transformed by the culture
  into new and more sophisticated mental processes
  he called higher mental functions.

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The Social Origins of Early Cognitive
Competencies

• Zone of Proximal Development range of tasks that
  are too complex to be mastered alone but can be
  accomplished with guidance and encouragement from
  a more skillful partner
• Scaffolding- the expert participant carefully
  tailors their support to the novice learner to
  assure their understanding

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Apprenticeship in Thinking and Guided
Participation

• guided participation, adult-child interactions in
  which childrens cognitions and modes of thinking
  are shaped as they participate with or observe
  adults engaged in culturally relevant activities.
• Our culture is one that uses what Vygotsky termed
  context-independent learning

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Implications for Education

• Children are seen as active participants in their
  education
• teachers in Vygotskys classroom would favor
  guided participation in which they
• structure the learning activity
• provide helpful hints or instructions that are
• carefully tailored to the childs current
  abilities
• monitor the learners progress
• gradually turning over more of the mental
  activity to
• their pupils
• Promote cooperative learning exercises

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The role of language in cognitive development

• According to Piaget
• Children partake in egocentric speech, utterances
  neither directed to others nor expressed in ways
  that the listeners might understand
• Egocentric speech played a little role in
  cognitive development
• Speech tended to become more social as the child
  matures-less egocentric

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The role of language in cognitive development
contd

• According to Vygotsky
• Thought and language eventually emerge
• A childs nonsocial utterances, which he termed
  private speech, illustrate the transition from
  paralinguistic to verbal reasoning
• Private speech plays a major role in cognitive
  development by serving as a cognitive
  self-guidance system, allowing children to become
  more organized and good problem solvers
• As individuals develop, private speech becomes
  inner speech

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Which Viewpoint Should We Endorse?

• According to contemporary research
• Children rely heavily on private speech when
  facing difficult problems
• There is a correlation between self-talk and
  competence
• Private speech does eventually become inner
  speech and facilitates cognitive development

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Theories of Cognitive DevelopmentVygotsky vs.
Piaget