Piaget

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Piagets Theory of Cognitive Development
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The Prefrontal Cortex This portion of the brain
(bright blue) shows extensive development from 3
to 6 years of age and is believed to play
important roles in attention and working memory
Prefrontal cortex
Figure 8.1
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7.2 Piagets Four Stages of Cognitive Development
The Sensorimotor Stage The Preoperational
Stage The Concrete Operational Stage The Formal
Operational Stage
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Piagets Stages of Cognitive Development
Piagets Stages of Cognitive Development
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SENSORIMOTOR STAGE PREOPERATIONAL STAGE CONCRETE OPERATIONAL STAGE FORMAL OPERATIONAL STAGE
The infant constructs an understanding of the world by coordinating sensory experiences with physical actions. And infant progresses from reflexive, instinctual action at birth to the beginning of symbolic thought toward the end of the stage The child begins to represent the world with words and images. These words and images reflect increased symbolic thinking and go beyond the connection of sensory information and physical action. He child can now reason logically about concrete events and classify objects into different sets The adolescent reasons in more abstract, idealistic, and logical ways.
Birth to 2 Years of Age 2 to 7 Years of Age 7 to 11 Years of Age 11 Years of Ages Through Adulthood
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7.2 The Sensorimotor Stage

• From birth to approximately 2 years
• Begins with reflexive responding and ends with
  using symbols
• Object permanence understanding that objects
  exist independently

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7.2 The Preoperational Stage

• From approximately 2 to 7 years
• Children use symbols but are many errors in
  thinking
• Egocentrism The inability to distinguish between
  ones own perspective and someone elses
  perspective.
• Confuse appearance and reality

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Three Mountains Problem
7.2 The Preoperational Stage
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The Three Mountain Tasks
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Conservation Tasks
7.2 The Preoperational Stage
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Piagets Conservation Task
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Piagets Conservation Task
Child is asked if (A) and (C) have the
same amount of liquid. The preoperational child
says no and will point to (C) as having more
liquid than (A).
Two identical beakers shown to child, and
then experimenter pours liquid from (B) into (C)
Figure 8.8
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Some Dimensions of Conservation Number, Matter,
and Length
Type of conservation Number Matter Length
Initial presentation Two identical rows of objects shown to child Two identical balls of clay shown to child Two sticks are aligned in front of child
Manipulation One row is spaced Experimenter changes shape of one ball Experimenter moves one stick to right
Preoperational childs answer to Are they still the same? No, the longer row has more No, the longer one has more No, the one on top is longer
Figure 8.9
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7.2 The Concrete Operational Stage

• From approximately 7 to 11 years
• Thinking based on mental operations (strategies
  and rules that make thinking more systematic and
  powerful)
• Operations can be reversed
• Focus on the real and concrete, not the abstract

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7.2 The Formal Operational Stage

• From approximately 11 years to adulthood
• Adolescents can think hypothetically
• Use deductive reasoning

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Object Permanence and the Impossible Event
7.3 Criticisms of the Theory
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Theory of Mind
7.4 The Child as Theorist
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The Sociocultural Perspective Vygotskys Theory

• Cognitive development is inseparable from social
  and cultural contexts
• Zone of proximal development difference between
  what can do alone or with assistance
• Scaffolding teaching style that matches
  assistance to learners needs
• The Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)
• student can work with the student
  can work
• assistance of an instructor ______________________
  __ independently

ZPD
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Comparison of Vygotskys and Piagets Theories
Vygotsky Strong emphasis Social constructivist No general stages Zone of proximal development, language, dialogue, tools of the culture It has a major role in shaping thought It has a central role Teacher is facilitator and guide, not director Piaget Little emphasis Cognitive constructivist Strong emphasis on stages Schemata, assimilation, accommodation, operations, conservation, classification, hypothetical-deductive reasoning It has a minimal role It just defines existing skills Teacher is facilitator and guide, not director
Sociocultural Context Constructivism Stages Key
processes Role of language View on
education Implications for teacher
Figure 8.11
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Developmental Changes in Memory Span
In one study memory span increased from 3 digits
at age 2, to 5 digits at age 7, to 7 digits at
age 12.
Figure 8.13
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Piagets Stages of Cognitive Development
Sensorimotor Birth to 2 years Infants know the world through their senses and through their actions. For example, they learn what dogs look like and what petting them feels like.
Preoperational 2 - 7 years Toddlers and young children acquire the ability to internally represent the world through language and mental imagery. They also begin to be able to see the world from other peoples perspectives, not just from their own.
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Piagets Stages of Cognitive Development
Concrete Operational 7 - 12 years Children become able to think logically, not just intuitively. They now can classify objects into coherent categories and understand that events are often influenced by multiple factors, not just one.
Formal Operational 12 years Adolescents can think systematically and reason about what might be as well as what is. This allows them to understand politics, ethics, and science fiction, as well as to engage in scientific reasoning.
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Sensorimotor Substages
Sub Age Description
1 Birth 1 month Infants begin to modify the reflexes with which they are born to make them more adaptive.
2 1 4 months Infants begin to organize separate reflexes into larger behaviors, most of which are centered on their own bodies.
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Sensorimotor Substages
Sub Age Description
3 4 8 months Infants becoming increasingly interested in the world around them. By the end of this substage, object permanence, the knowledge that objects continue to exist even when they are out of view, typically emerges.
4 8 12 months During this substage, children make the A-Not-B error, the tendency to reach to where objects have been found before, rather than to where they were last hidden.
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Object permanence

• Objects are tied to infants awareness of them
• out of sight, out of mind
• Hidden toy experiment
• 4 months no attempt to search for hidden object
• 4-9 months visual search for object
• 9 months search for and retrieve hidden object
• A-not-B task (Diamond, 1985)
• 9 months A/B error after 1/2 second delay
• 12 months 10 second delay needed to produce
  error

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Piagets A-Not-B Task
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Sensorimotor Substages
Sub Age Description
5 12 18 months Toddlers begin to actively and avidly explore the potential uses to which objects can be put.
6 18 24 months Infants become able to form enduring mental representations. The first sign of this capacity is deferred imitation, the repetition of other peoples behavior a substantial time after it occurred.
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Preoperational Stage

• A mix of impressive cognitive acquisitions and
  equally impressive limitations
• A notable acquisition is symbolic representation,
  the use of one object to stand for another, which
  makes a variety of new behaviors possible
• A major limitation is egocentrism, the tendency
  to perceive the world solely from ones own point
  of view
• A related limitation is centration, the tendency
  to focus on a single, perceptually striking
  feature of an object or event
• Preoperational children also lack of
  understanding of the conservation concept, the
  idea that merely changing the appearance of
  objects does not change their key properties

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Piagets Three-Mountain Task
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Egocentric Conversations
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The Balance Scale An Example of Centration
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Procedures Used to Test Conservation
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Concrete Operational Stage

• Children begin to reason logically about the
  world
• They can solve conservation problems, but their
  successful reasoning is largely limited to
  concrete situations
• Thinking systematically remains difficult

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Inhelder and Piagets Pendulum Problem

• The task is to compare the motions of longer and
  shorter strings, with lighter and heavier weights
  attached, in order to determine the influence of
  weight, string length, and dropping point on the
  time it takes for the pendulum to swing back and
  forth
• Children below age 12 usually perform
  unsystematic experiments and draw incorrect
  conclusions

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Formal Operational Stage

• Cognitive development culminates in the ability
  to think abstractly and to reason hypothetically
• Individuals can imagine alternative worlds and
  reason systematically about all possible outcomes
  of a situation
• Piaget believed that the attainment of the
  formal operations stage, in contrast to the
  other stages, is not universal

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Implications for Education

• Piagets view of childrens cognitive development
  suggests that childrens distinctive ways of
  thinking at different ages need to be considered
  in deciding how best to teach them
• In addition, because children learn by mentally
  and physically interacting with the environment,
  relevant physical activities, accompanied by
  questions that call attention to the lessons
  of the activities, are important in
  educational practice

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Critique of Piagets Theory

• Although Piagets theory remains highly
  influential, some weaknesses are now apparent
• The stage model depicts childrens thinking as
  being more consistent than it is
• Infants and young children are more cognitively
  competent than Piaget recognized
• Object permanence in 3-month-olds (Bower, 1974)
• Number conservation in 4 year olds (McGarrigle
  Donaldson, 1974)

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Critique of Piagets Theory

• Piagets theory understates the contribution of
  the social world to cognitive development
• Piagets tasks are culturally biased
• Schooling and literacy affect rates of
  development
• e.g. Greenfields study of the Wolof
• Formal operational thinking is not universal
• e.g. Gladwins study of the Polynesian islanders
• Piagets theory is vague about the cognitive
  processes that give rise to childrens thinking
  and about the mechanisms that produce cognitive
  growth