3.4 Cognitive Development

Schema

frameworks for interpreting and organizing information

Assimilate

interpret new experiences according to schema

Accommodate

adapt schema to new information

Jean Piaget

Major finding: children’s minds reason differently than adults

Sensorimotor Stage

Birth to age 2

• motor actions

• learn through senses

Object Permanence

object permanence

infants learn that objects and people still exist even when hidden from sight

Preoperational Stage

Cannot do mental operations 

 Age 2 to 6/7

• Principal of Conservation (has not mastered)

• Reversibility (not mastered)

  • 2+3=5 is the same as 5-3=2

• Pretend Play

Pretend Play

• Animism: inanimate objects have lifelike qualities.

• Mental Symbols: internal representations of objects, people, or events that allow children to think about things that are not physically present.

ex) child uses a stick as a "sword" or a block as a "car,"

• models- 2.5 yr/olds cannot use a model to solve

  3 yr/olds can

• Egocentrism: difficult taking another’s point of view

Preoperational Stage: Theory of Mind

People’s ideas about their own and other mental states

• Reflexive: how your actions influence others

Preoperational Stage in Summary

Cognitive Attributes:

• Animism

• Egocentrism

Cognitive Tasks Children Cannot Do:

• Conservation

• Reversibility

During this stage children develop a theory of mind.

Concrete Operational Stage

• Age 7-12

• Children can think:

  • Logically 

  • Realistically

  • Straightforward

• ✔ Conservation mastered

• ✔ Reversibility mastered

• Seriation; the process of arranging items in a logical sequence

• Perspective Taking

Concrete Operational Stage-Children Cannot

• Children cannot think:

  • Systematically

  • Hypothetical Problem Solving

• Abstract Concepts- ex)What is freedom?”

• Propositional Reasoning: “If today is Monday, then tomorrow is Saturday.”

Formal Operational Stage

• Age 12

• Abstract thinking-hypothetical situations, determine consequences

• Later adolescence: full blown logic and reasoning

The Sociocultural Theory of Development-

Lev Vygotsky

Mind grows-social environment

• Young apprentice

• How parents, teachers, peers, and society influence learning.

Zone of Proximal Development

the gap between what a learner can do independently and what they can achieve with guidance from a more knowledgeable person

Scaffold:

• support for higher levels of thinking

Sweet spot between difficult and challenging

Piaget Today

• Generally correct about stages

• Today: development more continuous than Piaget thought

Terminal Decline

a rapid drop in cognitive functioning that typically begins a few years before death, 

with the sharpest decline in the final 1–2 years

Dementia

decline in mental abilities that affects daily life.