3.4 Theories of Cognitive Development

Cognitive Development

How individuals skills and thinking change overtime

Jean Piaget

Studied how children learn and think overtime; believed children developed schemas or framework to understand the world, as you age the schemas are refined and more precise

Schemas are impacted by the AA

Assimilation and Accommodation

Assimilation in Schema

Individual experiences new information and puts them into existing schema; seeing a cat, realizing it has 4 legs and putting it in the schema with dogs

Accommodation in Schema

Refine and adjust Schemas; dogs and cats having their own as they make separate noises

4 stages of development by Piaget

Sensorimotor stage, Preoperational stage, Concrete operational, Formal Operational stage

Sensorimotor stage

2 years old, gains access to movement, learning occurs through touching, hearing, actions (grabbing, pushing, throwing items) and Object Permanence

Object Permanence

Understanding that objects continue to exist even when they are out of sight

Preoperational stage

2 years to 6-7 years; Develop symbolic thinking, learn to use language, engage in pretend play, Animism. Struggle with: Conservation, Reversibility, children are egocentric (three mountain task), and theory of mind

Symbolic thinking

ability to think about things that are not right in front of a person

Pretend play

Child uses their imagination to act out scenarios with objects and children

Animism

Giving human-like qualities to non-living things, toys having feelings (personification)

Conservation

Same amount of something even though it changes shape

Reversibility

the ability to mentally reverse actions; kids can do 2+2=4 but not 4-2 = 2

Egocentric

Seeing the world from their own point of view

Piaget Three Mountain task

Placed a doll in 3 mountains of different height and had kids pick out the picture of what the doll was seeing; kids often picked what they saw not the doll, reinforcing the egocentrism

Theory of Mind

ability for a child to understand that people have thoughts, feelings, perspectives, different from their own

Concrete operational

6-7 years to 11-12 years; children become more logical, classification, seriation; struggle with: Hypotheticals, and reasoning with possibilities

Classification

sort objects based on color and shape

Seriation

arrange objects in quantitively, arranging sticks from shortest to longest

Formal operational stage

11-12; Children can think abstractly, use logic, consider hypotheticals, ponder philosophical questions, can use deductive reasoning; some kids may never reach this stage

Deductive Reasoning

Starting with a general principle and applying to a question

Lev Vygotsky

Believed that learning happens through the environment, Sociocultural theory

Sociocultural theory

children develop skills and knowledge by interacting with people around them

Zone of Proximal development

Some skills I know on my own, others I need help with, and others will never be reached in my lifetime

Scaffolding

Teacher/guider only provides enough information so the child can get to the next step NOT the answer

As an individual grows their crystallized intelligence (vocab, facts) grows, but their fluid intelligence (ability to think and reason quickly) declines

As an individual grows… (effects on fluid and crystalized intelligence)

Dementia

Broad term for cognitive disorders that significantly impair memory, reasoning, and other mental abilities

Alzheimers

Most common cognitive disorder. It causes severe memory loss, cognitive decline, and behavioral changes