Piaget's Stages of Development

What is Cognitive Development?

Child's child's thought, language, and intelligence.

Who is Jean Piaget?

Jean Piaget is the father of cognitive development, he noticed that children around the same age tend to make the same mistakes. Jean Piaget then observed children and he proposed a sequence of development that all normal children follow. He believed there are 4 STAGES of cognitive development.

Conservation

A conceptual tool - Ability to recognize that objects can be transformed in some way, visually or physically, yet still be the same in numbers, volumes, weight, liquid, or matter.

Assimilation

The way children incorporate (take in) new information with existing schemes to form new cognitive structures.

EX: Child calls lion a "doggie" bc the child only knows one type of 4 legged animal

Accomodation

With more interaction in the world - child takes existing schemes and adjusts them to fit their experience.

EX: Child plays with keys on piano to hear different notes and learns he must turn piano on to play

Piaget's Cognitive Learning Process

1. all thinking begins at balanced mental state of equilibrium

2. child receives new info

3. child adapts new info assimilation/ accommodation

4. new thought (schema) is formed

What is Piaget's Stages of Cognitive Development?

1. Sensorimotor- infancy (0- 2 yrs)

2. Preoperational- early childhood (2-7 yrs)

3. Concrete Operation- middle childhood (7-11 yrs)

4. Formal Operation- adolescence (12 yrs- adult)

Sensorimotor

Age: 0-2 (Infancy-Toddler)

- Egocentric (thinking only one self)

- Starting unds symbolic thought

- Organizes thoughts by schemas

-The time where babies experience the world through their senses and actions. (grabbing, looking, touching, hearing, putting things in their mouth <- mostly)

-Successful in object permanence by 18-24 months

Language during Sensorimotor

- Speaks first word by 1 year old

- First sentence (two words) by 18-24 months

Preoperational (2-4)

Age: 2-4 (Early Childhood - Preschool - Kindergarten)

- Egocentric (thinking only one self)

- Casual reasoning (toddler believes his thoughts could cause actions)

- Centration (focus on one thing at a time)

- See the world as symbolic images & object

- Mastery of symbols (pretending and play)

Language during Preoperational (2-4)

- Declarative (tell) language "I am hungry"

- Vocabulary about 1,000

Preoperational (5-7)

Age: 5-7 (Early Childhood - Preschool - Kindergarten)

- No longer egocentric. Understand others can have a different perspective.

- Intuitive reasoning (self-thinking)

- Representational thought

- Can classify by two criteria (shape and color)

- Understand conservation except liquid

- Can count to 20 using fingers

Language during Preoperational (5-7)

- Period of fast mapping (using context to determine the meaning of words)

- Rapid advances in conservation (knows about 2,500 words) and vocabulary (knows about 20,000 words)

- Many "Why" questions

Concrete Operations

Age: 7-11 (Middle Childhood - Elementary)

- Classification skill (classify and divide objects in sets)

- Fully understand conservation

- Solves problems by thinking about multiple perspectives to real (concrete) situation.

- Resaon logically (inductive reasoning - figure) instead of intutively

- Can perform seriation

- Older enough can perform transitive inference (drawing conclusions about two objects, knowing the third object.)

-Understand distinction between appearance and reality

- Metacognition ability (thinking about thinking)

Formal Operations

Age: 12- 18 (Adolescence)

- Teen is now capable of abstract reasoning

- Capable of hypothetical-deductive reasoning

- Education focuses on preparing for college

- Higher level of moral reasoning, no longer following external rules imposed by others.

- Logical is now applied to what might exist, not just to what is real

Object permanence

(sensorimotor)

- recognition that objects/ events continue to exist even when not visible

- begins when child is 8 mo.

EX: in absence of object permanence, infant will not search for object when hidden

Symbolic thought

For young children to engage in making up or imagination by acting as if things are real when they are not real. Symbolic thinking is a cognitive stage of development in young preschool age children.

EX: An example is children playing in the dirt to make food. The children imagine themselves to be other people or animals also using drawing, writing, singing and talking.

Animism

(preoperational: 2-4 yrs)

- child's belief that non- living objects have lifelike, imaginary friend

EX: Believe that their bunny has feeling and opinions

Centeration

(preoperational)

Focus on one piece of information at one time and ignoring others.

EX: focus on swinging

Egocentrism

(preoperational)

Cannot tell the difference between their own perspective and feelings, and someone's else. Focus on my own surrounding only.

EX: Taking on the phone with his father, "see my new shoes"

Equilibrium

- Stable balance toward to successful adaptation.

has 3 phrases:

1) Children begin in a state of balance

2) thought changes and conflict emerges and finally,

3) through the process of assimilation and accommodation

Irreversibility

(preoperational)

Make error in thinking because they cannot understand that an operation moves more in one direction.

EX: Emma plays with the clay, she believes that the clay must always be in the same form remain in the same amount. When a classmate plays with the clay and gives it back as long narrow piece. Emma thinks she's getting back less.

Reversibility

Opposite of Irreversibility

Able to to mentally return to the situation or operation just like beginning

causal reasoning

"causality"

(preoperational)

Cannot think logically about cause and effect -> thoughts can cause actions.

It changes over time:

1. by appearance

2. by all-powerful force

3. by causes in nature

4. approaches in adult explanation

Transductive Reasoning

(preoperational)

Connect specific experience, whatever or not there logical casual reasoning.

EX: Bill was mean to his sister. She got sick and he thought he caused his sister sick. (Casual Reasoning)

Inductive Reasoning

(concrete)

Can figure things out logically but not accurate.

EX: ball and football.

Hypothetical-Deductive Reasoning

(Formal)

Form ideas about "what might be" and work out the right solutions.