Theories of Cognitive Development

Cognitive Development: How we acquire ability to lean, think, communicate and remember over time

Jean Piaget

Believed cognitive development is domain general and children are active learners. He thought that the end of development was the ability to reason logically about hypothetical problems.

Schemes: Mental representation of the world used to guide and interpret experiences

  • Piaget believed that children use assimilation to acquire new knowledge and that schemas at a certain point require Accommodation

Assimilation: Incorporating new knowledge with existing ones

Accommodation: Altering a scheme to make it more compatible with experience

Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development

  1. Sensorimotor Stage (Birth - 2 years)

    1. Learning through their senses

    2. These infants lack object permanence; when something disappears it continues to exist

    3. Also lack deferred imitation; ability to imitate a person after time passes

      1. A major milestone that is needed to pass through this stage is mental presentation; objects and structures in the mind

  2. Pre-operational Stage (2-7)

    1. Now can form mental representations and symbolic thought; using a symbol to represent something

      1. Using toilet rolls as telescopes

    2. A major inability in this stage is egocentrism; inability to see the world from others perspectvies

    3. Cannot perform mental operations

    4. Lack conservation: A change in a physical change of an amount or appearance looks the same

      • Key cause of lack of is Centration: The child can only one features rather than another

      • Irreversibility: Inability to recall the steps of an action in their mind

  3. Concrete Operations Stage (7-11 years)

    1. Children can now perform mental operations on physical objects

    2. Still have problems with abstract/hypothetical situations

  4. Formal Operations Stage (11 - Adulthood)

    1. Can consider imaginary concepts, hypothesize, and thinking abstractly

    2. Can use systematic ways of solving problems

Pros of Piaget’s Theory:

  1. Children have unique schemas that guide thinking

  2. Children at active learners

Cons of Piaget’s Theory:

  1. Piaget underestimated children’s cognitive skills

  2. Development is more continuous and less stage like

  3. Development is less general and more domain specific

  4. Object permanence can occur a very young age

Lev Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory

Believed that social and cultural factors contribute to learning

Proposed Scaffolding; Parents initially structure environments for learning

Zone of Proximal Development: The space between what a learner can do without assistance and what a learner can do with adult guidance or with co-operation

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Key Cognitive Accomplishments in Early Development

Categorization of Objects: Categorization of objects is important because it can help with knowing what does what, what is safe, danger, etc

Naive Physics: By 4.5 months, infants expect unsupported objects to fall and becomes more refined with experience

Self-Concepts and the concept of other: By 3 months, infants can identify themselves vs another baby in a video.

  • By 18 months, babies can recognize themselves in a mirror

  • By 2, babies can recognize pictures of themselves and refer to themselves by name

Theory of Mind: Child’s ability to reason about what other people know or believe

  • False Belief Test: The ability to explain, predict, and interpret behavior by attributing mental states such as desires, beliefs, intentions and emotions to oneself and to other people