Piaget

Piaget’s view of Children

  • a growing child is like an emerging scientist 

  • childhood cognitive development takes place in a series of qualitative leaps 

  • at each stage a child doesn’t just know more, but thinks differently than before 

4 stages of Cognitive Development 

  1. sensori-motor stage: birth to 2 years 

    1. development of object permanence: knowledge that objects exist even when not in view 

    2. A not B error: 8 to 12 month infant will look for object where it was first found rather than where they have just seen it placed 

  2. pre-operational stage: 2 to 7 years

    1. operation: a mental routine for transposing information 

    2. conversation task: tests the child’s awareness that physical properties of a substance (number, volume, weight) remain constant despite changes in shape, length, or position 

    3. cognitive errors of preoperational children:  

      1. thought dominated by perception 

      2. centration: the tendency to focus on just one feature of a problem 

      3. irreversibility: inability to envision reversing an action 

      4. egocentrism: limited ability to share another’s perspective 

  3. concrete operational stage: 7 to 11 years

    1. child can utilize thought processes (operations) for solving concrete (real, observable) problems 

  4. formal operations: 12 years and up

    1. can now apply logic (operations) to problems that are hypothetical, purely verbal, or abstract

    2. thought is freed from direct experience

  • formal operational thinkers can: 

    1. understand abstractions, metaphorical thinking, get beyond “surface level” 

    2. think about thinking 

    3. engage in “if-then” thinking; consider consequences of actions 

    4. engage in idealistic thought 

    5. become increasingly self-conscious 

  • formal operational thinking becomes possible at puberty

    1. but often develops much later or not at all 

    2. people can develop formal operations in one discipline/mode of thinking but one others 

    3. formal operational thinkers can “improvise” rather than just “play the scales” of their discipline