Cognitive development Piaget

Jean Piaget Wanted to know how children use intelligence Observed his own three children Came up with a stage approach Every stage approach has 3 assumptions Stages must be in order and each must build on the previous Progression is closely liked to ages changes Stage progression is sign posted by major steps and changes Piaget video

Jean Piaget Cognitive development occurs as we adapt to the changing world around us He described this development as ADAPTATION The continuous process of using the environment to learn and learning to adjust to changes in the environment Adaptation occurs though 2 closely related process Assimilation and Accomodation

Assimilation Process of taking new information and fitting it into already existing categories and mental idea of things The infant uses pre existing information it has to work out what a new object is and how to use it. Adaptation video

What is this? Playing with the hammer then the wrench Give 2 of your own examples of Assimilation

Accommodation refers to changing an existing mental idea in order to fit new information. More advanced then assimilation Involves restructuring mental ideas, so it can accommodate for the new stimulus. This done by either creating new schema or changing the existing idea of what old schema is

The spanner is now used to turn things ✓

Piaget’s four stages of development

Stage 1: Sensorymotor 0-2 Years Coordinating sensory input with motor actions

Object permanence Understanding that objects still exist even after our senses can no longer detect them. Happens gradually and may not be fully acquired until 18 months Object permanence video

Test for object permanence

Goal Directed Behaviour Behaviour which is carried out with a particular purpose in mind. They begin to work out how to obtain things they want Eg. the infant learns to reach objects on a table by pulling themselves up at the side of the table. Goal Directed behaviour video

Stage 2: Preoperational Age 2 - 7 Years Old Have a greater ability to imagine things and represent things in their mind

Symbolic thinking The ability to use symbols such as words or pictures to represent object, places or events This is evident as they begin to pretend play more often. eg using a stick as a sword or telephone.

Egocentrism An inability to see things from another persons perspective. ★Christmas Presents ★Brothers and sisters Over this period children become decentered and they develop the ability to things from another’s perspective Egocentrism Video

Conservation Even though the shape of an object may be changed the total amount remains the same. Children at the preoperational stage do not understand this Conservation Video

Centration The tendency to focus on only one aspect of an object or problem at a time while neglecting the other aspects Centration Video

Stage 2 Test

Stage 3: Concrete Operational Children can figure our relationships between objects provided the objects are physically present.

Reversibility Children can mentally undo their activities. Ability to trace a subject back to its original roots The juice in a cup activity Elephants have big ears, Your teacher has big ears therefore your teacher is an elephant Reversibility video

Decentration A child can focus on more than one object at once.

Hierarchical classification New problem solving capacity Requires materials to be classified into different classes

Stage 3: Test

Stage 4: Formal Operational Age: 12 Years old and over Can think about and solve abstract problems in a logical manner Many people never reach this level. Many people struggle with these concepts and often resort to concrete thinking when things get too abstract.

Abstract a way of thinking that does not rely on being able to see or visualize things in order to understand concepts What is honesty? What is love? Does God exist? Why do we ethics? What is good and bad?

Logical Thinking they are able to develop strategies to solve problems, identify a range of possible solutions to problems, develop hypotheses (predictions and explanations) and systematically test solutions. Deductive reasoning is another name for this Deductive Reasoning Video