1. Developmental Psychology

2. Piaget - Cognitive developmental psychologist

3. General notes
Piaget studied the interaction between children and the people and objects with which they come in contact
A child cannot master a new intellectual concept before he or she has reached the correct stage of maturation
Children adapt as fast as their biological development permits (maturation)

4. 4 stages of cognitive development
Sensory – Motor
Pre - operational
Concrete - Operational
Formal - Operational

5. Sensory - Motor Birth – two years of age
Children begin to distinguish themselves from those around them
Curiosity develops
Coordinates sensory experiences with sucking, reaching, and grasping

6. Milestone for the Sensory - Motor phase
OBJECT CONSTANCY
Objects no longer exist when they disappear from sight
OBJECT PERMANENCE
The (cognitive) understanding things continue to exist even though I cannot see them

7. Pre - Operational Ages 2-7
Children focus on their own desires, pleasures, pains
Use language as a tool for understanding and controlling their world
Ages 2-4 generalization
Age 4-5 ability to distinguish

8. Concrete - Operational
Ages 7-11
Specialized skills develop
Grouping – classification system that allows them to place similar objects together (dogs, turtles, fish, = pets)

9. Formal Operational Early adolescence
Understand abstract political, moral, religious, and scientific ideas

10. Schema
An idea or mental framework that helps one organize and interpret date
Schemas are ever changing

11. Conservation
The understanding of different laws of conservation happens between the ages of 5 and 9
The principle that the properties of substances remain the same despite changes in their shape or arrangement