1. Cognitive Development

2. Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development
Jean Piaget ( ) Swiss psychologist who became leading theorist in 1930’s
These “understandings” are in the form of structures he called schemas

3. Development of Schemas
Assimilation - process of taking new information or a new experience and fitting it into an already existing schema
Accommodation - process by which existing schemas are changed or new schemas are created in order to fit new information

4. Piaget’s approach Methods-
Discovered that children think in radically different ways than adults
Stage Theorist

5. Sensorimotor Stage (birth - 2)
Information is gained through the senses and motor actions
In this stage child perceives and manipulates but does not reason
Symbols become internalized through language development

6. Object Permanence
The understanding that objects exist independent of one’s actions or perceptions of them
Acquired by 6 months
Can be surprised by disappearance / reappearance of a face (peek-a-boo)

7. Preoperational Stage (2-7 years)
Emergence of symbolic thought
Egocentrism- “ Does your sister have a sister”
Lack the concept of conservation
Animism
These are speaker notes

8. Conservation
Number
Keywords piaget, conservation
Figures from Gray (3e)
In conservation of number tests, two equivalent rows of coins are placed side by side and the child says that there is the same number in each row. Then one row is spread apart and the child is again asked if there is the same number in each.

9. Conservation
Length
In conservation of length tests, two same-length sticks are placed side by side and the child says that they are the same length. Then one is moved and the child is again asked
if they are the same length.
Keywords piaget, conservation
Figures from Gray (3e)

10. Conservation Substance mass
In conservation of substance tests, two identical amounts of clay are rolled into similar-appearing balls and the child says that they both have the same amount of clay. Then one ball is rolled out and the child is again asked if they have the same amount.
Keywords piaget, conservation
Figures from Gray (3e)

11. Concrete Operational Stage (7-12 years)
Understanding of mental operations leading to increasingly logical thought
Classification and categorization
Less egocentric
Inability to reason abstractly or hypothetically

12. Formal Operational Stage (age 12 - adulthood)
Hypothetical-deductive reasoning
Adolescent egocentrism illustrated by the phenomenon of personal fable and imaginary audience

13. Critique of Piaget’s Theory
Underestimates children’s abilities
Underestimates the role of the social environment
Lack of evidence for qualitatively different stages

14. Information-Processing Perspective
Focuses on the mind as a system, analogous to a computer, for analyzing information from the environment
Developmental improvements reflect
increased memory, processing
new methods, knowledge

15. Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Perspective
Emphasized the child’s interaction with the social world (other people) as a cause of development
language was foundation for social interaction and thought
Piaget believed language was a byproduct of thought

16. Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Perspective
Vygotsky - children learn from interactions with other people
Zone of proximal development - what a child can do by interacting with another person, but can’t do alone.