JEAN PIAGET THEORY OF COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT(POSTNATAL DEVELOPMENT)

Lecture coverage General introduction. Piagets stages of growth Strategies to help children in information processing Evaluation of the theory.

Piagets Theory
Jean Piaget (1896-1980) was one of the 20th centuries most influential researchers in the area of developmental psychology.
He is considered as the leading author in the field of cognitive development. Piaget was originally trained in the areas of biology and philosophy
He was mainly interested in the biological influences on how we come to know.

Process of Cognitive Development

As a biologist, Piaget was interested in how an organism adapts to its environment (Piaget described this ability as intelligence.)
He developed two principles from which mental activity depends on. 1.Organization 2.Adaptation (Involves assimilation and accommodation)

Process of Cognitive Development cont.

Organisation is the mental ability to order and classify new ideas, experience or information termed as schemata. A Schema is a mental structure that gives a child a model for what happens when he/she does something.

Piaget hypothesized that infants are born with schemes operating at birth that he called "reflexes.
Thus as the child receives new messages, information or terms , he/she organise it into schema (Brains activity)

Process of Cognitive Development cont.

Adaptation- Way baby adapts to processes of assimilation & accommodation. Adaptation can not take place unless there is a schema. Assimilation is the process of adding information to existing schemas, and strengthening them. It is the process by which people translate incoming information into a form they can understand Through assimilation a child will perceive and interpret new information in terms of existing knowledge and understanding. E.g. Children attempts to explain new phenomena/information by referring to their current frame of reference.

Process of Cognitive Development cont.

The function of assimilation is to make the unfamiliar things familiar. OR unknown things to known things. E.g. A child can call all cars as cars because he/she knows that a tax is a car. A cow as a horse A TV set as a computer etc. Thus there is stimulus generalisation. Assimilation
The process by which people adapt current knowledge structures in response to new experiences

Process of Cognitive Development

cont.
Child as scientist Mental structures intrinsically active constantly being applied to experience Leads to curiosity and the desire to know Development proceeds as the child actively refines his/her knowledge of the world through many small experiments

Process of Cognitive Development cont.

Teachers/parents and librarians should not try to transmit knowledge, but should provide opportunities for discovery Child needs to construct or reinvent knowledge adult knowledge cannot be formally communicated to the child Limited importance of socio-cultural context; importance of peer interaction.

Key Ideas in Piagets Theory

Children literally construct and reconstruct their knowledge of the world as they mature and advance their levels of cognitive functioning.
Children are seen as
Active Learning many important lessons on their own Intrinsically motivated to learn

Key Ideas in Piagets Theory

Children are active and motivated learners. Children continuously organize, structure, and restructure experiences in relation to existing schemas of thought.

Key Ideas in Piagets Theory Children adapt to other environments through the process of assimilation & accommodation.

Piagets Stages of Cognitive Development

(1) Sensorimotor (0-2 years) (2) Pre-operational (2-7 years) (3) Concrete Operational (7-11 years) (4) Formal Operational (11-16 years)

II: The Sensorimotor Period (0-2 years)

The infant constructs an understanding of the world by coordinating sensory actions with physical actions Only some basic motor reflexes grasping, sucking, eye movements, orientation to sound, etc By exercising and coordinating these basic reflexes, infant develops intentionality and an understanding of object permanence.

II: The Sensorimotor Period (0-2 years) cont..

Intentionality refers to the ability to act in a goal-directed manner in other words, to do one thing in order that something else occurs. Requires an understanding of cause and effect

II: The Sensorimotor Period (0-2 years) cont

Object permanence refers to the understanding that objects continue to exist even when no longer in view. Need to distinguish between an action and the thing acted on.

The Sensorimotor Period

Stage 1(0-1 month) Stage of reflex activity. Many reflexes like reaching, grasping sucking all operating independently. Objects like "sensory pictures". Subjectivity and objectivity fused. Schemes activated by chance: No intentionality.

The Sensorimotor Period cont

Stage 2 (1-4 Months)

Stage of Primary Circular Reactions. Infants behaviour, by chance, leads to an interesting result & is repeated. Circular: repetition. Primary: centre on infant's own body. Example: thumb-sucking. Passive expectation: if object disappears, infant will continue looking to the location where it disappeared, but will not search. In the infant mind, the existence of the object still very closely tied to schemes applied to experience Intentionality beginning to emerge: infant can now self-initiate certain schemes (e.g., thumb-sucking)

The Sensorimotor Period cont

Stage 3 (4-8 Months) Stage of Secondary Circular Reactions Repetition of simple actions on external objects. Example: bang a toy to make a noise. Poor understanding of the connection between causes and effect limits their ability to act intentionality. Magical causality accidentally banging toy makes many interesting things happen

The Sensorimotor Period cont

Visual anticipation. If infant drops an object, and it disappears, the infant will visually search for it. Will also search for partially hidden objects But will not search for completely hidden objects.

The Sensorimotor Period cont

Stage 4 (8-12 months) Co-ordination of secondary circular reactions. Secondary schemes combined to create new action sequences. First appearance of intentional or in Piagets terms, means-end behavior. Infant learns to use one secondary scheme (e.g., pulling a towel) in order that another secondary scheme can be activated (e.g., reaching and grasping a toy)

The Sensorimotor Period cont

Stage 5 (12-18 months) Stage of Tertiary Circular Reactions. Actions varied in an experimental fashion. Pursuit of novelty New means are discovered. Limited to physical actions taken on objects Can only imagine the object as existing where it was last hidden. Invisible displacement requires the infant to mentally calculate the new location of the object.

The Sensorimotor Period cont

Stage 6 (18-24 months)
Can solve object search with invisible displacement. Infants now mentally represent physically absent objects. Understands object as something that exists independently of sensory-motor action. Sensori-motor period culminates with the emergence of the Symbolic function An idea or mental image is used to stand-in for a perceptually absent object Trial-and-error problem solving does not need to enacted but can undertaken through mental combination.

How to help children in information processing at this stage

Teach them through plays( Use objects of different size and shapes) Teach them how to recognize different sound i.e of different things, animals, dangerous sounds etc. Teach them to learn through sensory motor activity e.g threat to fire ( using symbols)

II: The pre-operational period

Symbolic thought without operations. Operations: logical principles that are applied to symbols rather than objects. There is increased use of verbal and symbol representation. E.g when you ask Mary if her mother is present, she nods the head to show whether she is present or not. The child begin to represent the world with words and images. e.g Children use symbols to represent cars, clouds, houses etc

Pre-operational thinking and problems of conservation

Container B and C have the same volume But if the liquid in B is pored in Container A, the child will select container C and not A

B A

Pre-operational thinking and problems of conservation

Children tend to centre/focus upon one aspect of a situation and not take into account others. Pre-operational children tend to say there was more liquid in C as they focused on height

Characteristics of Pre-Operational Thinking

Language skills are greatly improved. The child asks a lot of questions (How's and Why's) They can recognize letters, colors etc. The child become so Egocentric The child become Intuitive ( problem solving is not reasoned or logical)

How to help children in information processing at this stage

Give them groups of objects to manipulate Reduce egocentrism, involve children in social interactions Ask children to make comparisons i.e bigger, smaller, wider, heavier etc Give children experience in ordering operations e.g help them to line up from tallest to shortest and vice versa. Use different models of animals. This will help children to improve their ordering ability. Help them to draw pictures. E.g You take a picture and help them relate with words Ask them to justify their answers. E.g grandma/grandpa walks with a stick/ have grey hair.

IV: Concrete operational thinking (7-11 years)

Cognitive skills are more developed A chid can reason logically Co-ordination of multiple dimensions and ability to perform multiple classification. E.g A child can classify things into sets and subsets i.e can classify her tree clan to a certain level Awareness of transformations. Physical operations now internalized and have become cognitive Still, logic directed at physical or concrete problems

How to help children in information processing at this stage

Help children to reach answers through their own thinking. Eg Direct them, elaborate, answer their reference question etc. Involve children in operational tasks e.g +; _; x; / etc Continue to ask them to justify their answers. This will improve their communication and reasoning skills thus they will be good communicators/informers Encourage them to work in groups to improve their social interactions. E.g creation of plays, story telling etc. This will improve their communication skills and information sharing.

V: Formal operations (11-13)

Brain maturity allows for scientific reasoning, logic and abstract thinking. Problems are approached with advanced logic reasoning A child can deals with advanced logic reasoning A chid can deal with hypothetical situations and think about possibilities. Advances in use of deductive and inductive logic e.g Deductive thought in period of concrete operations is confined to familiar everyday experience: If Sam steals Tims toy, then how will Tim feel? Thinking goes beyond experience, more abstract

How to help children in information processing at this stage

This is the onset of adolescent period, thus realize that they are not fools (tabula rasa)

Propose a question and invite them to produce their views Present/suggest several ways to approach the problem Develop simple investigations for them to carry out Select information that is familiar to them and ask questions about it.

Strengths of Piaget
Active rather than passive view of the child. Revealed important invariants in cognitive development. Insists on child Tasks to foster cognitive development.

VI: Criticisms of Piaget

Cognitive ability differs from one child to another His stages are not uniform to all children. Culture and experience/ exposure exert stronger influences on child development Covers many ages and issues in development.