Cognitive Development - Piaget

• Piaget

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-9014865592046332725&q=piaget&total=553&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0

Constructivism

• The belief that children actively create knowledge rather than passively receiving it from the environment.– Knowledge is constructed from experience– Born with ability and desire to learn.– Must be active to learn.– Thinking/learning is internalization of physical

knowledge.

Adaptation

• Fundamental process by which schemes are altered through experience.

• Comprised of two complementary processes.

Mechanisms of Change• Assimilation:

information that fits into existing cognitive structure– schemas

Mechanisms of Change

• Accommodation: changing beliefs to fit new conceptual information

Equilibration

• Equilibration: regulatory process that maintains a functional balance between assimilation and accommodation

Process of Equilibration

• Children are satisfied with mode of thought (equilibrium)

• Become aware of shortcomings in existing knowledge (disequilibrium)

• Adopt a more sophisticated mode of thought (return to equilibrium)

Figure - Equilibration

Characteristics of Stages of Cognitive Development

• Each stage represents a qualitative change in thinking

• Culturally Invariant

• Includes structures and abilities of previous stages

Sensorimotor Stage• Birth to 2 years of age

• Qualitative change: use senses, motor skills to gain knowledge

Piaget – Object Permanence

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1175151981122766441&q=social+referencing&total=175&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0

Preoperational Stage

• 2 to 6/7 years

• Representational skills• Egocentric thought: http://video.google.com/videoplay?

docid=1175151981122766441&q=social+referencing&total=175&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0

• Magical thought– Animism

Concrete Operational

• 6/7 to 11/12 years• Qualitative Change: Operational thinking: mental

actions that are reversible• Reversibility: the ability to understand that actions

that affect objects, if reversed in sequence, will return the objects to their original state.

• Decentration: the ability to comprehend more than one aspect of a problem at a time.

• http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6920589460141885734&q=piaget+concrete+operational&total=2&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=1

Concrete Operational Stage

• Logical, but concrete in their thinking, i.e., can think only in terms of concrete things they can handle or see.

• Conservation: the principle that attributes such as mass, weight, volume, etc. remain unchanged regardless of irrelevant changes in the external appearance of an object that have no effect on that attribute.

Conservation

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1175151981122766441&q=social+referencing&total=175&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0

Cognitive DevelopmentPreoperational Stage

- No conservation

“Cut it up into A LOT of slices, Mom. I’m really hungry!!”

Formal Operations

• 11/12 years through adulthood• Logical and abstract thought: http://

video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1175151981122766441&q=social+referencing&total=175&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0

• Adolescent egocentrism: Elkind– Imaginary Audience– Personal Fable

EVALUATION OF PIAGET’S THEORY:Strengths

• Children do move from being more egocentric to less egocentric

• Also move from being less systematic and able to use logic to being better able to think in these ways

• Children do pass through stages in same order

• Constructivistic view of development

Criticisms of Piaget’s Theory

• Findings may only work with Piaget’s tasks

• Can have skills characteristic of two stages at one time period

Vygotsky

• Soviet Psychologist

• Thought and Language, 1962

• Sociocultural Approach

Sociocultural Approach

• Children are born with the fundamental cognitive and perceptual abilities

• Infants are active learners

• Individuals are products of culture

Influence of Speech on Development of Thought

• 3 Developmental Phases– Social speech– Egocentric speech– Inner speech

Zone of Proximal Development

• Psychological distance between children’s individual performance in problem-solving and potential for higher levels of performance when guided by more capable peers/adults.

Criticisms

• Assumes that the majority of interactions proceed in optimal fashion.

• Little research on individual differences in child-mother dyads.

Functional Activities to Facilitate ZPD

• Modeling behavior for imitation

• Feedback

• Contingency management

• Direct instruction

• Questioning

• Task structuring

• Cognitive structuring