Piaget Slides

8/3/2019 Piaget Slides

1/39

Cognitive Development in

Childhood and Adolescence


2/39

Part 1 :

Piagets Four Periods


3/39

eriods of Cognitive Development

Sensory-Motor Period birth to 2 years oldPre-Operational Period 2 to 6/7 years

Concrete Operational Period 6/7 to 10/11 years

Formal Operational Period 10/11 years on


4/39

What is an operation ?

Operation : a reversible mental action

Mental action refers to thoughts, a mentalimage of a physical action

A thought is reversible when the child canthink simultaneously about before andafter the action.

- Non-reversible is like a video clip. WEcan pause the video before an action orafter an action, but not before and aftersimultaneously.

- Reversibility is possible in thought, butnot in physical action.


5/39

Part 2 :

Pre-Operational Period

(2 to 6/7 years)


6/39

Pre-Operational Stages

Pre-Operational Period 2 to 6/7 years

Preconceptual Stage 2 to 4 years

Functional Stage 4 to 5 years

Transitional Stage 6 to 6/7 years

Concrete Operational Period

6/7 to 10/11 years


7/39

Transition from Sensory-Motor Period

Sensory-Motor logic is logic about actions

Understanding of relationship betweensensations and actions

Culmination of Sensory-Motor Period isdevelopment of ability to form

representations (called the symbolic function) Symbolic function enables child to form

mental images of actions, moving from planeof action to plane of thought.


8/39

Examples of Use of theSymbolic Function

Language

Symbolic play (pretend) Deferred imitation

Graphic images

Mental symbols Figural representations : static images of

things, events, people.

Representations of actions : for Piaget, the

most important use of the symbolic function.


9/39

Moving from Plane of Action to

Plane of Thought

Logic of action developed during Sensory-Motor Period doesnt translate automaticallyto the plane of thought.

Doing something logically and thinkinglogically about doing it are not the samething. The latter requires

to do the thing logically

to mentally represent or imagine all thesteps logically.


10/39

Moving to Plane of Thought We can do things in thought that are not

possible in the plane of action

Make comparisons and classifications(which is taller, fatter, darker, lighter ;which are the same; which are different)

Understand social relationships and roles(what is a mother?)

Understand time and space Understand social rules (why not to hit

others)

Determine cause-effect

Understand what changes in the world andwhat stays the same.

These are just a few examples.


11/39

Pre-Conceptual Stage (2-4

years) Primary Task : Forming pre-concepts

Pre-concepts vs. concepts

concept : mental representation of acategory

Category : a set of entities with commoncharacteristics; these entities aremembers of the category

Pre-concepts are idiosyncratic and unstable; young children change their definitionstoo frequently to constitute true concepts(according to Piaget)

Forming pre-concepts is a matter of answering what questions.


12/39

Examples of the ChildsFormation of Pre-Concepts

The Example of a Mother The example of Time and Age

Complexity of forming concepts

Child has to have some understanding of time in order to understand age.

Child has to have some understanding of agein order to understand what motherhood is.


13/39

Function Stage (4-6 years)

Understanding of identity

Understanding of functions

Limitations


14/39


15/39

Understanding of Functions

Mathematical function establishes arelationship between two quantitative(numeric) variables :

Y = 3X + 2

If X is 1, then Y is 5. If X is 4, then Y is 14.

Pre-Operational function establishes a

relationship between two conceptualvariables :

The older you get, the taller you get.

In winter it snows, In summer, it doesnt

The taller the glass, the more Kool-Aid in it.


16/39

Limitations to Pre-OperationalThinking

Egocentricism : able to consider only oneviewpoint at a time.

(Does your brother have a brother?)

Transductive Reasoning : reasoning fromparticular to particular (assuming causationfrom a correlation)

Centration : focusing on only one aspect of aproblem or situation.

Animism : belief that inanimate objects showsigns of life.

Artificialism : belief that natural objects werecreated by humans for human purposes.

Realism : belief that psychological states (e.g;dreams) are real; dont understand differencebetween action and thought.


17/39

Three Mountains Task :

Evidence of Egocentrism


18/39

Limitations to Functions

With functions, children can onlyunderstand relationship between twodimensions at a time.

Sometimes the childrens judgments arecorrect :

Usually, the taller glass does have more Kool-Aid

Many relationships involve more than twodimensions.

In these cases, the childs judgment may

be wrong.What about this case ?


19/39

The Case of the Bowl of

Ice Cream


20/39

The Case of the MultiplyingSandwich


21/39

Part 3 :

Concrete Operational Period

(6/7 to 10/11 years)


22/39

Conservation

Conservation : understanding thatchanging the form of a substance or

object does not change its amount,overall volume, or mass.

Conservation is one of many logicalabilities that children achieve in the

Concrete Operational Period. There is more research on conservation

than any other concrete operationalability because the conservation task veryclearly shows the logic that children areusing.


23/39

An Example of a ConservationTask

Before Change Child is asked Is there thesame amount of Kool-Aid inthese two glasses or doesone have more? If the child

says one has more,adjustments are made untilchild says that they are thesame.

Change The Kool-Aid in one glass ispoured into another glasswith different dimensions.

After Change Child is asked :Is there the

same amount of Kool-Aid inthese two glasses or doesone have more? and isasked to give reason foranswer.


24/39

Childrens Answers onConservation Task

Pre-Operational Functional Certaintythat one of the

glasses has more.

Pre-Operational Great uncertainty. MayTransitional refuse to give an answer.

May say that youcant tell unless youpour it back. Maysay that both glasses

now have more.

Concrete Certainty that both glassesOperational still have the same

amount.


25/39

Logic Underlying Conservation

Answers

re-Operational Functional : height amount

OR Width amount

re-Operational Functional : height amount

AND Width amount

oncrete Operational : height X width amount


26/39

Concrete Operational Logic

Identify argument : the child sometimes usesan identity argument, reasoning that the

amount of Kool-Aid must be the same, becausenothing was added or taken away.

Compensation argument : one glass is taller,but the other is wider. One increase cancels

out the other, so the two glasses still hold thesame.

reversibility argument : the action of pouringinto the taller glasses can be negated bypouring the Kool-Aid back again.


27/39

Conservation of Number

Conserved at 6 to 7 years old


28/39

Conservation of Substance



29/39

Conservation of Length



30/39

Conservation of Weight



31/39

Conservation of Volume



32/39

Classification

Child asked to sort set of objects that differ inhape, color and size.

re-Operational Child cannot sort entire sety Functional one dimension :

re-Operational Child can sort entire set by

ne Transitional dimension, but once done,cannot redo by anotherdimension

Concrete Child can sort by oneOperational dimension

And then by anotherdimension:


33/39

Class Inclusion

Class Inclusion : based on comparing thesize of a class to the size of one of itssub-classes.

Understanding that a class cannot havefewer members than one of its sub-classes contains.

Are there more daffodils or are theremore flowers.


34/39

Understanding of Number

If you had two numbers together, theresult is a number.

Adding 0 to a number leaves thenumber unchanged.

Multiply a number by 1 leaves thenumber unchanged.

2 + 3 = 3 + 2 (order of operationirrelevant)


35/39

Understanding of Measurement

Two steps in measurement- select a unit

- Count the number of those units inthing being measured

Pre-Operational children can count(the second step in measuring), butdo not understand the concept of aunit.


36/39

Summary of Concrete

Operations

Child develops range of logical abilities

(conservation, classification, number,measurement, etc).

They can use these logical abilities only inthinking about concrete objects.

They conserve the length of a concrete object, they classify concrete objects,they measure concrete objects

Inductive logic : reasoning from particular

observations to more general conclusions(the basis of classification)


37/39

Part 4 : Formal Operations(10/11 years on)


38/39

Characteristics of FormalOperations

Deductive logic : reasoning from ageneral rule to a particular instance.

Abstract : capable of concepts notembodied concretely (e.g., differencebetween arithmetic and algebra)

Hypothetical : the ability to formhypotheses ; must be able to considerwhat actually exists as one possibility of what might exist.

Combinatorial reasoning : able to identify

variables and then isolate and test eachvariable one at a time.


39/39

Effect of Attaining FormalOperations

Imaginary Audience : Belief that othersare as concerned with us as we ourselvesare.

Personal Fable : Because imagining what

ifs is a new skill, adolescents imagine apersonal story, in which the world revolvesaround them. Based on feeling specialand unique. Others do not suffer as theydo.

Adolescent Idealism : thinking abstractlyand hypothetically enables adolescents toimagine perfect and form ideals. Leads tocriticizing and fault-finding with the adult

world. Argumentativeness : At all ages, child

practice emerging skills. Deductivei g bl t t t

Documents

Piaget Slides