Cognitive Development in Infancy and Childhood: Piaget’s Cognitive Stages

1. Cognitive Development in Infancy and Childhood: Piaget’s Cognitive Stages

2. Jean Piaget (pee-ah-ZHAY) • Introduced a stage theory of cognitive development that lead to a better understanding of children’s thought processes • Studied using his daughter

3. His Conclusions • Intelligence develops gradually as the child grows • A 4 year old cannot understand what a 7 year old understands • Young children think differently than older children or adults • They use a different logic • Quantitative changes (growth in the amount of info) and qualitative changes (differences in manner of thinking)

4. Piaget Terms

5. Cognition • All the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, and remembering • Children think differently than adults do

6. Schemas • Concepts or mental representations that people use to organize and interpret information • A person’s “picture of the world” • Use these to understand a new object or thought

7. Assimilation • Interpreting a new experience within the context of existing schemas • The new experience is similar to other previous experiences

8. Accommodation • Adapting current schemas to incorporate new information and experiences • The new experience is so novel the person’s schemata must be changed to accommodate it

9. Assimilation/Accommodation

10. Assimilation/Accommodation

11. Assimilation/Accommodation

12. Piaget’s Stages

13. Sensorimotor Stage • Stage:1st • Ages: From birth to about age two • Description: Child gathers information about the world through sensory impressions and motor activities • Terms: Child learns object permanence

14. Object Permanence • Awareness that things continue to exist even when you cannot see or hear them • “Out of sight, out of mind” • Example; toys • Signifies a big step in the second year of life

16. Representational Thought • The intellectual ability of a child to picture something in his or her mind • Now children can see things in their minds • Example: temper trantrum

17. Preoperational Stage • Stage:2nd • Ages: From about age 2 to age 6 or 7 • Description: Children learns to use language but cannot yet think logically • Develops Egocentrism

18. Egocentrism • In Piaget’s theory, the inability of the preoperational child to take another person’s point of view • Hard time with understanding another point of view • Includes a child’s inability to understand that symbols can represent other objects

19. Concrete Operational Stage • Stage: 3rd • Ages: From about age 6 to 11 • Description: Child gain the mental skills that let them think logically about concrete events • Learn conservation

20. Conservation • An understanding that certain properties remain constant despite changes in their form • The properties can include mass, volume, and numbers.

21. Conservation

22. Conservation

23. Conservation

24. Types of Conservation Tasks

25. Formal Operational Stage • Stage: 4th • Age: About age 12 on up • Description: Children begin to think logically about abstract concepts and form strategies about things they may not have experienced • Can solve hypothetical problems (What if…. problems)

26. Assessing Piaget’s Theory

27. Assessing Piaget’s Theory • Piaget underestimated the child’s ability at various ages. • Piaget’s theory doesn’t take into account culture and social differences.

28. Quiz on Friday • Know baby’s reflexes • Know physical development • Know the steps to acquire language • Understand Piaget’s theory