Transcript Document

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.
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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&t
ype=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.
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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 Development
Preoperational 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
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Modeling behavior for imitation
Feedback
Contingency management
Direct instruction
Questioning
Task structuring
Cognitive structuring