Intellectual Development in Children

1
Intellectual Development in Children

• Jean Piaget
• (1896-1980)

2
Jean Piaget(1896-1980)

• Published 1st scientific paper by age 11.
• Published many papers by age 15
• Phd. Natural Science age 21
• Studied in Zurich where he was introduced to
  Psych/psychoanalysis and Freud.
• Job developing French reasoning tests and was
  more interested in wrong answers than right.
• 1921- Director of Research at Rousseau Instituted
  in Geneva where he developed his stages of
  cognitive development.
• http//www.piaget.org/aboutPiaget.html

3
ConstructivismThe process of creating knowledge
in order to solve a problem and eliminate a
disequilibrium

• Piaget What makes the wind?
• Julia The trees.
• P How do you know?
• J I saw them waving their arms.
• P How does that make the wind?
• J (waving her hand in front of his face) Like
  this. Only they are bigger. And there are lots of
  trees.
• P What makes the wind on the ocean?
• J It blows there from the land. No. It's the
  waves...

• Piaget recognized that five-year-old Julia's
  beliefs, while not correct by any adult
  criterion, are not "incorrect" either. They are
  entirely sensible and coherent within the
  framework of the child's way of knowing.
  Classifying them as "true" or "false" misses the
  point and shows a lack of respect for the child.
  What Piaget was after was a theory that could
  find in the wind dialogue coherence, ingenuity
  and the practice of a kind of explanatory
  principle (in this case by referring to body
  actions) that stands young children in very good
  stead when they don't know enough or have enough
  skill to handle the kind of explanation that
  grownups prefer.

4
Basic Principles

• All humans inherit two basic tendencies
• 1. Organization
• Tendency to systematize and combine
• processes into coherent general
  systems
• 2. Adaptation
• Adjustment to ones environment
• B. Schemes
• Organized pattern of behavior or thought
  based on existing physical and cognitive
  abilities.
• C. Adaptation
• Process of creating a match between
  existing schemes and experiences with ones
  environment.
• 1. Assimilation
• New experience is fitted into existing
  scheme
• 2. Accommodation
• Scheme is created or revised to fit new
  experience

5

• D. Motivations to learn
• 1. Disequilibrium
• A discrepancy between an existing scheme and a
  new experience.
• 2. Equilibration
• Tendency to organize schemes to allow better
  understanding of experiences. (Homeostasis of the
  intellect)
• E. Factors of schemes
• 1. Experience (stored information)
• 2. Maturation (Piagets stages of cognitive
  development)

6
Piagets Stages of Cognitive Development