Child Development/ Jean Piaget

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Child Development/Jean Piaget

• FOUN 3100
• August 25, 2003

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Development

• Why and What?

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Child Development in the 16th Century

• Puritans
• Children are born evil and have a natural
  tendency toward evil
• Children are born without knowledge they are
  not aware of their evilness and how to lead a
  good life
• Teachers/parents must steer children away from
  natural tendencies so they could go to Heaven
• The New England Primer rote memorization

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Child Development in the 17th Century

• Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Émile)
• Children morally good
• Stayed that way unless corrupted by society
• Discovery learning teachers/parents should
  create environment for children to explore

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Child Development in the 21st Century

• What is the basis of the modern day ideas of
  child development?
• Puritans or Rousseau?

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Why is studying development important?

• The more you know, the more capable you are to
  teach
• Our society values childhood
• Individual level
• Shared characteristics (psychologists)

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What is development?

• The pattern of biological, cognitive, and
  socioemotional changes that begins at conception
  and continues through the life span.

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Development The Whole Child
Biological
Socioemotional
Cognitive
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Periods of Development

• Infancy birth to 18 months
• Early childhood 18 months to 6-years-old
• Middle and late childhood6 to 11-years-old
• Adolescence 10 to 18-years-old
• Early adulthood late teens to early 30s

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Cognitive Processes

• Jean Piaget
• (1896-1980)

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Piagets Theory

• Piaget was interested in
• how we develop our understanding of the things
  around us
• How kids come to know day-to-day things adults
  take for granted

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Three Characteristics of Piagets Theory

• Biological model
• Structured theory
• Stages

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Biological Model

• Piagets education Biology
• Explained development using biological terms
• Example over time our knowledge gets more
  advanced and more differentiated as cells do
  during prenatal growth

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Structured Theory

• Interested in how things are organized
• Determined that children do not think in the same
  way as adults
• Schemas
• Change as we get older
• Assimilation
• Accommodation
• Equilibration

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Characteristics of Piagets Stages

• Reflect an underlying mental structure
• Describe a person in a state of equilibrium
• Must follow the order developed by Piaget
• Cannot skip stages
• Composed partly of preparation and party of
  achievement
• Found in all cultures - Universal

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Piagets Stages of Development

• Sensorimotor Stage birth to 2
• Infants use senses to understand their world
• Object permanence

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Piagets Stages of Development

• Preoperational Stage 2 to 7
• Increased use of language
• Egocentrism
• Animism
• Centration
• Lack of conservation
• Lack reversibility (operations)

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Piagets Stages of Development

• Concrete Operational Stage 7 to 11
• Operations
• Logical reasoning only in concrete situations
• Classification
• Seriation

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Piagets Stages of Development

• Formal Operational Stage 11 15
• More logical thought
• Abstract thought
• Idealistic thought
• Hypothetical-deductive reasoning

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Strengths of Piagets Theory

• One of the first formal, comprehensive theories
  on child development
• Children as active, constructive thinkers
• Methodology interested in why kids got wrong
  answers
• Observation methods
• Cognitive growth partial accomplishments vs.
  complete appearance at once

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Weaknesses of Piagets Theory

• Estimates of time related to childrens
  competencies
• Development does not always occur in a stage-like
  fashion
• Children can be trained to be at the next stage