Cognitive Development: Piaget

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Cognitive Development Piagets Theory and
Vygotskys Sociocultural Viewpoint
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PIAGETS THEORY OF COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT

• Genetic epistemology is the experimental study of
  the development of knowledge, developed by Piaget
  
• What is Intelligence?
• According to Piaget, it is a basic life function
  that enables an organism to adapt to its
  environment.
• All intellectual activity is undertaken with one
  goal in mind-cognitive equilibrium
• Piaget described children as constructivist

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Cognitive Schemes the structure of intelligence

• Scheme is a term used by Piaget to describe the
  models, or mental structures, that we create to
  represent ,organize, and interpret our
  experiences.
• There are 3 kinds of intellectual structures
• 1.Behavioral schemes
• First intellectual structures to emerge
• 2.Symbolic schemes
• Appears 2 year of life
• 3.Operational schemes
• 7 years

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How we gain knowledge Piagets Cognitive
Processes

• Organization is the process by which children
  combine existing schemes into new and more
  complex intellectual structures.
• Adaptation is an inborn tendency to adjust to the
  demands of the environment.
• The goal of adaptation is to adjust to the
  environment this occurs through assimilation and
  accommodation.
• Assimilation is the process of interpreting new
  experiences by incorporating them into existing
  schemes.
• Accommodation is the process of modifying
  existing schemes in order to incorporate or adapt
  to new experiences.

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Piagetian Concept Example
Equilibrium Toddler who has never seen anything fly but birds thinks that all flying objects are birds
Assimilation Start Seeing an airplane flying prompts the child to call it a birdie
Accommodation Child experiences conflict upon realizing that the new birdie has no feathers. Concludes it is not a bird and asks for the proper term or invents a name. Equilibrium restored
Organization Finish Forms hierarchal scheme consisting of a superordinate class (flying objects) and two subordinate classes (birdies and airplanes).
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Piagets Stages of Cognitive Development

• According to Piaget, a childs development
  progresses through 4 qualitative stages and an
  invariant developmental sequence or universal
  pattern of development, which are
• The Sensorimotor Stage (Birth to 2 Years)
• The Preoperational Stage (2 to 7 Years)
• The Concrete-Operational Stage (7 to 11 Years)
• The Formal-Operational Stage (11-12 Years and
  Beyond)

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The sensorimotor stage (Birth-2 years)

• The 6 Developmental stages of Problem-Solving
  abilities
• 1. Reflex activity (0-1mon.) exercising and
  accommodation of inborn reflexes
• 2. Primary circular reactions (1-4 mon.)
  repeating acts centered on ones own body
• 3. Secondary circular reactions (4-8 mon.)
  repeating acts toward external objects

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Sensorimotor stage contd

• 4. Coordination of secondary schemes (8-12 mon.)
  combining acts to solve simple problems.
• 5. Tertiary circular reactions (12-18 mon.)
  experimenting to find new ways of to solve
  problems
• 6. Symbolic problem solving (18-24 mon.) inner
  experimentation without relaying on
  trial-and-error experimentation

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Development of imitation

• Deferred imitation (18-24 mo.) is the ability to
  reproduce the behavior of an absent model.
• Development of Object Permanence (8-12 mo) is the
  idea that objects continue to exist when they are
  no longer visible or detectable through the other
  senses.
• A-not-B error tendency of 8-12- month olds to
  search for a hidden object where they previously
  found it even after they have seen it moved to a
  different location.

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Challenges to Piagets account of sensorimotor
development

• Neo-nativism idea that cognitive knowledge is
  innate and subject to biological constraints
• theory theories theories of cognitive
  development that combine neo-nativism and
  constructivism

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Preoperational stage (2-7 yrs)

• There is an increase in their use of mental
  symbols to represent objects and events they
  encounter
• The Preconceptual Period is the early substage of
  preoperations, from age 2 to age 4, characterized
  by the appearance of primitive ideas, concepts,
  and methods of reasoning. Marked by the
  appearance of symbolic function and play.
• The Intuitive Period is the later substage of
  preoperations, from age 4 to age 7, when the
  childs thinking about objects and events is
  dominated by salient perceptual features.

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The Preconceptual Period

• Emergence of Symbolic thought
• Symbolic function
• Ability to use symbols to represent objects or
  experiences
• Symbolic play
• Play where one object, action, or actor
  symbolizes another

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Deficits in preconceptual reasoning

• Animism- attributing lifelike qualities to
  inanimate objects
• Egocentrism- viewing the world from only ones
  perspective
• Appearance/Reality distinction- inability to
  distinguish deceptive appearances from reality

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The intuitive period

• Here cognition is described as
• Centered a tendency to focus on one aspect of a
  situation and not on others due to their
  inability to understand
• Conservation- recognition that the properties of
  an object or substance do not change when its
  appearance is altered in some superficial way.
• Reversibility- ability to reverse or negate an
  action by mentally performing the opposite action
  

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The Concrete-Operational Stage (7 to 11 Years)

• Here children are said to think more logically
  about real objects and experiences
• Some examples of operational thought
• Conservation
• Reversibility
• Logic
• Classification
• ability to create relationships between things.
• Relational Logic
• Mental seriation
• Transitivity
• The sequencing of concrete operations
• Horizontal decalage- different levels of
  understanding conservation tasks that seem to
  require the same mental operations

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The Formal-Operational Stage (11-12 Years and
Beyond)

• Ability to reason logically about hypothetical
  process and events that may have no basis in
  reality
• Hypothetico-Deductive Reasoning
• a formal operational ability to think
  hypothetically.
• Thinking Like a Scientist
• Inductive reasoning- type of thinking where
  hypotheses are generated and then systematically
  tested in experiments.
• Personal and Social Implications
• The formal operation stage paves the way for
• Identity formation
• Richer understanding of other peoples
  psychological perspectives
• The ability to way options in decision making

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An Evaluation of Piagets Theory

• Convinced us that children are curious, active
  explorers who play an important role in their own
  development.
• His theory was one of the first to explain, and
  not just describe, the process of development.
• His description of broad sequences of
  intellectual development provides a reasonably
  accurate overview of how children of different
  ages think.
• Piagets ideas have had a major influence on
  thinking about social and emotional development
  as well as many practical implications for
  educators.
• Piaget asked important questions and drew
  literally thousands of researchers to the study
  of cognitive development.

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Challenges to Piagets cognitive developmental
theory

• Underestimated developing minds
• Failed to distinguish competence from performance
• It is believed by some that Cognitive development
  does not evolve in a qualitative and stage like
  manner- it tends to develop gradually
• Provides a vague explanation on cognitive
  maturation
• Devoted little attention to social and cultural
  influences

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STOP HERE

• STOP HERE!!!

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Vygotskys Sociocultural Perspective

• Sociocultural theory states that
• Cognitive development occurs in a sociocultural
  context that influences the form it takes
• Most of a childs cognitive skills evolve from
  social interactions with parents, teachers, and
  other more competent associates

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The role of culture in intellectual development

• Vygotsky proposed that we should evaluate human
  development from four interrelated perspectives
• Microgenetic-changes that occur over brief
  periods of time-minutes and seconds
• Ontogenetic-development over a lifetime
• Phylogenetic-development over evolutionary time
• Sociohistorical- changes that have occurred in
  one's culture and the values, norms and
  technologies such a history has generated

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Tools of intellectual adaptation

• Vygotsky (1930-1935/1978) proposed that infants
  are born with a few elementary mental functions
  attention, sensation, perception and memory
  that are eventually transformed by the culture
  into new and more sophisticated mental processes
  he called higher mental functions.

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The Social Origins of Early Cognitive
Competencies

• Zone of Proximal Development range of tasks that
  are too complex to be mastered alone but can be
  accomplished with guidance and encouragement from
  a more skillful partner
• Scaffolding- the expert participant carefully
  tailors their support to the novice learner to
  assure their understanding

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Apprenticeship in Thinking and Guided
Participation

• guided participation, adult-child interactions in
  which childrens cognitions and modes of thinking
  are shaped as they participate with or observe
  adults engaged in culturally relevant activities.
• Our culture is one that uses what Vygotsky termed
  context-independent learning

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Implications for Education

• Children are seen as active participants in their
  education
• teachers in Vygotskys classroom would favor
  guided participation in which they
• structure the learning activity
• provide helpful hints or instructions that are
• carefully tailored to the childs current
  abilities
• monitor the learners progress
• gradually turning over more of the mental
  activity to
• their pupils
• Promote cooperative learning exercises

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The role of language in cognitive development

• According to Piaget
• Children partake in egocentric speech, utterances
  neither directed to others nor expressed in ways
  that the listeners might understand
• Egocentric speech played a little role in
  cognitive development
• Speech tended to become more social as the child
  matures-less egocentric

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The role of language in cognitive development
contd

• According to Vygotsky
• Thought and language eventually emerge
• A childs nonsocial utterances, which he termed
  private speech, illustrate the transition from
  paralinguistic to verbal reasoning
• Private speech plays a major role in cognitive
  development by serving as a cognitive
  self-guidance system, allowing children to become
  more organized and good problem solvers
• As individuals develop, private speech becomes
  inner speech

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To consider

• According to contemporary research
• Children rely heavily on private speech when
  facing difficult problems
• There is a correlation between self-talk and
  competence
• Private speech does eventually become inner
  speech and facilitates cognitive development

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Theories of Cognitive DevelopmentVygotsky vs.
Piaget
Vygotskys sociocultural theory Piagets cognitive developmental theory
Cognitive development varies across cultures Cognitive development is mostly universal across cultures
Stems from social interactions Stems from independent explorations
Social processes become individual-physiological processes Individual (egocentric) processes become social processes
Adults are important as change agents Peers are important as change agents