COGNITIVE DEVELO

PMENT

J

ENNIFER CURRY, PH. D

.

Stages:

•Sensorimotor—Birth to 2 years.•Preoperational—Two to 7 years.•Concrete Operations-7 to 11 years•Formal Operational Thought-11 +

PIAGET’S COGNITIVE-DEVELOPMENTAL THEORY

•Circular Reactions—habits or action oriented schemas (such as thumb sucking, grasping and kicking)

•Emerging means-end behavior—performing a completely different activity to get to a goal (such as turning a door know to get outside)

•Object Permanence-objects exist even if we don’t see them

•Main goal of the sensorimotor stage is to understand the physical world (depth perception, understanding that one’s movement can affect the environment

SENSORIMOTOR—AGES 0-2

•Development of sophisticated symbolism•Egocentric-failure to recognize more viewpoints than one’s own•Animistic Thinking-belief that inanimate objects have lifelike qualities, such as feelings or thoughts•Magical Thinking-assign human purposes to physical events (e.g., angels are beating a drum if there is thunder)

PREOPERATIONAL STAGE—TWO TO 7 YEARS

PREOPERATIONAL THOUGHT CONTINUED…

• Inability to understand conservation• Centration-children focus on one aspect of a

situation, neglecting other things that affect it• Irreversibility-unable to go through a series of

steps in a problem and then reverse direction and return to the starting point

• Lack of Hierarchical Classification—aren’t able to organize objects into classes on the basis of similarities and differences

• Difficulty using logic

Metacognition-by age 3 children realize thinking occurs in their head

Awareness of mental life—start using words like “think” or “pretend” around age 2

Develop private speech-speech directed at oneself

Vocabulary develops quickly-age 2 (200 words) by age 6 (10,000 words)

PREOPERATIONAL—WHAT THEY DO KNOW…

CONCRETE OPERATIONAL STAGE-EIGHT TO 12 YEARS

• Understand Conservation• Ability to decentrate-focus on more than one aspect of a

problem and coordination• Reversibility• Classification by different parameters begins to develop • Seriation-ability to order items along a quantitative

dimension (such as length or weight), or to group in categories

• Spatial Reasoning emerges-rotation, and mapping

Unable to abstract

Display Horizontal Decalage-inability to develop an overriding theory of conservation which can be extended to all types of problems.

Problems are addressed individually rather than with a generalized system

CONCRETE OPERATIONS--LIMITATIONS

FORMAL OPERATIONAL STAGE- 12+NOT EVERY ADULT ACHIEVES THIS!

Characteristics Include:

• Hypothetico-deductive reasoning—ability to begin with an overarching theory of factors, develop hypotheses, and subsequently testing hypotheses

• Propositional Thought—ability to evaluate the logic of verbal statements without referring to real-world circumstances

• Scientific Reasoning-coordinating theory and evidence

EX: BROADMEAD

• Argumentativeness-use facts to build a case or justify behavior

• Self-consciousness and self focusing-project abstract views of themselves

• Imaginary audience-teens believe they are the focus of everyone else’s attention (hypersensitive to criticism and obsessiveness about appearance)

• Personal fable-inflated opinion of their importance, “it won’t happen to me”

CONSEQUENCES OF ABSTRACT THOUGHT

Zone of Proximal Development-the range of tasks too difficult for a child to do by him or herself, but possible with help.

Scaffolding-Adjusting support offered during a teaching session with a child to fit the child’s level of performance.

Assisted Discovery-verbal prompts or guided activities aimed at zone of proximal development

SOCIAL ORIGINS OF COGNITION

INDIVIDUAL AND GROUP DIFFERENCES IN IQ

Nature vs. Nur ture

Cultural Inf luences

Exposure

Language Development

Learning in School