How Do The Principle Psychological Perspectives Explain the Development of Individuals? Today: How do Piaget, Donaldson, Vygotsky, Bruner, Miller, Beck and Ellis explain Cognitive Development. Explain the concept of ADHD.

Piaget Piaget explains cognitive development through 4 discontinuous stages, what are these? Sensori motor Pre-operational Concrete-operational Formal operational One experiment was the 3 Mountains Test where children would be asked what view Piaget could see, when Piaget was sitting at a different position to the child. Piaget said if they could not perform the task they had not yet developed empathy.

Donaldson Donaldson criticised Piaget’s findings. She said children would be able to perform tests earlier than Piaget suggested, such as the 3 mountains tests, if they were explained in terms children could understand Donaldson performed the experiment using simpler vocab and the concept of sleeping cows

Bruner Bruner also disagreed with Piaget. He thought intellectual ability develops according to how the mind is used. He said intelligence develops stage by stage as a result of cultural context. Through his study on children in 1966 he found there were 3 modes of representation: - Enactive Representation (action based) - Iconic Representation (image based) - Symbolic Representation (language based)

Bruner Bruner said these three modes are integrated and only loosely sequential because they relate to each other. However, he also said that when presented with new material, it’s most efficient for learners to follow a progression of: Enactive to Iconic to Symbolic this is also true for adult learners. So Bruner says cognitive development relies on the cultural context, he also identifies support in the form of scaffolding (like Vygotsky) and also says that children of any age can learn things if information is presented in a systematic way they can understand.

Vygotsky Vygotsky also disagreed with Piaget. He said cognitions develop through being in the ‘Zone of Proximal Development’. He said cognitive development is continuous and relies on ‘scaffolding’ or support from peers and adults. Do the twins dress the same out of social expectation? Are twins encouraged to dress the same for effect?