COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT

JEAN PIAGET Studied the intelligence of children Noticed that all children gave certain wrong answers to questions and noticed a pattern Theorized that humans organized information in two ways: Assimilation: placing new information into existing categories Accommodation: adjusting and creating categories for information that do not fit existing categories

PIAGETS STAGES OF COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT Sensorimotor: (0-24 mos.) stage where infants understand the world through sensation and motor activity (ex. Cause-effect relationships, shaking rattle and sound, striking mobile and movement) Object permanence: the idea that objects still exist even if you cannot see them (peek-a-boo, hiding object behind the back)

Preoperational stage: (2-6 years) use of words and symbols to represent objects, can only see one perspective of a situation at a time Conservation: properties such as weight, volume and number remain the same even if the shape changes Egocentrism: inability to see the point of view of another (thinks everyone has the same view as he does) See chart on page 244

Animism: the belief that objects are alive and conscious Artificialistic: natural events are the doings of people

Concrete operations: (7- puberty); able to understand abstract ideas through hands on experiences; able to focus on two dimensions of a problem at the same time Able to see the world from another’s point of view

Formal operations: puberty , represents cognitive maturity Able to think abstractly Able to deal with hypothetical situations Able to reason several solutions to a problem