Jean Piaget – The Swiss Psychologist

Piaget was the first to study children in a scientific way. He said children go through 4 stages of thinking. He felt children should be given learning tasks to help them in each stage.

Piaget’s own family He was born in 1896 He died in 1980 He married Valentine Chatenay in 1923 They had three kids. Piaget studied his own children’s intellectual development.

Piaget studied how children learn: He wanted to understand how intelligence developed in children. He found intellectual development followed a pattern.

Piaget’s Conclusions: Intellectual development follows a pattern. Children master one thinking skill before they can master another. Children can’t be forced by parents or teachers to develop understanding any faster than their abilities mature.

According to Piaget: Learning stages appear in the same order for all children, but the age at which the stage appears will be different in children. Average ages can be predicted. He identified four major periods – and gave average ages.

Piaget’s 4 Stages of Dev. Sensorimotor: Birth to Age 2 Preoperational: Age 2 to 7 Concrete Operations Age 7 – 11 Formal Operations: Age 11 to Adulthood

Sensorimotor Stage: Age 0 to 2 Characteristics: Reflexes: (Grasp, Sucking, Startle, Rooting, etc.) Hand-mouth coordination Hand-eye coordination Finds partially hidden objects (Object permanence) Imitates others Imagination develops Children learn through their senses

Preoperational: Age 2 to 7 Children live in the moment! Attention span is very short They are big pretenders! They also imitate everything they see others say and do! They often are unaware of what is real and what is pretend!

Pre-operational Thinking: Symbols: A child this age can learn a stop sign means stop. Pretend: By dramatic play they imitate real life situations. Egocentric: They view the world in terms of their own thoughts and feelings….if you are hurt…you need a bandaid! Limited focus: They need one command at a time.

The Concrete Operations Period Age 7 to 11 Children learn best from direct experience! Children learn best by doing! Logical thinking is possible! They understand that something can be reversed….you can undo! They are able to categorize or classify objects or items….such as animals or types of food.

Concrete Thinking Classify Objects: Sort blocks by color or size Age 3 …just by color…Age 7 by color & size Putting objects in a series by smallest to largest Learning two balls of clay the same size….can be changed in shape….but the amount of clay hasn’t changed.

The Formal Operations Stage Age 11 to Adulthood Children are capable of abstract thinking. They can think about what might have been without actually living through an event. They can also think about future events. They are capable of understanding more subtle messages. They can solve more complex problems.