1. Intellectual Development
Cognitive perspective Jean Piaget
Intellectual Development
Piaget’s Theory of
Cognitive Development

2. Background to the study - Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development
Piaget thought that intellectual development happened in stages, and that a child would only go on to the next stage once it had completely mastered the first one. Each stage is seen as a kind of 'building block' for the next stage to rest on.
How might a child who has be subjected to neglect and abuse in early child hood measure against others in terms of the age a stage is for them?

3. I will observe children; babies through to adolescents
Jean Piaget’s
I will observe children; babies through to adolescents
Piaget outlined four stages of cognitive development, and gave approximate ages at which children reached those stages. He stressed, though, that these ages are only averages; individual children might go through the stages at a different speed but they would always go through the stages in the same order.

4. An overview of Piaget’s beliefs
Piaget argued that younger children do not have the capabilities to think in the same way as older children. And that children have to go through a process (stages) of cognitive development in order to achieve the abilities of an older child or adult.
Piaget believed that there are a number of stages that all children go through in the same order.
Piaget is therefore arguing that these stages are innate. Instinctive

5. Piaget’s assumptions about children
Children learn many things on their own without the intervention of older children or adults.
Children construct their own knowledge in response to their experiences
Children are intrinsically motivated to learn and do not need rewards from adults to encourage learning
Piaget’s assumptions about children
For this theory there is a small amount of nature but more nurture elements
Nature: maturation of brain and body; motor skills; crawl walk, the ability to perceive, learn and act
Nurture; adaptation, Children respond to the demands of the environment in ways that meet their own goals. They NEED to learn to survive.

6. Piaget’s theory stages

7. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QX6JxLwM JeQ

8. Sensorimotor stage Birth to 2 years-old

9. Sensorimotor
The infant only knows the world via its immediate senses; sight, taste, touch, sound and the (motor) actions it performs.
The infant lacks internal mental schemata and is unable to distinguish between itself and its environment (profound egocentrism)
The infant lacks object permanence – fails to see or act on ‘hidden’ objects
Building knowledge through reflexes eg. grasping, sucking turn head to listen.

11. Sensorimotor stage; birth to 2 yrs
At 8 months children will search for the object but will tend to search in places it has seen the object hidden before – even though the object is visually moved to a new hiding place
At 0-5 months an object that was visually hidden is not searched for.

12. Pre-operational stage
2 to 7 years-old

13. BTEC activities sheet

14. Pre-operational
Throughout this stage the child’s continues to add to or create new schemas
The child is still dominated by the sensory information it receives and is thus very influenced by the appearance of things; sight
They fail to be able to carry out logical operations and show centration (only focus on one aspect of an object at a time)

15. Lack of Conservation – the inability to realise that some things remain constant or unchanged despite changes in visible appearance

16. Three Mountains Experiment Study
Pre-operational
Three Mountains Experiment Study
Egocentrism – the difficulty in understanding that others do not see, think and feel things like you do.

18. What is conservation?
Piaget argued that the inability to conserve is due to the child's failure to understand that things remain the same (constant) despite changes in their appearance (how they look). Piaget believes this is an example of centration. The pre-operational child has not decentred and is therefore centring on just one dimension. For example, the child is centring on just one dimension of the beaker, usually its height, and so fails to take width into account
“Are they the same?”
Roll one of the play dough balls into a sausage shape

19. Concrete
operational
stage
7 to 11 years-old

20. Concrete operational
The child is able to carry out mental operations such as the liquid conserve experiment and de- centre, meaning they generally can see another person’s point of view.
The child can complete class inclusion tasks and the three mountains task successfully (overcoming egocentrism)

21. Concrete operational
However these operations cannot be carried out in the child’s head – like mental arithmetic, the physical (concrete) presence of the objects being manipulated is needed, for example, counting using beads.
Therefore the child would be able to conserve if they see the physical transformation of the objects / liquid

23. Formal
operational
stage
Adolescence +

24. Formal operational
Ideas can be manipulated in the head and reasoning deductions can be carried out on verbal statements, without the aid of visual/concrete examples.
They can think about hypothetical (forethought imagining) problems such as planned bus journey.
Can think about abstract concepts, such as the pendulum study eg. swinging pendulum with different size plasticine balls.
Consequences considered and
things are planned in advance.

25. Formal operational
Stop using trial and error learning use logical thinking to solve problems…
Approach problems in a systematic and organised way:
‘Edith is fairer than Susan, Edith is darker than Lily.’
Who is the darkest?’
This can be answered without needing to use dolls or pictures to help.

27. Class task – in pairs
Piaget’s Toys Activity

28. Piaget’s Theories Review the Model sheet with boxes
Piaget’s team activity
Worksheet with 5 questions
BTEC Paiget quiz sheet

29. Piaget’s Schemas https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xj0CUeyucJw
Good intro to the key words
Go to textbook and read about the Schema’s on page 15
Complete worksheet.
Use hwk booklet answers to do the vehicle analogy