7—Cognitive Developmental Approaches

Name: 7—Cognitive Developmental Approaches
Uploaded: 2017-08-25T20:08:27+00:00
Duration: PTM22S36
Channel: Rafe Black
Description: 7—Cognitive Developmental Approaches

7—Cognitive Developmental Approaches
Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development Applying and Evaluating Piaget’s Theory Vygotsky’s Theory of Cognitive Development Summary

Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development
Piaget’s theory is a general, unifying story of how biology and experience sculpt cognitive development. Adaptation involves adjusting to new environmental demands. Piaget stressed that children actively construct their own cognitive worlds.

Processes of Development – Schemes: Actions or mental representations that organize knowledge. Behavioral schemes characterize infancy. Mental schemes develop in childhood. Two processes are responsible for how children use and adapt their schemes: – Assimilation: Incorporating new information into existing schemes. – Accommodation: Adjusting schemes to fit new information and experiences.

To make sense out of their world, children cognitively organize their experiences. Organization: Piaget’s concept of grouping isolated behaviors into a higher-order, more smoothly functioning cognitive system; the grouping or arranging of items into categories. Equilibration: A mechanism to explain how children shift from one stage of thought to the next. The shift occurs as children experience cognitive conflict or disequilibrium in trying to understand the world.

Piaget proposed four stages of cognitive development: sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational. Sensorimotor Stage (birth to about 2 years of age): Infants construct an understanding of the world by coordinating sensory experiences with physical, motoric actions. There are six substages: Simple reflexes—Piaget’s first sensorimotor substage corresponds to the first month after birth. The basic means of coordinating sensation and action is through reflexive behaviors, such as rooting and sucking, which infants have at birth.

Piaget’s Four Stages of Cognitive Development Refer to Figure 7.1

Sensorimotor Stage (continued) First habits and primary circular reactions—the infant coordinates sensation with habits and primary circular reactions. (1 to 4 months of age) Habit: A scheme based on a reflex that has become completely separated from its eliciting stimulus. Circular reaction: A repetitive action. Primary circular reaction: A scheme based on the attempt to reproduce an event that initially occurred by chance.

Sensorimotor Stage (continued) Secondary circular reactions Piaget’s third sensorimotor substage develops between 4 and 8 months of age. Infants become more object-oriented or focused on the world, moving beyond preoccupation with the self. Coordination of secondary circular reactions Piaget’s fourth sensorimotor substage develops between 12 and 18 months of age. Infants purposely combine and recombine previously learned schemes in a coordinated way.

Sensorimotor Stage (continued) Tertiary circular reactions, novelty, and curiosity Piaget’s fifth sensorimotor substage develops between 12 and 18 months of age. Infants become intrigued by the many properties of objects and the many things they can make happen to objects Tertiary circular reactions: Schemes in which the infant purposely explores new possibilities with objects, continually doing new things to them and exploring the results.

Sensorimotor Stage (continued) Internalizations of schemes Piaget’s sixth sensorimotor substage develops between 18 and 24 months of age. In this substage, infants’ mental functioning shifts from a purely sensorimotor plane to a symbolic plane, and they develop the ability to use primitive symbols. Symbol: An internalized sensory image or word that represents an event.

Sensorimotor Stage (continued) Object Permanence: The Piagetian term for one of the infant’s most important accomplishments: understanding that objects and events continue to exist even when they cannot directly be seen, heard, or touched. Understanding of Causality: Piaget was very interested in infants’ knowledge of cause and effect.

The Six Substages of Object Permanence Refer to Figure 7.2

Object Permanence Refer to Figure 7.3

Using the Violation of Expectations Method to Study Object Permanence in Infants Refer to Figure 7.4

The Infant’s Understanding of Causality Refer to Figure 7.5

Evaluating Piaget’s Sensorimotor Stage Researchers believe that infants see objects as bounded, unitary, solid, and separate from their background, possibly at birth or shortly thereafter, but definitely by 3 to 4 months of age. The data do not always support Piaget’s claim that certain processes are crucial in stage transitions. A-not-B error: The mistake made by infants of selecting a familiar hiding place (A) rather than a new hiding place (B) as they progress into the fourth substage, does not show up consistently.

Evaluating Piaget’s Sensorimotor Stage (continued) Researchers believe that Piaget wasn’t specific enough about how infants learn about their world and that infants are more competent than Piaget thought.

Preoperational Thought The preoperational stage stretches from approximately 2 to 7 years of age. It is a time when children begin to represent the world with words, images, and drawings. Stable concepts are formed, mental reasoning emerges, egocentrism begins strongly then weakens, and magical beliefs are constructed. Operations: Internalized actions that allow children to do mentally what before they could only do physically.

Preoperational Thought (continued) Symbolic Function Substage The first substage of preoperational thought, occurring roughly between the ages of 2 and 4. In this substage, the young child gains the ability to represent mentally an object that is not present. Egocentrism: The inability to distinguish between one’s own and someone else’s perspective. The Three Mountains Task was used to study egocentrism.

The Three Mountains Task Refer to Figure 7.6

Symbolic Function Substage (continued) Animism: A facet of preoperational thought, the belief that inanimate objects have “lifelike” qualities and are capable of action.

The Symbolic Drawings of Young Children Refer to Figure 7.7

Preoperational Thought (continued) Intuitive Thought Substage The second substage of preoperational thought, occurring approximately between 4 and 7 years of age. Children begin to use primitive reasoning and want to know the answers to all sorts of questions. Centration: The centering of attention on one characteristic to the exclusion of all others. Conservation: The awareness that altering an object’s or substance’s appearance does not change its basic properties.

Piaget’s Conservation Task Refer to Figure 7.8

Some Dimensions for Conservation: Number, Matter, and Length Refer to Figure 7.9

Concrete Operational Thought In this stage, which lasts approximately from 7 to 11 years of age, logical reasoning replaces intuitive reasoning as long as the reasoning can be applied to specific or concrete examples. Concrete operations: Reversible mental actions on real, concrete objects.

Concrete Operational Thought (continued) Conservation involves recognizing that the length, number, mass, quantity, area, weight, and volume of objects and substances are not changed by transformations that merely alter their appearance. Horizontal décalage: Piaget’s concept that similar abilities do not appear at the same time within a stage of development.

Concrete Operational Thought (continued) Classification Concrete operational children can divide things into sets and subsets and understand their relationship. Seriation: Ordering stimuli along a quantitative dimension (such as length). Transitivity: The ability to reason about and logically combine relationships.

Classification: An Important Ability in Concrete Operational Thought Refer to Figure 7.10

Formal Operational Thought Adolescents’ thought becomes more abstract, logical, and idealistic between 11 and 15 years of age. Formal operational thought is more abstract than a child’s thinking; it is full of idealism and possibilities. Hypothetical-deductive reasoning: The adolescent’s cognitive ability to develop hypotheses about ways to solve problems and systematically deduce which is the best path to follow in solving the problem.

Adolescent Egocentrism (David Elkind) The heightened self-consciousness of adolescents, which is reflected in their belief that others are as interested in them as the adolescents are in themselves, and in their sense of personal uniqueness and invincibility. Imaginary audience: The adolescent’s attention-getting behavior, the attempt to be noticed, visible, and “on stage.” Personal fable: An adolescent’s sense of personal uniqueness and invincibility.

Review and Reflect: Learning Goal 1
Discuss the key processes and four stages in Piaget’s theory

What are the key processes in Piaget’s theory of cognitive development? What are the main characteristics of the sensorimotor stage? What are the main characteristics of the preoperational stage? What are the main characteristics of the concrete operational stage? What are the main characteristics of the formal operational stage?

Do you consider yourself to be a formal operational thinker? Do you still sometimes feel like a concrete operational thinker? Give examples.

Applying and Evaluating Piaget’s Theory
Piaget and Education Piaget provided a sound conceptual framework from which to view learning and education. Take a constructivist approach. Facilitate rather than direct learning. Consider the child’s knowledge and level of thinking. Use ongoing assessment. Promote the student’s intellectual health. Turn the classroom into a setting of exploration and discovery.

Evaluating Piaget’s Theory: Contributions – Children are active, constructive thinkers. – His careful observations of children demonstrated inventive ways to discover how they act on and adapt to their world. – Children need to make their experiences fit their schemes and simultaneously adapt their schemes to experience. – Cognitive change is likely to occur if the context is structured to allow gradual movement to the next higher level.

Evaluating Piaget’s Theory: Criticisms Some cognitive abilities emerge earlier than Piaget thought; others may appear later. Some concrete operational concepts do not appear in synchrony. Some children who are at one cognitive stage can be trained to reason at a higher cognitive stage. Culture and education exert stronger influences on children’s development than Piaget believed.

Evaluating Piaget’s Theory (continued) Neo-Piagetians: Emphasize how children use attention, memory, and strategies to process information A more accurate portrayal of children’s thinking requires attention to children’s strategies, the speed at which they process information, the particular task involved, and the division of problems into smaller, more precise steps.

Apply Piaget’s theory to education and evaluate Piaget’s theory Review How can Piaget’s theory be applied to educating children? What are some key contributions and criticisms of Piaget’s theory?

How might thinking in formal operational ways rather than concrete operational ways help students to develop better study skills?

Vygotsky’s Theory of Cognitive Development
The Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) – Vgotsky’s term for the range of tasks that are too difficult for children to master alone but that can be mastered with the guidance and assistance of adults or more-skilled children.

Scaffolding Changing the level of support over the course of a teaching session in which a more-skilled individual (teacher or more advanced peer of the child) adjusts the amount of guidance to fit the child’s current performance. Dialogue, an important tool of scaffolding, occurs when the child’s rich but unsystematic, disorganized, and spontaneous concepts meet with the skilled helper’s more systematic, logical, and rational concepts.

Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development Refer to Figure 7.11

Language and Thought Vygotsky (1962) believed that young children use language not only for social communication but also to plan, guide, and monitor their behavior in a self-regulatory fashion. Private speech, an important tool of thought during the early childhood years, represents an early transition in becoming more socially communicative (Piaget considered private speech to be egocentric and immature—research supports Vygotsky’s view).

Teaching Strategies Assess the child’s ZPD. Use the child’s zone of proximal development in teaching. Use more-skilled peers as teachers. Monitor and encourage children’s use of private speech. Place instruction in a meaningful context. Transform the classroom with Vygotskian ideas.

Evaluating Vygotsky’s Theory Vygotsky’s Social Constructivist Approach: Emphasizes the social contexts of learning and the construction of knowledge through social interaction. Vygotsky emphasized collaboration, social interaction, and sociocultural activity. The end point of cognitive development differs depending on which skills are most valued by the culture. Piaget emphasized children’s need to explore their world; Vygotsky felt that students need many opportunities to learn with a more-skilled person.

Evaluating Vygotsky’s Theory: Criticisms He overemphasized the role of language in thinking. His emphasis on collaboration and guidance has potential pitfalls.

Explorations in Child Development
Comparison of Vygotsky’s and Piaget’s Theories Refer to Figure 7.12

Identify the main concepts in Vygotsky’s theory and compare it with Piaget’s theory

What is the zone of proximal development? What is scaffolding? How did Vygotsky view language and thought? How can Vygotsky’s theory be applied to education? What are some similarities and differences between Vygotsky’s and Piaget’s theories?

Which theory—Piaget’s or Vygotsky’s—do you like better? Why?

Summary In Piaget’s theory, children construct their own cognitive worlds, building mental structures to adapt to their world. Schemes (behavioral/physical and mental/cognitive) are actions or mental representations that organize knowledge. Adaptation involves assimilation, incorporating information into existing knowledge, and accommodation, adjusting schemes to account for new information. Other important concepts are organization and equilibration.

Summary Piaget described four qualitatively different stages of thought: sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational. In sensorimotor thought, the infant organizes and coordinates sensations with physical movements. There are six substages moving from use of simple reflexes to intentional action and internalization of schemes. A key aspect of the sensorimotor stage is object permanence, the ability to understand that objects exist even if they are out of sight.

Summary Preoperational thought is the beginning of the ability to reconstruct at the level of thought what has been established in behavior. It involves a transition to sophisticated use of symbols and has two substages: symbolic function, characterized by symbolic thought, egocentrism, and animism; and intuitive thought. Concrete operational thought occurs at roughly 7 to 11 years of age. It involves operations, conservation, classification, seriation, and transivity.

Summary Formal operational thought appears between 11 and 15 years of age. It is more abstract, idealistic, and logical than concrete operational thought. Adolescents develop a special kind of egocentrism that involves an imaginary audience and a personal fable about being unique and invulnerable. Though not an educator, Piaget’s constructivist views have been applied to teaching. He gave us many useful concepts; his critics question his estimates of competence at different developmental levels, his stage concept, and other ideas.

Summary Neo-Piagetians emphasize the importance of information processing. Zone of proximal development (ZPD) is Vygotsky’s term for the range of tasks that are too difficult for children to master alone but that can be learned with the guidance and assistance of more-skilled adults and peers. Scaffolding involves changing the level of support over the course of a teaching session, with the more-skilled person adjusting guidance to fit the child’s current performance level. Vygotsky believed that language plays a key role in cognition.

Summary Applications of Vygotsky’s ideas to education include using the child’s zone of proximal development, using scaffolding, monitoring and encouraging children’s use of private speech, and assessing the ZPD to transform the classroom with Vygotskian ideas. Piaget and Vygotsky emphasized that children actively construct their understanding of the world; Vygotsky emphasized that children construct knowledge through social interaction and depend on tools provided by the culture. Critics say Vygotsky overemphasized the role of language.

Summary Especially important are Vygotsky’s ideas relating to sociocultural influences on children’s development.

7—Cognitive Developmental Approaches

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