1. Cognitive Development in Infancy and Childhood: Piaget’s Cognitive Stages

2. Do Kids think differently than adults?
Question to ponder
Do Kids think differently than adults?
Do freshmen think differently than Seniors?

3. Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development
Jean Piaget (1896–1980) Swiss psychologist who became leading theorist in 1930’s
Piaget believed that “children are active thinkers, constantly trying to construct more advanced understandings of the world”
These “understandings” are in the form of structures he called schemas

4. Piaget’s Approach
Primary method was to ask children to solve problems and to question them about the reasoning behind their solutions
Discovered that children think in radically different ways than adults
Proposed that development occurs as a series of ‘stages’ differing in how the world is understood

5. Children think differently than adults
Cognition
All the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, and remembering
Children think differently than adults

6. Stage 1- Sensorimotor Stage
From birth to about age two
Child gathers information about the world through senses and motor functions
Child learns object permanence

7. Sensorimotor Stage (birth – 2)
Information is gained through the senses and motor actions
In this stage child perceives and manipulates but does not reason
Symbols become internalized through language development
Object permanence is acquired

8. Object Permanence
The understanding that objects exist independent of one’s actions or perceptions of them
Before 6 months infants act as if objects removed from sight cease to exist
Can be surprised by disappearance/reappearance of a face (peek-a-boo)

9. “Out of sight, out of mind”
Object Permanence
The awareness that things continue to exist even when they cannot be sensed
“Out of sight, out of mind”

10. Object Permanence

12. Stage 2- Preoperational Stage
From about age 2 to age 6 or 7
Children can understand language but not logic
Fantasy Play

13. Preoperational
Symbolic functioning – is that a child uses to represent something that is not physically present like the use of mental symbols, words, or pictures

14. Find the two doors that are alike

15. Preoperational - Egocentrism
The child’s inability to take another person’s point of view
Includes a child’s ability to understand that symbols can represent other objects

16. Conservation
An understanding that certain properties remain constant despite changes in their form
The properties can include mass, volume, and numbers.

17. Conservation

18. Conservation

19. Conservation

20. Conservation
Number
Keywords piaget, conservation
Figures from Gray (3e)
In conservation of number tests, two equivalent rows of coins are placed side by side and the child says that there is the same number in each row. Then one row is spread apart and the child is again asked if there is the same number in each.

21. Conservation
Length
In conservation of length tests, two same-length sticks are placed side by side and the child says that they are the same length. Then one is moved and the child is again asked
if they are the same length.
Keywords piaget, conservation
Figures from Gray (3e)

22. Conservation Substance
In conservation of substance tests, two identical amounts of clay are rolled into similar-appearing balls and the child says that they both have the same amount of clay. Then one ball is rolled out and the child is again asked if they have the same amount.
Keywords piaget, conservation
Figures from Gray (3e)

23. Concrete Operational Stage (7–12 years)
Understanding of mental operations leading to increasingly logical thought
Classification and categorization
Less egocentric
Inability to reason abstractly or hypothetically

24. Concrete operational
Decentering – this is where a child considers all aspects of a problem to solve it
Elimination of egocentrism – kids can begin to see the others point of view

25. Formal Operational Stage (age 12 – adulthood)
Hypothetico-deductive reasoning
Adolescent egocentrism illustrated by the phenomenon of personal fable and imaginary audience

26. Stage 4- Formal Operational Stage
Child can think logically and in the abstract
Can solve hypothetical problems (What if…. problems)

30. Critique of Piaget’s Theory
Underestimates children’s abilities
Overestimates age differences in thinking
Vagueness about the process of change
Underestimates the role of the social environment
Lack of evidence for qualitatively different stages

31. Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Perspective
Vygotsky—children learn from interactions with other people
Zone of proximal development—what a child can do by interacting with another person, but can’t do alone.
Critical thinking based on dialogue with others who challenge ideas
Piaget—focused on children’s interaction with the physical world