Cognitive development Flashcards
4 stages of Piaget’s constructivist theory
- Sensorimotor (Birth- 2 years)
- Pre-operational (2-7 years)
- Concrete-operational (7-11 years)
- Formal operational (11 years)
What is disequilibrium and how do you deal with it
The infant’s schema differs from new experience
Deal with by:
1. Assimilation - fit new experience into knowledge
2. Accommodate - create new concept to accommodate the new experience
Sensorimotor stage
Exploration is accidental but by the end of the stage, actions are done by intention
What stage does object permanence develop?
8-12 months. Fully develops at 2 years.
Sensorimotor stage
How to test object permanence
Deferred imitation tasks
When do infants pass the deferred imitation pass
18-24 months
Pre-operational stage
Develops ability to engage in representational activity/symbolic activity e.g. language
When do children engage in make belief play
Pre-operational
When are children egocentric
Pre-operational until they develop ToM
Engage in egocentric speech - talking to themselves
When do children undergo centration (fixation on a single task)
Pre-operational
How do test pre-operational stage
Conservation task where physical characteristics of objects remain the same but appearance change (e.g. laying out equal number of coins in 2 rows and then spreading bottom row apart. Children in this stage will think that bottom row has more coins)
Concrete operational stage
Logical thinking
Understands reversibility
Caveat with children in concrete operational stage
They can undergo logical thinking but only when faced with concrete evidence
They can’t think hypothetically.
Formal operational stage
Develops abstract logical thinking
Can think about hypothetical thoughts
Thinking becomes more systematic and scientific
