Cognitive Development

Question 1

What are the broad domains of development?

Answer 1

• Physical (Growth of the body and its functions)
• Cognitive (change/continuations in mental processes)
• Psychosocial (change/continuation in personal/interpersonal aspects)

Question 2

What is the key idea of Piaget’s Cognitive State Theory of Cognitive Development?

Answer 2

Children actively construct new understandings of the world based on their experiences

Question 3

What are Piaget’s Concepts/ Direct learning (Schemes)?

Answer 3

Assimilation - New info fits into existing schemes

Accomodation - changing schemes to incorporate new information or ideas

Adaption

Question 4

Which of Piaget’s Stages relates to the age group of Birth - 2 yrs?

Answer 4

Sensorimotor Stage

Question 5

what are the key elements of the Sensorimotor Stage?

Answer 5

• world understood through Coordination of sensory and motor activity
• Object permanence is achieved
• 6 sub stages

Question 6

What are the 6 substages on the Sensorimotor Stage?

Answer 6

1. Reflexes (reactions to in/external stimulation)
2. Primary circular reactions (repeating actions related to own body)
3. Secondary circular reactions (repeating actions related to external environment)
4. Coordination of secondary schemes (secondary actions coordinated to achieve simple goals, i.e. grasp/pushing)
5. Tertiary circular reactions (experiment w/ action variations)
6. Beginning of thought (object permanence, symbolic thought)

Question 7

What age group is described in Piaget’s Pre-operational stage?

Answer 7

2 - 7yrs

Question 8

What are the key elements of the Pre-operational Stage?

Answer 8

• Symbolic representations and capacity (language, pretend/imagination, referring to past/future)
• focus on perceptual salience (obvious features of object or situation)

Question 9

What are the cognitive limitation in the Pre-operational Stage?

Answer 9

• difficulty with conservation due to reliance on perception
• Centration - focus on only one aspect of a situation/object
• irreversible thought
• static thought - focus on end state rather than the change
• difficulty with classification
• egocentrism

Question 10

What is egocentrism?

Answer 10

The inability to differentiate between self and others

The inability to assume any perspective other than own

Question 11

Concrete operational stage describes which age group?

Answer 11

7 - 11yr

Question 12

What are the key elements of the Concrete operational stage?

Answer 12

• understanding is driven by logic/reasoning
• concrete operations are carried out on THINGS
• understanding one or some principles but not at the same time
• decentration
• reversible thought
• transformational thought
• seriation and transivity (able to mentally arrange item along quantifiable dimensions and understand the relationships between)
• less egocentric
• classification ability improves

Question 13

what age group relates with the Formal operational Stage?

Answer 13

from 11 yrs to adult hood there is a gradual movement from the concrete operational stage to the formal operational stage.

Question 14

What are the key elements of the Formal operational stage?

Answer 14

Formal operations are mental actions on IDEAS

• abstract thought (systematic/scientific thinking abut problems, hypothetical concepts, abstract ideas)
• ^important for planning regarding future

contribution to aspects of adolescent development

Question 15

What contribution to aspects of adolescent development for the formal operational stage have?

Answer 15

 Positive:
Sense of identity, complex thinking, appreciation of humour, development of intimacy relationships
 Negative :
Confusion, adolescent idealism, rebellion against ideas that aren’t logical