Theories of Cognitive Development

Question 1

Sensorimotor Stage (Birth - 2 years)

Answer 1

3 4 – 8 months
Infants becoming increasingly interested in
the world around them. By the end of this
substage, object permanence, the
knowledge that objects continue to exist
even when they are out of view, typically
emerges.
4 8 – 12 months
During this substage, children make the
A-Not-B error, the tendency to reach to
where objects have been found before,
rather than to where they were last
hidden.

Question 2

Preoperational Stage (2-7)

Answer 2

Mountain test:
Egocentric conversations:
Procedures Used
to Test “Centration” in Conservation

Question 3

Concrete Operational Stage

Answer 3

Children begin to
reason logically about
the world
They can solve
conservation problems,
but successful
reasoning is largely
limited to concrete
situations
Thinking systematically
remains difficult

Question 4

Formal Operational Stage

Answer 4

Culminates in the ability to think abstractly
and to reason hypothetically
Individuals can imagine alternative worlds;
reason systematically about all possible
outcomes of a situation
Piaget believed that the
attainment of formal
operations, in
contrast to other
stages, is not universal

Question 5

Critique of Piaget’s Theory

Answer 5

The stage model depicts children’s thinking as being
more consistent than it is

Infants and young children are more cognitively
competent than Piaget recognized

Understates the contribution of the social world to
cognitive development

Vague about the cognitive processes that give rise to
children’s thinking and about the mechanisms that
produce cognitive growth

Question 6

Continuous Cognitive Change

Answer 6

Information-processing theorists view children as
undergoing continuous cognitive change
The term continuousapplies in two senses:

Changes viewed as constantly
occurring, rather than
restricted to special transition
periods between stages

Cognitive growth viewed as
typically occurring in small
increments rather than
abruptly

Question 7

Sociocultural Approaches

Answer 7

Focus on the contribution of other people and the
surrounding culture to children’s development

Emphasis on guided participation

Look at broader sociocultural context, including
cultural tools

Name and concepts to know:
Vygotsky:
“private speech”
“social scaffolding”