WEEK 3 Flashcards
cognitive development
5 domains of development:
- Physical
-Cognitive
-Psychosocial
-Emotional
-Linguistic
Age Periods: Prenatal; infancy; early childhood; middle childhood; adolescence
Piaget (1896-1980)
- First to propose a theory of cognitive development
-Cognitive development; how a child learns to think/ use language
Development of the theory:
noticed:
-children’s thinking different from adult thinking
- children of similar ages make similar mistakes
- proposed cognitive development occurs in stages
- constructivist theory: child has an active role
Key aspects of Piagetian theory:
- Schemas
-Adaptation
-Assimilation
-Accommodation
-Equilibrium
Piaget’s stage theory
4 main stages:
1. Sensori-motor
2. Pre-operational
3. Concrete operational
4. Formal operational
- Sensori-motor stage
Behaviours:
Birth-2years
-Learns through sense
-Learns through reflexes
- Manipulates materials
-Thought and language begins
- Pre-operational stage
2years- 7 years
Behaviours:
-Ideas based on perception
-Over-generalise based on limited experience
-Focus on one variable at a time; ‘centration’
- Yet to acquire logical thinking
Pre-operational stage behaviours
- Egocentrism
- Rigidity of thought
- Limited social cognition
-Become more imaginative
-Display animism
- Concrete operational stage
7years-12 years
Behaviours:
- Form ideas based on reasoning
- Limit thinking to objects and familiar events
-can conserve
- no longer egocentric
- Formal operational stage
12 years +
Behaviours:
- Think conceptually
-Think hypothetically
-Abstract thought
-Applying logic
-Advanced problem solving
Object Permanence
*Understanding about objects’ existence
Objects tied to infants awareness of them
Piaget: changes in cog development areas
- Appearance reality distinction
- Spatial cognition
-Conservation
-Class inclusion
-Transitive inferences
-Perspective taking
education
- Piaget influential in educational psychology and schooling
-child-centred learning
-Children can only learn when at the right stage - child learns alone ‘ little scientist’
Problems with Piaget
- Experimental concerns: three mountains, conservation tasks
- Theoretical concerns: socio-cultural critiques (Vygotsky, Bruner)
overview
+inspirational insights into cog development
- lack of detail about pp’s or success rates
- Fails to explain why transition occurs
- Overlooks cultural factors involved in change
Vygotsky (1896-1934)
-Russian psychologist
-Devised socio-cultural theory of development
-personal and social experience cannot be separated
-Development driven by social interactions
Zone of proximal development (ZPD)
“The distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance or with more capable peers” (Vygotsky, 1978, p.86)
Bruner (1915-2016)
-NYU
-Development and extensively tested Vygotsky’s ideas
-Role of scaffolding/ child-centred learning
Scaffolding (wood 1976)
- Recruitment
- Reduction of degrees of freedom
- Direction maintenance
- Marking critical features
- Demonstration
Education
- Scaffolding to assist children in earning
- Joint construction of knowledge ‘collaborative learning’
-Importance of language
