‘Children conduct their own series of experiments to learn more about the workings of her world.’
Action = Knowledge
Jean Piaget (Developmental Psychologists )
First we need to understand what is cognition?, who is infant? and How Infant’s Cognitive Development happens?
Contents
What is cognition?
Cognition refers to the inner process & products of the mind that lead to ‘Knowing’. It includes all mental activities such as,
- Attending
- Remembering,
- Symbolling,
- Categorizing,
- Planning,
- Reasoning,
- Problem Solving,
- Creating,
- Fantasying.
Who is infant? A child whos age is 0 to 2 years.
How Infant’s Cognitive Development happens?
Jean Piaget gave a comprehensive theory of cognitive development.
Jean Piaget’s Cognitive Development theory is based on a stage approach to development. He believed, infants do not acquire knowledge from- facts communicated by others, or through sensation and perception but direct action leads to the knowledge.
Piaget’s Assumptions-
- All children pass through a series of 4 universal stages.
- All children pass trough in a fixed order from birth through adolescence.
- Movement from one stage to the next occurs when a child reaches an appropriate level of physical maturation and is exposed to relevant experiences.
Jean Piaget gave few processes of cognitive development
- Schemas- Basic building blocks of thinking, They are specific psychological structures helping a child to organize the sense of experience.
- Equilibrium- -Disequilibrium- Cognitive equilibrium is a comfortable state of child in learning things. And cognitive conflict or discomfort experienced while constructing schema is called disequilibrium
- Adaptation- Assimilation & accommodation- Assimilation refers to the process of adding new concept to the already learned concepts . Accommodation refers to a process of revision the learnt concept to fit the new information received.
- Organization- A process that occurs internally, apart from direct contact with the environment.
Characteristics Of Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development.
- Each stage is structured Whole- qualitative within schema & quantitative between schemas.
- Each stage is a continuation of previous stage
- The stage follow an invariant sequence
- the Stages are universal –
- Cognitive Changes progress gradually from one stage to the others.
Piaget’s stages of Cognitive Development.
1. Sensorimotor Stage of Cognitive Development-
there are 6 substages in sensorimotor stage.-
- Substage 1: Simple reflexes, encompassing the first month of life.
- Substage 2: First habits and primary circular reactions, the second substage of the sensorimotor period,
occurs from one to four months of age. - Substage 3: Secondary circular reactions, the infant’s actions are more purposeful.
- Substage 4: Coordination of secondary circular reactions, which lasts from around 8 months to 12 months.
- Substage 5: Tertiary circular reactions is reached at around the age of 12 months and extends to 18 months.
- Substage 6: The final stage of the sensorimotor period, Beginnings of thought, which lasts from around 18 months to two years.
2. Preoperational Stage of Cognitive Development–
According to Piaget, the stage from approximately age two to age seven in which children’s use of symbolic thinking grows, mental reasoning emerges, and the use of concepts increases.
3. Concrete Operational Stage of Cognitive Development–
The period of cognitive development between 7 and 12 years of age, which is characterized by the active, and appropriate, use of logic.
4. Formal Operational Stage of Cognitive Development–
The formal operational stage is the period of cognitive development between 12 to 16 years of age at which people develop the ability to think abstractly.
Also, to learn about developmental issues, click here.
References,
- Robert. S. Feldman. (2017). Development Across the Lifespan. (8th ed.). Pearson Education.
- Laura. E. Berk. (2018). Development Through the Lifespan (7th ed.). Pearson Education.