Jean Piaget's Cognitive Development Stages PDF

# Notes to Study for Validation ## Jean Piaget ### Biography - Jean Piaget was a Swiss psychologist known for his work on child development. - His theory of cognitive development looked at how children develop intellectually throughout the course of childhood. - He was born August 9, 1896 in Swit...

# Notes to Study for Validation ## Jean Piaget ### Biography - Jean Piaget was a Swiss psychologist known for his work on child development. - His theory of cognitive development looked at how children develop intellectually throughout the course of childhood. - He was born August 9, 1896 in Switzerland and died September 16 1980. - He proposed that children go through four stages of cognitive development: 1. Sensorimotor 2. Preoperational 3. Concrete operational 4. Formal operational - He argued that children construct their own knowledge through active exploration and interaction with the environment; not just passive absorption of information. ### Stages of Sensorimotor Stage * **(0-1 month) Reflexes:** - Child understands the environment purely through inborn reflexes such as sucking and looking. * **(1-4 months) Primary circular reactions:** - Involves coordinating sensation, for example, a child may suck his or her thumb, fingers, or tongue by accident and then later intentionally repeat the action. * **(4-8 months) Secondary circular reactions:** - Child becomes more focused on the world and intentionally repeat an action to trigger a response in the environment. - For example, a child will willingly pick up a toy and pat it in their mouth. * **(8-12 months) Coordination of reactions:** - Children begin to explore their environment around them and will often imitate the observed behavior of others. - The understanding of objects also begins during this time and children begin to recognize certain objects as having specific qualities. - For example, a child might realize that a rattle will make a sound when shaken. * **(12-18 months) Tertiary circular reactions:** - Children begin a period of trial-and-error experimentation. - For example, a child may try out different sounds or actions as a way of getting attention from a caregiver. * **(18-24 months) Early representational thought:** - Children begin to develop symbols to represent events or objects in the world. - In final sensorimotor, children understand the world through mental operations rather than purely through action. ### 2. Preoperational - Toddlerhood (18-24 months) to early childhood (age 7) - During this stage, children begin to engage in symbolic play and to manipulate symbols. - **For example:** - A child using a broom to pretend it's a horse. - A child using cards to pretend it's money. - **Two substages that occur during preoperational period:** - **Symbolic function (ages 2 to 4):** Children develop mental representations of objects in the world around them. Perceptions play a major role in a child's ability to solve problems during this developmental period. - **Intuitive thought (ages 4 to 7):** Children rely more on logic than just perception alone in this substage. They solve problems logically but may not be capable of explaining how they think or why they think that way. ### Egocentrism in the Preoperational Stage - Egocentrism is known as the "Three Mountain Task" for which children are shown a three-dimensional display of a mountain and asked to observe the scene. ### Conservation - Conservation involves demonstrating a child's understanding that equal amounts of liquids are poured into two identical containers of different sizes. ### 3. Concrete Operational - Age 7 to 12 - This stage is characterized by the development of logical thought. Children become much more logical and sophisticated in their thinking during this stage of development. - While this is an important stage in itself, it also serves as an important transition between earlier stages of development and kids learning abstract thinking and hypotheticals. - The concrete operational includes a great understanding of logic, reversibility, and conservation. - Piaget determined that children in this stage were fairly good at the use of inductive logic/reasoning. - For example, a child would understand that if I put my hand by a heater, I can get burnt. - **Reversibility** is the understanding or awareness that actions can be reserved. - **For example**, a child can put different animals in categories like a bee is under insects and a dolphin and a chimpanzee falls under mammals, and one lives in the sea, and the other lives on land. - **Conservation** develops the understanding that something changes in shape or appearance, it is still the same. - **For example**, a child breaking up all the chips in a bag into smaller pieces, it is still the same amount as if it was whole. ### 4. Formal Operational (12 age) - Adolescence to Adulthood - In this stage, thinking becomes much more sophisticated and advanced. Kids develop abstract thinking and theoretical concepts and use logic to come up with creative solutions to problems. Skills such as logical thought, deductive reasoning, and systematic planning emerge. - **For example**, deductive logic which requires the ability to use a general principle to determine a particular outcome, like in science and mathematics. - **Abstract thought**, for which children consider possible outcome and consequences of actions, this is long-term planning. ### Problem Solving - Hypothetical-deductive reasoning and investigate various viewpoints. - **Metacognition** - Reflect on their own thought processes, evaluate their experience. - **Social and moral development** - Concepts such as justice, fairness, and moral reasoning. - **Use of augmentative and alternate method of communication** - Means the way that someone communicates beside talking. - **Augmentative** means to add to someone's speech. Mainly used with speech impairment or language skills. - **AAC** (Augmentative and alternative communication) - Eg gestures, facial expressions, writing, drawing, spelling words by pointing letters, pointing to photos, pictures, or written words. Pad, tablets, using computers with a voice.