Piaget's Stages of Cognitive Development PDF

B. Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development Cognitive Development of Children and Adolescents Basic Cognitive Concepts a. Schema – refers to the cognitive structures by which individuals intellectually adapt to and organize their environment. An individual’s way to understand o...

B. Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development Cognitive Development of Children and Adolescents Basic Cognitive Concepts a. Schema – refers to the cognitive structures by which individuals intellectually adapt to and organize their environment. An individual’s way to understand or create meaning about a thing or experience. b. Assimilation – the process of fitting a new experience into an existing or previously created cognitive structure or schema. fit practice to theory where complex but familiar external objects are simplified to fit pre-existent categories in your head. c. Accommodation – the process of creating a new schema. fit theory to practice where you have to change the ideas in your head to fit the realities of external objects. d. Equilibrium – achieving proper balance between assimilation and accommodation. When our experiences do not match our schemata or cognitive structures, we experience cognitive disequilibrium. Piaget’s Theory of Development a. Innate Reflexes reflects intelligence to interact with the environment. b. Adapting to the environment leads to changes in the internal organization of innate reflexes. c. Some are strengthened and some are transformed into new forms of intelligence. Piaget’s Cognitive Developmental Stages 1. Sensorimotor Stage (0-2 years) The knowledge gained by the infant is obtained through physical experience with the environment. ⚫ Use of the senses to experience the physical environment. ⚫ Use of physical and motor actions to interact. ⚫ The use of reflexes to build schemata are the starting point for cognitive development. ⚫ Intelligence develops as the human organism carries on transaction upon objects or events in the environment. ⚫ Through sensorimotor channels, the infant is taking in information about the world, and the more he takes in, the more he wants. Mental Invention ⚫ The capacity to think out an action before representing it. ⚫ Example: give an 18th month old baby a closed box that he has never opened before and he does not grope for a solution. Rather, he puts the various schemata he has acquired for opening things, until he finds the correct one. Imitation ⚫ The capability to copy behaviors begin with behaviors that are already part of the child’s repertoire.  ⚫ Example: if a parent, playing with the child, begins opening and closing his hand, the child will likely imitate the behavior. Deferred Imitation ⚫ Imitation continues to become more complicated as the child’s repertoire of behaviors increases. ⚫ Toward the end of the sensorimotor stage, toddlers begin to display novel behaviors. ⚫ Pretending to be something or somebody does not require prompting. ⚫ Example: a little girl does not need to see her mother brushing her hair before combing her teddy bear’s head. ⚫ The pretending and dramatic play-acting that preschool, kindergarten, and primary grade teachers see in their pupils have their roots in deferred imitation. Concept of Permanence ⚫ Out-of-sight is out-of-mind. ⚫ Example: put an obstacle in the way of what a young infant is trying to grasp and he will abandon his attempt to find to find the object. ⚫ Concept of permanence is an important foundation for later development. ⚫ The concept that objects have an existence that is separate from the child and permanent enables the child to conceive objects and actions that are not in their immediate environment. Implications to teaching-learning process Acquiring the capabilities of object permanence and imitation prepares the child for symbolic thinking, a hallmark of the next developmental stage. However, because students develop the capacity for symbolic thinking does not mean they no longer need to handle objects and observe models. The need for tangible objects, models, analogies, and concrete examples never disappears. 2. Preoperational Stage (2-7 years of age) a. Operation refers to actions based on logical thinking. b. The actions of a child are based on thought, but the actions do not always seem logical from an adult perspective. Symbolic Representation is the process where children learn to create their own symbols and to use existing symbol systems to represent and operate on the environment. The most important symbol system is language. Using language enhances the capability to think about objects that are not present. Cognitive characteristics that prevent logical thinking a. Perceptual centration Pre-operation children tend to focus their attention on only one aspect of an object or problem. This tendency to perceive an object in a very narrow way is termed perceptual centration.  b. Irreversibility This refers to person’s inability to mentally reverse actions. c. Egocentrism This term refers to the children’s assumption that everyone’s experience of the world is the same as their own, quite literally, the center of everything. Collective monologue The phenomenon of children talking in groups without having a conversation. d. Animism This is the tendency of children to attribute human-like traits or characteristics to inanimate objects. e. Transductive Reasoning This refers to the pre-operational child’s type of reasoning that is neither inductive nor deductive. Reasoning appears to be from particular to particular i.e., if A causes B, then B causes A. 3. Concrete-Operational Stage (7-11 years of age) This is the first stage of operational or logical thought. It allows the child to realize that there is stability in the physical world and that reasoning about the physical world can proceed logically. This stage is considered as the “hands-on” period of cognitive development. Characteristics of Logical Thought a. Reversibility Ability to mentally reverse events. b. Conservation Elements of a whole can be associated in various ways without changing the total. The ability to recognize that properties do not change because form changes. c. Identity The child can mentally cancel out the effects of any operation by combining it with its opposite. d. Decentering This refers to the ability of the child to perceive the different features of objects and situations. No longer is the child focused or limited to one aspect or dimension. This allows the child to be more logical when dealing with concrete objects and situations. e. Seriation This refers to the ability to order or arrange things in a series based on one dimension such as weight, volume or size. 4. Formal Operational Stage (11-adult) Abstract reasoning It is the ability to think logically about intangibles. They can verbalize the mental rules they use in front of a chair. They can think in terms of a hypothesis. a. Hypothetical Reasoning This refers to the ability to come up with different hypothesis about a problem and to gather and weigh data in order to make a final decision or judgment. This can be done in the absence of concrete objects.  The individuals can now deal with “what if” questions. b. Analogical Reasoning This is the ability to perceive the relationship in one instance and then use that relationship to narrow down possible answers in another similar situation or problem. Even in the absence of concrete objects, the individual can now understand relationships and do analogical reasoning. c. Deductive Reasoning This is the ability to think logically by applying a general rule to a particular instance or situation. Principles Children will provide different explanations of reality at different stages of cognitive development. Cognitive development is facilitated by providing activities or situations that engage learners and require adaptation. Learning materials and activities should involve the appropriate level of motor or mental operations for a child of given age; avoid asking students to perform tasks that are beyond their current cognitive capabilities. Use teaching methods that actively involve students and present challenges.