Cognitive and Intellectual Development PDF

**3.3.1 Cognitive and Intellectual Development** Perhaps nobody else has contributed on how one learns than the Swiss psychologist and biologist Jean Piaget. His work with infants, children and toddlers remains the classic blueprint on cognitive and intellectual development. This includes thought a...

**3.3.1 Cognitive and Intellectual Development** Perhaps nobody else has contributed on how one learns than the Swiss psychologist and biologist Jean Piaget. His work with infants, children and toddlers remains the classic blueprint on cognitive and intellectual development. This includes thought and knowledge. Piagel's four stages of intellectual (or cognitive) development are: - Sensorimotor stage --- from birth through 18---24 months - Preoperational stage --- toddle-hood (18 --- 24 through 7 years) - Concrete operational stage --- ages 7---12 - Formal operational stage --- adolescent through adulthood Piaget acknowledged that some children may pass through the stages at different ages than noted above, and that some children may show characteristic of more than one stage at a given time. But he insisted that cognitive development always follows a sequence, that stages cannot be skipped, and that each stage is marked by a new intellectual ability and a more complex understanding of the world. A. **Sensorimotor stage:** During the early stages, infants are only aware of what is immediately in front of them. They focus on what they see, what they are doing and physical interaction of their immediate environment. Because they don't know yet how things react, they are consequently experimenting with activities such as shaking or throwing things, putting things in their mouth and learning about the world through trial and error. Later on in this stage, they become goal oriented which brings desired result. Between 7---9 months, infants begin to realize that an object exists even if it can no longer be seen. This is object permanence - a sign that memory is developing. After infants start crawling, standing and walking, their increased physical mobility leads to increased cognitive development. Near the end of the sensorimotor stage, infants reach another important milestone --- early language development --- a sign they are developing some symbolic abilities. B. **Pre-operational stage:** During this stage, young children are able to think about things symbolically. Their language use becomes more coherent. They also develop memory and imagination which allows them to understand the difference between past and future, and engage in make-belief. But their thinking is based on intuition (i.e. instinct) and is still not completely logical. They cannot yet grasp more complex concepts such as cause and effect, time and comparison. C. **Concrete operational stage:** At this stage (elementary age and preadolescent: 7-11) children demonstrate, logical concrete reasoning. Children's thinking becomes less ego-centric and are increasingly aware of external events. They begin to realize that one's own thoughts and feelings are unique and may not be shared by others or may not even be part of reality. During this stage, most children still can't think abstractly or hypothetically. D. **Formal operational stage:** Adolescents who reach this fourth stage of intellectual development (normally at age 11 plus) are able to logically use symbols related to abstract concepts such as algebra and science. They think about multiple variables in systematic ways, formulate hypotheses and consider possibilities. They also can ponder over abstract relationships and concepts such as justice. Although Piaget believed in lifelong intellectual growth, he insisted that the formal operational stage is the final stage of cognitive development and that continued intellectual development in adults, depends on the accumulation of knowledge and experience. **3.3.2 Moral Development** This is the process in an individual by which children adopt principles that lead them to evaluate given behaviours as 'right' or 'wrong' and to govern their own actions in terms of these principles. There are very serious opposing views about moral development and no argument seem very likely. Three major philosophical doctrines regarding moral development of children can easily be located in literature viz: 1. The doctrine of the original sin --- this was given by Saint Augustine (AD 354-430). His position was that man is born naturally sinful so man requires redemption through deliberate and punitive interventions. 2. Another view is that of John Locke (1632-1704) which maintains that children are morally neutral --- a "tabula rasa" --- and that training and experiences (i.e. environment) determine whether the child becomes righteous or sinful. 3. The third doctrine was presented by the writings of Jean Jacques Rosseau (1712-1778) which holds that children are characterized by "innate purity" and that immoral behaviour results afterwards from the corrupting influence of adults. The first of these doctrines finds expression in the work of Sigmund Freud who said that humans have topological formulations in their mind, the id, the ego, and the superego as a voice of society. The second expression of 'tabula-rasa' conceptions of John Locke finds anchor in the waters of cognitive learning theory. Moral development from this conception is a matter of model and conditioning. The third expression of moral development is signified in Jean Piagel's cognitive development theory which he formulated with active support from Lawrence Korhlberg. They believed that children are born with innate purity, it is the corrupting effect of the environment that initiates them into practices that are unhealthy. **3.3.3 Psychomotor Skills Development** These skills involve but are not isolated to **[reaching, grasping, crawling and walking behaviours. Motor development depends on children's overall physical growth. To crawl, walk, climb and grasp objects with precision, children must reach certain levels of skeletal and muscular developments].** As children's heads become relative to their bodies, their balance improves. As their legs become stronger and longer, they can master various locomotive activities. As their shoulders and their arms lengthen, their manual capacities increase. As children become able to reach out and touch people and things and navigate by themselves, their physical and social worlds expand. And as they get older, they can more actively use feedback information (knowledge of results) to improve, their motor performance. Motor development occurs in accordance with maturity processes that are built into the human organism and that had expression through a child's interaction with the environment. Locomotion entails movement resulting from the dynamic interplay among the motives that inspired it, the cognitive information that guided it and the mechanical body parts (muscles, bones and joints) that produced it. In isolation none of these elements yields locomotion. Locomotion arises only in the course of interaction within an environmental context that fashions and channels some goal-oriented outcome such as movement towards a toy, cat or person. NB: Infants have to develop concepts of how the world can be used rather than simplify what the world is. For instance, much information that infants gain from their sense organs is not ordinarily available to them except when they independently crawl or walk about and manipulate the world. The information they derive depends on cognitive processing that develop through real life experiences. Finally, locomotion does not typically emerge in a linear manner. Locomotion develops through processes of backing and filling arid waxing and waning that result in dissolving of old configurations and the emergence of new ones that in turn afford new modes of exploration and knowledge. In sum, locomotion is not achieved in a vacuum, but as an ongoing process whereby infants --- organisms built to seek and receive information from the environment --- tailor and modify their actions to achieve particular ends. Motor development moves from children's capacity to kick, rock, bounce, bang and thrust, twist their limbs, or head. This is pronounced from 5 months to 15 months when they can stand and walk along and when they can make manual use of their hands bending.