3. COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT.ppt
- 1. COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT refers to how a person perceives, thinks, and gains an understanding of his/her world through the interaction and influence of genetic and learned factors Jean Piaget believed that all children pass through a series of distinct stages in intellectual development. As a child moves to a new stage, his/her thinking is qualitatively different from that of the previous stage. He saw this progression from one stage to the other as a continuous and gradual process He was convinced that intellect grows through processes he called assimilation and accommodation
- 2. Assimilation – using existing patterns in new situations, for example, an infant that has been sucking on a nipple is suddenly presented with a pacifier and starts sucking on it. Since a pacifier is similar to a nipple, the infant can adjust the way his mouth fits around the pacifier, in other words, the infant assimilates the pacifier, a new object, to an existing schema Not every object infants encounter can be assimilated to an existing schema. When an infant encounters a blanket, for instance, she may try to suck on it. However, because the qualities of a blanket are so unlike the qualities of a nipple or thumb, she is unable to assimilate the blanket as an object to suck on Accomodation – when existing ideas are modified to fit new requirements, that is, she will modify the she sucks, perhaps by choosing a corner of the blanket and suck on that, using approximately but not exactly the same schema as when sucking on a nipple
- 3. I. SENSORY MOTOR STAGE (BIRTH – 2 YRS) # Intellectual level is nonverbal # Looking, grasping, and other actions # Emergence of object permanence – concept that objects continue to exist even when they are hidden from view # By about age 11/2, a child begins to actively pursue disappearing objects and by age 2, a child can anticipate the movement of an object behind a screen II. PREOPERATIONAL STAGE (2 – 7 YRS) - Develop an ability to think symbolically and to use language - Childs thinking makes little or no use of reasoning and logic - Child is egocentric – thought that is self-centered and fails to consider the viewpoints of others - Children do not understand certain rules of operation, such as irreversibility and centration
- 4. - Irreversibility – the inability to mentally reverse a sequence of events or logical operations e.g. 2 x 3 = 6 but when asked 3 x 2 = ? - Centration – the tendency to focus, or center, on only one aspect of a situation and ignore other important aspects of the situation e.g. center only on the height of the beaker III. CONCRETE OPERATIONAL STAGE (7 – 11 YRS) - Mastery of the concept of conservation – concept that the volume of matter remains unchanged when the shape of objects changes e.g. they understand that pouring liquid from a tall glass into a shallow dish does not reduce the amount of liquid - During concrete operational stage, children can perform operation but only on images of tangible “concrete” objects
- 5. IV. FORMAL OPERATIONAL STAGE (11 – 15 YRS) - Child’s thinking is applied to abstract concepts - Becomes capable of hypothetical thinking - Is capable of deductive reasoning - Capable of systematic formulation and testing of concepts - Individuals can perform abstract reasoning necessary to comprehend algebra, psychology, physics and philosophy - The ability to think in formal operational stage also allows the thinker to explore his own values and beliefs and compares them to those of their parents, friends and teachers - Individuals often fail to differentiate between what others are thinking and their own thoughts, this is known as adolescent egocentrism – the belief that one is the focus of others’ thoughts and attention