Piaget and Cognitive Development

Last Friday’s lesson was about cognitive development. So we started talking about Piaget. We said that he started his work with IQ testing. He worked in Binet’s laboratory. While working, he looked at the process of understanding. For example, he was wondering why children were giving wrong answers to questions. Later we said that he has four stages:
1) Sensorimotor(age 0-12)
2) Preoperational(age 2-7)
3) Concrete operational(age 7-12)
4) Formal operational(age 12-adult)
One thing which caught my attention in the beginning of the lesson was that in the preoperational period, fantasy and reality are very similar. The example our teacher gave about her daughter was also interesting.

Then we talked about cognition and listed two elements:
1) Adaptation: fitting in
Three processes:
• Assimilation
• Accomodation
• Equilibration
For assimilation we said that new information or knowledge comes in and fits in your existing scheme. However this is not very easy for children. For example if you are kid and you see a dog, you can easily say that it is a mammal. But if you see a whale you can not say that it is a mammal because you don’t think that it looks like a mammal so it doesn’t fit your scheme.
2) Scheme: like a framework
We said that schemes can be mental or physical.

Later, we asked the question “How does cognitive development occur?” This question asks how children go from one stage to the other. When answering this question, we talked about physical maturation. These are the four ways:
• Central nervous system, brain
• Direct experience(ex: playing is very important fort he cognitive development of children)
• Social transmission(ex: teaching)
• Equilibration

We continued talking about Piaget. We discussed his importance and limitations. We said that his historical importance is considerable. His stages are universal. His contemporary importance is high but he underestimates children’s cognitive ability. His stages have less qualitative difference and less of microelements.

In the last part of our lesson, we talked about the sensorimotor stage and its six substages.

Substage 1:Reflex
This happens between 0-1 months. Some reflexes are sucking and grasping.

Substage 2: Primary Circular Reactions
We said that primary refers to the child’s body, circular refers to repeated and reactions refer to response. This happens between 1-4 months. There is focus on child’s body. For example in thumb sucking the thumb goes into the mouth by chance, the child starts sucking the thumb, if he likes it he keeps on sucking. We also gave a bit of a disgusting example with saliva which I will not mention here.

Substage 3: Secondary Circular Reactions
Secondary refers to external. This stage is between 4-8 months. There is focus on the external world. Examples are rattling an object, kicking something, grabbing things.

Substage 4: Coordination of Secondary Schemes
Happens between 8-12 months. There are multiple schemes and now they are becoming more coordinated. There are means-ends.

Substage 5: Tertiary Circular Reactions
This stage covers the period from 12-18 months. There is deliberate trial error. There is modification of secondary schemes to accomplish goals and better understanding of cause and effect. The example we discussed about the crib and the stick was very interesting. The kid is trying to get the stick in the crib but can’t do it since he is not holding it upside down. He has to turn the stick which means that now he is modifying the grasping scheme to accomplish goal.

Substage 6: New Means through Mental Combinations
Covers the period through 18-24 months. This is the beginning of symbolism (symbolic thought), mental representation. There is less outright trial/error.
After this stage the child moves to stage 2, the preoperational stage.

This was last week’s lecture and it was a very fun topic to learn. I hope what we will learn this week will be interesting too.