C O G N I T I V E D E V E L O P M E N T

› Cognitive Development

includes the development of

thinking, problem solving and

memory.

Swiss psychologist widely acknowledged

to be one of the country‟s most

influential thinkers

Focused on the interaction between the

child‟s naturally maturing abilities and his

or her interactions with the environment

“The child is an active participant in this

process rather than a passive recipient

of biological development or externally

imposed stimuli.”

Believes that the child should be viewed

as an inquiring scientist who conducts

experiments on the world to see what

happens

Children first try to understand new

things in terms of schemes they

already possess

The process of altering or

adjusting old schemes to fit new

information

“theories” resulting from children‟s

miniature experiments of how the

physical and the social worlds

operate

Sensorimotor Stage (birth- 2 years)

Preoperational Stage (2- 7 years old)

Concrete Operational Stage (7-11 years)

Formal Operational (11 years old and

up)

During this period, infants are busy discovering the relationships between their actions and consequences of these actions.

“Concept of Object Permanence” – an awareness that an object continues to exist even when it is not present to the senses. This concept implies that the baby possesses a „mental representation‟ of missing objects.

By about 1and ½ years of age, children

have begun to use language.

Words, as symbols, can represent things

or groups of things.

The child does not yet comprehend

certain rules or operations.

A mental routine for

separating, combining and otherwise

transforming information mentally in a

logical manner

Irreversability

Inability to mentally reverse an action

They have not yet attained

“conservation”.

In the preoperational stage of cognitive

development, a child‟s mental operation

is absent or weak.

The ability to see the world

through anyone else‟s eyes

Cognitive development underlies not

only the child‟s understanding of the

physical world but of the social world as

well.

Piaget thought that children‟s

understanding of moral rules and social

conventions would have to match their

overall level of cognitive development.

The first two stages fall under the preoperational period.

FIRST STAGE: Children at this stage will participate in a kind of “parallel play”, playing amidst other children with shared objects but not in any socially organized way. Each child tends to follow his or her own private wishes.

SECOND STAGE: Beginning about the

age of 5, the child develops a sense of

obligation to follow rules, treating them

as absolute imperatives handed down

by some authority- possibly parents or

God. Rules are permanent, sacred and

not subject to modification.

When asked what would happen if the

children violated some moral rule like

lying or stealing, children at this stage

often expressed the view that

punishment would surely result- God

would punish them or “they would

be hit by a car.”

This is where the third and fourth

stages of moral development fall

under.

Although children are using abstract

terms, they are doing so only in relation

to concrete objects- that is, objects to

which they have direct sensory access.

THIRD STAGE: the child begins to

appreciate that some rules are social

conventions- cooperative agreements that

can be arbitrarily decided and changed if

everyone agrees.

When making moral judgments, children

now give weight to “subjective

considerations” like a person‟s intentions

and they see punishment as a human

choice, not an inevitable, divine retribution.

A Russian psychologist who wrote about

children‟s cognitive development but

differ from Piaget in his emphasis on the

role of others in cognitive development.

A process where the more highly skilled

person gives the learner more help at

the beginning of the learning process.

A concept proposed by Vygotsky which

is the difference between what a child

can do with the help of an adult.

“This might be a better way of thinking

about intelligence. It isn‟t what you

know, its what you can do.”

The development of language is a very

important milestone in the cognitive

development of a child because

language allows children to think in

words rather that just images, to ask

questions, to communicate their needs

and wants to others and to from

concepts.

The way adults and older children talk to

infants and very young children with

higher pitched, repetitious, sing-song

speech patterns.

Infants seem to understand far

more than they can produce

1. Cooing

2. Babbling

3. One- word speech

“holophrases”- typically nouns and may

seem to represent an entire phrase of

meaning

4. Telegraphic speech

5. Whole sentences