Piaget Developmental Theory Essay

The goal of the study was to understand and interpret where the child you are researching falls in Piaget’s developmental theory. My subject was a little 5 year old Boy named Parker. Parker just so happens to be my first cousin who lives in Texas so in order to complete this study I used facetime to gauge his reactions and opinions.
Observing the child alone you can see that he exhibits specific traits of preoperational development it begins with the m and m’s experiment. It began with me spreading out a line of m and m’s in front of me and in front of Parker. I asked if we had the same amount of m and m’s he said yes and then I spread out my row of candy and asked if there was still an equal amount of candy between us he answered no and then

spread out his own row. You can assume from this reaction that the child can’t separate the length of something and the amount of something, conservation.
It then continued with the next activity called pennies and m and m’s. I then exchanged 5 m and m’s for 5 pennies I asked him “how many pennies there are?” he said “I don’t know” at first but then his mother said for him to count the pennies and he pointed to each penny muttering to himself and then said there was 5 with a proud look on his face. I then proceeded to put my hand over the pile and then I asked “how many pennies are under my hand?” he said that “he didn’t know” this shows how the preoperational children base everything upon what they see.
Then in the next activity I put the strips of paper of 2,3,4,5,6 inches in a row from smallest to largest and then I took out the second and forth strip and asked if he could put it where it belongs he then placed the strips of paper in their correct place silently. This proves that the child follows the accommodation rule, he used past schemas to concur new situations.
This shows that the child has strong cognitive development. The following activity was about fat glasses and skinny glasses. I filled two glasses with water at the same heights but one wide while the other was slim I then asked Parker if he thought the same amount of water was in each glass he said yes then I poured the water from the glass into the others and asked which had more and he said the slimmer glass he did hesitate at first but then he smiled and told me the skinnier glass had more. This answer tells me that he can’t comprehend the conservation of concrete operational reasoning.
In the question time section of the study Parker replied with a “yes” to my question if he had any brothers or sisters and then I asked him what his/her name is and he screamed “Olivia”. I then asked why the sky was blue and he said that it’s blue because “it’s made of blue”. I also asked why the sky gets dark and he said “because it’s raining” and then started laughing. I asked if a tree was alive and he said “yes”. I then asked if the ocean was alive and he replied with a “totally yes”. I asked if the car was alive and he thought for a second and said “the car is alive or… or else you would have to walk everywhere” while drawing absent mindedly on a piece of paper. This tells you that he is a strong example of the theory of the mind.
While Parker was making the picture I asked him who lived in his house with him he replied while drawing saying his sister and his Mom and his Dad. I asked him about the picture and he answered “The little one is Daddy he’s a baby see (points at the bottom center left) that’s the stroller *giggle* and the big one is me and that one is Olivia (points to the right upper corner) and that’s Mommy (points to the left upper corner).” The opinion about his father was very negative and emasculating and to me shows specific ties to Sigmund Freud’s theories about son-mother relationships.
The next activity is the story section.

The first part of the story I was replied with a “nothing” so he would not help his friend and instead would go and get his cake. Unfortunately after this answer his mother says “Parker what would you really do?” he then quickly responded with an “I would ask him if he was okay and then I would go get cake.” For the second part he said that its worse to break five of his mother’s favorite plates accidently then to break one of her favorite plates while trying to steal a cookie by saying by simply saying after hesitating for a moment “5”. This activity really shows the preconventional level and the instrument relativist stage of the Kohlberg level of moral reasoning.
In the final activity of this project. I used a cardboard wall and on either side I placed one action figure then I asked if the two action figures could see each other to Parker. He replied that they could see each other with a “yes” and I asked why and he responded that “they could look through the crack.” This showed egocentrism in Piaget’s theory of development.
In conclusion, the impression I got from this project was great. I had a great time seeing what I had taken notes on happen in front of my eyes. This project can helped me to understand younger people and why the act the way they do and how they develop into modern day

adults.